lizzie | 20 yr old serial loser | esp/englet heaven exist, though my own place be in hell
427 posts
Deliberatelyamnesiac - Tumblr Blog
how would execute each member of the beatles?
People in real life: hey man, how’s it going?
anyway. some of my favourite real joan baez photos for your perusal
I sort of used to think that the reason there’s no redemption for Smerdyakov’s character is, in part, due to the structural narrative of the novel and the setting— but that doesn’t entirely track on its own, given the themes presented in Crime and Punishment, considering Rodya’s crime is much worse and C&P is ALL about his redemption.
I think the real reason Smerdyakov gets no redemption is the Zhutchka thing.
It is passionately argued and established that Fyodor was no father, and so to murder him was no murder. If that applies to Mitya, then that applies to Smerdyakov even moreso, as Fyodor was, in the most literal sense, never a father to him, and failed him worse than he failed any of his children.
So that cannot be the thing that makes Smerdyakov irredeemable, or the reason he has to die.
We know about the cats, obviously. But that was only ever mentioned in passing, as something he did in childhood. I think that the fact that he has carried that pathology on into adult life is supposed to be received as a significant revelation, and it should be really shocking. It is really shocking. It’s just really fucking horrible to imagine. That whole encounter is shrouded in mystery, and we don’t really get any answers about it, like how these two met or why, or any context other than the fact that Ilusha is, now on his deathbed, completely fucking devastated.
It just sort of implies again that we’re only getting the tip of the iceberg in terms of Smerdyakov’s fucked up pathology. He has an even darker personality than we’ve previously been led to believe.
Y’all KNOW how much I love him, but I agree that if he does anything irredeemable it is that. And I agree that that is irredeemable. His childhood was not his fault, it fucked him up permanently and left him with absolutely no recourse as an adult. I still love him and I don’t even necessarily judge him, even for this, because… how can you?
It may be easy to pass judgment but the reality is that we’re talking about someone so abjectly abused and exploited that that’s not really relevant or appropriate, in my opinion.
Smerdyakov stood absolutely no chance at growing up into a normal, appropriately adjusted adult. The ONE most important thing that might help someone who comes from that kind of background break that cycle of abuse in adulthood is to be met with kindness and compassion. Smerdyakov’s childhood abuse made him weird and disgusting, and now he is shunned for being weird and disgusting.
It’s significant, that Smerdyakov’s one irredeemable act is what he does to Ilusha.
I think it’s also significant that Mitya shares this culpability in Ilusha’s suffering, (the “wisp of tow” incident), the same way he shares culpability with Smerdyakov in Fyodor’s murder, when he is tried and convicted despite his innocence.
Alyosha interferes in Ilusha’s violent outbursts while he is still a child, and meets him with love and compassion, and therefore Ilusha is saved. Not from death, but his soul is saved, in the most Christian, Dostoevskian sense.
Remember, Alyosha, disciple of Zossima, who preached about praying for the suicides, “being the servant of my servant”, and spoke of Joseph being sold into slavery by his own brothers on his deathbed.
Smerdyakov never received that kind of intervention from anyone, not in childhood, and now that he’s an adult, whatever compassion anyone might have once had for him is well past. And so it’s too late for him. But it’s not too late for Ilusha.
This is the great blind spot in Ivan’s ideology, is that he fails to see that these abused children grow up into adults, and frequently grow up into adults who often perpetuate the cycle of abuse.
The Brothers Karamazov is, fundamentally, a novel about children.
I’m reminded of Matthew 18:6: “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”
And, well, we all know how Smerdyakov died.
the french beatles
bob dylan’s greatest life achievement isn’t the nobel prize or his career or any of his music. it’s somehow managing not to kill himself after fumbling joan baez
are you a Byron or Wilde apologist?
concerned citizens from 1895 are messaging me
girl we are SO making it out of the fucking labyrinth
literally how i feel & look seeing gray hair. On account of my perverse tendencies & ways
91% of adulterers stop before they find the one mistress who will bring back their zest for life. KEEP CHEATING!!!!!!!!
The rotten, bloated mutual is online
rip Pavel Smerdyakov you would’ve LOVED Fiona Apple
so called free thinkers when they listen to 1970s argentine prog rock on a spring night
TBK but everyone has a phone:
- Fyodor makes incomprehensible boomer voice to text posts on Facebook and sends inappropriate friend requests at odd hours when his ambien is kicking in.
- Grushenka has an Instagram with hundreds of gorgeous selfies and photos of herself that Mitya takes
- Madame K runs the local Facebook gossip group like the navy and posts shit like this on main every morning:
- Ivan lurks Reddit and watches YouTube video essays. And sometimes gets into arguments with strangers because he’s a loser.
-Mitya has an Instagram with nothing on it but yearly #nationalboyfriendday posts of Grushenka that she insists he posts and follows a bunch of gymbros and cute baby animal meme accounts so that he can send their posts to Grushenka and say “that’s so you babe”
-Lise uses her 3 hours of daily iPad time to go on r/watchpeopledie and update her secret Tumblr dark coquette emo female manipulator femcel fujo blog. She has 20,000 followers but she had more before she got deleted for posting gore and had to remake.
-Alyosha has a flip phone and does not know any social media.
-Rakitin spends 4 hours a day scrolling through Twitter and 4chan and is a contributor on wikifeet.
-Smerdyakov femcel tumblrina royalty. Has sent anon hate telling people to kill themselves before. On multiple blocklists. Incoherent back to back personal posts at 2:00 in the morning:
I fucking hate it here
*screenshot of his own fragrantica review with 10,000 notes*
*spotify link to Norman Fucking Rockwell*
*10 reblogs in a row of the Margiela F/W show*
*depop screenshot* should I buy this lol
He and Lise are mutuals. They will never know this.