#lmk what yall think!!! i only skimmed so its not impossible for me to be misremembering or misinterpreting something LOL

[karamazovanon]

Do you have any thoughts about Alyosha's momentary crisis of faith? Because I understood why he had one, but not so much why he was immediately ready to drink and go see Grushenka. Interested to see if you've any opinions on the matter, either regarding Grushenka or just in general.

OOOOOO this is an interesting question and my answer is going to get kinda long, warning you now LOL

i think alcohol & drinking in general is often a big part of "the karamazovian nature"—fyodor pavlovich and mitya are open alcoholics & hedonists, and ivan's heavily implied to be an alcoholic as well by his delirium tremens at the end—and more generally as one of the wordly temptations that human nature as a whole is susceptible to (tangent, but this is also really interesting when you keep in mind ivan's cup analogy!! drinking & cups are tied to living & life so often; mitya chooses to "fill" his cup/life with alcohol, ivan drinks in secret until he throws the cup/life to the ground at 30 in rebellion, and alyosha instead chooses to fill his cup/life with god. one of the schiller verses mitya quotes in the ardent confession chapter even says "To the soul of God’s creation / Joy eternal brings her draught, / In strong secret fermentation / Flames the cup of life aloft")

and the common denominator is that they don't believe enough to overcome the natural urge to indulge. mitya does believe, but he can't stop himself and reproaches himself for it; ivan doesn't believe despite wanting to and that contributes too imo. but alyosha doesn't drink and is an ascetic for the most part bc everything for him is based off of his unwavering faith—and so when his entire worldview and moral system is shaken by both ivan and father zosima, he questions EVERYTHING and begins feeling detached from reality when it doesn't match up. without his bulletproof faith intact, he no longer has the external ruleset to dictate his behavior, and the karamazovian desire to ease pain with alcohol wins for a moment without being able to trust his prior moral compass

(on rereading for this post, i don't have a formulated thought on it but it's interesting that he agrees to rakitin's initial offer of vodka even though they end up having champagne instead—there's probably some connection there between vodka and worldly/russian baseness vs champagne, which while not communion wine is still wine LMAO)

this quote from the onion chapter is what stands out the most to me, bold mine:

"Alyosha cried out with a wail in his voice. ‘I speak to you not as a judge, but as the least of the judged. What am I before her? I came here in order to be destroyed, saying: “Go on, go on!” – and that was because of my cowardice, while she, after five years of suffering, no sooner did someone come and say a sincere word to her, forgave everything, forgot everything and cried! The assailant of her honour has returned, is summoning her, and yet she forgives him everything and hurries to him in joy and she will not take the knife, she will not take it! Oh, I am not like that! I do not know whether you are like that, Misha, but I am not like that! Today, the moment I received this lesson, I … She loves in a way that is loftier than yours or mine … Have you heard her say this earlier, what she said just now? No, you have not; if you had, you would have understood everything long ago … And let the other woman, whom she offended the other day, let her, too, forgive her! And she will forgive her, if she learns of this … and she shall learn of it … This soul has not yet been reconciled, we must spare it … This soul may contain a treasure …" (tr. mcduff)

when he loses his infallible external/divine guidance, he has to turn inward/to the world around him instead, where he finds guilt and the human urge to self-destroy (as well as the influence of rakitin & his schadenfreude) and as a karamazov, it naturally comes first in the form of alcohol (women, too, but alyosha never really shows any desire on that front) when he sees grushenka's kindness and forgiveness, he snaps out of it and his faith is reinforced (while he believes he's a sinner and unworthy, he sees in her christlike forgiveness and is reminded that although he has these karamazovian urges, giving in to them entirely isn't the answer etc etc im not a theologian and have been writing too long anyway)

this has been such a long ramble with so little structure but this is SUCH an interesting plot point, thank you for asking my thoughts on it!! :D

#lmk what yall think!!! i only skimmed so its not impossible for me to be misremembering or misinterpreting something LOL #his Temptation is so so interesting #i think its bc seeing his doubt result in even stronger faith is so opposite to my personal experience that it FASCINATES me in literature #anonasks #the brothers karamazov #also i originally wrote “the karamazovian need to get white girl wasted” but decided to be serious for once instead #Also the fucking whiplash from the last ask to this one icb. #to me its like. he loses the spiritual morality so all he has left is to turn to the worldly morality and everyone around him drinks and #is a bad influence lol #and changing your faith is a HUGE paradigm shift too bc its a TON of beliefs rolled into one #for the devout like alyosha its the basis of EVERYTHING. your epistemology morality your perception of reality and people etc #so once the first domino falls you get a novice drinking champagne LMAO #i hope this was clear!! i keep ruminating and adding thoughts but i feel like my attempts to articulate them just make it more confusing LO #anonpost