Redemption of the Soul in Crime and Punishment - Essay Example

Redemption of the soul in Crime and Punishment Crime and Punishment was Fyodor Dostoevsky's fictional work first published in 1866. s 2007). In September of 1865 Dostoevsky described to M. N. Katkov, the editor of The Russian Messenger, its content and idea as follows: The novel is a psychological account of a crime. A young man of middle-class origin who is living in dire need is expelled from the university. From superficial and weak thinking, having been influenced by certain "unfinished" ideas in the air, he decides to get himself out of a difficult situation quickly by killing an old woman, a usurer and widow of a government servant. The old woman is crazy, deaf, sick, greedy, and evil. She charges scandalous rates of interest, devours the well-being of others, and, having reduced her younger sister to the state of a servant, oppresses her with work. She is good for nothing. "Why does she live" "Is she useful to anyone at all" These and other questions carry the young man's mind astray. He decides to kill and rob her so as to make his mother, who is living in the provinces, happy; to save his sister from the libidinous importunities of the head of the estate where she is serving as a lady's companion; and then to finish his studies, go abroad and be for the rest of his life honest, firm, and unflinching in fulfilling his humanitarian duty toward mankind. This would, according to him, "make up for the crime," if one can call this act a crime, which is committed against an old, deaf, crazy, evil, sick woman, who does not know why she is living and who would perhaps die in a month anyway. (Notes 2007) The story is basically the struggle between Raskolnikov's Napoleon-bermensch theory and his conscience which make him confess to his crime. According to Tanguay (1997), the novel is an expos of the evil system which forced upon Raskolnikov the choice between crime and death by starvation. However, as the epilogue goes, the novel suggests the brighter side of man's connection to his creator as its more important theme. A repentant man can still hope for his benevolent creator waiting to hear him confess. This paper discusses how Fyodor Dostoevsky tries to present his message through many techniques. Basically, he tackles the issue of poverty and tries to show how an intelligent university student goes about in solving his financial problems. With it is the bermensch theory which he puts in the mind of Raskolnikov, thinking an ordinary man can become extraordinary - jumping from one level to another. The problem is that it has to be done with a crime and to come off it clean. The novel shows that the thinking of the protagonist, Raskolnikov, comes from great men like Napoleon who made history. From here, he uses dreams to foreshadow what is to come or make flashbacks on the past to register well a point. The novel throughout speaks of poverty as a theme as the different characters portray how they each respond to their problem of making both ends meet. As the characters go about their business, especially with Raskolnikov, Dostoevsky tries to go deep into the workings of the mind and present the progression of the psychological struggles. Dostoevsky also utilizes character contrasts to magnify other characters, such as the employ of the oversexed Svidrigalov trying to express regret for his dastardly acts by expressing charity after every wild act. He is contrasted against Raskolnikov who looks up to him as the extraordinary man who can commit crime without any pangs of regret. Dostoevsky finally ends his novel with a meaningful epilogue about man's redemption and his final association with his creator. The discussions that follow deal deeper with these elements to show how Dostoevsky tries to communicate his message. Communicating the message The social issue of poverty. Dostoevsky portrayed the contemporary social reality. Raskolnikov's murdering of the old moneylender resulted apparently from his dire poverty. He had no alternative but murder and robbery if he were to survive. From a thesis he had prepared in his school, he began to apply his theory of the extraordinary man to his problem of poverty. In trying to communicate meaning, the author uses a structure slowly stretching out a psychological progress of Raskolnikov's mind from the planning stages of the murder through the final realization of love. The role of suffering does much in characterizing some participants in the novel and in making the work appreciable. It makes the readers relate closely to their lives, as each character reacts differently about suffering and to suffering. In Crime and Punishment, oddly it is not Raskolnikov who suffers most since he shows that he as the strength of mind to survive to the end. The bermensch theory. The crime in Crime and Punishment occurs very early in the novel to entertain theories of punishment with the rest of the novel. Dostoevsky uses Raskolnikov and his theory to prove two different levels of extraordinary and ordinary men. Petra Rackley (2007) explains that the ultimate being, or bermensch, as portrayed by Dostoevsky through Raskolnikov, has the ability to violate certain rules that the "Common Man" cannot. For example, the Raskolnikov character says - "I simply hinted that the extraordinary man has the right that it is not an official, but an inner right to decide in his own conscience to overstep certain obstacles, and only in case it is essential for the practical fulfillment of his idea (sometimes, perhaps, of benefit to the whole humanity) In short, I maintain that all great men or even men a little out of the common, that is to say capable of giving some new word, must from their very nature be criminals-more or less, of course. Otherwise it's hard for them to get out of the common rut" (242) Raskolnikov wrote a paper on the theory of an bermensch while he was still a student. Accordingly, the extraordinary man has the right to take advantage of the ordinary man. Wanting to step up to another level, Raskolnikov wanted to become the bermensch by stepping over boundaries, via assassinating the pawnbroker. He rationalized his actions by saying that he would use the profits of his measures to benefit others. Indeed, in Part I, Chapter 7, he is presented as having slept almost immediately after returning home from committing the murder. This indicates that at this point, he calmly believes in the theory without qualms. Later, however, his bravado wears off as in Part II, Chapter 2, he begins to feel paranoid. Later in Part III, Chapter 6, someone in the street declares that he knows the murderer to be Raskolnikov. He reassures himself by claiming that he killed a principle, not a person. Use of "great" men ideas. Raskolnikov's Napoleon complex is his idea of the role of the great man in history. In Raskolnikov's mind, Napoleon was the ultimate superman, or bermensch. Raskolnikov idolizes this French ruler and compares his murder of the pawnbroker and the resulting guilt to what Napoleon would have accomplished and experienced. "It was like this: I asked myself one day this question- what if Napoleon, for instance, had happened to be in my place, and if he had not had Toulon nor Egypt nor the passage of Mont Blanc to begin his career with, but instead of all those picturesque and monumental things, there had simply been some ridiculous old hag, a pawnbroker, who had to be murdered too to get money from her trunk (for his career, you understand) Wouldn't he have felt a pang at its being so far from monumental and and sinful, tooIt would not have given him the least pang, that it would not even have struck him that it was not monumentalHe would have strangled her in a minute without thinking about it!" (384) Foreshadowing and flashback with dreams. Throughout the novel are different dreams, filling in functional roles to either foreshadow what is to come or flashback on the past. Dostoyevsky places a high importance on dreams and feelings (Tanguay, 1997). At the beginning of the book, Raskolnikov dreams he is seven years old and is going with his father to visit his mother's grave. They meet drunken peasants on a wagon with many people. The old horse cannot pull the wagon and the owner beats it in the eyes, bludgeoning it with a crowbar, and killing it. This brings Raskolnikov to think about his plan to murder Alyona Ivanovna. It is a sign, he says. He dreams another one much later. This time, it was after he had committed the murder - a flashback technique to nail down the fact of murder. It is that of him repeatedly striking the pawnbroker with his ax but she only laughs at him and does not die. This indicates that he will not come off his crime easily. When he awakens, Svidrigalov, his sister's former employer, is standing in the doorway. Svidrigalov happens to know about Raskolnikov's secret and begins to blackmail his sister, Dounia. Svidrigalov, himself has a dream. He gives money to Sonia [the drunkard Marmeladov's daughter] for her trip to Siberia with Raskolnikov [in his effort to repent of his despicable self.] Svidrigalov dreams a perverse sexual dream with the five-year-old girl. Afterwards, he makes his decision to shoot himself and shortly acts on it. Svidrigalov's act - though improper for taking his own life - may be said to be a redeeming one as a signal that he has realized his wickedness. Dostoevsky also utilizes religious and biblical themes in the novel, especially the story of Lazarus that Sonia reads to Raskolnikov. Lazarus in the bible had experienced much suffering on earth, had died, but was raised again - a powerful act of love by Christ toward Lazarus ("Lazarus" 2007) Use of themes and motifs. One of the strong themes of the work was the social issue of poverty and the guiltless evil engendered by poverty. The character of the drunkard Marmeladov was a portrayal of what may happen to a person who will not struggle against poverty would become. A recurring motif in the novel is the cross, accepted by Raskolnikov from Sonia which he earlier had rejected. He does this after he makes up his mind to confess to the crime. Finally, he says - "It was I who killed the old woman and her sister, Lizaveta, with an axe, and robbed them." Working with thoughts. Dostoevsky can describe a madman well. His genius is in describing how Raskolnikov struggles in his thoughts and actions, as in - He did not sleep, but lay there in a stupor. If anybody had entered the room he would have sprung up at once with a cry. Disjointed scraps and fragments of ideas floated through his mind, but he could not seize one of them, or dwell upon any, in spite of all his efforts . . . . . . a strange idea seemed to be pecking away in his head, like a chicken emerging from the shell, and all his attention was fixed on it. He thought that if anybody were to speak to him, he would spit and snarl at them like an animal . . . Raskolnikov's thoughts become increasingly disjointed and desperate and his actions show that he has an increasing need to escape the uncertainty of being convicted, to talk about the crime, to confess, and to suffer for his crime (Tanguay, 1997). In the novel, the author alternately calls Raskolnikov as Rodya, Rodenka, and Rodka - characterizing the main persona's turbulent thoughts. The full name is Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov, the surname derived from Raskol'nik in Russian which means "schismatic," from schism or "division of a group into opposing factions" (Summary 2007). By focusing so little on Raskolnikov's imprisonment, Dostoevsky seems to suggest that actual punishment is much less terrible than the stress and anxiety of trying to avoid punishment. In fact, Porfiry Petrovich, the detective, is certain that Raskolnikov will eventually confess or go mad, as a guilt-ridden criminal must necessarily experience mental torture (Spark notes 2007) Contrasting characters to highlight protagonist. Both Raskolnikov and Svidrigalov are presented as similar in their thinking. The character of Svidrigailov appararently is used to magnify more the character of Raskolnikov who idolizes the former. In Part IV, Chapter 1, Svidrigalov is presented as that extraordinary man that Raskolnikov wanted to become. He appears as the person who is capable of killing without moral pangs. He is a sadist, a murderer, an abuser. Svidrigalov came to St. Petersburg because of Dounia who he offers to pay 10000 rubles so that she wouldn't marry Luzhin, claiming this as an act of kindness and without any motive. For the extraordinary man theory, however, Svidrigailov would not fit in since he only thinks of his personal interests unlike Raskolnikov who thought of using stolen money for good. The mystic epilogue. The ending was in a separate epilogue. It had a mystic tone. The ending was not about the character Raskolnikov himself who at last repents truly while in prison after discovering love, but about the issue of psychological redemption. With this epilogue, Dostoevsky's message is thathuman beings are not just selfish unitary creatures with no moral fiber. Within each man, there is substance in the eternal and through it there is hope for redemption. Works Cited Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment . Study Notes. 17 Nov. 2007 . Dostoevsky, Fyodor and Constance Garnett. Crime and Punishment. ISBN-10: 0553211757. ISBN-13: 978-0553211757. Bantam Classics. 15 Oct. 1996. Rackley, Petra. L "The Atomic Structure in Life: A Journey Through the Discovery of the Importance of Levels and Structure." 16 Nov 2007 . Tanguay, Edward. Book 57. Review. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. February 23, 1997 "Themes, Motifs & Symbols. 18 Nov. 2007 . Read More