I was trying to decipher the meaning of Alyosha's speech following the funeral of little Ilyushechka Snegiryov. Since this speech is located at the end of the book, I assume that it is meant to serve as a resolution of the problems and questions prevalent throughout the book. But it is also a sort of introduction of a new life for Alyosha, for Kolya, and perhaps for the book's other characters who are not present. I was confused that during the Speech, Alyosha said that he had "two brothers, of whom one is about to go into exile, and the other is lying on the point of death." (982) Why would he say that Dmitry is going into exile if he is certain that the escape scheme will be a success? Perhaps Alyosha believes that the journey to America will involve the same sort of spiritual abandonment and struggle which imprisonment in Siberia would have? Or perhaps it is not Dmitry who he expects to go into exile. Perhaps when he says that one brother lies "on the point of death," he expects Dmitry to be killed during the escape attempt and that Ivan shall have to go into exile to resolve the questions which are torturing him about the uncertainty of God and his guilt regarding the death of his father.
Anyway, I think it is significant that Alyosha's speech follows Kolya's comment that he would give anything to have Ilyushechka resurrected. (981) In essence, Alyosha's speech is a call for each of the boys to "resurrect" Ilyushechka through their own lives, to live FOR him. He asks the boys to remember that Ilyushechka was kind and brave for standing up for his father, and for bearing their insults. (982-83) By asking the boys to not forget each other, Alyosha is giving them a second chance to love one another as brothers and friends, to redeem themselves for failing to include Ilyushechka in that brotherhood. It is particularly important that he contrdicts Kolya's remark to Kartashov that no one cares whether or not he exists. Alyosha realizes that if he is to redeem these boys and make them into a band of brothers, as it were, he must remove any sense of superiority in them and teach them to be "magnanimous" and "modest" (984). I think, therefore, that Alyosha is trying to resurrect Ilyushechka in the form of Kolya, to teach Kolya how to become the boy and the man whom Ilyushechka would have grown into had he lived.
My impression was that Dmitry's escape to America was his exile. He clearly doesn't want to go, saying "not to joy will I flee, not to happiness, but verily to another penal servitude" (970). Being in America (or not being in Russia) is punishment enough for him.
ReplyDeleteI think that the exile remark certainly can refer to Dmitry going to America. Especially following his conversation with Alyosha at the hospital about not wanting to leave Russia. And the comment about one lying on the point of death must certainly refer to Ivan, laying in a fever near the point of death. Perhaps not a physical death, but a spiritual and mental death.
ReplyDeleteI think it is a stretch to think that Dmitry is going to die and Ivan is going into exile, since we are told that Ivan is literaly lying on his death bed. I think the comment about exile is made for a particular reason. At this point, as far as everyone knows, Dmitry is going into exile. Which he eventually will, as even leaving his Russia for America will serve as an exile. Alyosha did not mention to where Dmitry will go in his exile, of course important as no one is to know that he is going to escape.
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