The Margin

Concept

Conscience

Also known as an earnest conscience, the torments of conscience.

Conscience emerges in Ivan's sickroom as the name for the torment he tries to explain away. Ivan repeats the visitor's argument that conscience may be only habit, while Alyosha hears something more serious in his brother's anguish. At this horizon, conscience is both Ivan's torment and the pressure by which truth keeps returning to him.

XII-IX. The Galloping Troika. The End Of The Prosecutor’s Speech.

In the prosecutor's speech, conscience becomes part of the imagined punishment inside Dmitri: the inner judgment that would drive a guilty man toward suicide or moral suffering.

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The Margin

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Conscience