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English Language and Literature

The Brothers Karamazov

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Full-Text Articles in Slavic Languages and Societies

The Centrality Of Human Freedom In Dostoevsky And Huxley, Evelyn J. Hylton Jun 2018

The Centrality Of Human Freedom In Dostoevsky And Huxley, Evelyn J. Hylton

Masters Theses

Fyodor Dostoevsky learned the hard way that human beings need to be free. In a Siberian prison camp, a four-year period which would later inspire his semi-autobiographical prison memoir Notes from a Dead House, he was forced to come to terms with the realities of life under severe constraint and without the freedom for self-actualization, which convicted him of the dangers of the Westernized liberalism he once embraced. Dostoevsky’s transformed understanding of humanity and its need for individual freedom eventually matured to form the moral and philosophical foundations of his final novel, The Brothers Karamazov, whose support of the centrality …


Themes Of Self-Laceration Towards A Modicum Of Control In Nineteenth Century Russia As Expressed By Dostoevsky In The Brothers Karamazov, Jonathan Ball May 2015

Themes Of Self-Laceration Towards A Modicum Of Control In Nineteenth Century Russia As Expressed By Dostoevsky In The Brothers Karamazov, Jonathan Ball

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The majority of the academic discourse surrounding Dostoevsky and his epic, The Brothers Karamazov, has been directed toward the philosophic and religious implications of his characters. Largely overlooked, however, is the theme of laceration. In the greater scope of laceration stands the topic of self-laceration. Self-laceration refers to the practice of causing harm to the self in a premeditated and specifically emotionally destructive fashion. The cause of this experience is varied and expressed in as many ways as there are individuals. The struggle in the Russian psyche between viewing the world as fatalistic or as more of an existential …