The Margin

Organization

The Prosecution

Also known as the case for the prosecution.

The prosecution is the accusing side in Dmitri's trial. From the first witnesses onward, the case appears almost too strong to contest, with testimony about threats, money, the open door, and Dmitri's conduct. Its force lies in making scattered facts seem to gather around one conclusion.

XII-III. The Medical Experts And A Pound Of Nuts

The prosecution treats the doctors and local witnesses as part of the larger picture, though the medical testimony itself becomes muddled and comic.

XII-IV. Fortune Smiles On Mitya

The prosecutor presses Alyosha on Dmitri's threats and on the absence of proof against Smerdyakov.

XII-V. A Sudden Catastrophe

Ivan's ravings disturb the court, but Katerina's production of Dmitri's Metropolis letter gives the prosecution a written document it can treat as a plan.

XII-VI. The Prosecutor’s Speech. Sketches Of Character

Ippolit Kirillovitch begins his summation by framing the crime as a symptom of social decay and the Karamazov household as a public danger.

XII-VII. An Historical Survey

The prosecution links jealousy, the drunken letter, Dmitri's search for money, and the chance to enter Fyodor Pavlovitch's house into a continuous theory of premeditation.

XII-VIII. A Treatise On Smerdyakov

It argues at length that Smerdyakov had neither the character nor the practical opening to be the murderer, and that Ivan's accusation is unreliable because of brain fever.

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

The prosecutor ends with a national warning, urging the jury not to turn mercy into justification for parricide.

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The Margin

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The Prosecution