Brothers Karamazov: Life Without Love

Life without Love - The Malady of Death

The 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 I'll 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 he's like to die without any life to die to, and without even knowing that's what he's 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 don't 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 he's 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 humanity's suffering happier. An example would be how he brought Ilyusha's 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 Ivan's 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 Devil's 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 it's as if Christ is asking the impossible because humans are afraid of the unseen. He reasons then that even if there is a God, he's an evil one. All of this continues to build Ivan's lack of faith leading