The Margin

Event

Ivan's Courtroom Confession

Also known as some special communication, something interesting, the recent scene, the painful scene.

Ivan's courtroom confession is the sudden scene in which Ivan produces a roll of notes and says that Smerdyakov killed Fyodor Pavlovitch. He also says that he himself incited the murder, and his speech quickly becomes strange, bitter, and incoherent. The court is thrown into confusion as Alyosha insists he is ill and Ivan is removed.

XII-VIII. A Treatise On Smerdyakov

The prosecution treats the confession as unreliable because of brain fever, arguing that Ivan may have imagined Smerdyakov's guilt and that the money itself proves nothing.

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The Margin

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Ivan's Courtroom Confession