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Part 4: Book 12, Chapter 9
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Brothers Karamazov, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Faith vs. Reason
Innocence and Guilt
Jealousy and Envy
Morality and Modernization
Suffering
Family
Summary
Analysis
Fetyukovich begins speaking. His voice is loud but attractive. His speech has two parts: bitter critique and a refutation of charges in the first half, and, in the second half, pathos that leaves the courtroom “trembling with rapture.” The defense attorney describes himself as a newcomer, and describes Dmitri as “a man of stormy and unbridled character.” He takes issue, however, with Ippolit Kirillovich’s claim that Dmitri couldn’t have been expressing sensitivity toward Grigory after striking him. He says that Dmitri was able to be piteous because his conscience was clear to begin with. He wasn’t focused on self-salvation, as a murderer would be.
Fetyukovich tries to ingratiate himself with the members of the small-town courtroom. He humbles himself as a newcomer, though everyone in the room knows that he’s a famous lawyer from St. Petersburg. He must do this because if the jury doesn’t like him, they’ll be more likely to find Dmitri guilty. He asserts that the unpredictable nature of Dmitri’s personality does make it possible for him to strike Grigory in one moment and to try to help him the next. At the same time, he lacks the true malice and foresight to actually commit murder.
Themes
