Brothers Karamazov: Life without Love

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Life without Love – The Malady of Death

The Brothers Karamazov, is a novel which contains many themes presenting outlooks on faith, life, and love. The character of Ivan is the cornerstone which Dostoevsky uses to present these outlooks. It is suggested that Ivan suffers from “The Malady of Death”. The idea of the malady of death is presented in the novel, The Malady of Death, by Marguerite Duras. The malady of death can be thought of as a disease or disorder caused by a sort of spiritual malaise. The question asked than is; does Ivan Karamazov suffer from the malady of death? I believe that the novel clearly shows that Ivan does indeed suffer from the malady of death, but the question I pose is; at the end of the novel is he cured?
To start I’ll present the following question; what IS the malady of death? If one were to take into consideration the actual definition of the words in the phrase, the malady of death would mean the disease or disorder of death. The way that our texts have presented this is not all that different from the words’ actual meanings. In the Duras text the man is said to be suffering from the malady of death. Duras presents this idea by showing that life is nothing without love. On page 3 of The Malady of Death the prostitute asked the man what he wanted to try and his response was, “Loving.” The man in this text is incapable of loving and when he questions the prostitute as to why the malady of death is fatal, “... And also because he’s like to die without any life to die to, and without even knowing that’s what he’s doing,” was her response (pg. 19). This response suggests that people who suffer from the malady of death have nothing to live for, a lack of faith so to speak, and thus don’t fight to stay alive. There is a spiritual malaise going on inside the person. Simply stated the malady of death can be thought of as life without love. Love of others, love of themselves, love of God, love of this world, a person who suffers from the malady of death is missing some or all of these “loves” which make life worth while.
The first real look that we get of Ivan comes in Book V when he’s having lunch with Alyosha.

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