F.M. Dostoevsky, “The Brothers Karamazov”, a brief summary ... The first lines of the novel begin with an epigraph: “Verily, verily I say unto you, if a grain of wheat, falling into the ground, does not die, then there will be only one; and if he dies, he will bear much fruit (Gospel of John). ” It is in these words that the main idea of ​​the work sounds. What do they mean? The world is a struggle and unity of two opposites. Is death always evil? Is white always light? Is a fight needed? Is suffering necessary? What is the soul in this battle? Who is God in this fight? And is he there? These and other questions are read in the fates, deeds, words of the main characters ...
Summary: “The Brothers Karamazov”
The action of the novel takes place in the small town of Skotoprigonyevsk in the 70s of the 19th century. On the first page we find ourselves in a monastery, in the monastery of Elder Zosima, who is known in the district as a righteous man and healer. The prayer place becomes the scene on which the main characters gather. The author introduces us in detail to each of them, symbolically anticipating subsequent tragic events.
Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov is the father of a large family, a slutty, cynical person, infinitely greedy and unusually cruel. The extreme, sometimes terrible craving for power, for earthly pleasures and pleasures erases in it all existing boundaries between good and evil, destroys eternal values. The related, spiritual thread that connects him with the children is also lost.
The eldest son Dmitry Karamazov is a man with unbridled passions; he, like a pendulum, throws him from one extreme to another. He is honest, ready for generous deeds and at the same time can be extremely cruel and ruthless. His soul is drawn to love, to light, to deep faith, and every day he gives himself the word that he will stop this hectic life, full of drunkenness and debauchery. But the forces that influence the oscillations of its pendulum are so great and uncontrollable that the creative energy in it is instantly transformed into destructive. This is the so-called spontaneous "Karamaz" force, which was transferred to one degree or another from his father, Fyodor Pavlovich, to each of his offspring.
Ivan Karamazov is the middle son, outwardly calm, restrained, rationally thinking. But passions rage in him, and the struggle between faith and godlessness does not stop. At first glance, he is more of a silent observer than an active participant in the unfolding drama. But this impression is misleading. His tacit consent played a decisive role, it became a real killer .... However, we will not get ahead of ourselves.
Continuing to describe the summary of The Brothers Karamazov, we return to the younger offspring of Fyodor Pavlovich, who, according to Dostoevsky, is the main person. Alyosha Karamazov is the third, youngest son - a novice with Zosima, an honest, sincere, deeply believing young man who is in a constant search for truth and reconciliation. It was with his submission that the whole family gathered in the monastery of the elder in order to resolve the flaring property dispute between the father and the eldest of the brothers.
What are human passions? This is a frantic desire to possess here and now. It is so great that a person is ready to take extreme measures, if only to achieve his goal. It is in the possession of someone or something that he sees himself as truly happy. Just such a duel for happiness takes place between Dmitry and his parent. At stake are three thousand rubles and the beauty Grushenka, in whom both are immensely in love. In the elder’s monastery, reconciliation does not occur.
On the contrary, it all ends with a scandal.
Zosima, seeing through the eyes of God the soul of man, gives everyone a parting word. Before Dmitry, he kneels, truly loving for his future sufferings and for the pain through which he needs to go through to clear himself. He blesses Ivan, wisely noting that the question in his heart has not yet been resolved. He tells Fedor Pavlovich that his buffoonery comes only from the fact that he is ashamed of himself. And Alyosha, he punishes being with his brothers and father now.
Everyone disagrees, and a series of events unfolds in the city of Skotoprigonyevsk. They follow one after another: words thrown into a rage, rash acts, increasing resentment. They, like a storm that is growing every minute, captures everyone and everything along the way, turns black, ready to collapse and destroy everything around. Someone will die, but someone will stand ....
Dmitry is increasingly demanding money from his father. With each new day, hatred and jealousy grows stronger. He day and night guards his beloved Grushenka at his father’s house, if she, seduced by the money of Fedor Pavlovich, decides to come to him. He becomes extremely suspicious and beats his parent in a fit of rage and despair. But another secret is hidden in his soul, his shame - he walked the strangers of three thousand with Grushenka in an inn in the village of Mokroe. And Katerina Ivanovna, his formal bride, gave him this money to send them to her sister in Moscow. Great shame and guilt before the girl for his theft, for his betrayal, for his love for another push him to a desperate step.
Ivan secretly in love with Dmitry’s bride. Every day he sits “under the strain” and involuntarily plunges into her tormented soul, where there is a struggle between the feat of fidelity to the groom and a deep feeling for him, Ivan. Every day he watches the undisguised cynicism of his father, who is ready to exchange everyone and everything, if only to live to the end in his filth. Every day, he becomes an involuntary listener of Smerdyakov’s deeply immoral, low reasoning, who is supposedly the illegitimate son of Karamazov from the wanderer of Lizaveta. He listens and with a sense of disgust realizes that the words of the footman in some way echo with his own thoughts. Is everything allowed or not? If you believe in God and the immortality of the soul, then not all, but if not ... So, everyone chooses how he is better and more comfortable in the world.
In his doubts, he writes the poem “The Grand Inquisitor”, in which he raises the main questions: acceptance of God and rejection of the peace of God, which is justice, the pursuit of perfection and what is the true harmony of God, what is the difference between human happiness and true. The culmination of his “storm” is the last conversation with Smerdyakov, in which the latter advises him to leave the city for a few days, extensively hinting that anything can happen to his father in his absence. Ivan is outraged, but at the same time intrigued, and agrees ...
Alyosha, following the instructions of the old man and his own loving soul, talks, mentors and tries to help everyone. He sees confusion in everyone’s heart, he observes this endless cruelty and indifference, he witnesses an endless duel between true values ​​and sin, in which a person more often chooses to fall into the abyss, and doubts also arise in his soul. At this time, the elder Zosima dies. Around there is the expectation of a miracle after his death, but instead of the expected, there is the smell of decay. Alyosha is confused. Too many stones on his path to truth that they knock down and want to destroy ....
Passions run high, the storm surges, and the death of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov becomes the apotheosis. Who is the killer? A combination of circumstances and facts speak against the eldest son. He is being arrested. The trial begins. Dmitry is a libertine, a liar, a brawler and a drunkard, but he is not a killer. Smerdyakov confesses to Ivan the murder of his father and tells in detail how this happened, warning that it was he, Ivan, who was his inspirer, and with his secret consent, a terrible crime occurred. Ivan is in despair. On the one hand, he does not admit guilt, and on the other, his conscience says the opposite. He intends to go to court and talk about how everything really happened. Smerdyakov, disappointed in him, in his ideas about permissiveness, gives him the stolen money and hangs himself. Ivan feverishly stands trial and confesses to his assistance to this crime: "The footman killed, but I taught."
Ekaterina Ivanovna hysterically gets a decisive letter, Dmitry’s last message to her, in which he writes in detail about his desire to kill his father and collect the money owed to him. This evidence is becoming key. Thus, she saves Ivan and destroys Dmitry, the ulcer of her heart that she promises to love forever, no matter what ... Finishing to describe the summary of “The Brothers Karamazov”, we proceed to the final, no less symbolic scene - the funeral of the little boy Ilyushenka Snegirev. At the burial, Alyosha calls on those gathered to love life, to appreciate its wonderful moments, to be kind and honest ....
“The Brothers Karamazov”: summary, conclusion
At the end of the path you always want to go back to the beginning and remember how it all began .... Getting to the description “Summary of“ The Brothers Karamazov ”, we touched on the epigraph. In conclusion, I would definitely like to return to it: “Verily, verily, I say to you: if a grain of wheat, falling into the ground, does not die, then there will be only one; and if he dies, he will bear much fruit (Gospel of John). ” "Wheat grains" fell into the ground. Many of them were trampled, pressed into the mud and destroyed, but it was their “death”, their fall, pain and suffering that would bring “much fruit” - spiritual purification and love ....