One of the main virtues of Dostoevsky's work is that, much to his regret or despite his original intention, his plots and characters take us to the depths of the pyramidal issues that condition the essence of the human being and the very conception of The humanity. And it is possible that not everyone is prepared to show themselves in that abyss, which is none other than the very destiny of man. It can be stated without hesitation that the driving ideas of the Russian author's narrative are linear and sparse, even very rudimentary (the defense of Russian nationalism at all costs based on a messianic concept of the country's mission in the world, conservationism and autarky against to the technological avant-garde, or anti-Semitism as a flag), but, on the other hand, it cannot be denied that the psychological analysis of the characters and the development of the plot in each of his novels, envelops us in a "chill", with the that, in the words of Stefan Zweig, "we discover in his work and his destiny the mysterious depth of all humanity." Because, furthermore, as happens in "The Brothers Karamazov", the plot is woven and unknotted at every moment, unraveling into several stories that converge towards a zenithal axis, the story of a crime, a patricide. Each character represents a vision of reality, they become subjects with their own discourse and language, and cease to be a narrative object to surpass their creator. But compared to his ideas of linear content, the characters compose a polyphony of voices and behaviors that evolve, so that a character can be good and bad depending on how they move through the work, and that is why they seem to take on a life of their own. We are surprised by how the plot directs each character to their own destiny, free will at stake, and they end up being unpredictable and ungraspable. It seems, then, that Dostoevsky loses control of his characters, something like the conscience of a Russia that cannot control its citizens, prisoners of nihilism and atheism, and like an absent narrator, he allows his characters to mutate, passing into to be a mere observer of his liberated creations. Compared to Dickens, where the characterization of the character is indelible from beginning to end, and does not instill any burden of uncertainty about his evolution, in Dostoevsky the characters are a merry-go-round of emotions, where kindness can replace cruelty, and love for heartbreak, or it is even possible to love and hate simultaneously. 

"The Brothers Karamazov" is the story of a crime. And the history of a judicial procedure, of the investigation of a summary and of an oral trial. And a conviction at the hands of a jury. But to recognize the tragedy that the work hides and that gives plot coverage to the patricide, it is advisable to first investigate the characteriology of its main characters ("dramatis personae"), which for the sake of the length of this entry I will concentrate on the central male characters: 

1. Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov (55 years old): the father who will be assassinated. A corrupt, vile, miserable, insensitive, lewd and merciless being. His first marriage was to Miusova, with whom he had a son, Dimitri. Shattered by her husband, she decided to run away from home after three years of living together and died abandoned of typhoid fever, alone and helpless, on the streets of Saint Petersburg. After his death, Fyodor completely forgot that he had a son, who was left in the care of a servant, Grigori. He remarried a second time to a XNUMX-year-old girl, Sofia Ivanovna, whom he sexually abused to humiliation, disturbing her to the point of dying eight years after marrying. He had two children with his second wife, Iván and Alexei. But from his depraved nature he conceived a fourth child, Pavel, a mentally disabled and epileptic, after raping a dwarf and mute woman, after a night of debauchery in which he bet with his fellow partiers that he was capable of having sex with him. most deformed and physically perfidious character ever known. 
  

2. Dimitri Fiodorvich Karamazov (29 years old): the first-born son. A character with noble core, but with a dissolute, violent and unbridled behavior. As has been indicated, and given that the character evolves, before he was unjustly arrested for the murder of his father, he shows his most convulsive character, his irascibility, his love of drinking and fighting, his impulsive and excessive character. , to later give way to a withdrawn and reflective character, thus emerging his appearance as a good man. Dimitri returns to town to settle accounts with his father, whom he deeply detests, and wants to put his late mother's inheritance in order. The vile father not only denies the debt but also demands money from his son: "Suspecting that none of this was true, Dimitri was stunned, enraged and almost went crazy." Dimitri is the deep conscience of classical Russia, the one that does not change, barbarian Russia. He embodies the values ​​of tradition and resistance to progress.  
  

3. Iván Fiodorvich Karamazov (28 years old): he is Dimitri's counterpoint and, therefore, his main danger. University intellectual, calculating, cynical and atheist. There is a key to understanding the future development of the plot and his intervention in the murder of his father when he recognizes, in one of his extensive speeches, that he does not believe in the immortality of the soul, so in this situation, the expectation is ruined. of punishment in eternal life and, consequently, "everything is permitted." He comes to declare and is a source of understanding of the entire subsequent plot and, in his own way, of everything that was happening in Russia at that time that "in effect: I believe that without immortality there is no virtue." He also fiercely hates his father. Ivan embodies the position of the new ideologues in a Russia that is despondent in its loss of faith and national conscience. Ivan is the nihilist, the modern unscrupulous, the one who fights for a Westernized Russia that renounces everything that made it great as a nation.  
  

4. Alexei Fiodorovich Karamazov (19 years old): he is the projection of Dostoevsky in the work, his hero, the bearer of the ideas of the Russian utopia that the author promotes. In fact, he has a secondary role and does not participate in the patricide, since, as Dostoevsky stated, he intended to write a new novel with Alexei as the central character, an unaddressed initiative because the novelist died three months after completing "The Brothers Karamazov." He lives in a monastery, wears a habit and is one of the acolytes of the starets Zósima, so he develops a deep religiosity not exempt from contradictions. Alexei prefers his brother Dimitri to him, because despite his inner torment, he glimpses the nobility of spirit, and because he also ends up reaching a deeply Christian state of spirituality after his unjust conviction. Quite the opposite of Iván, who, due to his mendacious behavior and his condition as an atheist, causes him strong rejection. He is aware that drama is inevitable: «My brothers are going to be lost... My father will too. And others will fall with them. He is the "force of the earth", something that characterizes the Karamazov...; a blind, windy, brute force... I don't know if God can control such a force... And I know that I am a Karamazov... a monk, yes, a monk... As you just said: I am a monk... And, well, I don't know I believe in God".  
  

5. Pável Fiodorvich Smerdiakov: illegitimate son of the father and material author of the crime. It is a mere instrument to execute the father, since he is consciously disturbed and seduced by Iván, calculating to the point of leading his stepbrother to murder. He is a human outgrowth, born of rape, relegated to domestic service in the house, where he is the victim of all kinds of cruelty and humiliation. Live without conscience of evil or good. It is a functional object in a world of dominators and dominated. He does not think, he simply slides silently through the house to obey his master's orders. He is the victim of the ignominy of a depraved father and his brother, Iván, who resorts to his autism to gradually conceive in him the germ that he will finally execute from Fyodor's patricide. He confesses to Iván that he is his father's murderer before committing suicide, without his guilt being made public. Iván will keep silent, aware that he has been the indirect executor and that he is the depositary of the testimony of his guilty brother. As a result, Dimitri is wrongly sentenced to twenty years of forced labor in Siberia. 

Having completed the analysis of the main characters, the focus must be set on the moment of completion of the summary, where the investigating judge declares that Dimitri is presumably guilty of the crime and his definitive arrest is decreed. It is striking from a strictly procedural point of view that during the investigation Dimitri did not have the assistance of a lawyer who could have advised him on the advisability of remaining silent. In fact, the statements of the first-born son seriously harm him, as a result of the intolerable pressure he suffers from the investigating judge and the prosecutor. In particular, it is striking how the investigating judge humiliates the defendant, when he orders that he be stripped naked in the presence of people unrelated to the process. But if these anomalies are seen in the praxis of the procedure, the conversion of Dimitri's spirit when his accusation is communicated to him is singularly moving. Even recognizing that he is not a murderer, he accepts the imposition of punishment, because he places the will on the same level as the action, and because he judges punishment as a means of spiritual redemption: «Now I understand that men like me need to destiny punishes them, an external force that holds them, like a bond. He would never have been able to get me back up without that help. Lightning has struck. I accept the torment of accusation and public shame. I want to suffer and redeem myself with that suffering (…) If I accept this punishment it is not because I killed him but because I decided to do it and because perhaps I would have even done it. 

The oral trial aroused great attraction throughout Russia. The Court was made up of three people: the president, an advisor and an honorary justice of the peace, while the Jury was made up of four officials, two merchants and six more men of low social extraction (artisans and peasants). And as has always happened, the composition and extraction of the members of the Jury did not go unnoticed, giving way to a criticism of the institution that, in one way or another, is still present today: «It seems incredible that a topic of such psychological complexity is submit to the consideration of an official and a peasant. What criteria can these people have? After the final argument of Dimitri's lawyer in which he invokes the Christian compassion of the members of the Jury, they retire to deliberate to pronounce the guilty verdict an hour later. Dostoevsky thus wanted Dimitri to be condemned and to serve his punishment as an act of contrition and supreme redemption. It is true that today Dostoevsky could not have reached the same outcome, because today we would use modern fingerprint and DNA techniques, and the true identity of the parricide would have been proven. In "Diary of a Writer", in the last days of his life, Dostoevsky came to question the work of many unscrupulous lawyers and the repugnance that some of them had for the truth. And he also questioned the role of the Juries who, at that time, were actually inclined towards acquittal in most of the cases. casos. And Dostoyevki, in the dilemma between acquittal and condemnation, always preferred the latter because, in his opinion, "punishment does not burden, but rather relieves." There is no doubt that many things have changed in these one hundred and fifty years, but there will always be room for error, an expression of power rather than will. And, of course, guilt, because among the teachings of Starets Zosima there will always be the following: «Even if you are a judge by profession, exercise your ministry using this teaching, because once he leaves, the guilty person will judge himself. himself more harshly than any court could."