Analysis of The Artistic World of Dostoyevsky

The artistic world of Dostoyevsky is exceptionally dark and frightening: the author places mirrors in which the reader peeps to understand the truth about oneself. Unfortunately, this truth exposes fear and hatred, and love of cruelty and weakness, instead of the presence of virtues. Dostoyevsky wrote within the Orthodox tradition, in which painful redemption and austerity are often the only ways to get away from the reality that offers pain and solitude.

The chapter "Rebellion" from the novel The Brothers Karamazov suggests listening to the ideas of Ivan, who at that stage of his development realized that hoping for mercy and harmony from God is not only useless but also low. The chapter contains many remarkable thoughts and aphorisms, but the central thesis can be defined as such: there is so much unjust suffering in this world that the hope for harmony, which was paid for by past suffering, can be equated to a voluntary consent to the injustice toward those who have no sin and cannot protect themselves. The essay will explain this idea, using examples from Dostoyevsky, and also will offer a counter argument, which, however, contains certain limitations, discussed in the last paragraph of the main body of the paper.Dostoyevsky in the chapter "Rebellion" from the novel The Brothers Karamazov enables one of the heroes, Ivan, to tell his views on morality and humanity, and human nature, and the possibility of domination of God's harmony both on Earth and after death. For his narrative, Ivan tells different stories from the life of children, anecdotes, which he subtracted from various periodicals.

All these stories have one commonality: small children who have not committed sin experience terrible agony and pain, and fear during their existence. Moreover, those sufferings were caused not by some cruel conditions such as war or the plague, but by civilized people who are able and like to talk about virtues. Dostoyevsky especially emphasizes the belonging of a married couple who mocked their daughter to the high culture:‘most worthy and respectable people, of good education and breeding.’ (...) To all other types of humanity these torturers behave mildly and benevolently, like cultivated and humane Europeans; but they are very fond of tormenting children, even fond of children themselves in that sense (Dostoyevsky, n.d).Dostoyevsky's descriptions provoke thoughts on people's love for evil and cruelty "In every man, of course, a demon lies hidden — the demon of rage, the demon of lustful heat at the screams of the tortured victim, the demon of lawlessness let off the chain..." but one needs to focus on another aspect. Ivan agrees with the Orthodox axiom that "I understand solidarity in sin among men. I understand solidarity in retribution, too; but there can be no such solidarity with children" (Dostoyevsky, n.d). However, he did not understand "If all must suffer to pay for the eternal harmony, what have children to do with it, tell me, please?" (Dostoyevsky, n.d).

Another crucial moment for understanding Dostoyevsky's point of view on this problem is the presence of God and God's permission for such suffering, which leads to such a dialogue between the brothers in the chapter:Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end (...) but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature — that baby beating its breast with its fist (...) would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? (...)“No, I wouldn’t consent,” said Alyosha softly.“And can you admit the idea that men for whom you are building it would agree to accept their happiness on the foundation of the unexpiated blood of a little victim? And accepting it would remain happy forever?”“No, I can’t admit it. Brother” (Dostoyevsky, n.d).Thus, the author wants to say that the human's nature has evil in it; and to live in harmony with no sins is possible only because of suffering and atonement. However, small kids because of their age and innocence must not face suffering at all, but that pain exists because of the human and God's provision. The question of the price for harmonious life arise. Ivan believes that there is the question with no answer and wants to find it unless the God and the harmony are closed to him.Perhaps the only counterargument to groundless cruelty and the desire of someone else's suffering are acts of higher mercy that are not amenable to logic. Ivan cites the example of a saint who helped an impeccable sick man and rejects this argument since in his opinion that was made due to hypocrisy. At the same time, real life offers examples of higher mercy.

The most obvious of such cases is the rescue of Jews by residents of the territories occupied by the Nazis. At the time of Nazism, the salvation of Jews was a dangerous and criminal activity, but at the same time, there were people who for years gave shelter to people and secretly fed them. Such kindness and sacrifice in the period of war and mass extermination of people by fanatics cannot be based on common understanding of being good or one's hopes to get to paradise after death because there were so much pain and injustice in that period that the existence of God was under big question.This example has certain limitations, although they do not at all deny its existence and accuracy. At a time when some people decided to save the Jews, thousands of people did not help them, and thousands more massacred and shot those people. This cruelty and love of seeing others' sufferings are present in humanity.

According to Dostoyevsky, precisely because of human cruelty and the capacity for evil, people suffer pain to redeem their sins and build a harmonious society in the future. At the same time, it is the presence of offended children and, moreover, small Jewish kids burnt by the Nazis that Ivan and Dostoevsky more accurately, although pessimistically perceived humanity and evil in it.Neither Ivan nor Dostoyevsky found an answer to the problem raised in this chapter. Life goes on, certain events are encouraging and give hope to the salvation of the humanity, but cruelty and evil remain. This paperer tried to consider one of the crucial thesis for Dostoyevsky and to offer some objections. At the same time, the possibility of a harmonious life at the cost of suffering is not the main issue, although this formulation produces reflections on morality and God. The center of this issue is the problem of evil and the presence of evil in human, which continues, despite humanism and the development of philosophy, to push people to immoral acts.