Please help me understand the importance of The Grand Inquisitor in TBK

[Allanysha]

I read that chapter, expecting it to be more important than, basically, anything D. had written, and I guess I didn't get it.

From what I gather, Jesus meets the Spanish Inquisitor (what were you expecting; Monty Python ..sorry. And the Inquisitor tells Jesus that no one is perfect enough to follow in his footsteps, i.e. being a Christian; everyone is fallible. It ends with the Inquisitor pardoning Jesus instead of killing him (again).

Is that pretty much it? Is he saying that Christianity is beyond the realm of man?

[Worm]

Who knows what's written in that story?  I've just been re-reading it since a few years, and it's a fine chunk of literature.  Readers of Forbes would love this kind of stuff, imo.  

As i read it, it seems to me that J forgives the inquisitor with his kiss, and that this results in the inquisitor letting him free.  Before the kiss, the inquisitor said that tomorrow he will have him (who is still a fictional and subjective character in a novel of Dostoevsky) burned with coals brought by his own sheep.  I find it correct to think that if he hadn't received the kiss, the inquisitor would have gone through with the burning.  
Does anybody agree with this?



Reading should still be coupled with thinking about it afterwards, esp. with stories like this one.

[Allanysha]

So it's kinda like the opposite of Pilate washing his hands clean of the sin of killing J., right?

But I do think Dost. is showing some sort of frustration that man can never be as perfect and free of sin as J.

[Worm]

perhaps

you can read so many things in it

[monika]

in the grand inquisitor people lock jesus and then they say that they dont need him, they banned him
well i think FD wanted to say how people got so bad and they are arfaid of the good, and the good is often pushed away. for ex. what happened to myshkin in the idiot. he is the perfect character, nice, belives in people and all, and he ends up tragicly.
and i thing that in that chapter we see ivan as a genie, a smart a``
we see his belives for god, and thet he is no atheist like he said, but just a jung man who is disapointed in people

[Trent]

The Grand Inquisitor is a criticism of God's character. Ivan is saying that he can't accept a God who allows the evils of the world to prosper because of not wanting to infringe upon the free will of man. The way I read it, Ivan refuses God because he doesn't accept a God who can allow the kind of suffering he sees for the sake of freedom and true love.

[littlefermat]

You might find the following link helpful. It's a 10 page essay by Ralph Woods.

http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=2110

I would also suggest getting a copy of the following book:

http://www.amazon.com/Grand-Inquisitor-Chapters-Brothers-Karamazov/dp/0872201937/ref=sr_1_1/002-7788730-2702426?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223677334&sr=1-1

There's a long introductory essay that might be helpful.

[littlefermat]

Sorry the 2nd link didn't seem to work:

http://www.amazon.com/Grand-Inquisitor-Chapters-Brothers-Karamazov/dp/0872201937/ref=sr_1_1/002-7788730-2702426?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223677334&sr=1-1

It's called:

The Grand Inquisitor: With Related Chapters from the Brothers Karamazov (Paperback)

With an introductory chapter by Charles Guignon.

[PavelKarpushin]

The Grate Inkvizitor showed to Jesus the way how to manage people how to make them follow Jesus. And these devil's things are really work (miracle, authority, mystery). They are used in modern world. Do you agree?
Jesus refused all this, he wanted only free love from people. And this is the only possible condition of the God - freedom, not even any wonder, not secret.

This is my understanding of main idea of this chapter.

[ivans_nightmare]

I wrote an essay on the overall meaning of The Grand Inquisitor within the entire novel. Please check it out on my blog, http://mywritersdiary.blogspot.com/!

[carnage_complex]

    The Grand Inquisitor can be most readily understood as a figure analogous to the great dictators of the 20th century.  At some point, he became 'lost in the desert,' and disillusioned with the burden of free will the Christ had placed upon humanity.  He believes that free will is ultimately the catalyst behind all negative aspects of human life, so he seeks to create a dystopia in which humanity lives out a humble life in erstwhile hope of a heaven that, in the mind of the GI, does not exist.  He believes that society can only be structured along the lines of a punitive state akin to the writings of Hobbes or the later social dystopias portrayed by authors like Huxley and Orwell.  He is ultimately a tragic figure in the import of his ideas.

[carnage_complex]

I'll sum that up in three words: Christianity Without Christ.

[The Cajun Karamazov]

I agree with Carnage_Complex.

Dostoevsky is basically writing the best defense of atheism there has ever been (The Grand Inquisitor) followed by perhaps the best defense of theism, A Russian Monk. The Grand Inquisitor poses the questions 'Isn't it right to give men happiness on earth, even if it deprives them of their freedom? Isn't what we are doing right?'
Or, in the words of the Grand Inquisitor himself, "But our answer will be that those around you have saved only themselves, while we have saved all mankind."

To me, the answer lies just there. Each man must save himself through his faith and his love, and only then can the true happiness of man be achieved. The happiness the Grand Inquisitor gives men is only a false happiness, a façade. True happiness can be achieved only through love and through Christ.

The Grand Inquisitor is basically a defense of socialism and, to Dostoevsky at least, the Roman Catholic Church. But it is also a criticism of it, and shows how socialism is fallacious on its most basic premise.

[RomanRussia]

I agree with Carnage_Complex.

 True happiness can be achieved only through love and through Christ.

 Excuse me but what is a true happiness as you put it???

 ps Welcome on board