On the Nature of Contemplation  in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov” 

Stafford Wood 
The Brothers Karamazov 
Preceptorial Paper 
Spring 2024 

It is nearly impossible to think about Dostoevsky’s novel, “The Brothers Karamazov.” In order to think about a novel successfully and properly, one must hold enough details in one’s mind to reflect on the characters, the plot, the dialogue, the setting, the conflicts and the themes of the work. From there, while thinking about it, one generally draws conclusions as to one’s opinions about the elements of the story. Then, one analyzes those conclusions into a conscious, clear summary capable of being communicated to another person. 

“The Brothers Karamazov,” like most Russian novels, seems to simply have too much to chew on in order to actively digest the novel by “thinking.” Perhaps we are not meant to think about this book at all, but instead, we are to “contemplate” it.  I would like to imagine contemplation is to be our manner of considering his work in order to draw the best inspirations and revelations, rather than analytically “thinking” about it.  

In ordinary conversation, the differences between contemplation and thought are subtle and nuanced. Thinking is the process of using one’s mind to consider or reason about something. Contemplation is the action of looking thoughtfully at something for a long time. Most dictionaries offer the words as synonyms for one another. With similar denotations, we need to consider the connotations that create differences between the words, as we intuitively know they have different meanings. Those differences seem related to some character of time and result. Contemplation takes more time than thinking and winds its way towards some general feelings, while thinking seems to demand a rational or logical pattern to it that results in a conclusion.  

Dostoevsky gives us a literary definition of contemplation in Book 3, Chapter 6 entitled “Disputation” when describing the character Smerdyakov:   

“The painter Kramskoy has a remarkable painting entitled The Contemplator¹: it depicts a forest in winter, and in the forest, standing all by himself on the road, in deepest solitude, a stray little peasant in a ragged caftan and bast shoes; he stands as if he were lost in thought, but he is not thinking, he is “contemplating” something. If you nudged him, he would give a start and look at you as if he had just woken up, but without understanding anything. It’s true that he would come to himself at once, and yet, if he were asked what he had been thinking about while standing there, he would most likely not remember, but would most likely keep hidden away in himself the impression he had been under while contemplating. These impressions are dear to him, and he is most likely storing them up imperceptibly and even without realizing it—why and what for, 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.” (Book 3, Ch. 6, ¶25)

Despite being written more than 150 years ago in a foreign language, there are very few references to anything that is not easily understood today in American English. Dostoevsky only uses a handful of contemporaneous political and societal references throughout the entire massive novel. One of these is particularly attractive, as he not only refers to a contemporary painting, but he describes it in detail. Then, uses the painting to describe a primary character, Smerdykov, as well as a particular pattern of thought. 

Reflection on the nature of contemplation offers us a lens through which to read the entire novel, but especially a way to ingest the sections of the novel that involve a solitary character and their individual thoughts and activities. After analyzing the nature of contemplation, I will use this method of analysis to look at the Cana of Galilee chapter of the book.  

THE NATURE OF CONTEMPLATION  

In looking at each of these five sentences in isolation, the nature of contemplation can be understood from several different perspectives.  

“The painter Kramskoy has a remarkable painting entitled The Contemplator: it depicts a forest in winter, and in the forest, standing all by himself on the road, in deepest solitude, a stray little peasant in a ragged caftan and bast shoes; (Book 3, Ch. 6, ¶25) 

NATURE  

Kramskoy’s Contemplator is walking in the woods, experiencing nature. Being connected to the land, the animals, the snow and the trees offers a landscape to draw from without the cacophony of manmade things. We feel connected to the infinite in the woods, as everything around us is made by God. Or is it? We can ruminate on these things as we experience nature and look at each tree separated from the others. Without thinking about the whole of the forest, we can see just that branch or a particular leaf. The connection to nature is an important component in contemplative thought.  

MOVEMENT 

The figure in Kramskoy’s painting is walking. This resonates with me as “I’m going to take a walk” is a frequent path to discovering a new perspective on something that’s on my mind. Without a pen and paper, the mind is free to discover new ideas as you traverse the landscape and your own mind.  

SOLITUDE 

Contemplation is a solitary exercise. When one is with another person, it is impossible to hold unorganized thoughts in your head as you attempt to communicate with someone else about your thoughts. Perhaps this is why so many people talk about having an idea in the shower, where you are alone with your thoughts and not trying to communicate them. I have a friend who lays in bed at night and claims to play chess on the ceiling. Moving around the pieces of his life in hopes of organizing them in some sort of way to illuminate the path forward. But it is much more of an examination of each piece and analyzing how it fits with the other pieces. Which moves it has as a possibility and whether it is time to move that piece or not. He does not make concrete decisions, instead it is a way of holding the pieces in his mind together and observing what unfolds.  

IMPRESSIONS  

These impressions are dear to him, and he is most likely storing them up imperceptibly and even without realizing it—why and what for, 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. (Book 3, Ch. 6, ¶25) 

To read “The Brothers Karamazov” with an attentive mind offers you the opportunity to observe the little details of characters and their moments of action and thought. Observances and the impressions they form in our minds are different than conscious thought and examination of analytical thinking. Like ants collecting small bits of dirt, the observances and impressions they leave us with build a mountain of conclusions and create the framework with which to think about the novel. If you examine the novel’s plot through the eyes of the character of Smerdykov, you can gather the small impressions that lead him to take the actions that he does in the middle of the novel.  

INTERUPTION 

“If you nudged him, he would give a start and look at you as if he had just woken up, but without understanding anything. It’s true that he would come to himself at once, and yet, if he were asked what he had been thinking about while standing there, he would most likely not remember, but would most likely keep hidden away in himself the impression he had been under while contemplating.” (Book 3, Ch. 6, ¶25)  

This idea that we can be unaware of what our minds are even thinking about is fascinating. We do not share these thoughts we have while contemplating, even with ourselves. It is as if we cannot contemplate without getting lost in our thoughts.  

CONTEMPLATION AS A UNIVERSAL ACTIVITY 
There are plenty of contemplators among the people. (Book 3, Ch. 6, ¶25)  

This seems to indicate that there are some among us who do not contemplate. Perhaps they are unaware of the observances they make in the day or perhaps they never called them to their conscience mind.  

SMERDYAKOV AS A CONTEMPLATOR 

“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.” (Book 3, Ch. 6, ¶25)  

The narrator compares Smerdyakov’s usual countenance to the painting and then demonstrates it the character’s solitary behavior and comments about his observances. It is not just that Smerdyakov collects these impressions, it is that he does it unconsciously, without a goal or a purpose. Smerdyakov, like the Russian peasant, is unaware of what his unconscious thinking is prescribing.  

ALYOSHA’S CONTEMPLATION OF FATHER ZOSIMA’S DEATH 

In the final definition of the Oxford English Dictionary, contemplation receives a spiritual meaning: “a form of prayer or meditation in which a person seeks to pass beyond mental images and concepts to a direct experience of the divine.” The character of Alyosha offers us an illuminating insight into both the final OED “spiritual” definition of “contemplation,” as well as Dostoevsky’s literary definition. This idea of focusing on something, lost in thought in order to purposefully pass to a direct experience of the divine seems to be exactly what Alyosha does in Father Zosima’s cell.  

In Book VII, Chapter Four, Cana of Galilee, Alyosha returns to Father Zosima’s cell to spend time nearly alone with his body. He has finished the tasks of the day and is now ready to experience his own time of what he expects to be mourning over the death of his mentor and friend. During this time, Alyosha has a transcendental experience of sleeping and dreaming in an awakened state of being combining reality with dreams and his own feelings and observances. The narrator exposes a manner of contemplative thinking to us through this experience with almost no spoken words and simply through the story of Alyosha’s thoughts and feelings. 

Alyosha is almost alone, especially in comparison to earlier in the day as he begins his contemplation around Father Zosima’s impact on his life. As he sits by the coffin, he begins prayers to try to hold order and organization in his mind. The sound of Father Paissy reading familiar words from the Gospel enter his mind in a fragmented way, not unlike observances in a garden. By not actively paying attention to the story, he leaves his mind free to wander where it may and occasionally touch back to some thread of the story that’s being read. “Fragments of thoughts flashed in his soul, catching fire like little stars and dying out at once to give way to other, yet there reigned in his soul something whole, firm assuaging, and he was conscious of it himself.” (Book VII, Chapter 4). This experience of falling in and out of conscious observance, while trying to walk a path of firm foundation is the contemplator’s movement of the mind. He does not hold onto the logic of it all or try to control it. Instead Alyosha allows his mind to wander, trusting that where it is going will be beneficial. One might posit that physical exhaustion is part of his dreamlike mental state, but I believe it is that so much is in his mind, there is no way to create order in the thinking without just experiencing it.  

As he is beside the body, the narrator notes that the window is open, with cool, fresh air entering the chamber. Nature and natural processes are present, informing the mind’s journey and contemplation of the process of death and decay. This air from the outside may have been offered to reduce the putrid odor, but it gives him an outlet for his experiences.   

He is grounded in his feelings first. He felt joy, rather than sadness. Now that he was in a quieter group with Father Zosima’s body, he did not feel the “weeping, gnawing, tormenting pity that had been there earlier in the morning” (Book VII, Chapter 4).  This joy is palpable in his mind. “His soul was overflowing, but somehow vaguely, and no single sensation stood out, making itself felt too much” (Book VII, Chapter 4). Awareness of his own mind, feelings and thoughts was not possible with so many voices around him at Father Zosima’s wake early in the day when he was trying to interact with the people there. Having feelings without thought to tie them down is an interesting experience. Focusing on the body, breath, heart rate and looking inside for answers is a truly contemplative experience. It is just this experience that we are invited to participate in.  

His observations throughout the chapter inspire contemplation of so many fragments of thoughts. He begins with his feelings, then moves into active prayer. As he falls into a near-trance, the words of Father Paissy drift in to move his thoughts into a living experience of Jesus at the wedding at Cana, the site of Jesus’ first miracle in the Gospel. Alyosha’s mind creates a conversation with Father Zosima, as if they were both present at the wedding. Throughout the vision, Father Zosima is offering suggestions of what is happening at the wedding, with an underlying explanation of tenets of Christianity. He points out that these are poor people experiencing the miracle of Christ turning water into wine. Father Zosima calls Alyosha forward into the merriment and out of hiding, a metaphor for Christ’s call to act in the world and be alive with Christianity. Zosima explains that the merriment is the goal and states that the guests at the party include many who “only gave an onion, only one little onion.”  

This reference to Chapter Three of the same Book, “An Onion,” pulls Alyosha into the story that is pivotal reference point for acts of mercy and Christian charity throughout the novel. The idea that party guests equate those souls who go to heaven, rewarded by God for their life on earth is clear. But, Zosima extends the “wedding invitation” to those who have only done one act of charity, as if God does not judge on an abacus, but is instead looking for one act of kindness, one act of support, one act of mercy to another soul at the moment of their greatest need and time of sorrow—the joy of forgiveness and support of another human being. 

Alyosha is not told these things by Zosima exclusively, but observes them. He observes that the guests are poor. He observes the celebration and joy. From this his contemplation of the experience fills him “almost painfully, tears of rapture nearly burst from his soul…” (Book VII, Chapter Four, ¶17).   

The first observation is of the setting and the mother of Jesus (¶2). He sees that these characters are present and becomes clearly aware of where he is in the vision. He contemplates this and arrives at Rakitin thinking about grudges as the antithesis of the wedding.  

The second observation is of the absence of wine (¶4). Alyosha compares wine to joy. Upon contemplation, Alyosha realizes that the wine represents a lack of joy, and that Christ delivers the wine as joy in the hearts of men. He floats to Mitya’s observance that “one cannot live without joy” (¶5).  

The third observance is Jesus’ refusal to perform the miracle because it is not yet time and his mother’s insistence that the servants should follow His commands. As he observes this moment in the story, Alyosha realizes that the passion of Christ has been central to his understanding of the sacrifice God made being the point of Christianity, but this is not so. “He came doewn then not jst for his great and awful deed, but that his heart of also open to the simple, guideless merrymaking of some untaught, untaught and artless beings, who loving invited him to their poor marriage feast” (¶7). He challenges the notion that Christ came down just to make wine. And yet, Jesus follows the direction of his mother and performs the miracle.   

This waking vision state is described as if it were a dream, but anyone who has felt the physical and mental exhaustion of the death of your spiritual guide, mentor and connection to God, understands there is no sleep in such a state—only waking visions that process the thoughts, sights, smells and feelings that are unmoored inside you. He contemplates the death, but also the purpose of life itself. It is this experience that we are meant to contemplate in order to receive the message of the work.  

At the end, he is compelled to action with a determination that cannot be touched by rational decision making or simple feelings. It is his contemplation of Father Zosima’s death, the wedding at Cana, his discussions with Rakitin, Mitya and Father Zosima, the situation he finds himself in, and all of the things that have happened in the book.  

THINKING VS. CONTEMPLATING 

Mitya, too, has a relationship with contemplation. Late in the book, Alyosha visits Mitya in prison in Book Eleven, Chapter Four, “A Hymn and A Secret,” where Mitya explains the way he observes the world and he believes the brain works to take in images. He explains that it is neuroscience, not spirituality that causes him to “contemplate, and then think” (¶26)  

“Imagine: it’s all there in the nerves, in the head- there are these nerves  in the brain… (devil take them!) there are sort of tails, these nerves have little tails, well, and when they tremble, an image appears… it doesn’t appear at once, but an instant, a second, passes… and then something like a moment appears; that is, not a moment- devil take the moment!- but an image; that is, an object, or an action, damn it! That’s why I see and then think, because of those tails, not at all because I’ve got a soul, and that I am some sort of image and likeness.”  (Book 11, Ch. 4, ¶26) 

Mitya rejects the notion of spiritual contemplation. He believes that it is all neuroscience that causes him to reflect on his observations, not the soul inside of him, moved by a God. This visit with Mitya comes just before Alyosha goes into his spiritual contemplative trance and perhaps informs his thinking (and contemplating) in Father Zosima’s cell.  

CONTEMPLATION AS POETRY 

“He stands as if he were lost in thought, but he is not thinking, he is “contemplating” something.” (Book 3, Ch. 6, ¶25)  

In the end, we are directed that being lost in thought is different than contemplating. If we read “The Brothers Karamazov” the way we read poem, we experience the nuanced joy and careful word choice of the author. We feel the beauty of the work with its own meter and rhyme. We feel the intense joy of Dostoevsky’s celebration of human life with all of its perils, its surprises, its minor characters and its major impressions. We may just contemplate on the meaning of life itself. And with each reading of the work, a new contemplation emerges, offering us a future state, different than we were when we started the book. Upon completion of the book, perhaps we will now drop everything and wander off to Jerusalem to save our souls, or perhaps we will suddenly burn down our native villages, or perhaps we will do both.