The Russian novelist Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky stands at the very summit of Russian literature and is considered by many to have brought the Western novel to the peak of its possibilities. Sigmund Freud, for one, considered the treatment of patricide in The Brothers Karamazov the equal of that of Shakespeare in Hamlet and of Sophocles in Oedipus Rex, while Jean Paul Sartre has said that all of French Existentialism is to be found in Dostoyevsky's Ivan Karamazov's contention that if there is no God, everything is permitted.
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existentialism and Fyodor Dostoyevskydied Feb. 9, 1881, St. Petersburg, Russia
You are told a lot about your education, but some beautiful, sacred memory, preserved since childhood, is perhaps the best education of all. If a man carries many such memories into life with him, he is saved for the rest of his days. And even if only one good memory is left in our hearts, it may also be the instrument of our salvation one day. --Fyodor Dostoyevsky |
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One of the triumphs of world literature, The Brothers Karamazov is a summation of Dostoyevsky's beliefs and concerns and develops his greatest themes: rationalism versus irrationalism; the struggle between love and hatred, faith and unfaith; the dangers represented by socialism and the attempt to engineer human happiness; the power of sensuality; the reality and unreality of God; and the conflict between generations. The central drama of the novel is the struggle between the repulsive father, Fyodor Karamazov, and his four sons. Each of the sons represents a universal trait of humanity: Alyosha, saintliness; Dmitri, passion and sensuality; Ivan, the intellect; and Smerdyakov, ugliness of body, mind, and spirit. Dostoyevsky explores the right of a child to raise his hand against his father and, by extension, the right of man to raise his hand against God. The novel seems to encompass the breadth of the human condition and its capabilities; here, the art and vision of Dostoyevsky reached their peak. |
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