Final Reaction

I think this book was worth reading because it introduced a bunch of different ideas that I would have never thought about without it. Also, I was able to practice analyzing difficult passages paragraph by paragraph, which will probably really useful for the AP exam. This book was very difficult but I enjoyed the challenge and am happy to have gained some knowledge about Dostoyevsky and his work. If someone were to ask me if I would read it again, I definitely would because I think that this book holds so much more than what I personally analyzed and what we discussed in class. I’m sure that people are still arguing over what Dostoyevsky meant in a few of his sentences.

Without discussing this book in class, then I definitely would still be lost and overwhelmed by a sense of insecurity about my analysis. After discussing the work in class and reading what I wrote in the margins of my book, some of my comments were really illogical and totally just wrong. Also, I enjoy hearing what others think about his passages because interpretations can be endless and our own individual experiences can add a lot to the book, like our views of religion, evolution and just life in general. I love how this book addresses the conflict between evolution and religion and how that problem still exists today and will never be solved. I have realized that everything is dynamic; there are no absolute truths or faiths to believe in. After knowing this, I feel attached to this unknown vastness that I will never be able to see and it makes me uneasy.

The most important thing that I got out of this book is how humans set up different laws or beliefs or theorems for society to follow in order to instill a sense of boundary around society. Even though we set up this system, humans have the tendency to not follow rules and act on the sense of choice rather than our five senses and rationality. Thinking about this now, it reminds me of how my parents tell me different stories or rules that are supposed to prevent me from making bad decisions or putting myself in harmful situations like not doing drugs or keeping my grades up. I appreciate their stories and every other adults’ attempt to instill some sense of authority but I always want to tell them off and say that I will make the decisions that I will want to make and experience what I want to experience, regardless to what they juts told me. I deserve the right to experience and live the way I want and not suffer from the consequences of other peoples’ decisions. I deserve to deal with my own consequences and experience life in accordance with my own impulses, even though they may be irrational or destructive.