.nr LL 6i
.nr PO 1i
.nr VS 24
.PP
In the chapter \*QThe Devil. Ivan Fyodorovich's Nightmare\*U in Dostoevsky's
.I "The Brothers Karamozov,"
we see Ivan Karamazov in a state of inner conflict and torment, specifically
he is being tormented by his own hallucination of a devil.  Some questions
that might be raised here are: Why does Ivan create a devil as his
tormenter, why this particular devil (in terms of appearance and manner),
why does the devil say the things he does, and why do these things have such
a marked effect on Ivan?  In the course of this paper it should become clear
that the answers to these questions are intimately related and refer back
and forth to each other.  This is partially due to the crucial fact that the
devil is, in fact, part of Ivan; he exists in Ivan's mind.
.PP
Ivan has just returned from a visit with Smerdyakov where he found out that
Smerdyakov was the murderer of Ivan's father Fyodor.  With coaxing from
Smerdyakov Ivan is convinced that he too played a major role in his fathers
death.  In fact Smerdyakov says, \*QI am not the real murderer, though I did
kill him.  You are the rightful murderer.\*U (p. 594).  Smerdyakov's logic
behind this reasoning is that when Ivan agreed to go to Chermashnya (in the
chapter \*QFor a While a Very Obscure One\*U) he was telling Smerdyakov
\*Q`You can murder my parent, I won't hinder you!'\*U (p. 583), and thus he
was responsible for the murder.  One of the problems that Ivan now faces is
that he feels the need to confess his guilt at the murder trial the following
day.  But this desire goes against all Ivan's past ideas and principles that
he was so confident and proud of, the ideas about God and Man that Smerdyakov
reduces to the phrase \*Q`all things are lawful'\*U (p.  599).  His old
principles are clashing with his new desire and this conflict is tormenting
him.  But more than that, his old ideas are being revealed to him more and
more in a different light, and this too drives him mad.  This process of
revelation that ends with the devil starts with Smerdyakov, so it will be
useful to go back in the novel and look at interactions between Ivan and Smerdyakov.
.PP
It is important to observe that Ivan is reluctant to readily express his ideas
in the four word phrase that Smerdyakov uses; he thinks of them in a loftier
way.  For example, after he recites his poem `The Grand Inquisitor', to
Alyosha in the chapter with the same name, Alyosha says \*Q`Everything is
lawful,' you mean?  Everything is lawful, is that it?\*U (p. 244), to which
\*QIvan scowled\*U.  But in the end he concedes, \*QYes, if you like\*U (p.
244).  `The Grand Inquisitor' is a poem, a work of art, which Ivan takes pride
in.  He feels that to reduce it to that simple phrase is an insult to the
work, to his pride, and to his aesthetic sense.  He does not want to admit
that such a work could be reduced to such a phrase.
.PP
After telling Alyosha the tale of `The Grand Inquisitor' Ivan starts walking
back to Fyodor's house.  We are told that he is depressed about something
unknown to him, and the depression \*Qhad a kind of casual, external
character\*U (p. 246) of an obtrusive object that \*Qirritates and almost
torments one till at last one realizes, and removes the offending object\*U
(p. 246).  Ivan then sees Smerdyakov and \*Qknew that the lackey Smerdyakov was
in his soul\**, and that it was this man that his soul loathed\*U (p. 246).
.FS
The translation is the book is \*QSmerdyakov
.I "was on his mind\*U"
(italics mine) but according to N. Rosen the translation I used was more
accurate.
.FE
(Note that Ivan first senses the devil as an irritating object as well, and he
also describes him as a lackey.  This will be touched on later.)  Ivan then
says of Smerdyakov \*QIs it possible that a misserable, contemptible creature
like that can worry me so much?\*U (p. 246).  We see that Ivan thinks lowly of
Smerdyakov.  The narrator then tells us that the root of why Ivan feels such
an aversion towards Smerdyakov is that Smerdyakov was beginning to show Ivan a
\*Qpeculiar revolting familiarity\*U (p. 247), as though there was some secret
compact between them.  We can understand why Ivan might feel irritated by
Smerdyakov putting himself on the same level with Ivan; Smerdyakov is, after
all, anti-poetic and anti-intellectual.  He says himself, \*QPoetry is no
good\*U (p. 206).  Knowing Ivan's pride and high sense of aesthetics we can
see how this familiarity on Smerdyakov's part would insult Ivan.
.PP
The conversation between Ivan and Smerdyakov that takes up the rest of the
chapter \*QFor a While a Very Obscure One\*U is the event that makes Ivan
responsible for the murder of Fyodor.  What is interesting is the way the
conversation starts.  Ivan was planning on walking right by Smerdyakov, and
when Smerdyakov catches Ivan's eye he was about to yell at him and call him a
fool, but instead he asks whether Fyodor is still asleep and sits down with
Smerdyakov.  He has given into this lackey Smerdyakov, a low character whom he
does not respect.  And the fact that \*QSmerdyakov was in his soul\*U suggests
that he is giving way to something base within himself as well.  Considering
the context, having just recited `The Grand Inquisitor,' we might suppose that
Ivan is giving in to the reduced idea that `all things are lawful' by making
possible the murder of his father.  We will find out through the devil that
this is probably true.
.PP
The connection between Ivan and Smerdyakov and the idea that `all things are
lawful' is emphasized again when Ivan makes his last visit to Smerdyakov,
right before the devil appears to him.  Smerdyakov says, \*QI did have an idea
of beginning a new life with that money [the money he murdered Fyodor
for]...chiefly because `all things are lawful.' That was quite right what you
taught me\*U (p. 599).  Then he goes on to say \*QFor if there's no
everlasting God, there's no such thing as virtue, and there's no need of it\*U
(p. 599).  Smerdyakov says that it was through Ivan's guidance that he came to
that conclusion.  Here we see the connection hinted at above between
Smerdyakov and Ivan's ideas.  It appears that it was Ivan's \*Qguidance\*U of
Smerdyakov that lead to Fyodor's murder; so Ivan can be seen as guilty in two
ways.  Ivan then starts in on Smerdyakov about why he is giving the money back
if he doesn't believe in God or virtue (perhaps Ivan is curious because he is
in a similar situation with respect to giving evidence).  Smerdyakov avoids
answering the question by starting in on Ivan and his giving evidence, saying
that he will not give evidence, \*Qfor you're very proud...You are like Fyodor
Pavlovich...you've the same soul as he had\*U (p. 599).  Ivan has probably
thought this for some time, with Alyosha in \*QThe Grand Inquisitor\*U he was
talking about the Karamozov thirst for life in him.  But hearing this from
someone he considers so low shocks him, he says \*QYou are not a fool...I used
to think you were a fool\*U (p. 599).  Ivan is seeing that there is more to
Smerdyakov than he wanted to admit before.  This implies that there could be
more to Smerdyakov's anti-poetic, anti-aesthetic reduction of Ivan's ideas
than Ivan wanted to admit.  Smerdyakov says, \*QIt was your pride made you
think I was a fool\*U (p. 599).  Again we see the notion of Ivan's pride
refusing the significance of Smerdyakov and his ideas, which are really Ivan's
ideas deglorified.
.PP
As I mentioned above Ivan is haunted by his old ideas in two ways.  There is a
conflict between his ideas and his current wish to give evidence against
himself (which probably no one will believe).  In addition he is starting to
see that his ideas are not so lofty as he once thought they were.  Through
Smerdyakov he is beginning to realize that his artistic expression of these
ideas is all due to pride.  Given the fact that these thoughts are going
around in his head, along with the fact that Ivan is suffering from
brain-fever that can cause hallucinations (we know this from the narrator p.
602), we might well expect that Ivan will have an hallucination that will
capture the essence of all these things that are tormenting him.  This is, in
fact, precisely what happens in \*QThe Devil.  Ivan Fyodorovich's Nightmare.\*U
.PP
When Ivan first meets Father Zosima and the latter hears about his
philosophical and religious articles (things that `The Grand Inquisitor' are
related to) Zosima says, \*Qyou don't even believe your own arguments, and
with an aching heart mock at them inwardly\*U (p. 61).  This is exactly what
Ivan does now, with the help of the devil.  The devil's tone throughout his
dialogue with Ivan is ironic and mocking, his manner is \*Qcarelessly easy\*U
(p. 607).  Everything the devil discusses, Ivan's stories, his anecdotes, his
ideas, are all discussed in mockery.  We would be correcting in saying that
the devil is the personification (pardon the word) of all of Ivan's past
ideas, coming back to torture him.  In that respect even the way the devil
appears is a mockery of these ideas.  He is out of date, he used to be in
fashion but he has sunk; he is a mediocre devil.  Later Ivan will say, \*QNo,
I was never such a lackey!  How then could my soul beget a lackey like you?\*U
(p. 615), expressing his disgust that he could have created something so
lowly.  The fact that he did create this devil mockingly soils his other
creations, his grand thoughts and stories.  Ivan is mocking himself inwardly,
but more deeply than just in the creation of the devil, as wee will see.
.PP
Ivan's relationship to the devil reminds us of his relationship to Smerdyakov.
Ivan, throughout, refers to the devil as a `fool' and a `lackey,' the very
terms he uses to describe Smerdyakov (at least until very recently).  In fact
the way in which the devil first appears to Ivan (as an irritating object)
reminds us of the way Smerdyakov appears to Ivan in the scene discussed above
where \*QSmerdyakov was in his soul\*U (p. 246).  And it is that scene that
comes after \*QThe Grand Inquisitor\*U which revolves around `all things
are lawful' where the roots of Ivan's torments lie.  Smerdyakov is no longer
in Ivan's soul, the devil has taken his place, and he will continualy,
and mockingly remind Ivan of those roots.  He will poke fun at Ivan's current
situation and challenge his pride by trivializing his lofty ideas.
.PP
The first anecdote that the devil tells Ivan is what I will refer to as the
Quadrillion Kilometers.  It is the story of a non-believer who seems very much
like Ivan, \*QHe rejected everything, `laws, conscience, faith,' and, above
all, the future life\*U (p. 610).  When the man dies and finds out that there
is an afterlife he says, \*QThis contradicts my principles!\*U (p. 610).  When
he finds out that if he walks a quadrillion kilometers he will be forgiven and
accepted into heaven he says, \*QI won't go, I refuse on principle!\*U (p.
611).  Ivan seems very interested in this story and it makes sense that he
does.  The story is about someone very much like himself who refuses to do
something on the grounds of his principles.  Right now Ivan is in a similar
situation; giving evidence would go against his principle that `all things are
lawful,' a fact which Smerdyakov aggressively pointed out to him.  The devil
seems to encourage a connection between Ivan's situation and the anecdote when
he says about tortures \*QIn the old days we had all sorts, but now they have
taken chiefly to moral punishments --
.I "`the stings of conscience'\*U"
(p. 610 italics mine).  This `sting of conscience' seems to be what Ivan
is experiencing now.  When the devil tells Ivan that, in the end, the man
started walking anyway Ivan laughs nervously and seems to be \*Qpondering
something intently\*U (p. 611).  He seems very interested now, he says,
\*QDoes it make any difference whether he lies there forever or walks...?  It
would take a billion years to walk it?\*U (p. 611).  Ivan is questioning the
logic of the action, it is as though he is \*Qpondering\*U the question
\*QDoes it make any difference if I give evidence?  No one will believe me
anyway.\*U It appears that Ivan thinks that this anecdote might be helpful for
him, but when he asks \*QWell, well, what happened when he arrived?\*U (p.
611) he gets a joke: the man was so enthusiastic that the holy ones were
suspicious of him.  The devil has made a joke, a mockery, out of Ivan's
serious situation.  In fact it turns out that (of course) this was one of
Ivan's old stories that he made up when he was seventeen.  This is in contrast
to Ivan's later stories, such as `The Grand Inquisitor' where God or heaven
have no role.  Here at least he is playing with the idea of them.  Perhaps
Ivan was thinking about this story in his sub-conscience as pointing to a
possible solution to his situation, and the devil takes this opportunity to
torment Ivan by making a joke out of it and also putting it in contrast with
`The Grand Inquisitor.' Victor Terras, in his book
.I "A Karamazov Companion,"
points out that the line \*Qthis wild legend [Quadrillion Kilometers] belongs
to our middle ages --not yours, but ours--\*U (p. 610) also sets the
Quadrillion Kilometers in contrast to `The Grand Inquisitor.' The devil is
leading up to that very important story that, again, is the root of Ivan's
torments.  But first the devil continues to exhaust Ivan by telling him more
tiring and ridiculous stories.
.PP
Ivan interrupts the devil at one point and says, \*Qyou are beating on my
brain...I am bored with you, agonizingly and insufferably\*U (p. 614).  At
this point the devil sees how mentally tired Ivan is, and realizes that now is
a good time for him to lead into something that he knows will torment Ivan,
the meat of the matter, `The Grand Inquisitor.' But first the devil creates a
background for this by bringing up issues that relate to why mentioning `The
Grand Inquisitor' will have such a marked effect on Ivan; he brings these
issues into Ivan's consciousness so he will be sure to consider them.  These
issues are, once again, Ivan's pride and aesthetic sense, but also things
relating specifically to `The Grand Inquisitor.' The devil first states that
Ivan is angry that he appeared in a modest form, without \*Qa red glow,
with thunder and lightning, with scorched wings\*U (p. 614).  He says that
because of this \*QYou are wounded, in the first place, in your aesthetic
feelings, and, secondly, in your pride\*U (p. 614).  This goes back to the
idea discussed before, that the devil's appearance is a mockery in itself.
But also, for the first time, the devil specifically mentions Ivan's pride and
aesthetic feeling as something that is important to him (Smerdyakov mentioned
his pride earlier).  The devil plays on this again, indirectly, when he says,
\*Qyou know how susceptible and aesthetically impressionable I am\*U (p. 614).
Not only is he saying that Ivan is aesthetically impressionable (after all,
the devil is part of Ivan), but he is lowering Ivan to his level by connecting
the two of them through this common point.  In addition, if the devil is
saying that line mockingly then he is making fun of Ivan's impressionability.
The devil also alludes to Goethe's
.I "Faust"
which is a literary work that deals with the devil, but there the devil is
more grandiose than Ivan's; he is not a lackey.  The devil is suggesting that
Ivan is flawed in his creative ability, which will be important in the context
of `The Grand Inquisitor.' The devil gets closer to `The Grand Inquisitor'
when he talks about the \*Qsecret\*U (p. 615) of his (the devil's) existence;
but the secret turns out to be another joke (Terras, p. 394-395).  Finally he
talks about there being two kinds of truths, \*Qone, their truth, yonder,
which I know nothing about so far and the other my own\*U (p. 615).  This
is a rehearsal of Ivan's idea of a Euclidean vs. a non Euclidean universe that
he discusses with Alyosha right before he recites `The Grand Inquisitor,' and
a theme that plays a prominent role in it.
.PP
Ivan, who is quite exhausted by this point, tries to defend himself from the
devil's jibes, he says, \*QAll my stupid ideas -- outgrown, thrashed out long
ago, and flung aside like a dead carcass -- you present to me as something
new!\*U (p. 615).  Ivan seems to be trying to dismiss the issues that the
devil raises, but the devil continues, \*QI thought I would fascinate you by
my literary style...And then that ironical tone\*U (p. 615).  Again the devil
is mocking Ivan and lowering him to his level and now Ivan can not contain
himself, \*QNo, I was never such a lackey!  How then could my soul beget a
lackey like you?\*U (p. 615).  As was mentioned before this line invokes the
context of `The Grand Inquisitor,' and the scene where \*QSmerdyakov was in
his [Ivan's] soul\*U where Ivan's torment began.  The devil now takes
advantage of Ivan's weakened state and brings together the ideas he has just
planted (or really brought to consciousness) in Ivan's mind when he says
\*QI know...a young thinker and a great lover of literature and art, the
author of a promising poem entitled `The Grand Inquisitor.'\*U (p. 615).  To
which Ivan cries `crimson with shame,' \*QI forbid you to speak of `The
Grand Inquisitor'\*U (p. 615).  Why does `The Grand Inquisitor' evoke shame
in Ivan?  Firstly it is a literary work, like 
.I "Faust"
which the devil mentioned before, that deals with the devil.  The devil isn't
presented explicitly in Ivan's poem, but it is a key figure.  In `The Grand
Inquisitor' Ivan implies that there is a
.I "mystery,"
or a secret tied up with the devil, and that anything that leads man must
have this mystery.  But now Ivan sees that there is no grand mystery or
secret with his devil.  In fact, the devil has just made a joke out of his
secret.  Ivan realizes how foolish his poem is if the devil in front of him
is the devil in `The Grand Inquisitor.' The devil has mocked the ideas in
`The Grand Inquisitor' which Ivan was using as a justification for allowing
Fyodor's murder.  Smerdyakov reduces the ideas of `The Grand Inquisitor' to
`all things are lawful'; this was his rational behind murdering Fyodor.  We
have seen the similarity between Smerdyakov and the devil, and we have seen
that the devil has been lowering Ivan to his level, and thus to Smerdyakov's
level, in an attempt to make Ivan see that Smerdyakov's phrase is really all
Ivan's lofty ideas amount to in his own mind.  Ivan is ashamed to think
this; his pride is more than wounded.  This lowering of Ivan is also
suggested by the chapter after \*QThe Grand Inquisitor\*U when Ivan, against
his plans, sits down to talk with Smerdyakov.  In this case not only is he
intellectually lowering himself by talking to Smerdyakov, he is also
physically lowering himself.  And as was shown above, this scene is invoked
by Ivan's cry when he refers to the devil in his soul; right before the
devil mentions `The Grand Inquisitor.'
.PP
Ivan forbids the devil talk about `The Grand Inquisitor,' but the devil
no longer needs to, his purpose was served.  By merely mentioning `The Grand
Inquisitor' the devil points to the event where Ivan himself reduced his
ideas, where he talks to Smerdyakov.  Now Ivan can not help seeing that
his aesthetic works reduce to the phrase `all things are lawful.' He can not
help seeing that it was this phrase that he went by when Smerdyakov and he
killed his father; it was nothing \*Qgreat and noble\*U (p. 614).  Nontheless
the devil spells it out for Ivan through another of his works, the `Geological
Cataclysm.' This work contains ideas similar to `The Grand Inquisitor' but it
is in more of an essay form.  It talks of the \*Qneed to destroy the idea of
God in man\*U (p. 615).  What is important is what the devil says after he
quotes a section of the work:
.nr VS 12
.RS
.DS
...owing to man's inveterate
.I "stupidity,"
this cannot come about for at least a thousand years, everyone who recognizes
.I "the truth"
even now may legitimately order his life as he pleases on the new principles.
In that sense, `all things are lawful' for him. (p. 616, italics mine)
.DE
.RE
.nr VS 24
.LP
This says that the ones to whom `all things are lawful' are the ones who know
\*Qthe truth\*U; not the stupid ones, but the 
.I "clever"
ones.  When Smerdyakov suggests to Ivan how he can allow the murder of his
father he smiles and says \*QWhy I smile you must understand yourself, if you
are a clever man\*U (p. 248).  The devil underlines the fact that, because
Ivan was clever, his bases for allowing the murder of Fyodor was that `all
things are lawful'; nothing \*Qgreat and noble.\*U And finally, the last
thing that the devil says to Ivan is \*Qbut if you want to swindle why do
you want a moral sanction for doing it?  But that's our modern Russian all
over.  
.I "He can't bring himself to swindle without a moral sanction."
He is so in love with truth...\*U (p. 616, italics mine).  Ivan has tried to
justify himself through his grand ideas, his notions of truth, his principles
that derived from his intellect, etc.; these, in a way, were his moral
sanctions and justifications.  But the devil has shown Ivan that the
motivations behind his actions did not come from any grand ideas, but simply
the notion that `all things are lawful' and his desire to swindle.
.PP
Alyosha sums up Ivan's current illness as \*QThe anguish of a proud
determination.  A deep conscience!\*U (p. 622).  This is exactly what we have
concluded.  Ivan is finally seeing into the depths of his soul, stripping
away the wrappings of his pride, and it is an extremely painful process for
him.  He does this by creating a devil that wont go away until it beats into
Ivan's head the conclusion that he finally comes to.  Answers have been
given, or at least suggested, to all the opening questions except why the
devil appears at all; why did Ivan have to create the devil to think things
through?  (This is probably the least interesting question (for me), so it's
rather anti-climactic.)  I think the reason that he did is because, in the
end, he really does have a high aesthetic sense (this is does not refute any
of the previous arguments).  We marvel at the way Dostoevsky created the
perfect devil for Ivan, the way everything fits together effectively; it is
an aesthetic accomplishment.  We know Ivan is in a state where
hallucinations are likely, we also know that he himself writes literature
and creates works of art.  Doesn't it make sense then, if he were to
hallucinate, that he would create himself the perfect object to bring about
his revelation, just as Dostoevsky did?