Ghosts & The Grand Inquisitor
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One of the major themes in world literature is the conflict between society and the individual, with society poised to enforce its requirements and its proscriptions on individuals to enforce conformity, while the individual feels constrained and would break out to a life of greater self-expression if he or she could. Different writers have portrayed this conflict in different ways, and those who have offered solutions to this conflict have also offered varying answers. This theme is depicted in Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts and Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Grand Inquisitor, and both writers create a clear-cut choice in the situation without "solving" the problem. Ibsen hints that the proper answer for society would be to encourage the individual and that to do otherwise will in the long run be a detriment to society itself, while Dostoyevsky leaves the choice to the reader as a moral dilemma, though in truth there is an answer implied by the author in the very fact that he asks the question. The story of the Grand Inquisitor is a parable of the authoritarian nature of the Church and its centrality to the social order. It is the story of the return of Christ to earth during the Inquisition, and he is arrested and taken to the Grand Inquisitor. What emerges in the dialogue between the two is a distinction between the teachings of Christ and the reality of the Church. Christ had wanted freedom for mankind, but the Church does not. The Church, in the person of the Grand Inquisitor
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act that the system has been developed to control, that it serves this purpose for the mass, and that the select only are able to make their own choices. The reader is expected to see the wisdom of the system for social control and for the satisfaction of the needs of the many while also seeing that free choice is possible for those strong enough to make it.
The Grand Inquisitor represents the Church that has come into being purportedly in support of Christ's teaching and to maintain Christ's example, but from the point of view of the Grand Inquisitor, the Church is actually teaching what Christ should have represented to mankind. This all relates back to Christ's rejection of the three temptations--if he had accepted the bread, mankind would know security; if he had performed a miracle to get down from the pinnacle, human beings would have something miraculous to worship; and if he had accepted the power Satan offered him, he could wield that power for humankind. Since Christ rejected these temptations, the Church now has to offer the security, the sense of the miraculous, and the power that Christ rejected. The people follow the Church willingly, and this has created a situation which the reality of Christ could upset. T
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Approximate Word count = 1408
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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