The Dead Christ in the Tomb

Tostoevsky's first wife died of consumption, so her body was on the kitchen table as he wrote some of his novels. The main element that got added to thematically make it worth writing books two through four was this end of days,. We've got this character of Ipoleet that becomes a really major character in the second half. He is consumptive, he is going to die, and he knows it, and it's unclear exactly when it will happen.