The Brothers Karamazov: Chapter Two
The First Son Sent Packing: Chapter Summary
As soon as Adelaida Ivanovna flees from her marriage to Fyodor Pavlovich, Fyodor Pavlovich forgets all about his three-year-old son. For a year, a servant raises the neglected Dmitri. Dmitri is then passed around among a number of his mother's relatives, including her cousin, Pyotr Alexandrovich Miusov. These relatives lead Dmitri to believe that he has inherited some of his mother's money and property, which is now in the care of his father. After a wild young adulthood and a stint in the army, Dmitri visits his father to learn the details of the inheritance. Fyodor Pavlovich evades Dmitri's questions and gives him a small sum of money to quiet him. After Dmitri leaves, his father successfully manipulates him by sending him other small payments, which lead Dmitri to believe that he has a sizable inheritance. But when Dmitri next visits his father, Fyodor Pavlovich tells him that he has paid out all of the money from his mother's inheritance, and that Dmitri might even owe a small sum to his father. Dmitri, stunned, quickly concludes that his father is attempting to cheat him, and he remains in the town to fight what he believes is his father's unwillingness to hand over the fortune that is rightfully Dmitri's.
It should be interesting to readers that each character in Dostoevsky's quartet of personalities works as a foil, or contrast, for each of the others. Because the novel's philosophical themes are immediately connected to the personalities of its characters, the conflicts and contrasts between the main characters come to symbolize some of the most fundamental problems of human existence. The difference between Ivan and Alyosha, for example, represents the conflict between faith and doubt. Though none of these philosophical issues are given extensive treatment in this section, each of them, along with many others, is expanded and developed as the novel progresses. In the end, the story of the Karamazov brothers enacts a part of the drama of ideas on which civilization itself is based.
For these reasons, and many more, it is important for all of those who are involved with this study to be sure to place their appropriate inputs as they choose and desire.
