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Existentialism In The Brother's Karamazov

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The Brother’s Karamazov describes the life of a man, named Fyodor Karamazov, and his four sons. Each son represents a certain worldview which is explored throughout the novel. The oldest son, Dmitri, after arguing with his father over his inheritance, falls in love with a woman named Grushenka. When Fyodor is murdered, and three thousand roubles are stolen from him, the police accuse Dmitri because of his conflict with Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov describes how three men with contrasting world views discover the corruption of their family and the truth behind a hideous murder.
Existentialism is one worldview which is displayed in The Brother’s Karamazov. Existentialists believe that “life is absurd” and “survival of the fittest.” Ivan and Smerdyakov both view the world as …show more content…

Søren Kierkegaard is considered the father of existentialism (“Christian and Theological Existentialism”). Kierkegaard wrote a book about the paradox surrounding Abraham sacrificing Isaac. The narrator questions whether “Abraham’s faith in God can justify killing his son” (Søren Kierkegaard: A Master of Refraction 78). Another existentialist, Karl Jaspers, argues that, “free will makes all faith essentially existential. Jaspers also argues that, since life is absurd, it is less absurd to believe in a God which promises eternal life than to believe in nothing at all (“Christian and Theological Existentialism”).
Dostoyevsky uses two contrasting chapters to argue against atheistic existentialism. The Grand Inquisitor is a story written by Ivan Karamazov. In the story, Jesus visits the Spanish Inquisition, but the religious leaders do not want Him there. They claim that they already have freedom, and that His return will take the freedom away. The chapter reveals Ivan’s belief that the church is just a cult which thrives off of the weak, and it explains how incredibly boring a sinless world would

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1. The two sides of the debates in Dostoevsky’s “The Grand Inquisitor” are who can handle freedom the most. Christ gave human beings the freedom to choose weather or not to follow him, but almost no one is strong enough to be faithful and those who are not will be cursed forever. The Grand Inquisitor says that Christ should have given people no choice, and instead taken power and given people no choice, and instead taken power and given people redemption instead of freedom. So that the same people who were to scared to succeed Christ to begin with would still be stuck, but at least they could have joy and security on earth, rather than the impossible burden of moral freedom.

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“Existentialism is a philosophy concerned with finding self and the meaning of life through free will, choice, and personal responsibility. The belief is that people are searching to find out who and what they are throughout life as they make choices based on their experiences, beliefs, and outlook” (Clifton). Grendel’s

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Existentialism is a philosophical theory that was developed by Nietzsche and many other philosophers in the 19th century. In the first four chapters of the novel Grendel by John Gardner, the protagonist and the narrator, Grendel tells a story of his adolescence. Like any teenager, Grendel encounters multitude of events which molds him into what he is; an existentialist. Through the use of diction, personification, and simile in the narration of Grendel, John Gardner illustrates the cause of Grendel’s existential outlook.

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From the very beginning, Brothers Karamazov has been teeming with contradiction. It is a novel where everything has multiple dimensions and interpretations. Ranging from the motivations of a character to something simple like the names of the brothers. Nothing is as it seems and there are many intertwined connections that there are questions still unanswered at the end of the novel. The temptations described in the Grand Inquisitor—miracle, mystery, and authority—were proposed to Christ to relieve men’s burden of free will and to bring upon the fall of mankind.

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