Physical and mental suffering is a major theme throughout Dostoevsky's work.

The audacious presence of unspeakable horrors concomitant with the presupposition of God’s existence was clearly a torment for Dostoevsky; one need only read a few lines from the mouth of Ivan Karamazov to understand his author’s distress. Suffering was not an abstract problem to be rationalized; it was a tangible evil that Dostoevsky fought to comprehend. In many instances, one finds that he incorporated into his writings real examples of crime that he found both in the newspaper and from history; the acuity, poignancy, and brazen style he employed to portray true pain produced shockingly realistic illustrations that are often difficult to read.

Dostoevsky’s ideology concerning suffering, as voiced through the characters of his novels, was multifaceted. It was a social, temporal, emotional, and moral issue, which could not be dealt with in a manner of pure faith or of pure rationality. He advised that man look to Christ as a model for self-transfiguration but did not necessarily believe that man could achieve it. He prescribed boundless love for man’s fellow man here on earth but did not necessarily trust that man could provide it. He embodied an attitude of the highest hope, tempered with unyielding, grounded expectations. His paradoxical attitude accentuated the mystery of suffering.

In his novels one finds intense scrutiny of suffering, and, as one author puts it, is made “aware of the inextricable bond between suffering and providence: the sufferer always raises his eyes toward Heaven, where God always sits in silence.” The pain will never be wholly explained in the course of human history, it must only be endured and examined, but it is a product of the gift of life. Dostoevsky’s moral in this case is thus: man must suffer in life, but man has life, and that is paramount.