Character Sketch of The Brothers Karamazov

Some novels focus on one aspect of literary technique and use that to reveal important aspects of the plot. Dostoevsky used his character sketches to reveal much about Russia in the novel The Brothers Karamazov. Paper Masters will provide a character sketch of the Brothers Karamazov custom written for any college student.

In character sketch of The Brothers Karamazov, by Dostoevsky, there are at first three brothers:

1. Dmitri (Mitya)
2. Ivan
3. Alyosha

Dmitri was from their father Fyodor's first wife who has died after leaving him for another man when Dmitri was 3 years old. Dmitri has been parented by a servant, Grigory, and other relatives. His half brothers, Ivan and Alyosha (Alexey), are the sons of their father's second wife who died when Alexey was four years old, about the time that Dmitri was abandoned by first his mother, and then his father. They too have been parented by Grigory, and it seems at first that these three are Fyodor's only sons. None of them were brought up by their birth mothers, and none of them had a father in Fyodor, whose activities center solely around money, debauchery and sex.

Personalities of the Brothers Karamazov

The three have vastly different personalities from one another, and from their father, with the exception of Dmitri, the son whose interests in women, alcohol and money parallel his father's. Dmitri's nature is passionate, restless, wild and easily angered, and he is bitterly angry with his derisive, selfish father for tricking him out of what he believes is his rather large inheritance from his aristocratic mother. His father is able to do that by playing upon Dimitri's own nature, which is too undisciplined, sensual and impatient to permit him to refuse the intermittent amounts of money sent to him, and find out exactly what his inheritance is. Dmitri rages openly against him, and threatens violence against him.