The Green caldron - University Library

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The Green Caldron
is better than those who do not know desire at all. In making the priest,
the one who should be understanding and sympathetic toward all, indifferent
to her suffering, he suggests that there is injustice toward her and toward
all romantics. Later, Flaubert, through Emmma, speaks longingly of religion.
He seems to want to believe and yet cannot. He speaks of "destruction of
self-will which should" open the way to a Christian life, and then says,
"She realized that worldly happiness might yield its place to still greater
felicities" (Italics mine). These appear to be words of doubt. He seems
to question whether or not the sacrifices would really lead to a better life.
Flaubert's personal letters reflect the view that only by a retreat from the
world, only by complete submission in art, can true reality be found. His
doubts that self-sacrifice leads to religious conversion become affirmations
when applied to art. He worked hard, spent weeks on a few pages of his
book, and seemed glad to sacrifice himself for art. Men, as a group, seemed
a herd to him. Few could achieve anything. They could only monotonously
repeat themselves and their lives.
Dostoevsky, in Crime and Punishment sees man as having a dual nature.
Either good or evil predominates in his central characters. His people never
seem balanced, but over-balanced on one side or the other. The novel seems
to present life as a mass of suffering, with one burden laid on another until
man is either broken or his burdens have ground him down to a fine point.
Dostoevsky seems to think man must reach this point before he can come
to any inner vision of reality, or of religion or God. Svidrigailov, Sonia
and Raskolnikov all in different ways, reach a vision of eternity through
suffering.
Dostoevsky, like Plato and Flaubert, makes his reality difificult to obtain.
It is something not everybody can attain, but Dostoevsky is more willing
than the other authors to let everybody try. His attitude toward religion is
not the conventional one. Sonia, for instance, the instrument of Roskolnikov's
conversion, is a prostitute. Raskolnikov himself does not know what it is
he is seeking. By his seeking, and suffering in his search, his dual nature
finally comes to a balanced peace. Dostoevsky seems to say that until man
can reach this balance in his nature, he will not know reality. He thinks
man must be driven to seek this balance in his soul : he must be unsatisfied,
torn with desire for something, even though he cannot define his desire.
That man must sincerely feel a love for his fellow man seems another con-
dition Dostoevsky makes necessary for finding the good. Men cannot be
separated into superior categories. A man may be superior in many ways,
but he cannot distinguish himself by intellect alone. He must have an inner
order.
All three authors feel that the most intelligent, the most gifted, is the
most likely to find reality. Plato and Flaubert limit the numbers capable of
living a good life more strictly than does Dostoevsky, but all agree that man,
to prove his worth, must seek the good, the realit}', of life.