The Brothers Karamazov: Part 1: Book 1, Chapter 3 Summary & Analysis

Fyodor marries for a second time to Sofia Ivanovna. The marriage lasts for about eight years. Sofia is sixteen and from another province. She is an orphan, “the daughter of some obscure deacon,” and grew up in the home of General Vorokhov’s widow. Sofia is a meek, gentle girl who once tried to hang herself. Fyodor offers her his hand in marriage and, again, suggests elopement. Fyodor doesn’t get a dowry this time, but he is tempted “by the innocent girl’s remarkable beauty.” Still, he remains a philanderer and has orgies at the house, in front of his wife. Grigory, who hated his former mistress, Adelaida, takes Sofia’s side. On one occasion, he breaks up an orgy and drives the “loose women” away from the house.

Sofia later comes down with a nervous disorder that causes her to have “terrible hysterical fits.” Nevertheless, she bears Ivan in the first year of her marriage to Fyodor, and Alexei three years later. Alexei is four when Sofia dies, but he remembers his mother throughout his life. After her death, Fyodor forgets about the boys and they, too, end up in Grigory’s cottage, just as their older brother had. One day General Vorokhov’s widow finds them in the cottage. When she sees Fyodor, who is tipsy, she slaps him and then goes for the boys, who are unwashed and wearing dirty shirts. For that, she slaps Grigory. She then carries the boys outside, wraps them in plaid, puts them in a carriage, and takes them to her town.

General Vorokhov’s widow dies shortly after that. In her will, the widow sets aside a thousand roubles each for Ivan and Alexei. The money is to be for their education. The widow’s principal heir, Yefim Petrovich Polenov, takes an interest in the boys and particularly comes to love Alexei, who grows up in Polenov’s family for a while. Polenov educates the boys at his own expense and protects their inheritances so that they grow with interest.

At an early age, Ivan shows an “unusual and brilliant aptitude for learning.” He leaves Yefim Petrovich’s family at thirteen and enters a Moscow secondary school. Yefim Petrovich, unfortunately, leaves his affairs in disarray upon his death, which results in Ivan and Alexei being unable to obtain their inheritances right away. To make up for this loss, Ivan finds work giving lessons and then writes small “Eyewitness” articles about street incidents for local newspapers. In his later years at university, he publishes “talented reviews of books” and becomes known in literary circles. One article deals with ecclesiastical courts, a subject that is being raised everywhere at the time. Ivan, surprisingly, sides with the “churchmen.”

One day, Ivan appeared at Fyodor’s house and lives with him for a couple of months. The pair “[get] along famously.” Ivan even has influence over Fyodor, who listens to him occasionally. Only later do we learn, the narrator says, that Ivan went to Fyodor partly at the request of Dmitri. He acted as “a mediator and conciliator” between his father and elder brother.