Why did the Onion break?

I am glad that we got a chance to learn more about Grushenka in this reading. Dostoevsky's characters seem to be too complicated to be labeled as simply heroes or villains; they each have a little good and bad mixed into them, and it would have been a shame to have had Grushenka represented in no way other than her belittling treatment of Katerina Ivanovna. I think that Agrafena Aleksandrovna is depicted in this scene as a woman trying to fight for her survival and not lose her ability to be a good person in the process. And like all of Dostoevsky's characters, she threw a bit of philosophy into her dialogue.

Grushenka's parable of the onion shares certain themes with the lifestyle of the Elders and their novices. Issues such as sin and redemption, as well as the manner in which one may attain the one in place of the other, play a central role in both Zosima's sermons and Grushenka's fairy tale. In her story, a sinful woman is thrown into Hell with nothing to show for living a virtuous life but the charitable act of giving an onion to a beggarwoman. This onion is to be the lifeline with which she pulls herself out of damnation. It at first seems as if she shall climb out; but as the other sinners try to latch onto her, she becomes selfish and tries to kick them away, which is when the onion breaks sending her back into the pit of fire. (page 456) The central question here is, Why did the onion break?

A simple answer would be that the onion's strength could not support the weight of both the woman and her comrades. But since when have Dostoevsky's riddles been that simple? No, the breaking of the onion would have had to been a result of the woman's own behavior since it is her salvation which was at stake. We are told that she did not share the onion because "she was a wicked-wicked woman" (two wickeds for the price of one!). Because wickedness is an ideal cause for damnation, it is logical that he wicked refusal to share the lifeline was the reason for her being denied rescue. Therefore, the onion broke not out of physics but out of divine judgment. But what does this have to do with the theology of the Eldership and Novicehood?

Zosima has spoken frequently about how Christians must bear the guilt of others, both for their own salvation and for the salvation of the world. He himself appears to have done that when he endured the cruelty of the town in which he lived after he had helped Mikhail find redemption. The reoccurring theme throughout Brothers Karamazov seems to be that a person's salvation does not depend on their looking after only themselves; the true test of whether or not someone goes to Heaven is whether or not they are willing to be their brother's keeper, and thereby seek to save others as ardently as one seeks to save oneself. It is doubtful that a person in Hell could use a past good deed as an escape clause and sign other damned souls on as dependents. But I think that Grushenka's story is metaphorical: it illustrates how one must live in the physical world more than in the afterlife. The message appears to be that one must perform good deeds not out of an expectation of reward, but as a means of influencing the souls of other human beings, and to truly become a messiah as Jesus had been.