Brothers Karamazov question

Hello guys

A friend of mine says that Christ gets recrucified in the Brothers Karamazov. I just read the novel and found nothing of the sort.

Does anyone know what he is talking about?

Thanks

Rod

I think your friend may have gotten confused with another book, because I dont think anything like that happened in the novel :)

The only bit of the Bs K I have read was an except in a short story collection. One of the brothers tells another a story about Christ returning to earth during the Spanish Inquisition. The Grand Inquisitor immediately imprisons Christ and sentences him to death. He then spends the night at Christ's side explaining exhaustively why what people need most now is oppression, not the wisdom and freedom Christ offers. I don't want to give away the end and I'm not really doing it if I admit that at the end Christ is executed, though I think this time he's burned at the stake, not crucified.

Also, don't forget, the Bs K is two volumes. Perhaps you haven't finished it yet.

Dmitri escapes from punishment in the end (and he's hardly a Christlike figure anyway) so no, that doesn't happen. There's a lot of Christ's story in Nathanael West's "The Day of the Locust," though.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by superunknown

Dmitri escapes from punishment in the end (and he's hardly a Christlike figure anyway) so no, that doesn't happen.

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Indeed, Dmitri escapes a lot of punishment, but primarily because he attains a spiritual nature in the end; of course, no more than Alyosha, the most admirable character of the novel, in my opinion. Perhaps the so-called 're-crucification' in the novel, though I have heard many interpretations of the complex novel, points more at the forgiveness of Dmitri? Just a thought . . .

Dimitri and Alyosha both exhibit Christlike attributes. I believe your friend is in fact referring to Mityas arrest and trial. Dostoevsky creates a correspondence between Mityas suffering and Christs crucifixion. The author is in part concerned with preserving (or perhaps reseating) the Christian tradition of belief in a post-enlightenment world where science leaves little room for God.

But, what did your "friend" say when you asked him?

I'm guessing your friend is talking about the famous Grand Inquisitor story, which is often excerpted as a stand alone passage, and is told by Ivan to Alyosha to antagonize him. In the story Christ doesn't get re-crucified but he is imprisoned which is certainly an allegory of his original imprisonment which preceded his crucifixion.

Dmitri and Christ are not similar at all.