The Brothers Karamazov

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The Brothers Karamazov

Original Title:	Бра́тья Карама́зовы
Written by:	Fyodor Dostoevsky
Central Theme:
Synopsis:
Genre(s):	Philosophical fiction
First published:	1880

Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov was the third son of a landowner from our district, Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, well known in his own day (and still remembered among us) because of his dark and tragic death, which happened exactly thirteen years ago and which I shall speak of in its proper place.

The Brothers Karamazov was the last novel by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky, published in serial segments in 1880. It centers around the internecine conflicts of the Karamazov family, established in the novel's opening book:

• Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov - The father. A libertine and glutton, Fyodor is also said to be a shrewd businessman and financier. Overall a thoroughly horrible man, he sires three sons with two wives, driving both wives to death before their time because of how impossible it is to live in the same house as him. His murder serves as one of the major pivotal plot points. He is around fifty years old.
• Dmitri - The eldest brother. After his mother's death, he was raised for some time by Fyodor's servant Grigory, but was then taken away by his maternal uncle to serve in the Russian military and then lived abroad in Europe. He grew up believing that his father owed him an inheritance, and as the novel begins he has returned home to demand it. He is twenty-eight years old.
• Ivan - The middle brother, half-brother to Dmitri and older brother to Alyosha. Ivan grew up with his father's servant Grigory after his and Alyosha's mother died, and then went off to university in Moscow supported by an inheritance left to him by his maternal grandmother, writing articles and editorials for periodicals and school newspapers there. He acquires some fame after publishing an article about ecumenical politics and the emerging atheism of the modern age, in which he famously declares of the new morality, "If God does not exist, then everything is permissible." He is twenty-four years old.
• Alexei - The youngest brother, half-brother to Dmitri and full brother to Ivan, and the protagonist of the novel. He is usually addressed as Alyosha. He was raised alongside Ivan for some time after their mother died, but was taken to live with a provincial marshal who had been his mother's friend before her marriage. Alyosha showed an aptitude for spiritual matters, was loved by everyone, and confided in by everyone. At the beginning of the novel, he is a novice monk at the local monastery under the tutelage of Father Zosima. He is twenty years old.

The town is also populated with a whole cavalcade of interesting supporting characters, of which a few:

• Grigory - The Karamazovs' elderly manservant and Smerdyakov's warden, this man is Loyalty Incarnate and grounded in his sensibilities. He took in the titular brothers when they were all but abandoned by their father and raised each of them in their early years.
• Smerdyakov - The son of Stinking Lizaveta, a mentally challenged beggar-woman who hopped the fence of the Karamazov house one night and gave birth to him, aided by Grigory and his wife. The rumor is that he's an illegitimate child of Fyodor's, which is strongly supported by the text. He works as a manservant and cook in the Karamazov house after having been trained in Moscow for a time, and is generally misanthropic and antisocial. He is around twenty years old.
• Katerina - An aristocratic lady of Russia's upper crust, she met Dmitri while he was serving in the military. Due to a favor he did for her years past, she's come to the town seeking to marry him, convinced that they are in love.
• Agrafina - A disreputable but immensely attractive woman who has been a public fixture in the town for around half a decade. Rumors fly about her being a prostitute with a price too high for any man, but ultimately worth every kopeck. Grushenka, as she is most commonly known, is desired by both Fyodor and Dmitri, setting up the initial Love Triangle of the story.
• Father Zosima the Elder - A high Church authority at the local monastery, Father Zosima is the very incarnation of Christianity and, indeed, morality itself. He is famed as a living saint, boundless in his wisdom, and receives petitioners from across the world. He was based in part on an actual saint that lived in Dostoevsky's time, and his life's story has some parallels to St. Augustine's biography. He is Alyosha's role model and mentor.
• Ilyusha - A schoolchild whom Alyosha encounters one day being teased by the other schoolboys. When Alyosha attempts to help him, Ilyusha bites his hand. The story of Ilyusha is a subplot throughout most of the book, involving his destitute family and their run-ins with members of the Karamazov family.
• Madame Khokhlakov - A lady of modest income and good standing, Madame Khokhlakov is introduced when she appears at the monastery seeking an audience with the Elder Zosima for her daughter Lise, a sick girl confined to a wheelchair. She later establishes herself as a town gossip, due to just really not knowing when to shut up. She is the source of a lot of comedy because of this.

The novel's plot is mostly conveyed through a series of monologues and dialogues. Most of the monologues are to Alyosha, who, as mentioned above, is considered trustworthy by everyone. In the dialogues, characters debate any range of topics, most of the more interesting ones centering around questions of faith, guilt, free will, suffering, and temptation. These themes are played out as the tension between Dmitri and his father gradually grows, up to the moment one night when Fyodor Karamazov is murdered and Dmitri is arrested for it. From this point on, the mindgames and schemes that each character has been playing against the other begin to unravel as events take on a life of their own.

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Tropes used in The Brothers Karamazov include:

(Warning: major spoilers ahead)

• An Aesop
• Asshole Victim
• Author Existence Failure: Dostoevsky intended the book to be the first of a trilogy.
• Author Filibuster: At times the monologues can seem like rants, but they only serve to further the story.
• Author Tract: Free will, guilt, suffering, "blood is Thicker Than Water", etc.
• Betty and Veronica: Katerina Ivanovna as Betty, Grushenka as Veronica.
• Bittersweet Ending
• Briefcase Full of Money: In the form of a sealed envelope that also qualifies as part of the MacGuffin.
• The Butler Did It
• Calling the Old Man Out
• Character Filibuster
• The Chessmaster: Smerdyakov.
• Chivalrous Pervert: Dmitri.
• Clear My Name
• Devil in Plain Sight: Smerdyakov.
• The Devil Is a Loser: Smerdyakov.
• Dramatis Personae
• Driven to Suicide: Dmitri almost, Smerdyakov.
• Dysfunction Junction: All of the brothers except perhaps Alyosha have their fair share of neuroses. Almost all major supporting characters have had something tragic happen in their lives.
  • Alyosha's afraid of women and experiences a crisis of faith because his spiritual mentor's body starts decaying after death.
    • The crisis of faith has more to do with how readily the monastic community rejects Father Zosima after his body starts decaying, doesn't it?
• Enthusiasm Versus Stoicism
• Fatal Flaw: Ivan's intellectual arrogance, Dmitri's hedonistic intemperance.
• Freak-Out: Ivan.
• Freudian Trio: Alyosha is the ego, Dmitri the id and Ivan the superego.
• Gambit Pileup: Everyone's mindgaming everyone else.
• Grand Inquisitor Scene: The Trope Namer is the story Ivan tells Alyosha about the interrogation of Christ returned by the Inquisition.
• Hannibal Lecture: Most of Ivan's interactions with Alyosha.
• Have a Gay Old Time
• Hello, Nurse!: Grushenka.
• Heroic BSOD: Ivan's conversation with Smerdyakov.
• Hollywood Atheist: Ivan declaring that atheism means anything goes with morality.
• I Know You Know I Know
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy
• Ill Girl
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Alyosha.
• Jerkass: Fyodor.
• The Kirk: Alyosha. Oddly enough, a pre-Star Trek William Shatner played him in the film adaptation.
• Left Hanging: The thematic conflicts are resolved, but there are several plot threads which are ongoing or unresolved as the novel ends.
• Les Yay: Grushenka and Katerina; it doesn't last long.
• Literary Agent Hypothesis: The novel is set up as though it is a recounting of actual historical events (with even an introduction from its fictitious author presenting it as a biography), and the narrator himself expresses himself in such a way that he cannot help but become a character in the novel, even though he does not directly affect any of the action.
• Littlest Cancer Patient: Subverted with Ilyusha.
• Love Dodecahedron: At first a cause of underlying tension, then later becoming the main cause of the tension.
• MacGuffin: Fyodor Karamazov's fortune.
• Manipulative Bastard: Smerdyakov in the truest sense, but really, the entire cast except for The Woobie.
• The McCoy: Dmitri.
• Meaningful Funeral
• Meaningful Name
• The Messiah: Alyosha.
• Messianic Archetype: Father Zosima.
• Mind Screw
• Mistaken Confession: Poor Dmitri rants for two entire chapters to the police about what he did earlier that evening when his father was murdered, and the police only see mounting evidence. Any lawyers reading the book probably starting facepalming a lot around those chapters.
• Motive Rant
• Murder the Hypotenuse
• Nietzsche Wannabe: Ivan, Smerdyakov, and possibly Fyodor.
• The Obi-Wan: Father Zosima.
• Once More with Endnotes
• Out, Damned Spot!
• Patronymic: It is a Russian novel after all.
• The Philosopher: Many of the characters, but mostly Ivan and Father Zosima.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Madame Khokhlakov.
• Pretty Woman: Grusa.
  • It's partly subverted, though, as she is more decent than she seems at first, but, even after she falls in love with Dmitri, she does not exactly become a sweet, gentle wallflower either.
• Psychotic Smirk
• Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic
• Satan: Appears during the forementioned Mind Screw.
• Shout-Out
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: The novel falls somewhere in the middle, with each character being tacked on to different points in the spectrum.
• The Spanish Inquisition: Setting for Ivan's parable "The Grand Inquisitor".
• The Spock: Ivan.
• Surprise Witness: Radically subverted with Ivan and Katya.
• "Take That!" Kiss: Two of the rare examples where the giver is generally considered morally above the receiver: Christ to the Great Inquisitor, and Alyosha to Ivan (who identifies it as plagiarism, but is nevertheless gratified).
• Talking the Monster to Death
  • It's a subversion: the devil laughs his ass off when Ivan tries to do that during his nightmare/vision. And Smerdyakov's suicide kind of ruins Ivan's plan.
• The Three Faces of Eve: Played with (Lise, Katerina Ivanovna, Grusa), and ultimately subverted.
• The Unpronounceable: If you aren't a Russian speaker, many of the names can be this. ex: Iljúsjetjka Snegirjóv, Lizaveta Smerdjasjtjaja.
  • The difficulty of pronunciation can vary with the way the names were transliterated. Ilyushechka is a lot easier to pronounce than Iljúsjetjka , especially if you know which syllable is stressed (Pevear and Volokhonsky put an index at the beginning to help readers pronounce Russian names.
• Unreliable Narrator
• What Could Have Been: The novel was intended to be only the first arc of a much larger story, but Dostoevsky died before he could complete any more of it.
• Xanatos Roulette: Subverted in Smerdyakov's plan to off Fyodor.