“Above all, do not lie to yourself. A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others. Not respecting anyone, he ceases to love, and having no love, he gives himself up to passions and coarse pleasures, in order to occupy and amuse himself, and in his vices reaches complete bestiality, and it all comes from lying continually to others and to himself. A man who lies to himself is often the first to take offense. It sometimes feels very good to take offense, doesn’t it? And surely he knows that no one has offended him, and that he himself has invented the offense and told lies just for the beauty of it, that he has exaggerated for the sake of effect, that he has picked on a word and made a mountain out of a pea—he knows all of that, and still he is the first to take offense, he likes feeling offended, it gives him great pleasure, and thus he reaches the point of real hostility … Do get up from your knees and sit down, I beg you, these posturings are false, too…”
Book II, Chapter 2, bottom of page 36
In the middle of Chapter 2: The Old Buffoon, Fyodor Pavlovich goes to the temple where Alyosha is living as a monk to seek guidance and a moderator for his feud with his son Dmitri. Fyodor enters the space with Zosima, an elder at the temple, and Alyosha. Alyosha, and the other monks kiss Zosima’s hand in deference while they ask for blessings, but Fyodor refuses to do so, increasing the awkward tension in the room.
Fyodor proceeds to apologize and ramble on about Dmitri’s lateness to the meeting filling the silent room. In his nonstop chatter he engages in a series of little stories and relentlessly teases the monks, particularly Miusov, who grows increasingly annoyed with him. Eventually, Fyodor begs Zosima for advice. Zosima engages with Fyodor on the basis that he believes Fyodor to be deeply insecure and ashamed of himself. Zosimas advises Fyodor that the worst thing a man can do is lie to himself and others, as he says in the above quote.
This short speech helps the reader to understand the role that Fyodor will play and develop main themes that will be explored. Zosima is exploring a concept that is very familiar to anyone engaged in Christian ecopoetics, or Byzantine influenced literature, which is that virtue is found through honesty with oneself. If a person remains in a state of mistruth then his unconscious and conscious spaces are suspicious and guarded. This means he is unable to believe in anything, particularly not God. If one continues to lie you cease to respect mankind, and have little love left for yourself and others. Zosima hints, or suggests, a path to redemption here, which we may engage with later in the novel at the point of the trial in the last books. The end of the short speech Zosima instructs Fyodor to cease his performative and dramatic prostrations because they are also lies, false and manipulative representations of his own internal struggle.
This short scene speaks not only to the concept of lying and its implications within the Christian context, but also to the burdens of the human experience. On one hand, it is liberating to choose to give oneself up completely, honestly, and openly to God, but on the other hand the choice to cross that bridge can be a difficult one. Oftentimes, as have been shown by characters throughout Chaucer, The Arcadia, Dostoevsky’s work, among the others we have read, people are imperfect and often go a step forward only to step backward. Facing the consequences of one’s actions can then also be too much to bear, and this is where sin can enter life. God cannot be used as a scapegoat for the calamities of free will in marriage with a devotion of free will to Him.
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