The Brothers Karamazov
SynopsisPlot
The Brothers Karamasov is a murder mystery, a courtroom drama, and an exploration of erotic rivalry in a series of triangular love affairs involving the “wicked and sentimental” Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov and his three sons―the impulsive and sensual Dmitri; the coldly rational Ivan; and the healthy, red-cheeked young novice Alyosha. Through the gripping events of their story, Dostoevsky portrays the whole of Russian life, is social and spiritual striving, in what was both the golden age and a tragic turning point in Russian culture.
Story
About this book
Fyodor Dostoevsky's final novel, published in 1880, follows the Karamazov family in a Russian provincial town during the 1870s. At its center is the father, Fyodor Pavlovich, a coarse and sentimental landowner whose relationships with his three adult sons are tangled by money, jealousy, and competing claims to love. Dmitri, the eldest, is impulsive and driven by passion. Ivan, the middle son, is intellectual and skeptical. Alyosha, the youngest, is a novice at a local monastery, drawn toward faith and quiet attention to others.
The plot builds around a murder and the courtroom trial that follows, but these events serve a larger purpose. Dostoevsky uses the family's conflicts to examine questions about God, free will, suffering, and moral responsibility. One extended chapter, in which Ivan presents a philosophical argument to Alyosha, remains among the most discussed passages in Russian literature. The novel also portrays a wide cast of townspeople, monks, women caught between the brothers, and children whose fates echo the central tensions.
Dostoevsky completed the book shortly before his death in 1881. It is set against a period he saw as both a high point and a crisis in Russian society, when older religious traditions and newer secular ideas pressed against each other with increasing force.
