Authors

Octavian Gabor¹;  ¹ Methodist College, United States

Discussion

The story of the stranger who comes to Fr. Zosima and finally confesses he has committed murder suggests two possible consequences of confession, or one’s revelation of one’s inner self before others. When Fr. Zosima encourages him to go into the world and announce it publicly because truth alone will remain, the stranger replies, “I know that as soon as I’ve confessed, it’ll really be paradise. […] God is to be found in truth, not in power” (386). Nevertheless, just half an hour later, after he confessed it to Zosima only, he returns to Zosima with the intent to kill him. “I felt such hatred for you that my heart could hardly bear it” (391), he says. Zosima was the one who had him in his clutches and could judge him (391).
The purpose of this paper is to discuss how truth is nuanced in Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov in the encounter between the stranger and Fr. Zosima. I propose that the main difference consists in understanding it as revealing something about a fact (murder) and revealing a person. The question will thus become whether revealing something about an action can genuinely produce paradise. Since the stranger has different reaction after the same act of confession (he wants to murder Zosima after his initial confession, but the feels he has been freed when he confesses to all people), the discussion will also involve the recipient of the confession.