The Hero’s Main Dilemma
Whether to live as society expects, with the privileges of his birth, title, and property, or to live according to his beliefs in anarchical Christianity, respecting the rights of others and rejecting the concept of private property, is the main dilemma of Prince Nekhludov in Resurrection. He could so easily continue to dismiss the social problems that ruin the life of the commoners as others in the upper class demonstrate. They pay money, they bribe, they make deals, they exchange favors, they employ their social connections; and all this is not discouraged, but rather reinforced as normal and assumed. Meanwhile the commoners are stuck in a system that allows for no ability to thrive, where one mistake dooms their future and family, and the upper class ensure their place to continue the system. It is against Christianity and against the economic principles Nekhludov learned at university. The weight of the dilemma is serious, since doing what he believes is right is a battle, while the former choice would be so easy to passively accept. To choose the latter is to actively make decisions his friends see as personally destructive. This way is a path with resistance, since his sense of survival, the expectations others have of a prince, the carefree lifestyle he enjoyed, and the irreversible nature of his decisions cause him to reconsider repeatedly. But his convictions of reason lead him to be assured he is making the right choice.
Tolstoy’s Criticism of Justice
Tolstoy proposes with Resurrection that retributive justice is ineffective to discourage crime and evil, while it instead creates an injustice of reinforcing the class divide.
The narrative and dialogue demonstrate that the system of putting prisoners in prison is intended to punish the bad acts of bad people, to discourage people from doing bad acts, and to remove the bad people from good society. But Nekhludov discovers that this system of punishment does not cause the prisoners to repent, nor to deter others from committing evils, nor to rehabilitate the prisoners. Instead, it seems to serve as a way for society to discard its problems and keep them out of sight, while the individuals in power are corrupted with their intentional ignoring of the problems. He finds that people are in prison for various reasons. Notably absent are psychologically corrupted evildoers missing a sense of morality. Instead, the prisoners are misplaced foreigners, victims of the feudal system, revolutionary voices, individuals who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and victims of administrative mess.
Meanwhile, Nekhludov interacts with various individuals in positions of power who take advantage of the system for their own gain and turn a blind eye to the evil they create. Many of them are more corrupt than the prisoners he meets, but because they are socially in a position of power, they have incentive and reward for their corruption.
Foil Characters
Tolstoy presents the characters in a positive light, including the ones he criticizes through the narrative. While he sketches many faults for each of the hypocritical characters, it is interesting that Tolstoy takes an omniscient narrator position and explains for the reader the rational reasons why the characters are hypocrites. Tolstoy shows how easy it is for individuals with good intentions, rational thinking, or more self interest than altruism to reject principles of reason, religion, or family relations. This is important because the characters are developed, they are not purely good or purely evil, and the reader sees that it takes intentional, conscious, determined, active choice to live according to principles. And then even those with good intentions can face serious obstacles within the structure of society.
Katyusha’s downfall is an easy slippery slope from the one action in the beginning of the narrative. There are a few moments when her character weaves back and forth between what she has been taught is her power in society and developing into the mature revolutionary who knows her mind. Yet the reader always has compassion for her. Nathalie, Prince Nekhludov’s sister, seems to have shared in his principles in youth, but ensures that her husband is not offended and her sons’ positions are secure. Even with her selfish reservation to agree with her brother, the reader understands her position. At first Fanarin, the advocate who takes up the appeal, is seen as prospering from his career and jaded from his experience when he speaks about the injustice of the courts without emotion. Then later he takes more cases pro bono to correct injustices identified by Nekhludov and the reader sees that he cares to do right. Even Selenin, Nekhludov’s school mate who voted for upholding the guilty verdict, is redeemed when he does the work which finally commutes Katyusha’s sentence. What is interesting in this book is not the good versus bad characters, but that all of the characters demonstrate a bit of battle between good and evil in themselves.
Tolstoy’s Proposal
In Resurrection Tolstoy proposes authentic living: Prince Nekhludov learns to live according to his principles, not to his own gain or to the detriment of others, but upholding the Christian ideals of helping others and rejecting punishment. The other characters with power or titles have a hypocritical or warped perspective of doing good while financially benefiting, socially benefiting, reassuring themselves that they are enforcing the system of justice, and ensuring their continued wellbeing and gain. Prince Nekhludov critically examines the system and analyzes how it does not work, how it is nourished and enforced by the intentional blindness of those who gain from its problems. Prince Nekhludov remembers the ideals he studied in university as he sees the real life application of the broken system and consciously decides to reject his benefits, applying his principles to how he lives. He demonstrates that it is possible to live the principles Jesus taught, the idealistic principles of his youth.