The Brothers Karamazov

The Brothers Karamazov (?????? ?????????? in Russian) is generally considered one of the greatest novels by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky and the culmination of his life's work. It has been acclaimed all over the world by authors as diverse as Sigmund Freud, Andrew R. MacAndrew, Konstantin Mochulsky, Albert Einstein and Pope Benedict XVI as a masterpiece of literature and one of the greatest novels ever written. The book is written on two levels: on the surface it is the story of a patricide in which all of the murdered man's sons share varying degrees of complicity, but on a deeper level, it is a spiritual drama of the moral struggles between faith, doubt, reason, and free will. The novel was composed mostly in Staraya Russa, which is also the main setting of the book. Dostoevsky spent nearly two years writing The Brothers Karamazov, which was published as a serial in The Russian Messenger, and completed in November of 1880. The author died less than four months after publication.

The novel's influence

The Brothers Karamazov has had a tremendous influence on some of the greatest writers and philosophers that followed it. Sigmund Freud called it "The most magnificent novel ever written" and was fascinated with the book for its Oedipal themes. In 1928 Freud published a paper titled "Dostoevsky and Patricide" in which he investigated Dostoevsky's own neuroses and how they contributed to the novel. Freud claimed that Dostoevsky's epilepsy was not a natural condition but instead a physical manifestation of the author's hidden guilt over his father's death. According to Freud, Dostoevsky (and all sons for that matter) wished for the death of his father because of latent desire for his mother; and as evidence Freud cites the fact that Dostoevsky's epileptic fits did not begin until he turned 18, the year his father died. The themes of patricide and guilt, especially in the form of moral guilt illustrated by Ivan Karamazov, would then obviously follow for Freud as literary evidence of this theory.

Related Topics:
Philosopher - Sigmund Freud - Oedipal - 1928 - Latent

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Franz Kafka is another writer who felt immensely indebted to Dostoevsky and The Brothers Karamazov for influencing his own work. Kafka called himself and Dostoevsky "blood relatives" perhaps because of Dostoevsky's existential motifs. Also, Kafka battled his own debilitating illness, tuberculosis, as Dostoevsky struggled with epilepsy. Another interesting parallel between the two authors was their strained relationships with their fathers. Kafka felt immensely drawn to the hatred Fyodor's sons demonstrate toward him in The Brothers Karamazov and dealt with the theme of fathers and sons himself in many of his works, but most explicitly in his short story "The Judgement".

Related Topics:
Franz Kafka - Existential - Tuberculosis - Short story

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~