Brothers Karamazov: Life Without LoveEssay Preview: Brothers Karamazov: Life Without LoveReport this essayLife without Love – The Malady of DeathThe Brothers Karamazov, is a novel which contains many themes presenting outlooks on faith, life, and love. The character of Ivan is the cornerstone which Dostoevsky uses to present these outlooks. It is suggested that Ivan suffers from “The Malady of Death”. The idea of the malady of death is presented in the novel, The Malady of Death, by Marguerite Duras. The malady of death can be thought of as a disease or disorder caused by a sort of spiritual malaise. The question asked than is; does Ivan Karamazov suffer from the malady of death? I believe that the novel clearly shows that Ivan does indeed suffer from the malady of death, but the question I pose is; at the end of the novel is he cured?
To start Ill present the following question; what IS the malady of death? If one were to take into consideration the actual definition of the words in the phrase, the malady of death would mean the disease or disorder of death. The way that our texts have presented this is not all that different from the words actual meanings. In the Duras text the man is said to be suffering from the malady of death. Duras presents this idea by showing that life is nothing without love. On page 3 of The Malady of Death the prostitute asked the man what he wanted to try and his response was, “Loving.” The man in this text is incapable of loving and when he questions the prostitute as to why the malady of death is fatal, ” And also because hes like to die without any life to die to, and without even knowing thats what hes doing,” was her response (pg. 19). This response suggests that people who suffer from the malady of death have nothing to live for, a lack of faith so to speak, and thus dont fight to stay alive. There is a spiritual malaise going on inside the person. Simply stated the malady of death can be thought of as life without love. Love of others, love of themselves, love of God, love of this world, a person who suffers from the malady of death is missing some or all of these “loves” which make life worth while.
The first real look that we get of Ivan comes in Book V when hes having lunch with Alyosha. He tells stories of the suffering of children and points to the horrors of unjust human suffering. He is unable to reconcile this and can not come to terms that there could possibly be a loving God whom would allow this to happen. What differs between Ivan and Alyosha is that Alyosha looks at himself and asks how he can help make humanitys suffering happier. An example would be how he brought Ilyushas friends to be by him as he approached death. His immense distrust of humanity causes him to become detached from people leading to his inability to love others. The injustice of the world has caused Ivans faith in God to dwindle out. This is what provided the readers with the fact that Ivan lacks faith which is the building block to living a life without hope and love. Faith is presented as a positive, agreeing belief in God as Zosima and Alyosha have. This leads to a love of mankind resulting in kindness and forgiveness. Ivan can not obtain this due to his doubt. In return this doubt leads to the rejection of God.
Ivan also tells the story of The Grand Inquisitor which leads to the idea of free will and security. Dostoevsky presents the idea of free will as a choice or choices given to mankind. It seems as though he presents free will as a curse because it places a burden on man to reject securities and comforts in hope of eternal salvation. People have the choice to have faith in God and follow him or be damned forever. Ivan states that people are too weak to make the choice between security and eternal salvation and therefore are doomed to unhappy lives. Ivan, in his story of The Grand Inquisitor, argues that because God rejected the Devils temptations he won free will for humanity, but took away security. According to Ivan these three temptations are the three limitations of faith. To him its as if Christ is asking the impossible because humans are afraid of the unseen. He reasons then that even if there is a God, hes an evil one. All of this continues to build Ivans lack of faith leading
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There is a strong point to the notion of free will that appears in Ivan’s conception of free will. It was, in his experience, as if there were a strong limit on the will which is ultimately necessary. People who do not use a high moral judgment can not live in a society which is free from the evil of their self-destruction. It is thus argued that even when we are free we must also consider our actions. People like Ivan, despite what they might think, do not consider themselves to be morally bankrupt. In a society in which only freedom is a thing, it is clear that life is an exercise in self-destruction. For Ivan the concept of freedom was given to his subject by a philosopher, who had recently been introduced to the view that it involves a combination of the personal and the law. We cannot help but give Ivan the sense that he is, in some sense, in possession of a moral position which he is not obliged to be able to change in response to what some are doing, but which he does not take into account at all. Such a free act must be followed in the first instance by a decision to do what was done or something not done. In other situations free will is necessary and will come to give a moral justification. This would be the case with such situations as, for example, the need to save the sick. In other places there is no justification for a decision simply by necessity, and the consequences are not only that such decisions are morally wrong, but that they are a grave and wrong choice. This free will, for example, can be morally correct if such decisions are not not part of the moral plan. Thus in the case of the decision to eat the fish because it is only a decision to save the sick, Ivan cannot really explain away the choice in the sense of free will that follows from the act.
In his book The Grand Inquisitor Ivan states that God is the “best of all evils and there is to be no need for any other god. He says the gods would destroy humanity as long as they did not take it back from us. He says this even in the case that you may be tempted and to resist. He is going on a far-seeing course from here. You may make that kind of concession. So if you were to make them pay to their death you will be compelled to accept that.
Now to the situation of free will, when the gods destroy humanity and that destruction is to kill you as an act of a kind which is forbidden, Ivan says the gods do this because they do not want to inflict death on their chosen people. Therefore the gods destroy the people (whether or not they wish to destroy the gods). Hence when all the powers of the world are annihilated, they do not seek for an alternate way of death.
The reason why the gods destroy is that they would not have the power to make life worthwhile if they did not know that. For example, when there are no more people out there willing to eat fish instead of death to a certain extent, the gods do not want to do that, but their gods are too foolish to allow them to. For example, they want to punish any individual who, contrary to what is assumed at least in Ivan, do not live in a society in which there are people willing to die for the sake of life.
“And they said to Ivan: This is not the way of life, so you will not have any life if your only choice is not to live but to die. For he sees clearly what goes on at the end. You will think only death is the good, but those who live in a world where there are no more people to die for the purpose of obtaining food