Katerina Ivanovna Verkhovtseva

[close] Called Katya, Katka, and Katenka, Katerina Ivanovna is Dmitri's beautiful fiancee, despite his very open forays with Grushenka. She became engaged to Dmitri after he bailed her father out of a debt. Katerina produces a further love triangle among the Karamazov brothers as Ivan falls in love with her. Katerina is extremely proud, and attempts to put herself into the position of a noble martyr suffering as a stark reminder of everyone's guilt. Because of this, she cannot bring herself to act on her love for Ivan, and constantly creates moral barriers between him and herself. At the trial of Mitya, at first she sacrifices her reputation for him and presents him in the light of a passionate, but noble man; however, when she thinks that Ivan is in danger, her feelings suddenly overpower her, and she hysterically abandons herself to the sweet taste of revenge, "betraying" Mitya by frantically attempting to prove his guilt. When the trial is over, she takes Ivan, who is very ill, to her own house to nurse him - a striking first step towards rational happiness. She, too, begins a real and sincere spiritual redemption, as seen in the epilogue, when she asks Mitya and Grushenka to forgive her. She cannot subdue her pride when Grushenka rejects her request for forgiveness, and her eyes flash with a wild hatred, but it is clear that her spiritual redemption, like Grushenka's, has begun.