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Guilt In The Karamazov Brothers By Dostoevsky

Decent Essays

According to the Marriam-Webster Dictionary, a guilty individual stands “justly chargeable with or responsible for a usually grave breach of conduct or a crime.” A man who kills his neighbor sits guilty before the jury. A child who disobeys stands guilty before his mother. Usually, the actions hurt only the select individuals who are effected by the sins. However, in Dostoevsky’s novel, The Karamazov Brothers, he gives evidence that all of mankind must accept their guilt to everyone. For, everyone stands responsible for a “grave breach of conduct” in front of all, nature and mankind included. In the Karamazov Brothers, Zosima’s teachings and life etch a deep lesson of what sobornost truly looks like, how to live it out, and the paradise it …show more content…

Zosima overhears his brother saying on his deathbed, “each one of us is guilty of the other’s sin, and I most of all” (360). Markel’s doctor and family believed his, “illness is affecting his mind” (361), because the ideas he spoke of seemed too strange and irrational to the others. However, Markel continues to insist that even though he cannot explain the feeling, he knows it is the truth. As Markel takes his lasts breaths he proclaims, “Although I have sinned against everyone, I too shall be forgiven, and that’s paradise” (362). Markel has a firm understanding of how his sins do not only effect himself, but everyone else through the teachings of sobornost. Not until Zosima loses his brother, and then falls into a sinful lifestyle does Zosima recognize the truth behind his brother’s absurd words. Before going into a duel in hopes to kill his lover’s husband, Zosima realizes, “I was going to kill a good, clever, noble man who was in no way guilty of wronging me, and thereby I would be depriving his wife of happiness forever, causing her suffering and death” (373). For the first time in Zosima’s life, he comes to recognize his personal actions and sins effect those around him. This recognition begins by seeing the obvious individual who would suffer from his sin, the wife of the man Zosima plans to murder. By killing the man in the duel, Zosima …show more content…

This love, which is most fully expressed when we live as though each is responsible for everything.” Throughout the novel, Zosima’s actions reveal the position of his heart. Dostoevsky, through Zosima, shows how these complex and difficult ideas can be lived out to produce paradise. He lives as a monk, to which people travel far to hear his wisdom, he treats each of these individuals with love, and caters to their needs. When Zosima meets with Alyosha’s family he bows at Dimitri’s feet. Even though Dimitri lives a life of greed and grotesque sin, Father Zosima chooses to humble himself below the sinner. Father Zosima lays in a state of complete mercy at Dimitri’s feet, an absurd action to those in the company. Later, Zosima confides in Alyosha, “I bowed down yesterday in recognition of the great suffering that he is to endure” (355). Zosima takes it upon himself to feel guilt and responsibility for the suffering Dimitri is about to endure, even though Dimitri lives a life of sensuality and greed, while Zosima has been practicing a holy life. Zosima recognizes the fact that, as an individual in sobornost, he stands guilty before Dimitri for any sin he has committed that has brought Dimitri to this point of suffering. Zosima sees his actions in the past and present as waves in the ocean, which at any point intermingled with Dimitri’s life. Another way in which Zosima actively acts out the

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