The Brothers Karamazov: Kindness is not enough

Pride and Dignity in The Brothers Karamazov

Welcome to the Unsolicited Advice Reading Group! For the next few months we will be tackling Dostoevsky’s longest (and, in my view, greatest) work, The Brothers Karamazov. Our schedule for the next few weeks is as follows:

Sunday 12th July: Book IV: Crack-Ups

Saturday 18th July: Book V: Pro and Contra. Up to chapter 5

Saturday 25th July: Up to the end of Book V

Saturday 1st August: Book VI: The Russian Monk

Sunday 2nd August: Live Discussion Call (Paid Subscribers Only)

There is a fair amount that happens in this section, but the “main event” so-to-speak is the story of Alyosha’s first encounter with Ilyusha and his family, so we’ll talk about the rest first, and then get to that.

An important (if quite minor) character that we meet is Father Ferapont. Ferapont represents a very different approach to religion than Father Zosima (and ultimately, for Dostoevsky, an inferior one). Whereas Zosima prioritises God’s love, and also tends to foreground the joy that God brings to His children, Ferapont places a much higher emphasis on strict fasting and self-discipline. In itself I don’t think this would necessarily be a bad thing, but Ferapont is shown to use these disciplines to bolster a kind of spiritual pride, which he then uses as an excuse to treat other people brusquely. This makes him the polar opposite to Zosima’s idea that monastics should certainly not view themselves as higher than others because of their holy vocation, and if anything they should be more acutely aware of their own wretchedness. I like to think of Father Ferapont as the “near enemy” of the kind of holiness that Zosima is meant to represent. On the surface, without the detailed descriptions Dostoevsky grants us, they would probably look quite similar: both being monastics who spend a lot of their time praying, and who live in separate accommodation to the rest of the monastery. But it is only on closer inspection that we find although their lifestyles are not too different, their actual lives, as in, the phenomenology of their experience, is incredibly different indeed.

Another difference between them is more theological, and concerns the way they view the impact of God in their lives. When Zosima references God or Christ, it is primarily as a way to instruct his own conduct. He is largely unconcerned with miracles, because it is part of Zosima’s (and Dostoevsky’s) religious philosophy that someone should freely give themselves to God, and that this decision lies somewhere between a truth claim and an arational commitment. Ferapont, on the other hand, is very caught up in the metaphysics of demons and spiritual warfare - claiming (presumably sincerely) that he can see demons around the monastery, as he has the gift of spiritual sight. This, again, is a different attitude towards religion: one where the holy man is granted special earthly abilities for his holiness. Although we are told (ambiguously) that Zosima has performed healings, he does not in any way gloat about having some special healing ability. He has an instrumental view of himself as someone that God works through, whereas Ferapont appears to take active credit for any abilities he has. This too, illustrates the difference between spiritual pride and humility.

After this introduction, Alyosha goes to see his father. This is a very different Fyodor Pavlovich to the one we left. We were told in a previous chapter that Fyodor was prone to spending long stretches of time alone, but this is the first time we have seen him in such a state. Gone is the confidence Fyodor takes from being in company, and he dwells on his own mortality, and his hatred for those around him. In this section he particularly takes a stance against Ivan. He first calls him “Vanka” (presumably ironically, given the rest of the speech), and then says the following:

“I don’t really see Ivan as one of my own. Where did a fellow like that appear from? [...]Now if Ivan were to love [Dmitri], I’d be scared for my life. But Ivan doesn’t love anyone, Ivan is not a Russian, men like Ivan are not Russians, they are stirred up dust…The wind will blow and the dust will pass…”

It is interesting that although Fyodor is in an active conflict with Dmitri, he will still often use the affectionate form “Mitya”, whereas even though he is ostensibly on friendly terms with Ivan, he rarely uses “Vanka”, and when he does it comes across as sarcastic. In an earlier section, Fyodor also seemingly forgot that Ivan and Alyosha share a mother, and may have forgotten that they were related at all. All of this tells us much about Fyodor Pavlovich, but also about Ivan, who wherever he goes holds himself slightly aloof and subtly separate from everyone else. Additionally, although Alyosha is the only person Fyodor feels uncomplicated affection for, he himself seems uneasy about this. When Alyosha says Fyodor shouldn’t drink Cognac, Fyodor replies saying that “Your truth - it puts me on edge, gives me no peace.”. Fyodor, almost despite himself, is troubled by the vast difference in character between himself and Alyosha, and this torment culminates in him throwing Alyosha out of the house.

Next, Alyosha meets Ilyusha (try saying that five times quickly). As he is walking from his father’s to the Khoklakova’s, Alyosha sees a young boy, followed by six other young boys. The first boy throws stones at the six others, and they return in kind, eventually landing a big stone on the lone boy’s chest. Alyosha follows the boy, and we get one of the most compactly descriptive lines in the whole book:

“And in his right boot, at the cap, where the big toe was, gaped a large hole that, it was plain, had been heavily smeared with ink.”

Within this line is almost everything you need to know about Ilyusha’s character. He is wounded, and attempts to cover these wounds with as much ink as possible. In his case, the “ink” is often aggression and a rebellious pride. Ilyusha hates Alyosha because Alyosha is a Karamazov, and we learn in the next few chapters that Dmitri had beat up Ilyusha’s father, and led him around by his beard, something that Ilyusha was now being bullied about at school. He bites Alyosha’s hand, leaving a painful wound on his finger, and when it is clear that Alyosha is not going to attack him for this, he runs off.

After this Alyosha arrives at the Khoklakova’s. I am going to delay my discussion of these events for a bit, as I think it is most helpful to talk about them when Ivan and Alyosha have their conversation in book five. The important thing is that we find out about Dmitri’s assault of Ilyusha’s father, and Katerina Ivanovna begs Alyosha to deliver two hundred roubles to the family. This is where we learn Ilyusha’s name, Alyosha has a long conversation with Ilyusha’s father, Snegiryov.

Snegiryov was a Second-Grade Captain, before being dismissed from the Russian infantry and “disgraced”. Since then he has attempted, with variable success, to support his family. Initially, when Alyosha comes in, Ilyusha assumes that he has come to complain about him biting Alyosha’s finger (even though nothing of the sort is true) and we get the following exchange:

“‘I shall flog him immediately, sir! I shall flog him this very minute, sir!’ the second-grade captain said, leaping up from his chair altogether now.

‘But you see, I’m not making any sort of complaint, I simply wanted you to know … I really don’t want you to flog him. In any case, he seems ill now …’

‘And did you think I would, sir? Did you think I’d take my dear little Ilyusha and flog him in front of you for your complete satisfaction? Do you require it right away, sir?’ the second-grade captain said, suddenly turning to Alyosha with a gesture as though he intended to throw himself upon him.”

The thing that ties both Snegiryov and his son together is that, due to the degradation of their dignity, they both constantly expect hostility from the world. Since the world often shows them no kindness, and they also view themselves as somewhat contemptible, it becomes almost inconceivable to them that someone would be kind to them, without expectation of something in return, or a wish to degrade them further. We saw a similar theme with Grushenka at the end of book three.

Dostoevsky is a master of this theme and I think he is one of the few authors that can do the effect of a real, felt loss of dignity justice. In one of her essays (I forget which one and I am away from my desk, but it is in the anthology we read earlier this year) Simone Weil points out that one of the unfortunate components to suffering is that when we are made to suffer, and especially when we are made to unjustly suffer, we do not respond with simple unhappiness. Instead, it can twist and malform our character such that we are drawn deeper into suffering as a result. It can cause us to hate other people, or attempt to expunge our suffering by passing it onto them. It can manifest as understandable-but-destructive rebellious pride or as outright hostility.

That is evident in the characters of both Snegiryov and Ilyusha. Both of them present serious challenges to anyone wishing to follow the Elder Zosima’s idea of prioritising Active Love. In the conversation with Mrs Khoklakova, she specifically identifies a lack of gratitude as the thing that would prevent her from helping others. In other words, she confesses she desires those that she helps be a kind of “perfect patient”. But Zosima (and Weil) know that for those who are truly suffering, we are unlikely to encounter such a generous response. Instead, we can just as often expect the kind of vague suspicion and pointed hostility exemplified by Ilyusha and Snegiryov. The question Dostoevsky is posing then, is something like “are you actually tough enough to stick to your guns when someone reacts to your kindness entirely inappropriately, even to the point of hurting you?”. We ourselves might even question whether such a thing is entirely desirable, though it makes a lot of sense under Dostoevsky’s particular Christian framework.

And then there is Snegiryov himself. There are a number of ways that we can view his decision to refuse Katerina Ivanovna’s money. On one reading, it is something admirable - a way of recouping dignity in line with Ilyusha’s wishes and a way of taking a stand for something more important than material. However, I take things in a different way. Immediately before the refusal of the money, Snegiryov makes it clear that this money will completely change their life. It will enable him to provide a way forward for his family, and will even achieve he and Ilyusha’s dream of moving to another town and escaping the disgrace they face at home. Yet, in his pride, he rejects the money not just for him, but for the rest of them as well. Can this truly be an admirable decision? I think that this too is a trap of pride. Way back in book one we were told that Alyosha, while he was not particularly attached to money, is happy to accept the aid of other people, be it through money or through acts, although he does not feel entitled to such help. By contrast Ivan, in his (Milton-Satanic?) pride, is the one who takes help offered to him as an insult, and resents the fact that he was reliant on a benefactor for so long.

Here one might understandably ask: so is pride a good thing or a bad thing here? If it is a bad thing for Snegiryov to have pride, then why was it a bad thing for that pride to be wounded by Dmitri? As is often the case, it is a bit more complicated than it first appears. While Dostoevsky is pretty clear that pride is sinful and that humility comes with happiness, when Snegiyov was denied dignity by Dmitri, and Ilyusha by his classmates, it did not rob them of their pride. Instead, the wounded dignity itself caused them to cling to pride even more strongly. This is what makes Alyosha’s approach so interesting. He does his best to not wound people’s dignity, and that is not because he wants to puff up their pride, but rather because he recognises that people often find it easier to give up pride when they do feel like other people respect their dignity, because they no longer need to use it as a defence.

Finally, there is a significance in the fact that Alyosha failed to help Snegiryov and Ilyusha (at least at this point in the novel). If you were to skim-read Dostoevsky’s works, it would be easy to come to a simplistic conclusion like “people just need to be shown love, and when that happens that frees their spiritual and existential brilliance”. But in fact, we see that Dostoevsky often describes scenarios where characters do almost everything right, and yet still fail to help someone. As always, Dostoevsky’s world is not one with lawlike rules, but rather attempts to do justice to each character as a fully rounded mind with their own rich and only semi-predictable psychology.