The plot centers on a murder and is infused with moral issues and human nature at its most loathsome and cruel, in particular, that of collective guilt. This life-embracing work exploring love, lust, greed, jealousy, and sorrow, enters deeply into the ethical questions of God, free will, and morality. After spending four years in a Siberian penal settlement, Dostoevsky developed a keen ability for deep character analysis. In The Brothers Karamazov, he never flinches at what he finds.

The opening of the novel introduces the Karamazov family and relates the story of their distant and recent past. Fyodor Pavlovich's two marriages, as well as his indifference to the upbringing of his three children, is chronicled. This stirring tale continues, as the brothers unite in the murder of one of literature's most despicable characters - their father.

The novel has been acclaimed all over the world, by thinkers as diverse as Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Kurt Vonnegut, and Pope Benedict XVI, as one of the supreme achievements in literature. Representing the culmination of Dostoyevsky's life's work, it ranks among the greatest novels of all time.