Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky

Paper Summary:

This essay examines "The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor," the parable that Ivan relates to Alyosha in Dostoyevsky's novel "The Brothers Karamazov." The essay compares four points of view in relation to the parable: the character of the Grand Inquisitor, the character of Christ (as portrayed in the parable), Dostoyevsky himself, and the philosophy of Nietzsche. The essay checks the parable against biblical Christianity and the ("God is dead") philosophy of Nietzsche in order to assess Dostoyevsky's stand in relation to religion and the Church.

From the Paper:

"Although deeply troubled by his inability to maintain a belief in the conventional forms of Christianity, Dostoyevsky was a deeply spiritual man, and even a deeply religious one. He was committed to what he saw as the essential core of Christian teaching that we must love each person equally and fight evil whenever possible by the simple imposition of our goodness in front of it. Friedrich Nietzsche, however, would probably have taken quite a shine to the Grand Inquisitor. He argued in one of his most important works " Beyond Good and Evil " that one should entirely reject the teachings of Christianity primarily because they lead one to concentrate upon a next (and in his view fictitious) world rather than addressing oneself to the problems of this world. He again rejected the practice and theology of Christianity in Twilight of the Idols and Genealogy of Morals a number of his later works, in which he argued that the idea of goodness and the idea that the weak are inherently noble as merely tricks played by the Church to control and thus weaken people. Nietzsche sees the force to make people obey certain often unnatural precepts as at the core of almost all socialization processes and human institutions. Religion, believed Nietzsche, teaches us not to think."

More papers on Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky:

• Book Review # 119568 : "The Divided Beliefs of Dostoyevsky's Raskolnikov"
• Film Review # 108333 : "Film: "The Big Kahuna"
• Analytical Essay # 19350 : "Existentialism in Literature"

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