Jesus’s Rebellious Kiss: Compassion as Rebellion in 'The Brothers Karamazov'

• In Event: Spiritual Rebellions: Dostoevsky's (Un)Orthodox Religiosities

Abstract

Compassion is an act of rebellion in "The Brothers Karamazov." The Grand Inquisitor governs his fictional world under the guise of compassion, but Jesus's rebellious kiss threatens his power by acting from beyond the Grand Inquisitor's accepted laws. Jesus's revolutionary kiss overthrows the Grand Inquisitor's empire and Alyosha's kiss also out-rebels Ivan's rebellion. Ivan attempts to prove abstractly that non-involvement is the only justifiable reaction to a world rooted in injustice, but Alyosha's kiss roots him in that same world where love is possible. Zosima's indirect refutation of the Grand Inquisitor does not dismantle the Grand Inquisitor's logic, but rather attempts to supplant an oppressed world with his revolutionary vision of active love. In the Grand Inquisitor, Skotoprigonevsk, and the novel, societal norms hold abusive power in place. Compassion threatens power, and under these conditions becomes an act of defiance.

Author

• Michael Ossorgin, Fordham U