Instead of actually putting forth my thoughts about the book, which would take too long (I have to mow my lawn, and get more work done) I'll just post up what I wrote about what "Ivan's point" was. I guess you could say I'm just trying to get criticism so that if I have to defend my viewpoint later I've gotten my head around it, but I really am interested in what 'you' have to say.
I guess I'll mention here that my general absence has been because of school. My workload has increased, and the time I'm not spending working is spent in social (non-electronic outside of phones) or solitary recreation, or swim practice, so there isn't much time for forums.They’ve planned a diversion; they pet the baby, laugh to make it laugh. The succeed; the baby laughs. A Turk points a pistol four inches from the baby’s face. The baby laughs with glee, holds out its little hands to the pistol,
and he pulls the trigger in the baby’s face and blows out its brains.
Artistic, wasn’t it?
“Why can there not be among them one martyr oppressed by great sorrow and loving humanity?” (34-35) Ivan’s poem, at least in his summary, identifies those who have done the ‘worst’ as the ones seeking dominion over humanity as the malicious Turk over the infant, the parent over the beaten child...but also the Virgin Mary praying for the forgiveness of the tormentors of the son of God. Ultimately Ivan’s point is ambiguous - is this ‘good’ or ‘evil’? “But he suddenly approached the old man ain silence and softly kissed him on his bloodless, aged lips.” (36) Is the kiss in forgiveness? Does Christ forgive the Inquisitor as the Inquisitor the masses? There’s no true answer to that, likely because Ivan himself is unsure of the righteousness of his own position, repentant one moment and vitriolic the next. Ultimately, he is as captivated by the Miracle, Mystery, and Authority of god, or at least of the world: “I have a longing for life, and I go on living in spite of logic” (2), and yet identifies himself as an atheist. He both loves and reviles man. Ultimately, there’s no absolute conclusion as to whether these Grand Inquisitors in our midst - whom Wright calls “Outsiders” - are right or wrong, especially when Ivan lists both forgiveness and infanticide among their actions. But it does prove that wrong is, or can be, as motivated by a sense of morality as right.
Or perhaps right is proven as the obverse of wrong, still motivated by a sense or morality. Wrong is, among Ivan’s examples, far more prevalent - the burden is to prove that right is done out of anything but naivety.
:cry
