The Brothers Karamazov Literary Devices

Explanation and Analysis—Insects:

Throughout The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky uses many metaphors related to insects. These insect metaphors serve as a motif throughout the novel, generally signifying behavior or attitudes that are lowly or unworthy of humanity, particularly with regard to Dmitri. When Dmitri confesses to Alexei about his disreputable behavior with women, flirting with them but later refusing to get married, he states that:

This game only amused my insect sensuality, which I was nurturing in myself. After five months she married an official and left … angry, and maybe still in love with me. Now they’re living happily together. Note that I didn’t tell anyone [...] You’re blushing; your eyes flashed. Enough of this filth for you. And it’s all nothing yet, just Paul de Kock’s little flowers, though the cruel insect was already growing, spreading out in my soul. I have a whole album of memories, brother. God bless the little dears.

Here, he describes his “insect sensuality,” an immoral aspect of his psyche that compels him to toy with others without regard to their feelings. Further advancing the metaphor, he claims that “the cruel insect was already growing,” imagining that his inner cruelty is a large bug within him that gets more powerful when he feeds it with acts of vice.

Much later, in the hours following the murder of Fyodor, Dmitri revisits this language of insects while making a toast “to life”:

Enough! To life, my dear, let us drink to life, I offer a toast to life! Why am I so pleased with myself? I’m base, but I’m pleased with myself, and yet it pains me to be base and still pleased with myself. I bless creation, I’m ready right now to bless God and his creation, but … I must exterminate one foul insect, so that it will not crawl around spoiling life for others [...]

Here, he again characterizes the “base” or low qualities that compel him towards poor behavior as a “foul insect.” Here, however, he appears determined to “exterminate” the insect, suggesting that he finally desires to improve himself and stop hurting others.

Explanation and Analysis—Storing Observations:

In his description of Smerdyakov, the probable half-brother of the Brothers Karamazov born to their father and “Stinking Lizaveta,” Dostoevsky uses a series of closely related metaphors that imagine Smerdyakov as “storing” his own observations in his memory as if they are physical objects:

These impressions are dear to him, and he is most likely storing them up imperceptibly and even without realizing it—why and what for, of course, he does not know either; perhaps suddenly, having stored up his impressions over many years, he will drop everything and wander off to Jerusalem to save his soul, or perhaps he will suddenly burn down his native village, or perhaps he will do both. There are plenty of contemplators among the people. Most likely Smerdyakov, too, was such a contemplator, and most likely he, too, was greedily storing up his impressions, almost without knowing why himself.

The narrator notes that Smerdyakov is “most likely storing” up his impressions of the others, particularly of Fyodor Karamazov, adding that Smerdyakov himself likely “does not know” why he is doing it. The young man, who works as a cook in Fyodor’s house despite likely being his son, is highly observant, making mental notes about the behavior and attitudes of others. Smerdyakov, the narrator states, has “stored up his impressions over many years” like other “contemplators.” Further, the narrator characterizes his observant behavior as being greedy. Ultimately, Smerdyakov’s observations aid him in murdering Fyodor and framing Dmitri for the crime.

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Explanation and Analysis—Insects:

Throughout The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky uses many metaphors related to insects. These insect metaphors serve as a motif throughout the novel, generally signifying behavior or attitudes that are lowly or unworthy of humanity, particularly with regard to Dmitri. When Dmitri confesses to Alexei about his disreputable behavior with women, flirting with them but later refusing to get married, he states that:

This game only amused my insect sensuality, which I was nurturing in myself. After five months she married an official and left … angry, and maybe still in love with me. Now they’re living happily together. Note that I didn’t tell anyone [...] You’re blushing; your eyes flashed. Enough of this filth for you. And it’s all nothing yet, just Paul de Kock’s little flowers, though the cruel insect was already growing, spreading out in my soul. I have a whole album of memories, brother. God bless the little dears.

Here, he describes his “insect sensuality,” an immoral aspect of his psyche that compels him to toy with others without regard to their feelings. Further advancing the metaphor, he claims that “the cruel insect was already growing,” imagining that his inner cruelty is a large bug within him that gets more powerful when he feeds it with acts of vice.

Much later, in the hours following the murder of Fyodor, Dmitri revisits this language of insects while making a toast “to life”:

Enough! To life, my dear, let us drink to life, I offer a toast to life! Why am I so pleased with myself? I’m base, but I’m pleased with myself, and yet it pains me to be base and still pleased with myself. I bless creation, I’m ready right now to bless God and his creation, but … I must exterminate one foul insect, so that it will not crawl around spoiling life for others [...]

Here, he again characterizes the “base” or low qualities that compel him towards poor behavior as a “foul insect.” Here, however, he appears determined to “exterminate” the insect, suggesting that he finally desires to improve himself and stop hurting others.

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Explanation and Analysis—Wounded Souls:

In the Epilogue, Dmitri speaks to Katerina, his former fiance, whose testimony helped to secure his conviction in the murder of Fyodor. When Dmitri, nicknamed Mitya, asks Katerina, nicknamed Katya, if she has forgiven him, she responds with a metaphor that imagines them both as having been physically wounded by one another:

“Have you forgiven or not?” Mitya murmured at last, and at the same moment, turning to Alyosha, his face distorted with joy, he cried to him: “Do you hear what I’m asking, do you hear?”

“That’s why I loved you, for your magnanimous heart!” escaped suddenly from Katya. “And you do not need my forgiveness, nor I yours; it’s all the same whether you forgive or not, all my life you will remain a wound in my soul, and I in yours—that’s how it should be …,” she stopped to catch her breath.

Despite their difficult past and the breaking off of their engagement, Katerina responds enthusiastically to Dmitri’s question, praising his “magnanimous heart” and insisting that neither of them needs to forgive the other. Dmitri, she declares, will always remain “a wound” in her soul, just as she will always be a wound in his. Through this metaphorical language of physical wounds, Katerina acknowledges that she and Dmitri have brought irreparable damage to each other’s lives, but can now look upon each other with mutual sympathy.

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The Brothers Karamazov

Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Brothers Karamazov: Metaphors 3 key examples