W: LP: LG: FD: BK: Ivan's talk with the Devil & conclusion.

Toward the end of book 11 of Brothers Karamazov, Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov begins to suffer guilt for desiring his father's death and so begins to descend into madness. In his madness he hallucinates his alter ego as the person of the Devil. The following passage is reminiscent of CS Lewis' book, "The Screwtape Letters" (this is the Devil speaking):

"Oh, I love the dreams of my friends--fervent, young, trembling with the thirst for life! 'There are new people now,' you decided last spring, as you were preparing to come here, 'they propose to destroy everything and begin with anthropophagy.

--Reminds of Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal"--although he was being satirical

Fools, they never asked me! In my opinion, there is no need to destroy anything, one need only destroy the idea of God in mankind, that's where the business should start! One should begin with that, with that--oh, blind men, of no understanding! Once mankind has renounced God, one and all (and I believe that this period, analogous to the geological periods, will come), then the entire old world view will fall of itself, without anthropophagy, and, above all, the entire former morality, and everything will be new. People will come together in order to take from life all that it can give, but, of course, for happiness and joy in this world only. Man will be exalted with the spirit of divine, titanic pride, and the man-god will appear. Man, his will and his science no longer limited, conquering nature every hour, will thereby every hour experience such lofty delight as will replace for him all his former hopes of heavenly delight. Each will know himself utterly mortal, without resurrection, and will accept death proudly and calmly, like a god. Out of pride he will understand that he should not murmur against the momentariness of life, and he will love his brother then without any reward. Love will satisfy only the moment of life, but the very awareness of its momentariness will increase its fire, inasmuch as previously it was diffused in hopes of an eternal love beyond the grave'...well, and so on and so on, in the same vein. Lovely!"

Notice the lying tactic of the Enemy of our souls, to make us forget about the great judgment.

In book 12 of BK, we have the trial and the author cleverly creates excellent speeches for both the prosecutor and defense attorney and some great and lofty things are said and alluded to, but in the end Dmitri is sentenced for a murder he did not commit and the real murderer hangs himself. Ivan is left at the end of the story descending into madness and the only one of the brothers who survives with the least damage is the youngest who is sustained by faith in God. The story ends with plans being made to help Dmitri escape while he is being transported. Some things are concluded and the love triangles resolve themselves and the youngest, Alyosha, looks to be the only one without a love interest (which he doesn't need, sustained as he is by his faith). The book was dense and multifaceted, but worth struggling through.

A picture of Alyosha: