Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov is fundamentally one about God and Christianity, but for Ivan – the middle Karamazov brother – God’s existence is not a pressing problem. Ivan does not struggle with accepting a God, he tells his younger brother Alexey, but he does struggle with embracing the world that God has created; if life is a play, Ivan says, then “I hasten to return my entrance ticket” (212). Unloved, yet described as incapable of love himself, Ivan is utterly unfulfilled in life. But he is an intriguing character – just when the reader thinks they might be beginning to understand him, another layer to Ivan is revealed which does not quite fit with one’s previous image of him. He is an intellectual, a thinker, but filled with despair, for at the core of his many philosophical musings and ideas presented throughout the book is a dark belief – that he is morally obligated to kill himself. Albert Camus says that suicide is the “one truly serious philosophical problem,” and it is indeed a serious problem for Ivan, one which presumably eats away at him. He sees neither a meaning to life nor a logical reason to live, but rather says, “I go on living in spite of logic” (199). However, while Dostoevsky creates Ivan as a character troubled by the dilemma of suicide, The Brothers Karamazov is a novel in many senses about why Ivan’s argument is wrong – why, as Alexey says, “one should love life above everything in the world,” and only then can one understand the meaning of it (213). Dostoevsky wants us to realize that, yes, there is terrible suffering in the world, and indeed we should be disturbed by it, but ending one’s life – giving up, in a sense, or walking out of the “play of life” – is not the best way to deal with this fact. Instead, the character of Alexey Karamazov is given to us to show perhaps how we might act instead, emphasizing that we do have power to alleviate suffering in the world.
Ivan’s argument, again, has little to do with him being an atheist. In fact, he describes himself as more of an agnostic: “I can’t expect to understand about God,” he tells Alexey (203). When presenting his argument to his brother, Ivan focuses on one specific aspect of wrong in the world, the suffering of children. He believes that even if God does exist and has a grand plan to make sense of the suffering of children, and even if the mothers of murdered children might one day embrace such murderers in heaven, this cannot possibly be worth it; children should not have to suffer so terribly, no matter God’s plan. Ivan puts his troubles succinctly when he asks, “If everyone must suffer in order to buy eternal harmony with suffering, what do children have to do with it, tell me, please?” (211). Furthermore, he is put off by the fact the pain of these children goes unredeemed. For if there is no God, then certainly their suffering is for naught – there is no eternal harmony. But if there is an all-powerful God, then Ivan believes the torturers and murderers cannot truly be guilty – everything is part of God’s plan. Ivan grieves that “there is suffering and that there are none guilty…I can’t consent to live by it…I need retribution, otherwise I will destroy myself” (211). Indeed, Ivan wants to avenge the tears of children, but he recognizes that he cannot really have retribution – that would only lead to more suffering in the world, and he wants suffering to end. There is only one logical way forward, then, Ivan thinks. “If I am an honest man,” he says, “I am obligated to return [my ticket] as soon as possible,” so as to reject the world God created by refusing to live in it.
Ivan’s argument is disturbing to Alexey, who finds a flaw in it in that Ivan has disregarded the notion that God is a being capable of forgiving the murderers and torturers (and thus, presumably, redeeming the children’s tears). There are things wrong with the argument from the perspective of a reader, too. First, Ivan cannot be thought of as a reliable source of philosophical knowledge. His narrative is described as being nonsensical, almost insane: Alexey points out, “you seem to be in some kind of madness,” and later in his monologue, Ivan talks “as though in delirium” (206, 211). His mental instability is highlighted by the fact that he collects these short stories of tortured children – a very strange hobby. Ivan contradicts himself in his speech, too: initially, he states, “I may not believe in the order of the universe, yet I love the sticky little leaves as they open in spring,” but later tells Alexey, “I believe in the underlying order and the meaning of life” (199, 203). Fundamentally, his argument says that the meaning of life, God, and the order of the universe are all irrelevant. He does not care about these, for they are beyond his understanding. But, Ivan treats the suffering of children as something separate from these things, something he can understand, and he refuses to allow any deeper meaning of life or “eternal harmony” to make up for such suffering. This is where Ivan and his younger brother diverge. Alexey has faith in God and His ability to forgive everything, to make sense of the suffering of children. Ivan accepts that God might have some meaning for life, but he cannot accept that God might have some justification for children’s tears. When Ivan asks his question – about what children have to do with suffering for eternal harmony – Alexey would say we cannot understand the answer, but Ivan thinks there is no acceptable answer, even though he’s already admitted there are things he could never understand.
Ultimately, Ivan’s line of reasoning makes sense in some regards. He cannot stop the suffering in the world, and he cannot redeem it, so he simply doesn’t want to participate in life. However, it ignores a totally separate concept: the fact that one can participate in life in other ways; though suffering may go on, one can still have a positive impact on those around them, and through such actions make life meaningful. While Ivan is disturbed by children being beaten by their parents or torn apart my dogs, he does not even think about helping the people (children or not) directly around him. Ivan argues for the obligation of killing himself, but he does not do so – why not? He says that he enjoys life too much, he is driven by a youthful passion despite logic, but perhaps he also hesitates because of what he sees in front of him: Alexey, showing a different way to respond to suffering in the world.
Alexey shows the reader that, indeed, one should love life more than the meaning of it. We see him lost in confusion, too, when confronted with the mess of his brothers’ involvement with Katerina Ivanovna. Though it is perhaps a small issue in the grand scheme of things, still – Alexey “found nothing but uncertainty and tangles on all sides,” and “Alyosha’s heart could not endure uncertainty” (164). Yet he does endure it, and we see Alexey respond to his inner turmoil not as Ivan would – by withdrawing, disengaging – but in the very next scene going to the cottage of a poor family that his brother Dimitri has wronged, in order to apologize and offer money to help them. He focuses on suffering that he can assuage, in the hopes that this will bring him some level of fulfillment – and it does, for Alexey is “delighted that he had brought [the family’s father] such happiness” (182). Compare this to Ivan, who, when confronted with confusion and depression after his dinner with Alexey, goes home and is consumed by meaningless hate for Smerdyakov (a family servant), before deciding to leave town – again, not participating in the play of life. Ivan cannot engage in active love, of which Alexey is the exemplar. He cannot even understand it; when hearing of a story of the saint “John the Merciful” helping warm a frozen beggar, Ivan is convinced the saint helped out of “the sake of the love imposed by duty, as a penance laid on him,” not believing that someone could actually love a beggar (204).
Though Ivan claims to love humanity, we are not given any evidence that he does so. He says he loves humanity from afar – but one might question, in the manner of Jean-Paul Sartre, if loving from afar (and not practicing any active love for those around them) really means anything. What is loving humanity if not showing it through acts of love? Ivan’s fundamental flaw is that he thinks he has no influence on the torturers and murderers of the world; he is appalled by their actions and wants to reject life because of it. Yet Alexey and his mentor, the elder father Zosima, speak of the exact opposite, that “every one of us in undoubtedly responsible for all men and everything on earth” (146). Dostoevsky presents Zosima as admirable character, one for both the reader and Alexey to look up to, and he explains just exactly why Ivan is wrong to disengage with the world. Zosima says the following to his friends and fellow monks, but it reads as if it is meant exactly for Ivan:
If the evildoing of men moves you to indignation and overwhelming distress…understand that you too are guilty, for you might have been a light to the evildoers…If you had been a light, you would have lightened the path for others too, and the evildoer might perhaps have been saved by your light from his sin (277).
Ivan does not recognize that he can stop some of the suffering in the world. His decision to not much participate in life – or, in the extreme, kill himself – should be viewed not as simply disengaging, but in fact actively choosing to not help those suffering in the world. His logic to the conclusion of suicide does not just imply a neutral effect, but a negative one.
Furthermore, if everyone indeed has a moral duty to kill themselves, one might ask Ivan, when? Certainly not as a child – that wouldn’t fit with Ivan’s argument. About himself, Ivan says at age thirty he will “be sure to fling down the cup” (199). But what is one supposed to do in those thirty years? Watch life as an observer – a nonparticipant – as Ivan does? No; the reader is shown in the novel that Ivan is continually led astray by the lack of love in his life. The Karamazov’s father Fyodor states, “Ivan loves nobody,” and he is presumably correct (155). Naturally (but not for Ivan), children before age thirty will come to love and be loved by others. Again, a child surely ought not to kill him or herself. So, when it does come time to act upon what Ivan believes is a moral duty, committing suicide, doing so would only lead to more suffering by the people closest to the dead. In the case of the child that was torn apart by dogs – and by which Ivan is so disturbed – had he not died and instead grown up, should he still kill himself knowing that his mother would suffer terribly? Or, should he also insist to his mother that she ought to kill herself, too? Ivan does not take the love of others into consideration when articulating his reasoning, because he does not experience love in his own life.
Dostoevsky is clearly for the case that one should practice active love; that doing so is worthwhile, and the correct response to suffering in the world – not “returning one’s ticket.” He calls Alexey the hero of the novel, and Alexey believes that loving others, loving life “regardless of logic” is essential (199). The reader sees Alexey happy, ecstatic even, in his moments of love, but Ivan only despairful. Alexey treats children with love and care, but Ivan simply does not interact with them at all. One might think that Dostoevsky (and Alexey) would like the story of the “Star Thrower”: when an older man, out for his morning walk on the beach, comes across a young boy throwing dried starfish back into the ocean, he observes, “This beach is covered in thousands of starfish. Why bother throwing them back one by one? You’re not really making a difference.” The young boy throws another starfish into the water and responds, “it made a difference for that one” (The Star Thrower). Ivan, in his despair, is overwhelmed by distress at the number of suffering children in the world, but Alexey focuses on the fact that he can help some. This contrast in Dostoevsky’s characters is seen pervasively in fantasy books and Hollywood, too – heroes often become disillusioned with the world and their ability to help; they ask what it’s all for and consider withdrawing from their community, but in the end, they choose to try to do good. Likewise, active love, for Dostoevsky and for his hero Alexey, is the only forward.
Citations
Dostoevsky, Fyodor et al. The Brothers Karamazov: A Revised Translation Contexts Criticism. 2nd ed. W.W. Norton 2011
Wikipedia Contributors. “The Star Thrower.” Wikipedia, 18 Nov. 2022, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star_Thrower