Grace Grundt
Professor Paul Siewers
ENLS 341
22 November 2021
Final Essay Initial Draft
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky is an extremely influential Russian philosophical book published in 1880. It poses interesting debates about God, faith, loyalty, honesty, and family, all while following a tragic event that brings the Karamazov brothers together. The novel itself includes murder, romance, and legal drama, as well as lighthearted conversation between friends and family which is laced with bubbling tension and personal differences. The story takes the perspectives of multiple narrators, and it seems to begin around the year 1865, which is when the Karamazov brothers return to their hometown after years of living with distant relatives. They left in order to escape the abuse of their father and now, with age, they have returned. One important discussion that always seems to take precedence after their arrival home, is that of religion. This is made clear during the “Grand Inquisitor” chapter of The Brothers Karamazov.
During the “Grand Inquisitor” chapter of Dostoyevsky’s novel, Ivan explains this poem of the Grand Inquisitor, who is disguised as a cardinal, in a town in Spain. Upon Christ’s arrival to the town he attempts healing the sick but is stopped by the Grand Inquisitor for instilling blind faith into the individuals he interacted with. Christ is also faced with three temptations as he is limited from doing his own work on Earth by the Grand Inquisitor, those three temptations being bread, performing a miracle, and power. Christ showed that he is able to resist temptation and act on his own accord. Even though the Grand Inquisitor tells Christ that the town has been acting and worshipping under Satan because they believe that it is the most secure action for mankind, Christ resists the temptation of falling into their order. When discussing relations between religion and community, a passage within this chapter reads:
“It is this need for a community of bowing-down that has been the principal torment of each individual person and of mankind as a whole since the earliest ages. For the sake of a universal bowing-down they have destroyed one another with the sword. They have created gods and challenged one another: ‘Give up your gods and come and worship ours or else death to you and to your gods!’ And so it will be until the world’s end, when even gods will vanish from the world: whatever happens, they will fall down before idols”(Dostoyevsky).
With this passage, it is clear that “From the Grand Inquisitor’s standpoint… the only sort of happiness which is compatible with the reality of human nature exists within the limits of… satanic freedom. His observation of differences, however, in men’s cleverness and boldness causes the Grand Inquisitor to postulate the realism of two very different sorts of satanic happiness for two very different types of individuals”(Wharton). The Grand Inquisitor is essentially saying that he believes in worshipping the God that feels most organic to you, and within that worshipping you will find your own community. He will not stand for the limitation of worshipping specific Gods simply because of the popularity of one over another. When addressing Christ about this, he made clear that he is immune to threats from other religious groups due to his worshipping of Satan. The community he found though, however, does seem to be a bit more of a cult-like community, in the sense that he and others found their so-called freedom in worshipping Satan but are still willing to challenge Christ and face him head-on with temptations.