A Micro-Essay in Dostoevsky

S. ELLIAS (New York, U.S.A.) THE BURDEN OF SHOULDERING IDENTITY: A MICRO-ESSAY IN DOSTOEVSKY Introductory words We shall begin in media res, as it were, namely, from a small detail, indeed one that has consistently proved to be too small to see, although found right in the epicenter of The Brothers Karamazov, in "The Grand Inquisitor," the heart of hearts of Dostoevsky's legacy. At one level, the entire essay may be perceived as an annotation to this detail, in an attempt to understand its meaning and the service it does to the novel, although it may seem like attach- ing an overcoat to a button, rather than the other way around. But at another, and in fact many other levels, this would basically open up a full-fledged in- quiry into Dostoevsky's artistic and ideological world, leading to Dosto- evsky's uniform and holistic appropriation. For, as we make our way in deciphering the significance of that detail, we are to deal with numerous matters tangential to an extensive set of problems in Dostoevsky studies. In the to- and-fro of deliberation, we cannot but face many other themes. To achieve our objective and destination, we shall have to not only alternate telescope and microscope but also advance backward and move ahead rewinding, so at ' the end of the road, when all should come to completion, we will have be- come only ready to start. Part One: ATTENTION TO DETAIL 1. A semiotic challenge In order to begin, let us imagine ourselves in the epicenter of The Brothers Karamazov, in the chapter "The Grand Inquisitor," right after Ivan Karama- zov's reading of The Legend to Alesha has been completed, when the text of the novel' features an evanescent appearance of a detail, never to appear again in the novel's text. This detail has been systematically overlooked by researchers, despite perpetual and relentless ransacking and interpreting of the novel, and in the rare cases when it was noticed, it was never made sense of. This is all the more significant given that The Brothers Karamazov, unlike many novels of genius, is still a "functioning novel," so to speak, being read in different quarters: not only by a professional audience but also by the pub- lic at large. It is this detail that will take center stage and engage our attention Downloaded from Brill.com10/03/2021 07:38:19PM via free access here and now, as we make an attempt to tease out its significance by way of a hypothesis that the present investigation is poised to advance. Let us now then, with no further delay, get down to business, turning to the narrator, whom Dostoevsky "hired" as fit to be entrusted with his greatest creation, and hear him draw the following verbal snapshot: Ivan turned suddenly and went his way without looking back. It was just as brother Dmitri had left Alyosha the day before, though the part- ing had been very different. The strange resemblance flashed like an ar- row through Alyosha's mind in the distress and dejection of that mo- ment. He waited a little, looking after his brother. He suddenly noticed that Ivan swayed as he walked and that his right shoulder looked lower than his left. He had never noticed it before. But all at once he turned too, and almost ran to the monastery.' (Italics are mine - S. E.) That it is a piece of imaginative literature, and moreover, that it is Dosto- evsky's imaginative literature, gives sufficient warning and warrant alike to take the detail not as a slip of the pen, or a meaningless trifle, but something that is deliberately posted to be made part of the artistic game by considering and understanding. So, a trifle - yes, but meaningless? By no means! But what is the meaning of it, then - this now becomes the question. In order to communicate better, it will be henceforth referred to as the "shoulder detail or feature," though with no particular stake in the term. While the physical characterization of Ivan Karamazov is on principle left aside as secondary, if not irrelevant, to his strictly ideological function in the novel, now, as if out of the blue, such a corporeal detail to deal with! This detail is obviously minor and even minute, but Dostoevsky clearly introduces it at a major junction and in an emphatic way, which undoubtedly suggests that it somehow is important. Moreover, the detail seems connected with Ivan Karamazov's major ideological claim, as vented in The Legend, putting some gray in his portrait - gray, incidentally, being the color philosophy uses to draw its pictures, as Hegel has it. Significance may also be seen in the fact of not only when but also to whom this shoulder feature appears, for the relation between Alesha and Ivan constitutes a major ideological dynamic and source of tension in the novel. Moreover, the mentioned detail is arguably the only information as to the physical status of the character of Ivan Karamazov, and therefore even on this score it cannot be accidental, especially if we bear in . mind that Ivan Karamazov may be considered among those of Dostoevsky'ss 1. F. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, ed. by R. Matlaw, including the Gamett transla- tion, revised by R. Matlaw, backgrounds and sources, essays in criticism (New York-London: W. W. Norton, 1976) (henceforth BK), p. 245. Downloaded from Brill.com10/03/2021 07:38:19PM via free access characters who are presented physically with conspicuous reticence, virtually lacking physical predication. The detail, furthermore, engenders a peculiar discrepancy between physique and age in Ivan Karamazov. Once noticed and considered, the shoulder feature of Ivan Karamazov begins to disturb the imaginary physical portrait readers are most likely to draw for themselves as they read the novel, for now they have to incorporate this detail into the portrait of a thinker as a young man and somehow reconcile the disparity between his tender age and his single physical characteristic, between his - perhaps somewhat mischievous - attractive looks of "subterranean beauty" (M. Blanchot) and the physical evidence to the contrary. It is as if this discrepancy is challenging us yet again not to give up, to persist in trying to make out the detail one way or another. Dostoevsky even seems interested in having the reader pay attention to, that very discrepancy and by no means overlook it, for there is a point in the novel that particularly underlines it, when Alesha says something to Ivan that seems to exacerbate the contrast between age and physique: "You are a riddle to me even now. But I understand something in you.. .. That you are just as young as other young men of twenty-three, that you are . just a young and fresh and nice boy, green in fact!"2 The fact of the said discrepancy is turning into a problem, which insists that this sole physical feature given by Dostoevsky is not to be overlooked, but rather made out all the way through. Thus, once detected and appreciated, the shoulder detail is to be considered a semiotic token that needs to be treated as such, that is, semantically deciphered as part of the understanding of the text. Yet, one is given virtually nothing in the text to begin and work with in the process of deciphering, as if Dostoevsky now is interested in keeping the secret. This ostensible contradic- tion is fully compatible with Dostoevsky's narrational playfulness and his un- articulated, yet transparent, intolerance of the lazy and drowsy reader. Small wonder, then, that the meaning of the shoulder detail has for so long re- mained, despite a few sightings, a virtual secret known basically only to Alesha, to the narrator, and presumably to Dostoevsky himself - a rather con- fined circle by any standard, which is perhaps what has lent the conspiracy such success. The meaning of this detail has not been revealed even by a stroke of, serendipity, offering researchers or readers the gift of spontaneous insight into it. There is no doubt, however, that in virtue of its being there� the detail was meant to be discovered by the reader, indeed by every reader,. not only professionals. ; So, given Dostoevsky's highly sophisticated and intricate style of creating a literary portrayal and his unshakable commitment to ideas, this detail has to be somehow involved in the nature of the performance the character of Ivan 2. BK, p. 211. !. Downloaded from Brill.com10/03/2021 07:38:19PM via free access Karamazov gives in the novel; and, as it seems, it cannot be otherwise. With this in mind, let us try to account for the meaning of the shoulder detail in the best way possible, to retrieve the semantic content of this semiotic challenge, for it now comes across as a loaded, eloquent detail, placed there to say something, and as long as it may be deciphered, we must learn to understand the "accent" of this body language. The meaning of the shoulder detail will be framed here in the form of a hypothesis - the shoulder hypothesis. 2. Available responses The shoulder detail is, to be sure, a riddle, but one that has to it some logi- cally stable structure available from the start. It may be captured and ordered as a set of points. First, it is certain that the riddle cannot be considered accidental, being the only element of the physical characterization of the main character in the main work of Dostoevsky.

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