The Brothers Karamazov | Literary Precedents
As critic Vyacheslav Ivanov has indicated, there is a Faustian quality to the mythic features of The Possessed (1871- 1872; see separate entry). The same might be said of The Brothers Karamazov, in which Ivan, most notably, "sells" his soul to the devil (the scenes where he is confronted by the demon are close to myth in their effect) and yet gains only unhappiness— one could say that this intellectual young man is "cursed" by his own personal devil. Moreover, Dmitri, in a manner, also suffers from a kind of bargain with grim fate. While he is eager, to recite Schiller's...
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