A Lively Sense of Tragedy

As a bit of a writer myself, I both love and hate the way characters can sometimes seem to take over when you're writing. It definitely gives them a lot more life, even if things don't always turn out exactly the way you planned. That's definitely one of the most significant ways that Dostoevsky engages the reader in the Brothers Karamazov. The characters are full of flaws that may at times seem over the top, but that definitely add to their humanity (if not their believability). Another point of engagement was Dmitri's arrest for a crime that he obviously didn't commit. You couldn't just stop in the middle of the trial, because, whether you found the verdict obvious or not, you wanted to make sure, to find out whether or not he was convicted. The just wanting to make sure is, quite frankly, a lot of what kept me reading this book. Although for me it was more of a wanting to be proven wrong, to be shocked by what happened in the end. I've seen too many stereotypical endings in my life—boy and girl fall in love, escape their persecutors, and live happily ever after—which, I beg to argue, is not possible. You can't possibly be happy ever after. There will surely be some moment in your life when you are not happy. Bad things are bound to happen, if even only those minor irritations that make your day a little worse. And there are days that suck, that bowl us over and leave us gasping for breath, like the days when you wake up at six after less than two hours of sleep to work on an art project for two more hours, then go and take an exam you've barely studied for, after which you go and work on the uncompleted project—in class—for another three hours. However, at the end of the time you have, it's still falling apart, and the class ribs you as they critique it, so you leave class sleep-deprived, depressed about the project, and with only an hour before you have to hit your next class. Then after class is done you have to survive the rest of the afternoon and dinner with your friends without breaking into tears, and then tumble into bed completely exhausted and dejected. Yeah, that kind of day.