The Human Mind In The Brothers Karamazov

The human mind is comprised with personalities,emotions, and states, all of which influence the way we act. This is seen in our novel, The Brothers Karamazov, every character at first was characterized into one specific way. For example Dimitri was thought of as the rebellious and reckless one, Alyosha was the religious one, and Ivan was believed to be the atheist. But as the novel developed we got to see different parts of all characters and we saw (actually we read) how they had developed to be more than just plain stereotypes of people’s personalities. One character I saw myself in was Ivan, not because of his lack of belief but because of his struggles. He struggled with mankind and God. He doubted both, which at one point I seemed to

It 's not that he doesn 't believe in God. But he does not agree to his actions and how he has created the human. In his poem "The Grand Inquisitor." he questions God for allowing free will to exist. He argues that God is malevolent and immoral, because by allowing free will, he has created an opportunity for human suffering. Ivan is even more disturbed by the idea that there is suffering among children and among the innocent. He claims it not to be justifiable. He does not want to live in a world that allows such tragic events to take place. It is not worth the tears of the little girl pounding her chest and asking God for his mercy. I came a few times to doubt God. In the various moments of my life I came to think twice about how good God really was. Just like Ivan i could not come up with an answer as to why I was suffering. As to why my family and I were going through hard times, why were these bad events happening to us? I had this thought when I was 10, the year my dad got injured. I layed down at night and pondered to myself, I kept thinking what my mom told me that God was this powerful being who protected you from all evil and so I wondered why he had not protected my dad. He was not a bad person, we were not bad people. So why were we living this nightmare? At that moment I was ready to give up on God. I grew apart from God, I attended church to keep my mom happy but I was so angry with God. But as I got older I understood

To Ivan, the problem of evil and the question of human liberty are joined. The answer to one determines the answer to the other. To put it into different words, could it be that because we have free will there is chaos and suffering so that must mean humans are evil because we are the cause of the pain. Ivan makes an analogy, where he compares humans and animals. He notices that animals rarely torment their prey. Only mankind derives pleasure in savagery actions such as torment and torture. I also seem to struggle with this. I had always thought of humans as born good but that there was a disturbance in their childhood or somewhere in the course of their life that made them evil. But after reading the book I began to think that maybe we are not born good or evil. Maybe we are born somewhere in the middle but a we grow we hold on to some habits both evil and good that ultimately shape us to who we are. Think about it. Babies are born with no knowledge of what is good and what is bad, but the parents teach them what is acceptable and what is not. But yet babies learn how to manipulate people. They learn that if they cry then they will get fed, cleaned and played with. Kids often grow up biting people and if they do not get their way they throw tantrums. But it is after they are told it is bad thing to do they stop. I have seen through my experience with multiple babies that they are manipulative as well as