The Pains of Hell: Suffering in the Brothers Karamazov
What does it mean to be in Hell? The final section of the chapter “Talks and Homilies” in The Brothers Karamazov provides a meditation by Father Zosima on the metaphysical nature of Hell and attempts to answer to this question. This passage provides a vital way of framing the novel to understand the suffering of characters within it, specifically Fyodor Karamazov. Does Fyodor exhibit any signs of already being in Hell? What is to be made of the illustrations of Hell beyond Zosima’s, especially that of Fyodor’s? While Hell is not a major theme or topic of the book, suffering is. The treatments of Hell that do exist within the novel display significance, not as a major theme in themselves, but as a way to understand the suffering of the characters. There are three indicators of a hellish existence, the inability to love, pride, and materialism. These elements are all present throughout the novel and the suffering characters who exhibit them.
What is Hell to Zosima? There are a number of elements, the first of which relates to love. Zosima begins his discourse on Hell with a strong claim: “Fathers and teachers, I ask myself: ‘What is hell?’ and I answer thus: ‘The suffering of being no longer able to love’” (322). To live in Hell is to live without love for others. It is not an internal issue, except insofar as the suffering is felt, but is an issue of outward expression closed off. It might be described as an inverse relationship—the closer you are to Hell the further you get from loving relationships. Zosima also makes use of a biblical illustration to back up his claims about hell, describing the following scene:
This fortunate being rejected the invaluable gift [of life], did not value it, did not love it, looked upon it with scorn, and was left unmoved by it … his torment is precisely to rise up to the Lord without having loved, to touch those who loved him—him who disdained their love. For he sees clearly and says to himself: “... Abraham will not come with a drop of living water ... to cool the flame of the thirst for spiritual love ... life is over, and time will be no more! (322)
In this biblical view, it is the rejection of both the gift of life and the opportunity to love that leads to Hell. There is an understanding here that it is only within the confines of life and time that one can choose love, or at least that a rejection of love within one’s life is a rejection of love completely. This is illustrated in another way through Grushenkas story about the onion: “God answered [to the angel]: now take that same onion … let her take hold of it … if the onion breaks, she can stay where she is … [the woman] began to kick [those holding on to her] ‘...it’s my onion, not yours.’ No sooner did she say it than the onion broke… she’s burning there to this day” (352). The woman starts the story in Hell, and ends up remaining there when she kicks down those who tried to escape with her. Her one good deed was not able to overcome her lack of love. That good deed breaks with the rejection of those who suffer.
Fyodor deeply and sadly reflects this lack of loving relationships. One would presume that, as a father, his most important personal and loving relationships are with his children. Fyodor would disagree. In fact, early in the narrative, he abandons all three of his children and forgets about them. Fyodor was not even interested in giving his children the chance to have a loving relationship. Instead, it was on to the next thing for him. Further, Fyodor is not even able to keep the identity of the mother of his children straight in his head as he forgets who Ivan’s mother even was. Those whom he ought to be closest with are not even remembered by Fyodor. His entire understanding of love is skewed and improper.
Similarly, Fyodor seems to have lived unmoved by the gift of life. After he is dead and gone, the prosecutor says of him, “The old man’s whole moral rule is… everything contrary to the idea of a citizen, a complete, even hostile separation from society: ‘Let the whole world burn, so long as I am all right’” (696). Not only does Fyodor’s long life end in tragedy, but the reputation he leaves behind is that of an alien to his own community. There are no words about good deeds of Fyodor’s, not even when he is dead.
Zosima is well aware of pride’s relation to Hell: “Oh, there are those who remain proud and fierce even in hell, in spite of their certain knowledge and contemplation of irrefutable truth… They cannot look upon the living God without hatred and demand that there be no God of life, that God destroy himself and all his creation…” (323). This is a warning against the sin of pride; those who are prideful will reject truth to simply wallow in their own suffering. This is not a flattering image, pride being the first sin of all. These people might be thought of as those who are in Hell and especially cut off from love. While the rich man from the biblical account looks up and understands what he is missing, the prideful man looks further down and rejects the notion that he has chosen wrong.
Think here, too, of the son Ivan. Ivan flatly rejects the gift of life given to him, saying, “It’s not God that I do not accept, you understand, it is this world of God’s created by God that I do not accept… let [redemption], let all of this come true and be revealed, but I do not accept it… Let the parallel lines even meet before my own eyes: I shall look and say, yes, they meet, and still I will not accept it. That is my essence” (236). Ivan, portraying pride in this answer, makes the very bold claim that it is the nature of the world itself that he rejects. This notion fundamentally disconnects him from those with whom he surrounds himself. Ivan looks upon God and regards him with hatred and rejection. His pride is his undoing. Further, Fyodor displays pride too. Fyodor’s inflated ego reveals itself when he says, “Wickedness is sweet: everyone denounces it, but everyone lives in it, only they all do it on the sly and I do it openly” and “I could marry Grushka right now if I wanted to. Because with money one only needs to want… and one gets everything” (173). Fyodor clearly has a distorted view of himself. Since he has money, whatever he wants is to be his, and he is also in a position above others because he refuses to hide his wickedness. This is no virtue, and his reveling in it displays his own rejection of the obvious truth.
Finally, Zosima discusses the material nature of Hell. This is perhaps one of the most profound passages in the section, and is in direct conversation with the beginning of the novel. Zosima says,
People speak of the material flames of hell. I do not explore this mystery… but I think that if there were material flames, truly people would be glad to have them, for, as I fancy, in material torment they might forget… their far more terrible spiritual torment. And yet it is impossible to take this spiritual torment from them, for this torment is not external but is within them (323)
While Zosima claims to not explore the mystery, he does provide enough commentary to feed a healthy discussion. These material flames, what most might imagine the pains of hell to be, are actually a blessing to those who suffer. Material torment is nothing compared to spiritual torment. To suffer without love is, to Zosima, even worse than to burn for all time. Zosima, while not rejecting the idea of material punishments in Hell, undermines it greatly. What kind of Hell would be less of a punishment than it otherwise could be? This consideration is also reinforced by Zosima’s initial claim that Hell is the suffering from an inability to love. The lack of love is utterly immaterial. The cards are stacked against literal fires; yet this is not a cause for joy.
This conversation recalls an earlier exchange between Alyosha and Fyodor on the same topic, the material nature of hell. Fyodor says,
Because if there’s no ceiling [to Hell], then there are no hooks. And if there are no hooks, the whole thing falls apart, which, again, is unlikely, because then who will drag me down with hooks… ‘No, there are no hooks there,’ Alyosha said quietly and seriously, studying his father… ‘Yes, yes. Only shadows of hooks. That’s how one Frenchman described hell: [I saw the shade of a coachman scrubbing the shade of a carriage with the shade of a brush]... But go, get to the truth [in the monastery], and come back and tell me… (24)
Fyodor has this interesting connection to hooks. He thinks they must exist, because without them there is no way for him to get to Hell. Presumably he would not go of his own accord. Alyosha rejects the notion of the hooks, quietly and simply. Even when Fyodor concedes to Alyosha though, he still speaks of hooks, just that they are shadows of some kind. There is always a connection to the material for Fyodor. Most interestingly though, is that Fyodor points to the monastery as the place to find the true answer, and it is in the monastery that Zosima’s talks and homilies comes in.
To be in Hell is to lack in love, excel in pride, and fixate on the material. Zosima points to these issues as that which make us suffer and create rot. Fyodor abandons his children, flaunts himself, and longs for hooks to drag him down. Zosima’s pain is palpable, but his pains of hell are exactly the pains suffered throughout The Brothers Karamazov. Through a deeper understanding of these sins, one can come to a greater understanding of each character’s affiliation with each sin. Without Zosima’s talks and homilies, the suffering of The Brothers Karamazov becomes meaningless, and with it the reader understands precisely why those who suffer do.
Works Cited
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. 1990. The Brothers Karamazov. Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. New York, NY. North Point Press.