Previous
Zosima, the Elder
The twenty-two-year-old kept woman of her “patron,” Kuzma Kuzmich Samsonov. She lives in the house that belongs to the dead merchant Morozov’s widow. She is Rakitin’s cousin, due to their mothers being sisters. Grushenka is “a red-cheeked, full-bodied Russian beauty” and “a woman of bold and determined character.” She is very alluring, and the great appeal of her beauty is that it is simple and ordinary. She is rather tall and plump. She has a soft, “inaudible way of moving her body,” and her voice is like “sugary confection.” Her joy is like that of a child, and she wears a “childlike, openhearted expression,” though she is also “proud and insolent.” She is “acquisitive, tight-fisted, and cautious” when it comes to money, resulting in her developing a small fortune. Despite her reputation as a promiscuous woman, she rebuffs most of the men who take an interest in her. She is the lover of both Dmitri Fyodorovich and his father, Fyodor Pavlovich, though she later claims that she had no romantic interest in the elderly man and only laughed at him. After Dmitri’s arrest, she falls ill and is sick for five weeks. By the end of the novel, it turns out that Grushenka truly loves Dmitri; she stands by him when he is sent to prison, and she agrees to his plans to move with him temporarily to the American West.
Agrafena “Grushenka” Alexandrovna Svetlov Quotes in The Brothers Karamazov
The The Brothers Karamazov quotes below are all either spoken by Agrafena “Grushenka” Alexandrovna Svetlov or refer to Agrafena “Grushenka” Alexandrovna Svetlov. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Part 1: Book 3, Chapter 3
Quotes
“‘To insects—sensuality!’ I am that very insect, brother, and those words are precisely about me. And all of us Karamazovs are like that, and in you, angel, the same insect lives and stirs up storms in your blood. Storms, because sensuality is a storm, more than a storm! […] Too many riddles oppress man on earth. Solve them if you can without getting your feet wet.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Epilogue, Chapter 2
Quotes
“This is what I’ve thought up and decided: if I do run away [...] and even to America, I still take heart from the thought that I will not be running to any joy or happiness, but truly to another penal servitude, maybe no better than this one! […] This America, devil take it, I hate it already! So Grusha will be with me, but look at her: is she an American woman? She’s Russian, every little bone of her is Russian, she’ll pine for her native land, and I’ll see all the time that she’s pining away for my sake […] And I, will I be able to stand the local rabble […] I hate this America even now! And maybe every last one of them is some sort of boundless machinist or whatever—but, devil take them, they’re not my people, not of my soul! I love Russia, Alexei, I love the Russian God, though I myself am a scoundrel!”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
“Love is gone, Mitya!” Katya began again, “but what is gone is painfully dear to me. Know that, for all eternity. But now, for one minute, let it be as it might have been,” she prattled with a twisted smile, again looking joyfully into his eyes. “You now love another, I love another, but still I shall love you eternally, and you me, did you know that? Love me, do you hear, love me all your life!” she exclaimed with some sort of almost threatening tremor in her voice.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Thus they prattled to each other, and their talk was frantic, almost senseless, and perhaps also not even truthful, but at that moment everything was truth, and they both utterly believed what they were saying. “Katya,” Mitya suddenly exclaimed, “do you believe I killed him? I know you don’t believe it now, but then…when you were testifying…Did you, did you really believe it!” “I did not believe it then either! I never believed it! I hated you, and suddenly persuaded myself, for that moment…While I was testifying…I persuaded myself and believed it…and as soon as I finished testifying, I stopped believing it again. You must know all that. I forgot that I came here to punish myself!” she said with some suddenly quite new expression, quite like her prattling of love just a moment before.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Brothers Karamazov LitChart as a printable PDF.
Agrafena “Grushenka” Alexandrovna Svetlov Quotes in The Brothers Karamazov
The The Brothers Karamazov quotes below are all either spoken by Agrafena “Grushenka” Alexandrovna Svetlov or refer to Agrafena “Grushenka” Alexandrovna Svetlov. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Part 1: Book 3, Chapter 3
Quotes
“‘To insects—sensuality!’ I am that very insect, brother, and those words are precisely about me. And all of us Karamazovs are like that, and in you, angel, the same insect lives and stirs up storms in your blood. Storms, because sensuality is a storm, more than a storm! […] Too many riddles oppress man on earth. Solve them if you can without getting your feet wet.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Epilogue, Chapter 2
Quotes
“This is what I’ve thought up and decided: if I do run away [...] and even to America, I still take heart from the thought that I will not be running to any joy or happiness, but truly to another penal servitude, maybe no better than this one! […] This America, devil take it, I hate it already! So Grusha will be with me, but look at her: is she an American woman? She’s Russian, every little bone of her is Russian, she’ll pine for her native land, and I’ll see all the time that she’s pining away for my sake […] And I, will I be able to stand the local rabble […] I hate this America even now! And maybe every last one of them is some sort of boundless machinist or whatever—but, devil take them, they’re not my people, not of my soul! I love Russia, Alexei, I love the Russian God, though I myself am a scoundrel!”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
“Love is gone, Mitya!” Katya began again, “but what is gone is painfully dear to me. Know that, for all eternity. But now, for one minute, let it be as it might have been,” she prattled with a twisted smile, again looking joyfully into his eyes. “You now love another, I love another, but still I shall love you eternally, and you me, did you know that? Love me, do you hear, love me all your life!” she exclaimed with some sort of almost threatening tremor in her voice.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Thus they prattled to each other, and their talk was frantic, almost senseless, and perhaps also not even truthful, but at that moment everything was truth, and they both utterly believed what they were saying. “Katya,” Mitya suddenly exclaimed, “do you believe I killed him? I know you don’t believe it now, but then…when you were testifying…Did you, did you really believe it!” “I did not believe it then either! I never believed it! I hated you, and suddenly persuaded myself, for that moment…While I was testifying…I persuaded myself and believed it…and as soon as I finished testifying, I stopped believing it again. You must know all that. I forgot that I came here to punish myself!” she said with some suddenly quite new expression, quite like her prattling of love just a moment before.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
