Pavel Smerdyakov - Tumblr Posts
these two and their dynamic are distracting me
smerdyakov + ok computer (credit @karamazovian-mess for the wonderful blackout poem)
i have an exam a week from now. thankfully i am focused on the important matters that's why i'm writing about pavel's typology
Ivan and Smerdyakov from The Brothers Karamazov, as drawn by my friend.
Their depiction of Ivan was subconsciously influenced by that of @adelukshaitan. Go check them out because their art is amazing.
dostoevsky trying so hard to convince the reader that pavel is Horrid when he describes him as playing guitar and having curly blonde hair w a ribbon in it and gayboy clothes and bashing his abusive father's head in with a blunt object like GIRL YOU HAVE NOT CONVINCED ME IN THE SLIGHTEST
rip Pavel Smerdyakov you would’ve LOVED Fiona Apple
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.