Dostoevsky Final

Dostoevsky Final  (la)
  The general aim of the Underground Man, if not simply to be aimless, was to try to break away from socially imposed rules and chains.  Plot was just another restriction, like the system of twice two, it chained the author to something systematically straightforward.  He would be locked on a limited course on which his story would depend too much on sequence and consequence, on multiplier and product.
  The Underground Man wanted to defiantly break away from such straight thought patterns because they, like everything else he protested, stood as a threat to his freedom.  In fact, in his grasp for freedom, he rebelled against all of the conventional parameters of a normally structured “novel.”  Diction is squeezed between an explanatory page-one footnote and a parenthetical closing comment.  Thought often becomes contradictory and is never really conclusive.  Characters, beyond the anti-hero himself, do not appear for half the book.  Conflict is primarily between the writer  and the reader, even as the writer is continually unstable and the  reader’s existence is denied outright.  And the setting through part one is a constricting coffin of an apartment, a “funk-hole” of surreality.
  Finally, the Underground Man had to reject plot, because it is the most  formally limiting of literary structures.  Whereas the other parameters are primarily passive and abstract, plot is necessarily active and concrete according to the laws of time and space.  The Underground Man did not want to exist for such activity.  “What do I care for the laws of  nature and arithmetic?” he asked rhetorically.  “As though such stone walls were really the same thing as peace of mind” (272).
In conclusion, there is no plot because that was not the purpose of there being a “story.”  “An author writes something to please ‘everybody,’” considered the Underground Man (278).  But ‘everybody’s’ pleasure is only another “golden dream” (279), and besides, he was simply “imagining an audience” anyway (296).

(2a)

  The Underground Man perceives the prostitute Liza as being a creature and a victim of debauchery, which itself exists, according to his  perception, in lovelessness, with a general lack of all feeling.  (The quoted translation uses the phrase “at the culmination point” of love.  Another text, translated by David Magarshack, says “consummation” (339), which seems to imply that the vice is less a result of true love’s previous existence as an aspect following its absence.)  This perception differs from that of one of Liza’s more ordinary clients in that the Underground Man sees into this “general picture” and stays conscious of it, instead of merely being a “course and shameless” part of it.
To the ordinary man —the “plain man” or the “man of action” (269) —vice is just another stone wall before which he invariably yields.  As the Underground Man had described, to such a man of action “a stone wall is not a challenge as it is, for instance, to us thinking men... and it is not an excuse for turning aside.... No, [the ordinary man] capitulates in all sincerity” (269).  In other words, such a man yields to his debauched desire and lets himself be calmed by its effectual wall.
The Underground Man, a thinking man, sees debauchery here as  “inane... revolting... coarse... shameless;”  in another translation, “hideous... gross... absurd” (339).  In his mind he seems to turn away, repulsed —and yet he, too, is a living part of it.  The spider of vice even makes him feel “creepy” (339), as if he were the spider himself.  Indeed, he has spent two hours “capitulating” with this as yet nameless prostitute, and still he continues to ‘lie next to her and look into her eyes.  But he is not calmed by her in any way.  The ordinary man is not revolted and pretends that there is a kind of consummated love in the prostitute’s bedroom; he becomes sincerely soothed by this lie.  But the  Underground Man  is cursed by a continually sensitive conscience; he is painfully aware of this reality of absent love; and if he has paused at this wall, it has not been for “cheap happiness,” but rather “exalted suffering” (376).

(3b)
  There are two classes of suicide in Crime And Punishment: the selfish suicide and the symbolic suicide of becoming selfless.  The selfish type, suicides in the usual sense, are all actual or attempted ends of one’s  vitality.  The selfless suicides are actual or attempted renouncements of the spiritual self; these may be considered merely symbolic, but they are no less significant.
  The most obvious selfish suicide is Svidrigaylov’s.  His is the dark, calculated suicide, filled with typical rituals: a string of ambiguous hints, a wrapping up of affairs, a last night’s reflection, a note, an official witness, and enigmatic final words.  But as full and complete as this suicide was, it is the less demonstrative suicides that are often more thought provoking. Raskolnikov earlier witnessed an attempted suicide, as Afrosinyo —“she’s done it again” (189) —jumped off the Vosnessensky Bridge, only days after trying to hang herself.  “Well that’s one way out,” thought Raskolnikov, “...but is it a way out?....  What an awful end!  And —is it the end?” (189).  She didn’t succeed at this latest attempt, and there was the sense that she would try again later.  Obviously little planning had gone into her efforts she had been drunk besides.
  There is another death, also with drink and little planning, that did succeed, as Marmeladov gets trampled under the feet and wheels of a horse carriage.  “Happen he done it on purpose,” the driver testified, “but he might have done it because he was drunk” (195).  Marmeladov, a waste who showed no responsibility to his suffering family, realized his faults and worthlessness, and yet he took no action.  To his credit, he asked for no pity.  “I ought to be crucified, not pitied,” he told Raskolnikov (40).  And he had an expressed hope for his salvation; but nonetheless he was shameless, and he drank, degenerated, and eventually fell under the horses’ hooves, as if by an agreement between destiny and will.
  Sonya’s is the most obvious of the selfless suicides: she had renounced ‘1.10 ) her self before the novel begins by becoming a prostitute for the sake of her family’s welfare.  Ironically, Raskolnikov saw three selfishly  suicidal ends ahead for Sonya: “She can throw herself into the Yekaterinsky Canal, end up in a lunatic asylum, or... give herself up entirely to her life of immorality” (338).  Sonya would continue with a certain virtue, though, much to Raskolnikov’s and her sublings’ ultimate benefits.
  Raskolnikov’s sister Dunya nearly committed suicide by sacrificing herself for her family’s sake.  Her attempts, however, would not have been of the same import as Sonya’s success.  Had she been totally selfless, she might have married Luzhin without question, or she might have conceded to Svidrigaylov’s final blackmail attempt.  These would have been tragically futile “suicides,” and it is to her credit that she saw through them in time; nevertheless, she put herself on the line in both cases, and perhaps deserves more credit for this.
  Finally, the third example of selfless suicide is the effort of Raskolnikov.  It might be said that he attempted a sort of suicide after he killed the two women, by going through deep spiritual suffering; but this in its passiveness would be similar to the selfishness of Marmeladov, who loved to have his hair pulled.  Raskolnikov’s spiritual selflessness came later, after his selfish suffering.  It began when he first confessed his crimes to Sonya: “he felt like a man who was about to jump off a high church tower” (424).  And by “kiss[ing] the filthy earth with joy and rapture” (537), he came a step further.  Finally, with Sonya’s encouragement, he confessed to the police.  His old self “died” at this point, and he was ready to begin a new life.  Thus in this kind of suicide the self is both the thing sacrificed and, in its renewed form, the beneficiary.
(4a)
  “Go at once...stand at the crossroads, bow down, [and] kiss the earth,” instructed Sonya (433).  It was a command heavy with implications, and at first Raskolnikov refused to comply.  What was she asking?
  First, to stand at the crossroads.  This implied that he was to stand at the center of Haymarket Square, the busiest part of the busiest city in Russia.  There he would be where the whole world could see him, making himself completely vulnerable to whatever reaction his confession would bring.  They might laugh, they might scorn and jeer, they might attack him there, or even stone him; they might just pick him up and take him away, never to return again.  But he would have no way of knowing their reaction until he carried out the instruction. At the crossroads he would be at St. Petersburg’s point of orientation,  where there would be street signs and mileage and direction signs; and this would also be his own orientation point.  There, based on all the resulting changes in perspective, he would be able to sort things out.
And he would be able to determine his future, for it is at the crossroads that one decides direction.  As much as one tries to plan such decisions ahead of time, it is only at the crossroads that the choices are actually made and the steps actually taken for the journey’s continuation. After Sonya spoke these words she offered Raskolnikov a cyprus cross to hang around his neck.  “We’ll suffer together, so let us also bear our cross together,” she said (435).  Here then was another implication of “crossroads.”  Confessing and asking the world for forgiveness is a praiseworthy religious act and a testimony of faith, and yet it is not an easy step to take.  The cross to bear along this road is heavy and entails a deep humiliation; it conjures no magic remedy before the symbolic  crucifixion, no preview of the resurrection.  Yet, Sonya inferred, it was a necessary step for the sinner to take.
Thus Raskolnikov was to stand at the crossroads: he was to bear his cross of repentance, stand in front of all people, recognize where he stood, and determine his future.
And he was to kiss the earth: “...the earth which you have defiled,” Sonya said in full (433), implying that at the crossroads he would be making his apology directly to the world.  By murdering, he had not only wronged his particular victims, who now lay under the soil, he had also sinned against all humankind across the globe.
Furthermore, kissing the earth was a demonstration of the deepest humility.  He was to bow down and prostrate to the world as low as he possibly could, showing with face to the ground that he deferred to everyone.
By touching the soil this way he would also atune himself with “Holy Mother Earth,” from whence he came, upon which he walked, and whither he was going.  Thus, in one action he would recognize his origin, his existence and his mortality, acknowledging his defilement with respect to all three.
But finally, kissing the earth is more than a humble, atoning apology.  It is experiencing a purgatory cleansing by bringing sensuality to its fullest: the taste, the smell, the feel of city dirt next to one’s nose and on one’s lips would stir the soul.  And indeed, when Raskolnikov put Sonya’s directions into practice, his sensuality was so dramatic that one observer remarked that he was drunk.  “He simply plunged... into this new and overwhelming sensation... tears gushed from his eyes... and [he] kissed the earth with joy and rapture” (537).
(5b)
Ivan’s “Grand Inquisitor” poem and Father Zossima’s last words are polar statements, yet they bring up similar issues.  Separately, they discuss the concepts of freedom and happiness and the values of miracle, mystery, and authority.  The two speakers even begin to agree on some points, although their differences on these issues are numerous, to say the least.  But the general difference that separates Ivan’s Inquisitor and Father Zossima more than points on any of the individual concepts is  the difference of the speakers’ perspectives.  The Inquisitor lectures pedantically as from a podium, but only one person is meant to hear him; Father Zossima bears witness to only a few people around his deathbed, but it is a testimony for the world. As the Inquisitor speaks, he sees the universe with the conditions of “them” and “us”; Father Zossima does not separate as such, but says, here is what I have seen, how it has been for me, and how it can be for you.
This difference in perspective is evident in all the individual issues.  Freedom, the Inquisitor says, brings “unrest, confusion, and unhappiness” (301), and so “[we] have vanquished freedom... in order to make [them] happy” (294).  “...They will submit themselves to us gladly and cheerfully” (304).  Father Zossima, too, sees negative aspects in the world’s idea of freedom: it brings “slavery and self destruction... separation and isolation” (369).  His response, however, is not to perpetuate the us/them separation and enslavement, but to acknowledge the alternative, truer freedom of a Christian.  Zossima does not quote the apostle Paul, but the allusion is implied: “For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all” (1 Cor. 9:19).  There is no us and them in Zossima’s kind of servitude, because it is universal.
Meanwhile, the Inquisitor is concerned with conquering people and holding them captive for the sake of their happiness.  “We shall reach onr goal and be Caesars... [for] the universal happiness of man,” he says (302).  “We shall give them quiet, humble happiness, the happiness of weak creatures” (303).
Father Zossima also talks about happiness in terms of humility and the universe, but again he does so with a different perspective.  He speaks of being “consumed by a universal love, as though in a sort of ecstacy” (376).  He also addresses global conquest: “...by humble love... you may be able to conquer the world” (376).  Thus, he reverses the role of the happily humble, making them captors, not captives, with the force of love.
  The Inquisitor’s forces are threefold: “miracle, mystery and authority” (299), the three things denied us when Christ resisted the devil’s temptations and established our dreaded freedom.  But the church resumes control of these forces, providing the bread of satisfaction, possessing people’s consciences, and wielding dominion to make the world “happy;” thus, man knows “whom to worship, to whom to entrust his conscience and how... to unite all” (302).  To Father Zossima, although love remains “the strongest [force] of all” (376), he, too, values the forces of miracle, mystery, authority; unlike the Inquisitor, though, he appreciates this triune on the same plane as the recipients, and furthermore, he sees their combined force as inclusive of God’s plans. In fact, he finds miracle, mystery, and authority not only in God’s world and in God’s people, but also in the Word of God itself: “What a miracle and what strength is given with [the Holy Bible] to man!... And how many solved and revealed mysteries!” (343).  And he sees this power in “sorrow... [passing] gradually into quiet, tender joy” (343); in “Divine Justice, tender reconciling and all forgiving,” and in the central promise of a future life.  And it is all a difference of perspective.
( 6a )
One of the interesting qualities of The Brothers Karamazov is its unique version of the omniscient point of view.  Dostoyevsky narrates his final novel with an all-knowing force, yet he personifies the force with first-person commentary, in the form of the singular “I” speaking for the  collective “us.”  The singular is never identified; he is primarily a part of the collective, the citizenry of the district and village in which Fyodor Karamazov lived “exactly thirteen years ago” (3).  Nevertheless, this collaborative style of an “eyewitness” account is underlaid with an absolute omniscience such as no compilation of witnesses would be able to  relate. The singular narrator asserts himself as an actual eyewitness only once, for the novel’s trial scene, of which he describes “only what struck me personally and what stuck in my mind” (772).  Outside of the courtroom, though, when he speaks as a narrator at all, he speaks secondarily: “I do not know the details, I have only heard...” (10), or in the plural: “as we heard afterwards...” (145), or with a qualified passive voice: “it was said (and it is quite true)...” (193).  Occasionally he asserts an opinion, usually brief, although at one point, in book two, chapter seven, it goes on for several pages: “...that’s my opinion!” (397).  These editorial comments slide into the plural voice, too, as at the end of the novel’s first chapter: “In the majority of cases, people... are much more naïve and artless than we generally assume.  As, indeed, we are ourselves” (6).
  Now and then, it seems quite feasible that the story is merely a  collaboration of accounts.  The elder’s words, for instance, are largely  “according to Alexey” (336); and hints here and there allude to the possible anonymous observer, as when Ivan and Smerdyakov have their “clever man” talk: “Anyone looking at Ivan’s face at that moment would have known...” (322).
  Still, the omniscience is often blatant.  Following the “clever man” chat, the narrator continues to observe Ivan “We will not describe the trend of his thoughts... and even if we attempted... we should have found it very difficult, because they were not really thoughts, but something very vague...” (323).  After which follows an account of these same vague thoughts, up to the moment he falls asleep on a train far away from the singular “I” and the collective “we.”
Similarly, Alyosha’s and Dmitri’s minds are delved into, exposing many private thoughts that “flash through” (399).  Most of the time, there isn’t even any pretense of an eyewitness.  The story is simply told with full description and complete conversational account, and every detail that is needed is presented, without explanation of how the facts were procured.  In fact, despite all the examples I have given of Dostoyevsky’s first person technique, he has written the great majority of this novel in the third person, with no eyewitnesses to speak of.
References
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, The Brothers Karamazov, Trans. David Magarshack. New York: Penguin, 1982.

—.  Crime and Punishment. Trans. David Magarshack. New York: Penguin, 1951.

—.  Notes from the Underground. Trans. David Magarshack. Great Short  Works of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Ed. Ronald Hingley. New York: Harper, 1968.  Russian141: 11/30/90, Prof. Rubchak: