Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment Essay
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Crime and Punishment Essay
In Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, the tragic hero, Raskolnikov, is a young, Russian intellectual who represents the skeptical, nihilistic youth from nineteenth century Russia that had abandoned moral values. Raskolnikov displays a schism between this nihilistic, superior, intellectual side and his moral, inferior side. Dostoyevsky reveals that this schism leads to suffering through its compelling forces that ultimately contribute to the murdering of the pawnbroker, through his monologues, thought, and interaction with other characters, in particular with Sonia, Dounia, and the Marmeladov family that occur throughout the book as he wanders from place to place, both which serve the purpose to support the main themes of suffering and redemption and to discredit the theory that Raskolnikov is an extraordinary man.
This schism seen in Raskolnikov between his superior, intellectual side and his moral, inferior side also serves to show the schism between his belief that he is an extraordinary man and the fact that he is an ordinary man, by his definition, which is the driving force behind the first part of crime and punishment, the crime. In this part of Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov’s schism serves to set up the intentional murder of the pawnbroker and the incidental murder of her ill-fortuned sister and gives reasoning as to why the murder would be justified. Here we see how Raskolnikov contemplates over the murder, “Can I do that, really? Is that serious? No, it’s not. So I’m kidding myself. I’m indulging a daydream. Idle games! Yes, that’s just what it is, idle games!” (2). In this excerpt, the murder plot is not yet known by the audience, and is therefore represented by that. Dostoyevsky draws the reader’s attention to these particular lines through his use of italics and syntax that highlight Raskolnikov’s particular schism early in the book as he continuously argues with himself. This quote from the beginning of the book introduces Raskolnikov’s schism as, while he tells himself he is going to see the pawnbroker over “idle games”, he is actually setting up the murder, and we see that as he goes to her apartment and scopes out his scheme, “Left alone, the young man listened eagerly and followed her in his mind’s eye… Must be another chest, or a strongbox… Strongboxes all have keys like that…” (6). This contradicts the earlier quote, and exhibits Raskolnikov’s schism as the ordinary man he is denies that he could ever commit an act like that, while the extraordinary man his intellectual side thinks he is looks into this murder scheme. This theory that the murder and robbery of Alyona Ivanovna would benefit the society by sharing her wealth with the citizens of St. Petersburg originally came from a conversation he overheard at a restaurant between a student and an officer after his first meeting with Alyona., which can be summarized in these lines, “I could rob and murder that damned old woman and I assure you I wouldn’t have a twinge of conscience” (63). This first part of Crime and Punishment, its main points in these quotes, serves to generate Dostoyevsky’s antithesis of the novel as he highlights the aspects of the intellectual movements that occurred in 19th century Russia and promoted a nihilistic view on society. These ideas, representative in the novel through Raskolnikov’s view on the differentiation of extraordinary men and ordinary men and the idea that murder can be justified if it benefits society as a whole, are contrary to any type of moral values. Through this schismatic behavior exhibited by Raskolnikov, his suffering is seen as he constantly confuses and contradicts himself, which can be related to the young generation of Russia as their nihilistic views could also lead to their suffering.
Throughout the novel, a constant wandering is a common theme shown in Raskolnikov’s character, and this wandering serves to represent his suffering, as interpreted from the beginning of the novel, “He soon plunged into… a kind of oblivion. He walked on without noticing his environment… It was that propensity for monologues he had already acknowledged as a peculiarity of his. At that moment, he knew his thoughts were confused. He knew he was very weak. For the second day know he had scarcely touched food” (2). This introduces us to the motif of wandering that plays a key role in the book by both providing an entry way into his thoughts as he rants and moving the plot along through the instance of coincidence as he mindlessly wandered to places of action where the next scene of the book would come along. This evidence of suffering is seen when Raskolnikov almost decides to end his suffering and guilt without redemption, but rather suicide, “He stared at the darkening water of the canal. He seemed to be scrutinizing this water…. Everything around him began to whirl and dance… A wild and grotesque scene saved him, perhaps, from another fainting spell…. Raskolnikov watched it all with a strange apathy and indifference. To him it was disgusting” (163-164). This evidence shows how easily Raskolnikov will change his point of view, as in one instance he had been considering jumping off the bridge as a way out, yet the very next moment he felt disgusted just by the thought of ending his own life. Later, when Razumihkin is discussing Raskolnikov and his strange behavior with Pulcheria, “He’s morose, gloomy, haughty, and proud…. He’s magnanimous and kind…. There are