The defamiliarization is palpable in Resurrection, whereas the carnivalesque prevails in Dostoevsky’s courtroom.
The 1864 Russian legal reforms introduced the jury trials to Russia and Dostoevsky as well as Tolstoy, the two greatest Russian novelists, delineated the new legal procedures in their final novels, by exploring the intricate web of law and justice. The Brothers Karamazov and Resurrection both depict the “judicial error” in which Dmitry Karamazov and Katyusha Maslova are convicted of the murders they did not commit. The judges and lawyers fail to uncover the truth, and therefore justice, the purpose of the legal system, fails to be realized. Dostoevsky and Tolstoy both look into the disagreement between law and justice. In doing so, they rely upon different narrative strategies from the composition (while Dostoevsky places the trial scene at the end of the work, Tolstoy opens his novel with it) to the dominant literary technique. The defamiliarization is palpable in Resurrection, whereas the carnivalesque prevails in Dostoevsky’s courtroom. More importantly, the two masters put forward different solutions to the failed justice. If Tolstoy’s hero corrects the judicial error legally and the spiritual regeneration of Nekhliudov and Katyusha takes place, Dostoevsky suggests the universal harmony based on brotherly love, a solution on a different plane. In the final analysis, both writers do not stop at criticizing the failure of human laws. They both seek truth and justice in God.