The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion

The Brothers Karamazov
Week 7 - Part Three, Book VII

1) So the first chapter talks about how Father Zosima's body starts to decay and stink so quickly after he dies. This would have been significant to the Russian audience at the time because many believed that the bodies of their most revered dead saints did not emit an odor after death. Our modern minds wouldn't think anything of this. This seemed to cause different reactions in both the clergy and the laity. What do you make of the various responses to this event and its effect on the characters in the novel? What of the impact on Alyosha?

2) What is your reaction to Grushenka's story? What did you think of the interactions between Grushenka, Rakitin, and Alyosha?

3) Chapter 4 is entitled Cana of Galilee - from the bible passage that one of the priests was reading over the body of Zosima. Alyosha also dreams about Cana of Galilee and Father Zosima. What do you think is the meaning of his dream and his reaction to it?

2/ Grushella - “Grushella had become a plump, rosy beauty of the Russian type…………………proud and insolent”.

You’re not kidding! Dostoevsky is brilliant in his descriptive writing. There is Grushella sitting on the monk’s lap which her arm around him - what a scene! I was the fourth member of that group in the room with my hand over my face sniggering! This is more than a book, this is a play or a film, or even a TV serial and I can’t wait to see what they get up to in the next episode!

Grushenka is a confused seductress! what is her fate? she seemed to be devoid of morals to me earlier on, but now I feel sorry for her pure naïvety, lurching from one life choice to another!

Rakitin is a loathsome character, isn't he? I don't see any redeeming features in him.

Both of these characters may have a symbolic fate I feel...

I knew that people in the past had superstitious beliefs about the deterioration of the body after death, but Dostoevsky does a wonderful job of showing the depths of peoples superstition and ignorance. To belief so completely in someone's saintliness and then to abandon that belief so quickly for such a thing is amazing. As for Grushenka, I'm still on the fence about her. She obviously doesn't make good decisions for herself and has questionable morals for the time, but she also seems to be very naive about many things and deserving of pity. I suspect those qualities may combine to a bad ending for her.