A Matter of Perspective

Dostoevsky Final (Russian 141, 11/30/90, Prof. Rubchak)

In The Brothers Karamazov, Ivan “Grand Inquisitor” poem and Father Zossima’s last words are polar opposites, yet they share similar themes.  Separately, they discuss the concepts of freedom and happiness and the values of miracle, mystery, and authority.  The two speakers even begin to agree on some points, although their differences on these issues are numerous, to say the least.  But the main distinction that separates Ivan’s Inquisitor and Father Zossima more than points on any of the individual concepts is the difference of the speakers’ perspectives.

The Inquisitor lectures pedantically as from a podium, but only one person is meant to hear him; Father Zossima bears witness to only a few people around his deathbed, but it is a testimony for the world. As the Inquisitor speaks, he sees the universe with the conditions of “them” and “us”; Father Zossima does not separate as such, but says, here is what I have seen, how it has been for me, and how it can be for you.

This difference in perspective is evident in all the individual issues.  Freedom, the Inquisitor says, brings “unrest, confusion, and unhappiness” (301), and so “[we] have vanquished freedom... in order to make [them] happy” (294).  “...They will submit themselves to us gladly and cheerfully” (304).  

Father Zossima, too, sees negative aspects in the world’s idea of freedom: it brings “slavery and self destruction... separation and isolation” (369).  His response, however, is not to perpetuate the us/them separation and enslavement, but to acknowledge the alternative, truer freedom of a Christian.  Zossima does not quote the apostle Paul, but the allusion is implied: “For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all” (1 Cor. 9:19).  There is no us and them in Zossima’s kind of servitude, because it is universal.

Meanwhile, the Inquisitor is concerned with conquering people and holding them captive for the sake of their happiness.  “We shall reach onr goal and be Caesars... [for] the universal happiness of man,” he says (302).  “We shall give them quiet, humble happiness, the happiness of weak creatures” (303).

Father Zossima also talks about happiness in terms of humility and the universe, but again he does so with a different perspective.  He speaks of being “consumed by a universal love, as though in a sort of ecstacy” (376).  He also addresses global conquest: “...by humble love... you may be able to conquer the world” (376).  Thus, he reverses the role of the happily humble, making them captors, not captives, with the force of love.

The Inquisitor’s forces are threefold: “miracle, mystery and authority” (299), the three things denied us when Christ resisted the devil’s temptations and established our dreaded freedom.  But the church resumes control of these forces, providing the bread of satisfaction, possessing people’s consciences, and wielding dominion to make the world “happy;” thus, man knows “whom to worship, to whom to entrust his conscience and how... to unite all” (302).  

For Father Zossima, love remains “the strongest [force] of all” (376), although he too values the forces of miracle, mystery, authority; unlike the Inquisitor, though, he appreciates this triune on the same plane as the recipients, and furthermore, he sees their combined force as inclusive of God’s plans. In fact, he finds miracle, mystery, and authority not only in God’s world and in God’s people, but also in the Word of God itself: “What a miracle and what strength is given with [the Holy Bible] to man!... And how many solved and revealed mysteries!” (343).  And he sees this power in “sorrow... [passing] gradually into quiet, tender joy” (343); in “Divine Justice, tender reconciling and all forgiving,” and in the central promise of a future life.  

It is all a matter of perspective.