Katerina, still guilty over Dmitri’s beating of Ilyusha’s
father, has summoned a doctor from Moscow to look after the boy,
and when he arrives, Ilyusha’s guests are forced to leave.
Summary—Chapter 6: Precocity
Outside the house, Alyosha and Kolya talk, and Kolya tells
Alyosha his views on life, which he is certain are both profound
and final despite the fact that he is only thirteen years old. Alyosha
sees at once that Kolya’s “philosophy” is merely a batch of phrases
and modern ideas he has heard from Rakitin. But he listens respectfully, and
when he disagrees with what Kolya says, he says so, and says why.
Even though Alyosha says Kolya’s sweet nature has been perverted
by Rakitin, Kolya is still so drawn to Alyosha that he feels they
have become close friends. Alyosha agrees and inwardly hopes that
Rakitin’s influence will not have a permanent effect on this young
self-proclaimed socialist.
Summary—Chapter 7: Ilyusha
The doctor leaves, and Alyosha and Kolya both
realize that Ilyusha will soon die. Ilyusha speaks softly to his
father about his death, and Kolya, who has been choking back tears
at the sight of his sick friend, at last begins to weep openly.
He tells Alyosha that he will come to visit Ilyusha as often as
he can, and Alyosha admonishes him to keep his word.
Analysis
The stories of Alyosha’s influence on Kolya,
Ilyusha, and the other boys develop a motif of the novel: the idea
that faith and virtue can be taught and handed down as a legacy
from one faithful man to the next. This legacy begins with Zosima’s
brother, who teaches Zosima about loving God’s creation and forgiving
mankind. Zosima passes the lessons on to Alyosha, and Alyosha now
actively passes them on to the young boys he has befriended since
his initial encounter with Ilyusha, keeping the chain of faith alive.
Dostoevsky dramatizes the receptivity of children to moral teachings
throughout this section of the novel. If Alyosha’s example is only
partly successful in improving the lives of the adults to whom he
is close, it is more successful among the children here in Book X.
The boys look at Alyosha with unmitigated respect and adoration because
he treats them with respect—as equals—as we see in his extended
conversations with the wayward Kolya. The Brothers Karamazov ends
on a note of optimism and encouragement, and a great deal of its
positive tone seems to stem from the idea that Alyosha’s role as
a teacher of the young will improve the faith of the next generation.
This part of the novel shows Alyosha’s reaction
to Ivan’s indictment of God. In these chapters, Alyosha encounters
the very injustice that makes Ivan reject God—the suffering of children—and
shows his response to it. Rather than recoiling in intellectual
horror, as Ivan does, Alyosha devotes himself to doing what he can
to make the suffering child happier, bringing Ilyusha’s schoolmates
to see him every day, helping to heal the rift between Ilyusha and
Kolya, and generally providing Ilyusha and his family with friendship
and support. Just as Zosima’s argument with Ivan in Book I stems
from their opposite perspectives, with Zosima treating other people
on an individual basis and Ivan looking at mankind as a whole, the
contrast between Alyosha and Ivan in this situation stems from the
same opposition. Ivan looks at the abstract idea of suffering children
and is unable to reconcile the idea with his rational precepts about
how God ought to be. His solution is to reject God. Alyosha, on
the other hand, sees an actual suffering child and believes that
it is God’s will for him to try to alleviate the child’s suffering
to whatever degree he can. His solution is to help Ilyusha. Again, Dostoevsky
shows how the psychology of skepticism walls itself off, in elaborate
proofs and theorems, from having a positive effect on the world,
while the psychology of faith, simplistic though it may be, concerns
itself with doing good for others. This very subtle response to
the indictment of God presented by Ivan in Book V brings the philosophical
debate of the novel onto a plane of real human action, and shows the
inadequacy of Ivan’s philosophy—which Ivan himself would readily
acknowledge—to do good in the real world.
