The only artist who ranks along side William Shakespeare in the galaxy of literary greats is none other than Fyodor Dosteyevsky. It is not difficult to answer this question because it is Brothers Karamazov. Constructed around a family of four brothers, all sons of Fyodor Karamazov: Alexei, the sensualist and emotional giant, Ivan, the rationalist or a specimen of the perverted modern intellectual, Alyosha, the young, innocent,child like figure who is nearer to the qualities preached by Christ, loving and un judgemental and Smerdyakov the illegitimate son of the father, the novel is set on a grand scale, touching upon all the fundamental questions of life.
Human nature revels in this novel; revels in the candid display of monstrosity and hideousness, subterfuge and all embracing love. As a critic has remarked Dostoyevsky’s characters possess a dialogic imagination. They are very near to the ideal realization of life’s intricacies and secrets. Even the noblest soul may have some skeleton in his cupboard for has there been a saint who has not been a sinner? God certainly loves a sinner who is frank and just than a hypocritical worshipper. On religion, the father Ferapont and father Zosima episode in the Brothers Karamazov grandly foregrounds the idea that religion is not what ritual has made it out to be. Religion is the communicating of experience that belongs purely to the spirit.
In Dostoyevsky’s novel, the characters are in conflict over ideals, or concepts or on Truth itself. The atmosphere is one of abstruseness and intellectualism which germinates out of the commonplace. The tragic and the comic, the grotesque and the beautiful do not simply coexist, but frequently supplement and impinge; which is why the aura is one of bewilderment or wild fascination.