The Answer Job Did Not Give: Dostoevsky's "Brat'ia Karamazovy" and Camus's "La Peste"

Abstract

Abstract: This article explores the similarities and differences between the characters of Dostoevsky's "Brat'ia Karamazovy" and Camus's "La Peste," focusing on these novels' interpretation of the Book of Job and the Gospels. Camus's interpretation of Dostoevsky's key characters illuminates some contradictions in Dostoevsky's Christian vision. Camus recasts Dostoevsky's faithless rebels as inspirational heroes rebelling against the absurdity of existence and the Christian God, and he recasts some of Dostoevsky's Christian heroes as atheist or agnostic rebels. In this polemical reshuffling of values and personalities, Camus's own morality of responsible humanist hedonism becomes clearer, while Dostoevsky's troubled Christian vision becomes more problematic.