Reflection 5

Does the story make use of symbols? If so, do the symbols carry or merely reinforce the meaning of the story?

One symbol from the story is the “breath of corruption” that plagues Zossima’s body after he passes. The monks and the townspeople anticipated a miracle after Zossima’s death because they all believed that he would be a saint. In saint lore, when a saint dies, his body emits a pleasant odour to symbolize to good that he has done in his life. However, Zossima’s body emits an unusually putrid smell. The unbelievers rejoiced that this was proof against religion, and even some believers rejoiced “for men love the downfall and disgrace of the righteous” (173). This affects Alyosha deeply. As Dostoevsky in his narrator role points out this event “forms a crisis and turning-point in his spiritual development, giving a shock to his intellect, which finally strengthened it for the rest of his life and gave it a definite aim” (172). He is greatly horrified and saddened by the turn of events. He is confused at first, but after hearing the deceased Zossima’s voice comfort him, his faith is strengthened. “The mystery of earth was one with the mystery of the stars … /Alyosha stood, gazed, and suddenly threw himself down on the earth. He did not know why he embraced it. He could not have told why he longed so irresistibly to kiss it, to kiss it all. But he kissed it weeping, sobbing, and watering it with his tears, and vowed passionately to love it, to love it for ever and ever. “Water the earth with the tears of your joy and love those tears,” echoed in his soul. / What was he weeping over? / Oh! In his rapture he was weeping even over those stars, which were shining to him from the abyss of space, and “he was not ashamed of that ecstasy.” There seemed to be threads from all those innumerable worlds of God, linking his soul to them, and it was trembling all over “in contact with other worlds>” He longed to forgive everyone and for everything, and to beg forgiveness. Oh, not for himself, but for all men, for all and for everything. “And others are praying for me too,” echoed again in his soul. But with every instant he felt clearly and as it were, tangibly, that something firm and unshakable as that vault of heaven had entered into his soul. It was as though some idea had seized the sovereignty of his mind- and it was for all his life and for ever and ever. He had fallen on the earth a weak boy, but he rose up a resolute champion, and he knew and felt it suddenly at the very moment of his ecstasy. And never, never, all his life long, could Alyosha forget that minute. /”Someone visited my soul in that hour,” he used to say afterwards, with implicit faith in his words.” (191). This incident is a symbol of how the religious are often disappointed in their anticipation of miracles to affirm their faith, and how the absence of miracles is often used by the non-religious as a point of ridicule. It shows how faith is very hard to sustain, how even the most religiously devote experience doubt, how miracles are often internal and how faith is very personal. I admire the sincerity of Alyosha’s belief, even as I think his beliefs delusional. This use of symbolism enriches the novel by introducing insights about religion in a subtle but effective way.