Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Karamazov Readings - Book XI

Book 11:

This was an intriguing book that could have easily been taken out of an investigative novel. Alyosha is asked to snoop about Lise's wild behavior and Dmitri and Ivan's plan that Grushenka feels she is not being filled in on. Turns out, Ivan corrupted Lise with his intellectual hooplah about being hopeless and the world being against Lise, and Dmitri had been plotting with Ivan to break out, but is no longer wanting to do it.

In fact, he has given up on fighting his case anymore. In this chapter we see three characters break - mentally and physically. Dmitri basically admits to his crime, and is looking forward to repenting for it, as an act to repent for his past sins. The vitalized, brash young Dmitri is now a broken shell, no longer the confident man he once was.

Ivan breaks mentally. He visits Smerdyakov and through his 3 visits thinks that he is as much responsible for the death of his father than the real killer (Smerdyakov). He then has hallucinations, which includes the devil coming to him, and when Alyosha visits him he is basically a nervous wreck, and Alyosha is kind enough to stay with him.

The third person to break was Smerdyakov. I'd pay to find out what caused him to hang himself - he was not remorseful about his crime, and he was generally a person that had little morality or self-guilt. It is the greatest mystery in this book, in my opinion, and we will never find out the answer to why Smerdyakov killed himself.

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