Freshmen Seminar

In Book I is inroduced the family of Karamazov - a father and three sons from two mothers. The relationships in the family are complicated and not easy to follow. There is a lot to explain about Fiodor Pavlovich's marriages, his wifes and their deaths, the coming into world of the children and their growing up. In order to be understood the forthcoming drama the reader needs to penetrate into the factual and emotional background of all the participants. Dostoyevski chooses to start with Aliosha.

Aliosha's character is carefully depicted using various devices. Firstly the author elucidates his origin - he is the third son of Fyodor Karamazov, and a son of his second wife, he has one full brother - Ivan, and a half brother - Mitia; he remembers a tiny bit of his mother and has grown up with the servant Grigorii; he hasn't finished education, but has left to pursue a life in a monastery. Later on the author stops temporarily with the history part and introduces the present situation - Aliosha is now 20 years old and for 1 year has been living in the monastery in the town where his father lives. At the time his future plans are to become a monk. The next side of Aliosha's character that is revealed to the reader is his ideology: he is a philantrop - he loves the people and trusts them, not intenting to be their judge, but willing to help them. Aliosha is also a realist - a realist who believes, believes in God and in miracles, without being called for that "a dreamer". An unveiling way of depicting Aliosha's character is through the opinion of the rest: everyone loved him wherever he went and ever since his early years. The reader sees Aliosha in action too: Aliosha is a little shy in his behaviour towards the opposite sex, for example in his conversation with Lisa, but he is nontheless kind and helpful towards everyone. He cherishes everything sacred, he cares about the people - e.g. he doesn't want the Old men to become upset, he is a pieceful person and tries to avoid scandals. He is a bit passive, though, for during the scandal he doesn't employ himself in any particular deed to prevent the upcoming negative events but his passiveness is not caused by lack of courage but rather by his hope that everything will end good without the need of drastic interference in the conversation of the guests and the Old man.

The character of Aliosha is depicted carefully and with detail. Aliosha seems to be a favourite character of Dostoyevski. Aliosha's prospective of the events is disclosed in full, easy to grasp way. The reader is taken maximally close to Aliosha's thoughts and it is almost possible to feel his emotions. With all the characteristics, background information, and obserations on Aliosha's behaviour one can forsee the future role of Aliosha as a piecemaker, with stable and sober mind, responsible and caring for people. One can imagine him trying to protect his agressive father and brothers from quarelling. One can see him helping the poor and despised, the weak and defenceless, striving for good deeds and forgetting or rather not havng at all personal worries and troubles.