Pavel Fyodorovich Smerdyakov, “son of the reeking one," is the illegitimate son of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov and half-brother of Dmitri, Ivan and Alyosha. His mother is “Stinking Lizaveta,” a beggar and “holy fool.” Because of her low status and his illegitimacy, Smerdyakov is placed at the bottom rung of society and becomes a cook for his own father.
An Illegitimate Servant
While Fyodor Pavlovich seems vaguely aware of Smerdyakov's kinship—he treats him differently from his other servants: pays for his culinary education; gives him access to his books—he still treats him much worse than he does his legitimate sons, whom Smerdyakov has to address as a servant would his masters.
Through Smerdyakov, Dostoevsky shows the contradiction and cruelty embedded in a stratified society. Servants and peasants are perceived as nonpersons, irrespective of their efforts to better themselves or assert their worth. Smerdyakov wants to move away and make a better life for himself—perhaps as a chef—but hasn’t the money to do so, and is constantly beaten down by words such as “lackey” coming from those who, in a fair world, would be his equals.
Two Atheists, One Selfish Philosophy
He studies philosophy and religion, but his efforts are met with contempt by his half-brother Ivan, who sees in Smerdyakov a servant wearing glasses, feigning to be an intellectual. Nonetheless, in Smerdyakov Ivan finds prime fodder for his own selfish ends. And Smerdyakov, who has no friends and has been devalued all his life, welcomes the presence of Ivan, who shares his atheistic philosophy. He rests his self-worth on Ivan’s approval and values it more than he does his own financial security.
Since he wants to forge a bond with Ivan, he tells him of his helplessness and inability to escape his low status in society. And Ivan seems to sympathize, but still maintains an air of mystery and superiority, refusing to let his guard down or offer real assistance.
Intelligence, to Ivan, is the ability to deceive: to hide the truth from all, to play witty games with others. And Smerdyakov at times plays this game with Ivan, as a mirror reflecting back all that is wrong with Ivan’s thought and philosophy. And Ivan doesn’t like it. But when Smerdyakov plans to murder their father and tells Ivan in a witty, secretive way to get out of town so to avoid being implicated, he assumes that he and Ivan share a common truth and can thus depend on each other, since Ivan does in fact leave town.
A Murderer Dies for an Idea
However, Smerdyakov is betrayed by Ivan, who had once said that “everything is permitted” in a world without God. But once the murder has been committed, Ivan turns on Smerdyakov and pretends that he had no idea that he would kill Fyodor Pavlovich. Furthermore, he wants Smerdyakov to confess every detail of the murder so that he can take the blame for it instead of Dmitri Fyodorovich, who was falsely charged for it due to his longstanding feud with his father.
Smerdyakov asks Ivan if he, too, will admit his involvement for not staying to protect his own father and for providing the philosophic underpinning of the deed, but Ivan refuses to acknowledge his part in the murder. It is Smerdyakov, “the monster," who must take the blame—all of it.
And though Ivan had a large inheritance to gain in the event of his fathers’ death, Smerdyakov, betrayed by the only friend he thought he had, turns over the money he had stolen to Ivan and sacrifices himself for Ivan’s idea; instead of testifying, he hangs himself.
The bastard child and servant of his own father, who was ignored and devalued in life, is also devalued in death because he lives and dies by an idea not his own. He is thus betrayed by his very desire to better himself; for those in a higher class than he, whom he wished to be equal to, were merely looking for an angle by which to exploit him even more than he already had been by his dire circumstances and low status.
Smerdyakov had taught a neighborhood boy a nasty trick: he would throw to a dog bread with pins in it. But to get him to eat it, he would have to identify the hungriest dog, who would swallow the bread whole without hesitation, due to desperation. In the end, the bread with pins in it was Ivan's philosophy, and the hungry dog was Smerdyakov.
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002.
See Also:
The Grand Inquisitor by Fyodor Dostoevsky: 3 Temptations of Jesus
The Eternal Divide Between the Atheist and the Believer
The Existentialist: Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Sabrina Dawkins - Sabrina Dawkins received her Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Appalachian State University and her Master of Arts in Sociology from ...
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