Ironically, I want to talk about the word “disgrace.” It is a word used almost every paragraph in Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. I looked up the word and found several definitions:
Noun: the loss of esteem, respect, or honor.
Verb: to put out of grace or favor.
Antonyms: honor.
(Grace: a manifestation of favor, especially from a superior or moral strength)
Dostoyevsky talks about how everything that Fyodor Karamazov does is a “disgrace.” In fact, Fyodor himself admits that he is a disgrace. I think that this connects back to the idea of elders. Maybe it is difficult for Fyodor to live with grace because he has never been granted “a manifestation of favor” from an elder—he has never succumbed his will to the hands of a man of the church. Despite this, Fyodor is a happy man. He seems to be a bit backwards. He is not afraid of Hell, nor is he afraid of being disgraceful.
I looked up the definitions for disgrace. I feel like that makes me the person that Fyodor tries very hard not to be. He defines his own life—he does not live in the “Catholic” way, for they have defined how the life should be lived. But how could one possibly be happy living under the control of another.
I have not made up my mind about Fyodor, nor about his sons. I can’t decide who I think is right and whether there is a wrong or right.
More is to come. Those are just ideas. Until I read more, that is all I have.
Towey
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Lies
Fyodor Karamazov and his two eldest sons, Dmitry and Ivan, met Alexei (the third son) at the hermitage of the elder. (Remember, Alexei admires the elder.)
First, I would like to address the title of “elder”. There is an entire chapter dedicated to this topic, in fact.
“What precisely is an elder, then? An elder is a man who takes your soul and your will into his soul and his will. Once you have chosen your elder, you renounce your own will, you yield it to him in total submission and self-renunciation. A man who consents to this ordeal, to this terrible apprenticeship, is willing to bear it in the hope that, after a long period of trial, he will conquer himself and achieve a self-mastery that will enable him to finally attain, through a whole life of obedience, complete freedom (that is freedom from himself) and thus avoid the fate of those who reach the end of their lives without ever having found themselves within themselves.”
I found the idea of an “elder” very interesting. I first looked at Fyodor Karamazov—a father. Most people think of fathers as “elder” figures, meaning that children look to their fathers for advice and guidance. Fyodor Karamazov, however, is hardly a respectable father figure. He drinks and owns whore houses. Not to mention, he abandoned his children when their mothers died. This led me to further examine his three children. Dmitry, the eldest, is obsessed with getting money back from his father. He was raised by the cousin of his mother, a man who was obsessed with business deals and travelled Europe to experience the richness of foreign nations. Ivan is very intelligent and very angry with his father. I thought that this was interesting—Dmitry was raised by a man who very much enjoyed the constant pursuit of money thus making him the same way; meanwhile, Ivan was raised on money from “charity” and was ashamed of his father. Their father was not their “elder” but they became very much like the people who raised them.
Alexei was not raised by his father either, but he did have Zosima, the elder at the monastery. Zosima became almost a father to Alexei. I was most interested in the contrast between the crude, sinful character of Fyodor Karamazov and the holy, saint-like being of Zosima. Alexei seemed to take up a life opposite of his fathers.
This now brings me to the encounter between Zosima and Fyodor Karamazov. The elder says to Fyodor, “The important thing is to stop lying to yourself. A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself as well as for others.” Lies. This all comes back to religion. Lying is a sin according to the church. And Karamazov does a lot of it. Honestly, I don’t know what to do with this.
One idea I have has to do with Fyodor’s uncontrollable desire to make a fool of himself. This is a bit extreme, but maybe he has something there. He has become the complete opposite of the church. The Catholic Church holds to their traditions, and they do not approve of vain, so when Fyodor parades around making himself look like an idiot, he is looked down upon. I know that he seems stupid, but looking at the situation from his perspective, it makes a little bit of sense. Maybe he does not want to partake in the church’s practice of “elders” for instance. Elders “take your soul and your will” but Fyodor rejects that idea. He has become the master of his soul and of his will by not giving it up to the elders.
First, I would like to address the title of “elder”. There is an entire chapter dedicated to this topic, in fact.
“What precisely is an elder, then? An elder is a man who takes your soul and your will into his soul and his will. Once you have chosen your elder, you renounce your own will, you yield it to him in total submission and self-renunciation. A man who consents to this ordeal, to this terrible apprenticeship, is willing to bear it in the hope that, after a long period of trial, he will conquer himself and achieve a self-mastery that will enable him to finally attain, through a whole life of obedience, complete freedom (that is freedom from himself) and thus avoid the fate of those who reach the end of their lives without ever having found themselves within themselves.”
I found the idea of an “elder” very interesting. I first looked at Fyodor Karamazov—a father. Most people think of fathers as “elder” figures, meaning that children look to their fathers for advice and guidance. Fyodor Karamazov, however, is hardly a respectable father figure. He drinks and owns whore houses. Not to mention, he abandoned his children when their mothers died. This led me to further examine his three children. Dmitry, the eldest, is obsessed with getting money back from his father. He was raised by the cousin of his mother, a man who was obsessed with business deals and travelled Europe to experience the richness of foreign nations. Ivan is very intelligent and very angry with his father. I thought that this was interesting—Dmitry was raised by a man who very much enjoyed the constant pursuit of money thus making him the same way; meanwhile, Ivan was raised on money from “charity” and was ashamed of his father. Their father was not their “elder” but they became very much like the people who raised them.
Alexei was not raised by his father either, but he did have Zosima, the elder at the monastery. Zosima became almost a father to Alexei. I was most interested in the contrast between the crude, sinful character of Fyodor Karamazov and the holy, saint-like being of Zosima. Alexei seemed to take up a life opposite of his fathers.
This now brings me to the encounter between Zosima and Fyodor Karamazov. The elder says to Fyodor, “The important thing is to stop lying to yourself. A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself as well as for others.” Lies. This all comes back to religion. Lying is a sin according to the church. And Karamazov does a lot of it. Honestly, I don’t know what to do with this.
One idea I have has to do with Fyodor’s uncontrollable desire to make a fool of himself. This is a bit extreme, but maybe he has something there. He has become the complete opposite of the church. The Catholic Church holds to their traditions, and they do not approve of vain, so when Fyodor parades around making himself look like an idiot, he is looked down upon. I know that he seems stupid, but looking at the situation from his perspective, it makes a little bit of sense. Maybe he does not want to partake in the church’s practice of “elders” for instance. Elders “take your soul and your will” but Fyodor rejects that idea. He has become the master of his soul and of his will by not giving it up to the elders.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
hell's hook.
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I would like to discuss the topic of truth verses lies as it is mentioned in The Brothers Karamazov. I will briefly introduce the characters thus far in the novel (a feat that took Dostoyevsky a mere 90 pages…). Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov is the father in the story. Married twice and divorced twice, he is a mooching drunk who thrives off of making himself look like a moron. He also owns taverns and entertains a lot of women. He has three sons. His first son, Dmitry Fyodorovich Karamazov, was the son of Fyodor and his first wife. When his first wife died, Fyodor completely neglected Dmitry and eventually the cousin of Dmitry’s mother came to care for him. Dmitry dropped out of school and went to his father to get money; however, his father was not about to give p money that easily and tricked his son out of his money. His two other sons, Ivan and Alexei, were from his second marriage. The sons were once again neglected and taken by a relative of the mother. Ivan grew up to be educated and intelligent. It was also noted that Ivan got along with his father while they lived together, and that he was sent to live in his father’s home by his half-brother, Dmitry. Unlike Ivan, Alexei dropped out of school and chose to enter in the monastery. He was known to, “Believe and trust in people,” throughout his life and he idolized the elder of the monastery, Zosima.
There are three things that I want to look at and probably expand upon in later blogs. The act of lying, Hell, and religion (I know, what the HELL?!).
So, Hell. I was raised Roman Catholic—I think that I have a pretty good idea of what Hell is according to the Bible the way that Roman Catholicism interprets it. But Fyodor Karamazov is a strange man…
“Well then, sometimes I reason like this: ‘As soon as I die, the devils are sure to drag me down to their place with their hooks.’ But then I think: ‘What hooks? What are they made of? Are they iron hooks? If so, where were they forged? Do they have some kind of ironworks down there, or what?’ Why, I’m sure the monks in the monastery take it for granted that hell has, for instance, a ceiling—that would be more refined, more enlightened, more Lutheran, that is. And what difference does it make whether hell has a ceiling or not? Oh, no, it damn well makes all the difference in the world because if there’s no ceiling, there aren’t any hooks either, and if there aren’t any hooks, then the whole idea goes to pieces…No, even if they didn’t exist, il faudrait les inventer, even especially for me, because you can’t even begin to imagine, my boy, all the disgraceful things that I’ve done” (31).
Where do I even begin with this?!
It is unavoidable—this book is very much related to religion, dammit. I found what Fyodor Karamazov said to Alexei very interesting. Earth-shattering, really. I have probably reread that passage fifteen times, and yet I don’t know what it means. But I think that may be the point. Fyodor is not a very spiritual man—he humiliates himself for the sake of attention, he visits prostitutes almost every night and he marries only for the dowry, drinks and cares nothing for is sons. Is that not hell? I would like to suggest that Fyodor Karamazov is already living in hell. He asks if hell has an “ironworks” and if the “hooks were forged.” But forging and ironworks are worldly things or things that are found in the world in which he already feels persistent and unceasing pain. On top of that, he asks about whether there are ceilings in hell. I felt this was like life—there are no ceilings, but it stretches on above you with things that you can never reach. Taunting, maybe. Or just knowing. If you think about it, the world has no ceiling and no limitations (well, maybe but for the sake of argument, roll with this), so where would these hooks take him? And if anything were to grab him, it would be because of his “disgraceful” acts. The things that he did during his life on earth are what grab him and pull him into the depths of hell. Does that make him the devil?
The question still remains though: if there are no ceilings, can he be taken? If there is no ceiling, then there is somewhere higher that he can travel to, and if he travels higher into the ceiling-less space, according to Christianity, he will reach heaven. And if he is deserving to go to heaven, then there are no hooks to pull him down and there is not a devil because he is no longer doing such disgraceful things. But then Fyodor Karamazov tells Alexei that it does not matter if the ceiling and the hook did not exist because he is “past the point of no return,” if you will.
There you go. Next blog will probably be about lies.
“The important thing is to stop lying to yourself. A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize the truth.”
Towey.
I would like to discuss the topic of truth verses lies as it is mentioned in The Brothers Karamazov. I will briefly introduce the characters thus far in the novel (a feat that took Dostoyevsky a mere 90 pages…). Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov is the father in the story. Married twice and divorced twice, he is a mooching drunk who thrives off of making himself look like a moron. He also owns taverns and entertains a lot of women. He has three sons. His first son, Dmitry Fyodorovich Karamazov, was the son of Fyodor and his first wife. When his first wife died, Fyodor completely neglected Dmitry and eventually the cousin of Dmitry’s mother came to care for him. Dmitry dropped out of school and went to his father to get money; however, his father was not about to give p money that easily and tricked his son out of his money. His two other sons, Ivan and Alexei, were from his second marriage. The sons were once again neglected and taken by a relative of the mother. Ivan grew up to be educated and intelligent. It was also noted that Ivan got along with his father while they lived together, and that he was sent to live in his father’s home by his half-brother, Dmitry. Unlike Ivan, Alexei dropped out of school and chose to enter in the monastery. He was known to, “Believe and trust in people,” throughout his life and he idolized the elder of the monastery, Zosima.
There are three things that I want to look at and probably expand upon in later blogs. The act of lying, Hell, and religion (I know, what the HELL?!).
So, Hell. I was raised Roman Catholic—I think that I have a pretty good idea of what Hell is according to the Bible the way that Roman Catholicism interprets it. But Fyodor Karamazov is a strange man…
“Well then, sometimes I reason like this: ‘As soon as I die, the devils are sure to drag me down to their place with their hooks.’ But then I think: ‘What hooks? What are they made of? Are they iron hooks? If so, where were they forged? Do they have some kind of ironworks down there, or what?’ Why, I’m sure the monks in the monastery take it for granted that hell has, for instance, a ceiling—that would be more refined, more enlightened, more Lutheran, that is. And what difference does it make whether hell has a ceiling or not? Oh, no, it damn well makes all the difference in the world because if there’s no ceiling, there aren’t any hooks either, and if there aren’t any hooks, then the whole idea goes to pieces…No, even if they didn’t exist, il faudrait les inventer, even especially for me, because you can’t even begin to imagine, my boy, all the disgraceful things that I’ve done” (31).
Where do I even begin with this?!
It is unavoidable—this book is very much related to religion, dammit. I found what Fyodor Karamazov said to Alexei very interesting. Earth-shattering, really. I have probably reread that passage fifteen times, and yet I don’t know what it means. But I think that may be the point. Fyodor is not a very spiritual man—he humiliates himself for the sake of attention, he visits prostitutes almost every night and he marries only for the dowry, drinks and cares nothing for is sons. Is that not hell? I would like to suggest that Fyodor Karamazov is already living in hell. He asks if hell has an “ironworks” and if the “hooks were forged.” But forging and ironworks are worldly things or things that are found in the world in which he already feels persistent and unceasing pain. On top of that, he asks about whether there are ceilings in hell. I felt this was like life—there are no ceilings, but it stretches on above you with things that you can never reach. Taunting, maybe. Or just knowing. If you think about it, the world has no ceiling and no limitations (well, maybe but for the sake of argument, roll with this), so where would these hooks take him? And if anything were to grab him, it would be because of his “disgraceful” acts. The things that he did during his life on earth are what grab him and pull him into the depths of hell. Does that make him the devil?
The question still remains though: if there are no ceilings, can he be taken? If there is no ceiling, then there is somewhere higher that he can travel to, and if he travels higher into the ceiling-less space, according to Christianity, he will reach heaven. And if he is deserving to go to heaven, then there are no hooks to pull him down and there is not a devil because he is no longer doing such disgraceful things. But then Fyodor Karamazov tells Alexei that it does not matter if the ceiling and the hook did not exist because he is “past the point of no return,” if you will.
There you go. Next blog will probably be about lies.
“The important thing is to stop lying to yourself. A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize the truth.”
Towey.
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