Suffering in Dostoevsky
Suffering in Dostoevsky
Fyodor Dostoevsky was a 19th century Russian writer and is well known for many of his works, among them especially being Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov. Though there are multiple themes among all of his works, suffering is common theme throughout them. Suffering, however, is not just a theme throughout his works, but also his life.
Childhood
Throughout his childhood, he was distant from his parents and grew close to his brother, Mikhail (Toutonghi). He was later separated from his brother when they attended separate boarding schools, in which Dostoevsky was forced to study engineering, although his school did push him towards writing (Toutonghi, Carr). His mother died from Tuberculosis shortly after he was sent away to school, and his father was later on killed by peasants which may have been the cause to Dostoevsky’s epilepsy (Carr).
Adult Life
Later on, in his adult life, Dostoevsky was imprisoned and sentenced to execution. Although the execution fell through, he was then sentenced to serve a horrible four years in exile to Siberia in a prison as well as to serve an additional four years in the army (Toutonghi, Carr). Shortly after his release, his wife at the time and his brother died; however, Dostoevsky did end up remarrying in 1867 (Toutonghi). Between then and his death in 1881, Dostoevsky remained ill and suffered from many epileptic episodes (Carr).
Suffering in Dostoevsky's Works
The physical and mental suffering Dostoevsky experienced throughout his personal life was reflected into his works. Prince Myshkin from The Idiot is epileptic, Ippolit from The Idiot suffers from tuberculosis, and Katerina from Crime and Punishment also suffers from tuberculosis (Ewald, 10). In The Brothers Karamazov, the elder Zosima says that it is one’s own consciousness which can bring people to redemption, which holds true throughout the novel as well as in some of Dostoevsky’s other novels. And to Dostoevsky, suffering can also lead to justice and redemption. In Crime and Punishment, the main character, Raskolnikov, is in a constant state of internal suffering due to the crime he had committed. Raskolnikov attempted justifying the murder to his own consciousness due to the fact that the woman he murdered cheated other people on business deals (Ewald, 37). However, his tormented consciousness eventually breaks, leading him to confess his crime, end his suffering, and find an inner peace (McCoubrey, 41). In The Idiot, an example of Dostoevsky’s mental suffering he endured can be seen when Prince Myshkin describes his experience as a witness to capital punishment. Through Prince Myshkin, Dostoevsky argues that the horror of capital punishment is the mental suffering brought about by the realization that there is no hope (Ewald, 41-42). In The Brothers Karamazov, Ivan Karamazov struggles with religion and the idea that God would create a world that has so much suffering in it (McCoubrey, 3. Ivan quickly suffers in getting so caught up in finding out why that is, that it eventually drives him insane.
References
Carr, E. H. dostoevsky 1821-1881. Routledge Ltd, Florence, 1962;2014;, doi:10.4324/9781315761350. http://www.tandfebooks.com/isbn/9781315761350 Ewald, Elizabeth J. . "The Mystery of Suffering: the Philosophy of Dostoevsky’s Characters ." Trinity College Digital Repository. N.p., n.d. Web. May 2011. http://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/theses/18/
McCoubrey, Sam. “Suffering and Redemption in the Works of Fyodor Dostoevsky”, BA, Boston College, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/2345/449.
Toutonghi, Pauls. "Biography of Dostoevsky." Biography of Dostoevsky. N.p., 19 Feb. 1995. Web. http://community.middlebury.edu/~beyer/courses/previous/ru351/bio.shtml
Photographs
Perov, Vasily. “Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1872.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Fyodor Dostoyevsky. 21 March 2017. Web. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Perov#/media/File:Vasily_Perov_-_%D0%9F%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%82_%D0%A4.%D0%9C.%D0%94%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B5%D0%B2%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg
Pokrovsky, B. “Semionov-platz Mock Execution Ritual.” Wikimedia Commons. File:B pokrovsky kazn 1849.jpg. 21 March 2017. Web. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:B_pokrovsky_kazn_1849.jpg
Unknown. “Fyodor Dostoevsky as an engineer.” Wikimedia Commons. File:Image dost 01.jpg. 21 March 2017. Web. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Image_dost_01.jpg
Unknown. “Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes on Suffering.” Humoropedia. Fyodor-Dostoevsky-Quotes-1. 25 March 2017. Web. http://humoropedia.com/fyodor-dostoevsky-quotes/