Ivan Karamazov an autobiographical character of Fyodor Dostoevsky

0.1. Introduction

0.1. The Purpose of the thesis

In this thesis, I will present how Fyodor Dostoevsky’s autobiographical character in “The Brothers Karamazov” is Ivan Karamazov. He calls him his “hero”. «Everything my hero says in the text I have sent you is based on reality». They have the same questions about life and how they carried their relationship with others. No other person in the novel can show us the true thoughts of a man that has been through a lot in his life.

0.2. The Methodology

I have read different books that explain the life of Dostoevsky. The books I read about his life are linked with the three themes I decided to delve into. The main sources I have resorted to are “The Brothers Karamazov” the novel and “The Brothers Karamazov and the critics” because they show a clear connection between the author and the character. From the books I resourced I highlight the life and beliefs of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Ivan Karamazov.

0.3. Justification

Dostoevsky is one of the greatest authors to write about the phycological world. People see Dostoevsky as a profound man by saying «His characters explored profound philosophical questions, grappling with man’s propensity for good and evil, the existence of God, where meaning can be found in life, and the great question of how one should lead one’s life»[i]. Dostoevsky helps us analyze people from different backgrounds well, and here we find a person that helps us analyze the inner thoughts and feelings of such a good author.

1. Dostoevsky

1.1. Biography

Fyodor Dostoevsky was born November 11, 1821, in Moscow Russia and lived in the nineteenth century. In his childhood he was separated from his parents Mikhail Dostoevsky his father and Maria Nechayeva his mother. Mikhail, Dostoevsky’s brother, is the person with whom he had a strong relationship with. They were both sent to study at different places, Dostoevsky was sent to study engineering, but the school motivated him to write. His mother died from tuberculosis after he was sent away to school, his father was later killed by peasants that worked in his house and that could have been the cause of Dostoevsky’s epilepsy. His writings investigate the human person’s deepest feelings and thoughts.

Dostoevsky was part of a liberal discussion group called the Petrashevsky Circle that was thought of wanting to attack Tsar Nicholas I. On December 22, 1849, he went through a mock execution because he was sentenced for participating in the Petrashevsky Circle. Dostoevsky was exiled in Siberia for ten years after the mock execution, the first four years he was in Siberia in a labor camp among murderers. He had a great mind but a bad gambling addiction that repeatedly brought him close to ruin. For almost two decades Dostoevsky went through many experiences of hardship and many moments for him to contemplate life. As shown above, the two moments that impacted Dostoevsky’s life and writings were full of great sorrow.

He was a person that would like to hear the stories of the criminals surrounding him in the labor camp, going deeper into their thoughts and reasons of why they would commit such a crime. This already gives us a clue of why he was good at placing his characters in the shoes of real people. He not only studied criminals but also peasants as people in their day-to-day activities and thoughts. Dostoevsky could have related to them during the years he was in poverty. I would also say that the more he understood other people’s lives, the more he was able to understand his own life. In the books he writes he demonstrates who he is more clearly in a specific character. Dostoevsky was capable of such a thing because he himself went through a lot of life-changing and traumatizing moments in his life. 

1.2. Conflict with his father

Dostoevsky did not spend much of his life with his father Mikhail Dostoyevsky. His father was a retired military surgeon at the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor in Moscow. His job demanded a lot of time and energy from him. «Though a devoted parent, Dostoyevsky’s father was a stern, suspicious, and rigid man.» Dostoevsky’s father, as we can see, is not only a far presence in Dostoevsky’s life but also a very demanding man. This was a contrast to his mother because she spent most of her life with him and cared for him by always being present in his life. This is the beginning of Dostoevsky not being able to identify himself with his father.

Mikhail Dostoevsky is described as someone that would not fit in with his family. «He was considered not only cruel but a demanding husband and father as well. He was described at times as sullen, and a workaholic, later imposing such discipline upon his children. His austere ways rendered the atmosphere of the Dostoyevsky home humorless and cold». The lifestyle of his father affects the way Dostoevsky writes about childhood because in his writing he does not present a happy childhood. Childhood seems to be ruined by adults in his books by adults that are men with a disordered life.

There is an interior struggle that we can find in his writings about a lack of a father figure in his life shown in his writings. «The struggle Dostoyevsky feels in relating to his father is evident in his urgent and emotional manner of writing.» This makes the struggle evident to the reader more when reading a novel by Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky had deep wounds with the figure of a father in his life.

1.3. Meaning of God

Dostoevsky grew up having a good teaching about the Orthodox Church and for that reason he says: «I descended from a pious Russian family . . . We, in our family, have known the gospel almost ever[ii]». Having the same pure faith in God changed when he saw his father’s behavior at home, but one of the biggest reasons of why his image of God was disfigured could have been when he joined the Russian socialists. The goal of the Russian Socialists involved destroying Christianity.

When Dostoevsky was involved in the group of the Russian socialists he left and started his own group which had the name the Durov circle. When he was involved in this group he was arrested for «[iii]». [iv]«I believe that there is nothing lovelier, deeper, more sympathetic, more rational, more manly and more perfect than the Savior;…If anyone could prove to me that Christ is outside the truth, and if the truth really did exclude Christ, I should prefer to stay with Christ and not the truth»[v].

As clearly seen above Dostoevsky believed in God but the problem was not God but rather the image of a loving God. He struggled in bringing together the reality of suffering and the notion of a loving God. He was not aiming to be an atheist at all, he was just a person that lacked faith. Dostoevsky’s image of God was the image of a spectator that only created but did not bother to interfere in the problems of his creatures.

Dostoevsky’s approach to the existence of God starts with rational understanding and this rationality is supposed to take you to the supernatural understanding of God. Dostoevsky tries to show that there must be an ultimate supernatural principle or purpose of the synthesis of being. When he goes deeper to a more religious concern about God like the Christian God he stresses the need for faith. He believes that Christ’s love is transformative.

1.4. Good and evil

Dostoevsky claims that one can practice good which is the Law of Love can only be acquired from the development of the conscience. The development of the conscience can only be done by having faith in God. Dostoevsky, being a person that has studied the human person well knows that from the conscience we have the concept of good and evil. Evil was a close thing Dostoevsky lived with because of the political issues of his time. He was against serfdom because it was a moral evil act. He also opposed the idea of revolution during his time because revolution involved violence and terror. He presents to us in the book the Brothers Karamazov that good cannot always be done because “everything is permitted”. The image of the innocent children that was presented in the newspaper to Dostoevsky makes this good God be placed into question.

Good and evil has always been a question for Dostoevsky from his childhood. He grew up in a religious Orthodox environment and he remembers «[vi]». The suffering of many people that believed in God brought great trouble to Dostoevsky’s soul because God would permit such a thing. For that reason, in his writings the theme of suffering is always presented as something evil.

Dostoevsky’s meaning of suffering is not the same definition of the Orthodox church because the Orthodox Church says that «[vii]». Dostoevsky believed that you could alleviate your neighbors’ suffering by loving him and by making his suffering yours and that would soothe the harsh reality we live in. Dostoevsky in his novels reveals that suffering, which is evil, has no cure. One of the conflicts that Dostoevsky had about the Orthodox meaning of suffering was that suffering is the absence of good. This would mean that suffering was not a thing. Many different events in Dostoevsky’s life were full of experiences and the things he would read did not seem like suffering was only an absence of good, but that suffering was a reality. Dostoevsky was not happy with evil being justified simply as an absence. For that reason, suffering is a presence and a reality in Dostoevsky’s books, the common theme of his works.

2. Ivan

2.1. Biography

Ivan Karamazov is a masterpiece of the book “The Brothers Karamazov” written by Dostoevsky. Ivan is portrayed in the book as a very independent child. A few years after he was born in mother passed away his father sent away together with another brother of his, Alyosha. He lived with many families which did not help him settle with a family. When he grew older, he went to Moscow to study, and he made a living through journalism and writing reviews. With the job of writing, he is particularly famous for writing an article on the Ecclesiastical Courts of Russia. Ivan, the middle brother, is the intellectual member of the Karamazov family.

Years after he has been away from his father and his brothers he is invited to return through an invitation of his older brother Dmitri. When the brothers meet again after years, Dymitri and Alyosha become good friends, but Ivan is different by being someone reserved. This explains why we only know him by his thoughts because he does not seem to share much about his life with others.

Ivan is a proud intellectual person known for being intelligent, poetic, and a philosopher although by all his talents he is led to being slave of his own mind. «He puts life on the operating table, dissects it, and comes away disillusioned, without ever seeming to realize that life is to be lived». The struggle of bringing together the love of God with suffering happening in the world seems difficult for him.

He takes a liking toward Katerina who is Dmitri’s former fiancée, but he remains single throughout the whole book. At the end of the book, he gets sick, and Katerina takes care of him, and it seems that she will help him get closer to God. Katerina had a powerful spiritual experience with Alyosha about faith. The way the book ends about Ivan’s life seems to show that he will find a way to redemption.

2.2. Conflict with his father

The story of Ivan’s early life tells us a lot about the type of relationship he had with his biological father; which there was no relationship. As seen above he was given away by his father to another family. A while after Ivan met with his biological father Fyodor Karamazov the author writes what his father thought about him; «I don’t care a damn for Ivan. You see, I don’t know Ivan at all. Don’t know what sort of fellow he is. Where did he spring up from? … But Ivan loves nobody. Ivan is not one of us». Ivan is proven to be a true Karamazov: «Fyodor might be correct to say that, but he is wrong to think that Ivan is not one of them. The father, however, is not correct. Ivan is a Karamazov, but an educated and rationalizing one, In[viii]»[ix].

Ivan is the incarnated passion for intellection not like his father who is passionate for women. The life of Fyodor causes trouble for Ivan because he does not like that his opinion and belief that “everything is permitted” may be a justification for the figure of Fyodor. Ivan disliking his father is a problem from the very beginning of the book but as much as he wants to keep him away he can’t. Ivan Karamazov is contradicted when he is placed his identity in front of him; «You used to say yourself that everything is permitted, so why are you so upset now, sir? You even come of it! … You’re much too clever, sir. You’re fond of money. I knows that. You also like to be respected, because4 you’re very proud, you likes women, beautiful women, too much, but why you likes most of all is to live in peace and comfort and not to have to bow and scrape before no one – that most all. You won’t want to spoil your life forever by disgracing yourself like that in court. You, sir, are more like Mr. Karamazov than any of his other children. You’ve got the same soul as he, you have, sir»[x].

2.3. Meaning of God

Ivan’s meaning of God is freedom and for that reason he hates freedom because does not want everything to have freedom; he dislikes creation because it is free. This thought of God from Ivan is linked with suffering because he says and sees that God is not close to man when he is suffering. Ivan wants God to act according to his ideal and vision of the world. The way Ivan sees God is clearly seen in book five chapter five named “The Grand Inquisitor”.

The whole poem is about an Inquisitor trying to fix the problems Jesus left on the world by giving people freedom to choose between good or evil. What Ivan does not listen to carefully is Alyosha’s response that «But there is such a being, and he can forgive everything, everyone and everything and for everything, because he gave his innocent blood for all and for everything». The doctrine of redemption being found through love does not give a good explanation for the mind of why suffering is allowed. The only way that Ivan will be able to reconcile with God will be through a combination of faith and reason.

Freedom was taken away from people from the moment they were given freedom to decide between good or evil. Ivan’s response to this is unexpected, he shows that the first mistake Christ did was to try to save human beings in the first place. People must be protected from freedom by a powerful church that tries to remove all suffering by using full authority. His brother Alyosha tries to show to him that God uses those moments of suffering to be able to show him redemptive care. Alyosha says to Ivan: “Your poem is in praise of Jesus, not in blame of Him—as you meant it to be.”

2.4. Good and evil

Ivan’s problems are rooted in the question he places before himself about good and evil. This worldwide conflict has become more than a conflict for Ivan, it has become a quest for an answer in his life. In “The Brothers Karamazov” we understand he is aware of the suffering of innocent children. It seems that for a long time in his life they have been talking to him about a good God. This good coming from the good God seems like something too far to understand for him because it is obscure in the world for Ivan to see.

Jesus asks man to love his neighbor as himself in the gospel of Mark chapter 12 verse 31. The “love” someone gives to his neighbor will bring good to him or herself and to that neighbor, but this is not the way Ivan sees it because he says: «Theoretically it is still possible to love one’s neighbors, and sometimes even from a distance, but at close quarters almost never». It is hard for Ivan to accept the good as an outcome of the evangelical message about love. Ivan cannot accept and understand that Christ has come to bring good to the people through redemption and that prevents him from being happy. 

 For Ivan suffering is not a bridge towards God but an end to happiness. He does not understand evil and for that reason he says: «Listen to me: I took only children to make my case clearer. I don’t say anything about the other human tears with which the earth is saturated from its crust to its center – I have narrowed my subject on purpose. I am a bug and I acknowledge in all humility that I can’t understand why everything has been arranged as it is. I suppose men themselves are to blame: they were given paradise, they wanted freedom and they stole the fire from heaven, knowing perfectly well that they would become unhappy, so why should we pity them?». When I read this I have the feeling that Ivan sees suffering as a topic for debate rather than something he is trying to find a solution to.

3. Comparison of Dostoevsky and Ivan

3.1. Their life

Dostoevsky and Ivan both have things in common in their life experiences, thoughts, and beliefs. Both Dostoevsky and Ivan, as mentioned in their biographies, grew up in a household where they felt they did not fit in. Their fathers were not figures to look up to and for that reason we are able to see a rejection of the father figure in both of their lives. A loss of their family identity could have also happened because Dostoevsky as mentioned above had a close relationship with his brother and was later separated from him, the same happened to Ivan during his early childhood when his brothers were all separated. I think that for both the root of all their problems, thoughts, religion, and behaviors started in their early life.

Alyosha, a son of Fyodor Dostoevsky, died at the age of three due to epilepsy that was passed down to him from his father. The moment the son of Fyodor died he entered great grief and had lots of doubt about his faith. Fyodor headed to a monastery to pray over the death of his son which was not easy for him because in his mind he was guilty of the death of his son and his son was innocent. The struggle of the innocent suffering is clearly seen in both Dostoevsky’s life and Ivan’s because they both mention innocent children in their life.

The differences in how they both looked at life changed although both of their life experiences made them who they were. Dostoevsky was a person that went through a lot of suffering in his life as mentioned in his biography. He went through separation from his family, mock execution, exile, labor camp, and many other experiences. Dostoevsky lived through the tragic events and could relate to the sufferings of other people. Ivan, on the contrary, went through a few tragic moments but he was not able to relate to the suffering of others. I think that
Dostoevsky’s life was led by emotions as we can see in his writings and Ivan’s life by rationality.

3.2. Their conflict with their father

In Dostoevsky’s life we see a father figure that was not close when he was growing up; «He was considered not only cruel but a demanding husband and father as well. He was described at times as sullen, and a workaholic, later imposing such discipline upon his children. His austere ways rendered[xi]». The wound of the father figure affected the way he would picture fathers in his writings as men that are irresponsible. This is clearly seen in the book “The brothers Karamazov” and in “Crime and punishment”.

Ivan did not have a close relationship with his father because he was given away to a different family once his mother had passed away. A father figure is clearly absent in his life but even though he did not have a relationship with his father that does not stop him from being like him. He does not identify with his father, but this struggle of him not being able to identify with him is because he sees they are similar. «You, sir, are more like Mr. Karamazov than any of his other children. You’ve[xii]».

Both Dostoevsky and Ivan experienced a loss of a father killed by one of his servants. I do think that as much as Dostoevsky or Ivan try to set their father aside in their life or in their experiences, it causes them to show their wound even more. Their conflict with their father has shaped their view of the world, God, and even their own thoughts towards people.

3.3. Meaning of God

Dostoevsky and Ivan Karamazov do not share the same meaning of God. Ivan Karamazov sees God as a person that brought suffering to the world. The God that Ivan depicts as mentioned above describes Jesus not as a savior but as a person who came to bring suffering and conflict to human society. «I tell you man has no more agonizing anxiety than to find someone to whom he can hand over with all speed the gift of freedom with which the unhappy creature is born. But only he can gain possession of men’s freedom who is able to set their conscience at ease[xiii]. Dostoevsky on the contrary shows a silent Christ and this silent Christ is the opposite of the proud and Majestic Inquisitor.

Fyodor Dostoevsky believes in a Christ that appears to us in every hungry, thirsty, or sick person. The God that Dostoevsky presents is shown through his character Alyosha kiss «The old man would have liked him to say something, however bitter and terrible. But he suddenly approached the old man and kissed him gently on his bloodless, aged lips[xiv]. Ivan carries a grudge against God but Dostoevsky being a person that has experienced suffering through his experiences I think he has been able to have a personal encounter with God. I think that the way both people approach God has a lot to do with the way they approach reality.

3.4. Good and evil

Good coming from a Good God was a statement hard to understand for the obscure world that Ivan lived in. Ivan believes that all good comes from one’s neighbor because that is the person whom you have with you. It is easy to love someone but that does not mean that it doesn’t have challenges «Theoretically it is still possible to love one’s neighbors, and sometimes even from a distance, but at close quarters almost never». As seen in Ivan’s life, he was not surrounded by a happy good life because he was rejected, independent, and full of logical thinking. Evil is seen coming from the freedom God gave to man.

Dostoevsky has a hard time accepting suffering, but he did not blame God like Ivan did. He was not happy with evil being justified by the Orthodox church. Ivan feels hate against God for suffering and Dostoevsky accepts God because of the existence of suffering. Throughout the book “The Brothers Karamazov” the devil is putting in Ivan’s mind how suffering is evil. I think that Ivan was well described as an interior attitude to be able to show the conflicts Dostoevsky could have faced. Both show only one solution to evil and that is to do good and the option to do good or evil is led by free will.

4. Conclusion      

I think that Ivan Karamazov has been the perfect example when it comes to looking at the interior thoughts of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky was able to write real life experiences that happened to him in the book “The Brothers Karamazov” and that is not all because it seems that he also included himself in the book. Ivan was a person that thought the same as Dostoevsky and was seen as a hero; «[xv]». The three themes seen in the thesis which were Biography, Meaning of God, finally Good and Evil were good windows to the life of Fyodor Dostoevsky.

[i] M. HERO, «Fyodor Dostoevsky», 2019, in https://myhero.com/fyodor-dostoevsky (referenced on May 2, 2024).

[ii] D. DIRSCHERL, Dostoevsky and the Catholic Church, Loyola University Press, Chicago 1986, 59.

[iii]  Idem. 48.

 [v] Ibid. 52.

[vi] JONES, “Dostoevskii and religion”, Cambridge University Press, 150.

[vii] Oxford Academic «The Orthodox Christian View of Suffering», https://academic.oup.com/book/25351/chapter-abstract/192416123?redirectedFrom=fulltext (referenced on February 21, 2024).

 [ix] E. WASIOLEK, The Brothers Karamazov and the critics, Wadsworth Pub. Co., California 1967, 36.

[x] F. DOSTOEVSKY, The Brothers Karamazov, Penguin classics, New York 1982, 743.

[xi] M., “Who was Dostoyevsky’s Father?”, in Dostoevsky Reimagined, V M Productions, 2016,  https://dostoevsky-bts.com/blog/who-was-dostoyevskys-father/ (February 28, 2024).

[xii] F. DOSTOEVSKY, The Brothers Karamazov, Penguin classics, New York 1982, 743.

[xiii] F. DOSTOEVSKY, The Brothers Karamazov, Penguin classics, New York 1982, 298.

[xiv] F. DOSTOEVSKY, The Brothers Karamazov, Penguin classics, New York 1982, 308.

[xv] F. Dostoevsky, “No. 785.” Letter to N.A. Lyubimov, Trans. Ralph Matlaw,  Russia 1879.