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40 Chapter Two A Ray of Light in the Abyss DMITRY KARAMAZOV’S JOURNEY TO THE UNDERWORLD The biblical epigraph to The Brothers Karamazov—“Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” (John 12:24)—allows various interpretations : it can be seen as a strictly Christian message, or it can be understood in a broader sense, as a general observation about opposites and their dynamic relationship. But in both senses, the idea of death being a gateway to a new life applies to Dmitry Karamazov’s fate, to his progression from sin to moral renewal.1 The narrator of The Brothers Karamazov introduces Dmitry in rather negative terms: “He spent a disorderly adolescence and youth: he never finished high school; later he landed in some military school, then turned up in the Caucasus, was promoted, fought a duel, was broken to the ranks, promoted again, led a wild life, and spent, comparatively, a great deal of money” (11). Fyodor Karamazov’s reaction to his son’s sudden arrival supports this description of Mitya’s good-for-nothingness: Fyodor “simply concluded that the young man was frivolous, wild, passionate, impatient, a wastrel who, if he could snatch a little something for a time, would immediately calm down though of course not for long” (12). Further in the novel, Dmitry presents himself to his younger brother Alyosha in even harsher terms: “I am just a brute of an officer who drinks cognac and goes whoring” (107). Soon, however, it becomes clear that Dmitry is a subtle and complex character, and that among the three brothers Karamazov his evolution is the most dramatic. His progress toward repentance is much more dynamic than that of Raskolnikov. In contrast to Raskolnikov, Dmitry, who is not guilty of murder, at the end of the novel conceptualizes (and overemphasizes) his own guilt: “We are all cruel, we are all monsters, we all make people weep, mothers and nursing babies, but of all—let it be settled here and now—of all, I am the lowest vermin!” (509). A Ray of Light in the Abyss 41 Dmitry first attempts to formulate his own spiritual complexity in a series of confessions to Alyosha, when he is trying to formulate the strange quality of his soul: And whenever I happened to sink into the deepest, the very deepest shame of depravity (and that’s all I ever happened to do), I always read that poem about Ceres and man. Did it set me right? Never! Because I’m a Karamazov. Because when I fall into the abyss, I go straight into it, head down and heels up, and I’m even pleased that I’m falling in just such a humiliating position, and for me I find it beautiful. And so in that very shame I suddenly begin a hymn. Let me be cursed, let me be base and vile, but let me also kiss the hem of that garment in which my God is clothed; let me be following the devil at that time, but still I am also your son, Lord, and I love you, and I feel a joy without which the world cannot stand and be. (107) Dmitry remarks that he planned to begin his “confession of an ardent heart in verse” with Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” (“An die Freude,” 1785). But in fact, he begins it with another poem by Schiller—“The Eleusinian Festival” (“Das Eleusische Fest,” 1798). Dmitry’s recitation of this poem is traditionally seen in terms of the literary connections between Dostoevsky and Schiller.2 It is significant, however , that the poem celebrates an ancient festival of great importance in and of itself. The Eleusinian Mysteries, which revolved around the ancient Greek cult of the fertility goddess Demeter (in the Roman version, Ceres), excited the imagination of many poets and writers, both in classical antiquity and in more recent times. Thus, the themes treated in “The Eleusinian Festival” can be viewed outside of their Schillerian context. Their inclusion in our discussion of Dostoevsky permits us to look at the epigraph to The Brothers Karamazov and Dmitry’s evolution from a different—mythological rather than Christian—perspective, thereby revealing ancient Greek motifs in The Brothers Karamazov. The Demeter myth, moreover, exhibits the same dialectics we discussed in the introduction. By invoking Dmitry’s image of two abysses open to a single...

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