The plot revolves around the fictional town of Skotoprigonyevsk and the volatile relationship between , a corrupt and lecherous patriarch, and his four sons.

Dostoevsky uses the brothers to represent the three aspects of the human condition: the body, the mind, and the spirit. Go to product viewer dialog for this item.

While Dmitri is convicted based on circumstantial evidence, the true murderer is revealed to be Smerdyakov , an illegitimate son and servant who acted upon the rationalist ideologies he heard from the middle brother, Ivan . The Brothers as Philosophical Archetypes