Essay Database

"The extraordinary...have the right to commit all kinds of crimes and to transgress the law in all kinds of ways, for the simple reason that they are extraordinary." [1] Dostoyevsky's main characters are divided into two philosophical categories. The first group maintains that man is not equal, but divided into two groups--the ordinary and the extraordinary. Ordinary people are trapped within the laws and traditions of society, existing only to reproduce their own kind. The …

…Haven: Chelsea House Publishers, 1988) 41. [5] Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, trans. Constance Garnett (New York: New American Library,1958) 19. [6] Ibid., p. 104. [7] Harold Bloom, Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov (New Haven: Chelsea House Publishers, 1988) 1. [8] Ernest J. Simmons, Russian Realism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,1965) 117. [9] Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, p. 308. [10] Ibid., p. 340. [11] Ibid., p. 510. [12] Ibid., p. 99. [13] Marc Slonim, An Outline of Russian Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958) 135. [14] Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment, p. 271. [15] Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, p. 728. [16] Ibid., p. 729.