Art Project: The Brothers Karamazov While reading please: While reading the excerpt from The Brothers

Karamazov attached below, write down parts of the story that resonate or seem most significant. Since we have read through the whole book, I would like you to do a close reading of Smerdyakov since we know that he is one of the most evil characters in the novel. There will be a long discussion about Smerdyakov in class on the 16th about this specific passage included below. Be prepared with notes, highlighted passages and thoughts about Smerdyakov and as you see him involved in the rest of the drama taking place in Dostoevskys novel. Assignment: After collecting the data about the excerpt, use these lines to make a dialogue in a court scene. Use images from the internet, drawn yourself, or a collage type of materials to bring together a random series of images into a common space where one person is being judged. The dialogue should endeavor to amass toward some kind of conclusion. REMEMBER! This is the first phase of the poster so do not glue anything down until the content has been typed and approved or critiqued by classmates/teachers/assistants. Compile a list of supplies being used to effectively illustrate a space that may or may not have a jury, a bench and a judge. The poster could depict an inter-galactic environment with Smerdyakov dramatically holding the smudged letter up in his hand. The poster could depict a room full of chimpanzees and monkeys where everyone is wearing traditional colonial wigs cut out of an outdated history book. These are all brainstorming points for you to start from. Overall, this project requires a poster of a specific scene in Dostoevskys The Brothers Karamazov. The poster must include images and dialogue. Peruse the rubric below to see exactly what aspects of the poster are being graded. Excerpt from The Brothers Karamazov Chapter XII. And There Was No Murder Either Allow me, gentlemen of the jury, to remind you that a man's life is at stake and that you must be careful. We have heard the prosecutor himself admit that until to-day he hesitated to accuse the prisoner of a full and conscious premeditation of the crime; he hesitated till he saw that fatal drunken letter which was produced in court to-day. All was done as written. But, I repeat again, he was running to her, to seek her, solely to find out where she was. That's a fact that can't be disputed. Had she been at home, he would not have run away, but would have remained at her side, and so would not have done what he promised in the letter. He ran unexpectedly and accidentally, and by that time very likely he did not even remember his drunken letter. He snatched up the pestle, they say, and you will remember how a whole edifice of psychology was built on that pestlewhy he was bound to look at that pestle as a weapon, to snatch it up, and so on, and so on. A very commonplace idea occurs to me at this point: What if that pestle had not been in sight, had not been lying on the shelf from which it was snatched by the prisoner, but had been put away in a cupboard? It would not have caught the prisoner's eye, and he would have run away without a weapon, with empty hands, and then he would certainly not have killed any one. How then can I look upon the pestle as a proof of premeditation?

Yes, but he talked in the taverns of murdering his father, and two days before, on the evening when he wrote his drunken letter, he was quiet and only quarreled with a shopman in the tavern, because a Karamazov could not help quarreling, forsooth! But my answer to that is, that, if he was planning such a murder in accordance with his letter, he certainly would not have quarreled even with a shopman, and probably would not have gone into the tavern at all, because a person plotting such a crime seeks quiet and retirement, seeks to efface himself, to avoid being seen and heard, and that not from calculation, but from instinct. Gentlemen of the jury, the psychological method is a two-edged weapon, and we, too, can use it. As for all this shouting in taverns throughout the month, don't we often hear children, or drunkards coming out of taverns shout, I'll kill you? but they don't murder any one. And that fatal letterisn't that simply drunken irritability, too? Isn't that simply the shout of the brawler outside the tavern, I'll kill you! I'll kill the lot of you! Why not, why could it not be that? What reason have we to call that letter fatal rather than absurd? Because his father has been found murdered, because a witness saw the prisoner running out of the garden with a weapon in his hand, and was knocked down by him: therefore, we are told, everything was done as he had planned in writing, and the letter was not absurd, but fatal. Now, thank God! we've come to the real point: since he was in the garden, he must have murdered him. In those few words: since he was, then hemust lies the whole case for the prosecution. He was there, so he must have. And what if there is no must about it, even if he was there? Oh, I admit that the chain of evidencethe coincidencesare really suggestive. But examine all these facts separately, regardless of their connection. Why, for instance, does the prosecution refuse to admit the truth of the prisoner's statement that he ran away from his father's window? Remember the sarcasms in which the prosecutor indulged at the expense of the respectful and pious sentiments which suddenly came over the murderer. But what if there were something of the sort, a feeling of religious awe, if not of filial respect? My mother must have been praying for me at that moment, were the prisoner's words at the preliminary inquiry, and so he ran away as soon as he convinced himself that Madame Svyetlov was not in his father's house. But he could not convince himself by looking through the window, the prosecutor objects. But why couldn't he? Why? The window opened at the signals given by the prisoner. Some word might have been uttered by Fyodor Pavlovitch, some exclamation which showed the prisoner that she was not there. Why should we assume everything as we imagine it, as we make up our minds to imagine it? A thousand things may happen in reality which elude the subtlest imagination. Yes, but Grigory saw the door open and so the prisoner certainly was in the house, therefore he killed him. Now about that door, gentlemen of the jury.... Observe that we have only the statement of one witness as to that door, and he was at the time in such a condition, that But supposing the door was open; supposing the prisoner has lied in denying it, from an instinct of self-defense, natural in his position; supposing he did go into the housewell, what then? How does it follow that because he was there he committed the murder? He might have dashed in, run through the rooms; might have pushed his father away; might have struck him; but as soon as he had made sure Madame Svyetlov was not there, he may have run away rejoicing that she was not there and that he had not killed his father. And it was perhaps just because he had escaped from the temptation to kill his father, because he had a clear conscience and was rejoicing at not having killed him, that he was capable of a pure feeling, the

feeling of pity and compassion, and leapt off the fence a minute later to the assistance of Grigory after he had, in his excitement, knocked him down. With terrible eloquence the prosecutor has described to us the dreadful state of the prisoner's mind at Mokroe when love again lay before him calling him to new life, while love was impossible for him because he had his father's bloodstained corpse behind him and beyond that corpseretribution. And yet the prosecutor allowed him love, which he explained, according to his method, talking about his drunken condition, about a criminal being taken to execution, about it being still far off, and so on and so on. But again I ask, Mr. Prosecutor, have you not invented a new personality? Is the prisoner so coarse and heartless as to be able to think at that moment of love and of dodges to escape punishment, if his hands were really stained with his father's blood? No, no, no! As soon as it was made plain to him that she loved him and called him to her side, promising him new happiness, oh! then, I protest he must have felt the impulse to suicide doubled, trebled, and must have killed himself, if he had his father's murder on his conscience. Oh, no! he would not have forgotten where his pistols lay! I know the prisoner: the savage, stony heartlessness ascribed to him by the prosecutor is inconsistent with his character. He would have killed himself, that's certain. He did not kill himself just because his mother's prayers had saved him, and he was innocent of his father's blood. He was troubled, he was grieving that night at Mokroe only about old Grigory and praying to God that the old man would recover, that his blow had not been fatal, and that he would not have to suffer for it. Why not accept such an interpretation of the facts? What trustworthy proof have we that the prisoner is lying? But we shall be told at once again, There is his father's corpse! If he ran away without murdering him, who did murder him? Here, I repeat, you have the whole logic of the prosecution. Who murdered him, if not he? There's no one to put in his place. Gentlemen of the jury, is that really so? Is it positively, actually true that there is no one else at all? We've heard the prosecutor count on his fingers all the persons who were in that house that night. They were five in number; three of them, I agree, could not have been responsiblethe murdered man himself, old Grigory, and his wife. There are left then the prisoner and Smerdyakov, and the prosecutor dramatically exclaims that the prisoner pointed to Smerdyakov because he had no one else to fix on, that had there been a sixth person, even a phantom of a sixth person, he would have abandoned the charge against Smerdyakov at once in shame and have accused that other. But, gentlemen of the jury, why may I not draw the very opposite conclusion? There are two personsthe prisoner and Smerdyakov. Why can I not say that you accuse my client, simply because you have no one else to accuse? And you have no one else only because you have determined to exclude Smerdyakov from all suspicion. It's true, indeed, Smerdyakov is accused only by the prisoner, his two brothers, and Madame Svyetlov. But there are others who accuse him: there are vague rumors of a question, of a suspicion, an obscure report, a feeling of expectation. Finally, we have the evidence of a combination of facts very suggestive, though, I admit, inconclusive. In the first place we have precisely on the day of the catastrophe that fit, for the genuineness of which the prosecutor, for some reason, has felt obliged to

make a careful defense. Then Smerdyakov's sudden suicide on the eve of the trial. Then the equally startling evidence given in court to-day by the elder of the prisoner's brothers, who had believed in his guilt, but has to-day produced a bundle of notes and proclaimed Smerdyakov as the murderer. Oh, I fully share the court's and the prosecutor's conviction that Ivan Karamazov is suffering from brain fever, that his statement may really be a desperate effort, planned in delirium, to save his brother by throwing the guilt on the dead man. But again Smerdyakov's name is pronounced, again there is a suggestion of mystery. There is something unexplained, incomplete. And perhaps it may one day be explained. But we won't go into that now. Of that later.

Art Project: The Brothers Karamazov Instructor Name: Brady Edward Fish Student Name: ____________________ CATEGORY Attention Grabber 4 - A Couple of Changes The poster has color and design with a strong hook or attention grabber appropriate for the audience. Author makes no errors in grammar or spelling that distract the reader from the content. Author makes no errors in capitalization or punctuation, so the essay is exceptionally easy to read. 3 - Some Changes The poster has color and design with a strong hook or attention grabber, but it is off-subject for the audience. Author makes 1-2 errors in grammar or spelling that distract the reader from the content. Author makes 1-2 errors in capitalization or punctuation, but the essay is still easy to read. 2 - 10 or More Changes The author has an interesting color choice but the connection to the topic is not clear. Author makes 3-4 errors in grammar or spelling that distract the reader from the content. Author makes a few errors in capitalization and/or punctuation that catch the reader\'s attention and interrupt the flow. 3-4 accurate facts are displayed on the poster. The graphics are made by the student, but are based on the designs or ideas of others. 1 - Alot of Changes The color and design is not interesting AND is not relevant to the topic. Score

Grammar & Spelling

Author makes more than 4 errors in grammar or spelling that distract the reader from the content. Author makes several errors in capitalization and/or punctuation that catch the reader\'s attention and interrupt the flow. Less than 3 accurate facts are displayed on the poster. No graphics made by the student are included.

Format

Content Accuracy Graphics Originality

At least 7 accurate facts are displayed on the poster. Several of the graphics used on the poster reflect an exceptional degree of student creativity in their creation and/or display.

5-6 accurate facts are displayed on the poster. One or two of the graphics used on the poster reflect student creativity in their creation and/or display.

Knowledge Gained

Student can accurately answer all questions related to facts in the poster and processes used to create the poster. Demonstrates a clear understanding of the potential reader and uses appropriate arguments. Anticipates readers questions and provides thorough answers appropriate for that audience.

Student can accurately answer most questions related to facts in the poster and processes used to create the poster. Demonstrates a general understanding of the potential reader and uses vocabulary and arguments appropriate for that audience.

Student can accurately answer about 75% of questions related to facts in the poster and processes used to create the poster. Demonstrates some understanding of the potential reader and uses arguments appropriate for that audience.

Student appears to have insufficient knowledge about the facts or processes used in the poster.

Audience

It is not clear who the author is writing for.