Week 11(?) – 4/15 Brothers Karamazov
The beginning of Frank Chapter 6, page 67
The Brothers Karamazov – Book 7 Chapter 1: The Odor of Corruption
“Well into daylight people began arriving from town, some even bringing their sick, children especially—just as if they had been waiting purposely for this moment, apparently in hopes of an immediate healing power, which, according to their faith, should not be slow to appear. Only now did it appear how accustomed people had become in our parts to considering the deceased elder, while he was still alive, an unquestionable and great saint. And those who came were far from being all peasants. This great expectation among the faithful, so hastily and nakedly displayed, even impatiently and all but demandingly, seemed to Father Paissy an unquestionable temptation, and though he had long anticipated it, still it in fact went beyond his expectations” (277-278). (online text)
Further in the chapter…
“The unbelievers rejoiced; as for the believers, some of them rejoiced even more than the unbelievers, for “people love the fall of the righteous man and his disgrace,” as the deceased elder himself had pronounced in one of his homilies. The thing was that little by little, but more and more noticeably, an odor of corruption had begun to issue from the coffin, which by three o’clock in the afternoon was all too clearly evident and kept gradually increasing” (280). (online text)
In chapter one of book VII of The Brothers Karamazov the body of the recently deceased Zosima begins to draw a crowd of people from the town and surrounding area. Everyone is hoping for healing, a miracle, for their children to be blessed etc; generally the aura amongst everyone from peasants to the wealthy to the monks is that a miracle is sure to take place. Unfortunately, as a modern reader might assume, the body begins to stink. The smell of decay in this setting would not be a biological cue, but an indication of corruption. Corruption might indicate that Zosima is infected with some kind of evil spirit or bad omen, or that he was never a good person to begin with. The reader has to recognize that in a small and remote Russian town these kinds of medieval ideas might last longer amongst monks and townspeople who are so connected to religion as a kind of community practice. In reading more about this chapter and its connections to medieval beliefs one could look to historians, for example: the Jesuit historian Michel de Certeau wrote, “In innumerable stories from the convents, you can tell whether the object seen in a vision is authentic by the smell it gives off, or whether a deceased religious is a saint by the good odor surrounding her” (Sparknotes summary aid). The village people and the monks are disheartened to say the least, and many are troubled. Faith is shaken within the convent, and personal doubt begins to be sown. Not everyone had a negative response however, as some who never liked Zosima to begin with rejoiced in his demise from saintliness.
It is relevant to the plot to note that issues of stench with the corpse cause Alyosha to become upset with his own relationship to God. It is only when he has an unlikely conversation with Grushenka that he regains his belief and assuredness.
The issues of belief remind the reader of issues with the evidence of that which inspires faith. In The Meaning of Life Frank speaks to the invisibility faith. The smells and dreams the characters have are untouchable, not entirely intangible, but less than real for those who experience them. It is difficult to always have faith in something that does not prove itself to you every now and again. The faith that god asks for in this book is intangible and often difficult for the characters to grasp. There is a deep sense of wrestling with the intangibles in life, particularly when death is held in such high regard. The meaninglessness of life combined with the path of faith and the desire for visible confirmation of truth is riddled with difficulty. All of the characters in the story at some point wrestle with one of these issues in the same way Alyosha wrestles with them in this chapter.
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