Children are portrayed in "The Brothers Karamazov" as being mistreated by adults and .
Ivan, who is the most troubled by children's sufferings, doesn't want to forget them so .
he keeps articles about the misfortunes dealt upon children. The story also incorporates tales of .
children that are in the town, and surrounding areas, who become important to the plot of the .
story. By the end of the book Dostoevsky wants you to feel such grief and sadness for the .
children that it might even challenge your faith to God. .
The first child I will mention is discussed in the "Peasant Women Who Have Faith" .
chapter. A peasant woman goes to see Father Zosima because she has lost her son. The woman .
is very distraught and says that she left her husband and the rest of her family because she .
couldn't take it anymore. This woman had already lost three other sons and just couldn't stand .
to lose another. Father Zosima tells her a story about a saint who comforts a grieving mother, .
like herself, who had lost her only child. "Knowest thou not," said the saint to her, "how bold .
these little ones are before the throne of God? Verily there are none bolder than they in the .
Kingdom of Heaven. Thou didst give us life, oh Lord, they say, and scarcely had we looked .
upon it when thou didst take it back again. And so boldly they ask and ask again that God gives .
them at once the rank of angels." (41). After father Zosima tells her the story he says, "know .
that your little one is surely before the throne of God, is rejoicing and happy, and praying to God.
for you, and therefore weep, but rejoice." (41). This idea is a polar opposite of Ivan's view of .
children. Father Zosima is not interested with what happens in this life but the next. It's what a .
monk does. Ivan's view is more grounded and I shall mention it more, in detail, later. First I .
want to look at the chapter "A Meeting with the Schoolboys" in which Alyosha runs into a .
