Name of Award Student |
: Chow Tsz Yin, Amelia |
Title of Book Read |
: Crime and Punishment |
Author |
: Fyodor Dostoyevsky |
On the surface, Crime and Punishment is the story of a murder, set in the city of St. Petersburg, then the Russian capital. It is not, however, a murder mystery: we know the murderer’s identity from the very beginning. Moreover, although Dostoyevsky depicts the crime and the environment in which it takes place with great realism, he is more interested in the psychology of the murderer than in the external specifics of the crime.
Raskolnikov plans to murder and rob an old woman. After the visit, Raskolnikov feels miserable, so he stops at a tavern for a drink. There he meets a drunk named Marmeladov who tells him how his daughter Sonya became a prostitute to support her family. Raskolnikov helps Marmeladov home, and he is touched by the pitiful scene of poverty he sees there. After leaving the family some money, he returns to his cramped room. The next day, Raskolnikov receives a letter from his mother. She informs him that Raskolnikov's sister Dunya is set to marry a bachelor named Luzhin. Raskolnikov realizes that his mother and sister are counting on Luzhin to give him financial assistance after the wedding. As he sees it, Dunya is sacrificing herself for him, a sacrifice that reminds him of Sonya's prostitution. He berates himself for his passivity. Soon afterwards, he falls asleep, and he dreams of watching a peasant beat an overburdened horse to death. When he awakens, he articulates for the first time his plan to kill the pawnbroker with an axe. Hearing that the pawnbroker’s sister would be away from their apartment the next evening, he realizes that the time to execute his plan has arrived. The murder itself does not unfold as intended. Lizaveta, the pawnbroker’s sister, returns home unexpectedly, and Raskolnikov kills her too. Distraught, he finds only a few items of value, and he is nearly discovered by two of the pawnbroker’s clients who knock at the door. When they leave momentarily, Raskolnikov slips out of the apartment undetected.
During the next few days, Raskolnikov alternates between lucidity and delirium. He feels torn between an impulse to confess his crime and an impulse to resist arrest. He begins a game of cat-and-mouse with an examining magistrate, who investigating the murder, Porfiry Petrovich. Porfiry has read an article written by Raskolnikov in which Raskolnikov expounds the theory that a few select individuals may have the right to commit crimes if they think it necessary to attain special goals. Raskolnikov now explains his theory to Porfiry, beginning with the idea that there are two categories of people in the world—the masses and the elite. The first group, that is the material, are, generally speaking, by nature staid and conservative, they live in obedience and like it. They ought to obey because that is their destiny, and there is nothing at all degrading to them in it. The second group is all law-breakers and transgressors, or is inclined that way, in the measure of their capacities. The aims of these people are, of course, relative and very diverse; for the most part they require, in widely different contexts, the destruction of what exists in the name of better things. But if it is necessary for one of them, for the fulfillment of his ideas, to march over corpses, or wade through blood, then he may in all conscience authorize himself to wade through blood—in proportion, however, to his idea and the degree of its importance—mark that. It is in that sense only, their right to commit crime.
Proud, aloof, and scornful of humanity, at the beginning of the novel Raskolnikov has become obsessed with the idea that he is a “superman” and is therefore not subjected to the laws that govern ordinary humans. He has not only published an essay, he also tries to prove this theory, by killing an old pawnbroker, whom he regards as worthless. However, the murder goes horribly wrong: he also kills the old woman’s simple-minded innocent sister (Lizaveta), who stumbles upon the scene of the crime. So ironically, the crime fails to confirm Raskolnikov’s cool superiority. Tormented by feelings of guilt, he acts erratically, and he fears that his guilt will be obvious to others. Much of the novel centers on Raskolnikov’s irrational state of mind and the eccentric behavior that follows from this. On several occasions he comes close to boasting that he could have committed the crime, and dares others to prove that he did it. He insults his friend Razumihkin and deliberately offends his mother and sister. However, he also acts in ways that show he still has a moral conscience. For example, he defends his sister against her scheming fiancé Luzhin. He gives money to Marmeladov’s widow Katerina Ivanovna. He recoils in horror from the depraved Svidrigailov. Most significantly of all, he is drawn to the young prostitute Sonya Marmeladova, who is morally pure and innocent despite her terrible life. He ultimately confesses his crime to her and begins his journey to redemption. The Russian word Raskol means “schism”. The term was used to describe a split in the Russian Orthodox Church that occurred in the mid-1600s. Dostoyevsky’s Russian readers would have been aware of the significance of Raskolnikov’s name, which suggests contradictions in his own personality as well as his rebellion against God. In the complex Raskolnikov, Dostoyevsky created one of the most interesting and most human of all fictional characters.
In large part, Crime and Punishment is an examination of the guilty conscience. For Dostoyevsky, punishment is not a physical action or condition. Rather punishment inherently results from an awareness of guilt. Guilt is the knowledge that one has done wrong and has become estranged from society and from God. From the very beginning of the novel, Raskolnikov suffers from this estrangement. In murdering the pawnbroker, he seeks to prove that he is above the law. But his crime only reinforces his sense that he is not a part of society.
The theme of atonement and forgiveness is closely related to that of guilt and innocence. As Dostoyevsky’s title suggests, punishment is the only logical and necessary result of crime. Punishment, however, does not mean merely a legal finding and a sentence of imprisonment. In Dostoyevsky’s view, the criminal’s true punishment is not a sentence of imprisonment. Nor is legal punishment the definitive answer to crime. The criminal’s punishment results from his own conscience, his awareness of his guilt. However, he must not only acknowledge his guilt. The criminal must atone for it and must seek forgiveness. Raskolnikov at first tries to rationalize his crime by offering various explanations to himself. Foremost among these is his “superman” theory. By definition, the superman theory denies any possibility of atonement. The superman does not need to atone, because he is permitted to commit any crime in order to further his own ends. Raskolnikov also rationalizes his crime by arguing that the old pawnbroker is of no use to anyone; in killing her, he is ridding the world of an unpleasant person. Driven by poverty, he also claims that he wants to use her money to better his position in life. In the course of the book, he comes to realize that none of these excuses justifies his crime. Raskolnikov’s reasons for fearing arrest are equally complex. It is clear, however, that without the example and the urging of Sonya, he would not be able to seek forgiveness. He finds it remarkable that when he confesses his crime to Sonya, she immediately forgives him. She urges him to bow down before God and make a public confession. This act of contrition, she believes, will enable him to begin to cleanse his soul. Svidrigailov is aware of his own guilt, but he does not seek forgiveness. Unlike Raskolnikov, he does not believe in the possibility of forgiveness. In giving money to Sonya and others, he attempts a partial atonement for his sins. However, even these gestures are motivated partly by base self-interest. Because he is spiritually dead, he feels that the only atonement he can make is to commit suicide.
The novel’s epilogue focuses on Raskolnikov’s experiences as a convict in Siberia. Raskolnikov initially feels a deep sense of alienation from his fellow prisoners. During Lent and Easter, he falls ill, and he has a strange dream in which everyone in the world becomes infected with a disease that causes each person to believe that he or she is the sole bearer of truth. The deluded people kill each other, and the world heads toward total collapse. After recuperating from his illness, Raskolnikov walks to a riverbank and gazes at the landscape. Sonya appears at his side. Suddenly, Raskolnikov is seized with an entirely new sensation of love. Both he and Sonya realize that something profound has occurred within his soul. Love has raised him from the dead, and he will become a new man. Dostoyevsky concludes his novel by stating that the story of Raskolnikov’s regeneration might be the subject of a new tale, but that the present one has ended.
Raskolnikov's main motivation to kill the pawnbroker is actually fairly simple to understand. After hearing a student talk to an officer in a pub about "Killing her, taking her money and with the help of it devoting oneself to the service of humanity and the good of all", he took the person's idea and completely ran with it. Raskolnikov drove himself to madness after murdering the pawn broker and her sister because he had no one to confide his emotions in. Whether his loss of reason is due to guilt or repulsion at himself, he ended up wanting to get caught and eventually turned himself in. "You see...I've come to the conclusion that this way will perhaps be more to my advantage... I'll be sent to prison..." The same thing happens when a child just gives up while trying to get away with the stealing of a cookie. They know they are about to get caught and would rather turn themselves in than have another person force them to.
I remember an incident years ago. It happened when I lived with my uncle and his family, which mirrored that exact facet of human nature. My cousin, who was three at the time and slept with a stuffed lamb, was treating me as if I was a second class citizen in her house. So, I came up with the brilliant idea to take the lamb away, and hide it in a place that she would never look. Unfortunately, the entire house soon learned that the lamb was the only thing that actually put my cousin into a state that was restful enough for sleep, which not only greatly affected her, but the rest of us. Therefore, no one was able to get to sleep very easily the next week and a half because my cousin was crying every night about her lost "Sleepy Sheepy". But I stood my ground and refused to give up the whereabouts of that lamb, even when my mother and uncle grilled me about any involvement I had in the lamb's disappearance. Of course I felt guilty about it. Hearing my cousin cry every night wasn't any picnic, but at that point it was almost like telling the adults what I had done would have been worse than anything else, so I just would not do it.
Raskolnikov believed he had the best of intentions at the beginning, but as most extreme plans go, it turned into complete chaos. Unfortunately, that aspect of human nature is in all of us, and sometimes it comes through. Raskolnikov thought he was doing what was best for his fellow neighbors who had also been swindled by the pawnbroker, but he did not think his actions through. I thought I was doing what was best for my cousin and myself, but I did not consider the consequence carefully. However, when someone realizes that their decision might have not been the best one, their mental anguish is much worse than if they were just to confess.
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Crime and Punishment
By Fyodor Dostoevsky
Author Biography: Fyodor Dostoevsky
When Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote Crime and Punishment in the mid-1860s, he was already a well-known author. Nonetheless, he lived in near-poverty and was plagued by gambling debts. Born in Moscow in 1821, he was the second of seven children. The family's life was unhappy: Dostoyevsky's father, a doctor, ruled the family with an iron hand; his mother, a meek woman, died when he was sixteen. Young Dostoyevsky developed a love of books and enthusiastically read Russian, French, and German novels. However, his father insisted that Dostoyevsky study engineering, and from 1838 to 1843 Dostoyevsky trained at the military engineering academy in St. Petersburg. During this time the elder Dostoyevsky was murdered by one of his serfs, an incident that had a profound impact on Fyodor.
In the mid-1840s Dostoyevsky embarked on his literary career, writing several short stories and novellas, including "The Double" (1846). The concept of the "double"—the notion that a person may have a divided personality—surfaced in several of his later works, including Crime and Punishment. His early-published works brought Dostoyevsky some recognition. In 1848 Dostoyevsky joined a group of radical intellectuals called the Petrashevsky Circle. The group demanded political reforms and generally opposed the government of Tsar Nicholas I. Dostoyevsky and several of his friends were arrested for treason, tried, and sentenced to death. Just as they were lined up in front of the firing squad, a messenger arrived with news that the tsar had commuted the death sentence to a term of hard labor in Siberia. (It is believed that the authorities intended a mock execution all along.) During his five years in prison, Dostoyevsky came to know many of the prisoners, the great majority of whom were ordinary criminals rather than political prisoners. Through his dealings with them, the writer developed an understanding of the criminal mentality and the Russian soul. His political views also changed. He rejected his earlier pro-Western liberal-socialist ideas and instead embraced a specifically Russian brand of Christianity. His prison experiences provided the material for his later book The House of the Dead (1861).
After his release from prison camp in 1854, Dostoyevsky had to spend several more years in Siberia as an army private. He returned to St. Petersburg in 1859 and resumed his literary career. In the early 1860s he traveled extensively in Western Europe. However, he was troubled by personal misfortune, including the death of his wife and his brother, with whom he edited a literary journal. He also was afflicted by epilepsy, a condition little understood at the lime. Moreover, he was unable to control his compulsive gambling habit, and he found himself on the brink of poverty. His writing during this period was stimulated not only by an intense desire to express important ideas but also by a need to earn money. In 1865, Dostoyevsky started work on Crime and Punishment, which is regarded as his first true masterpiece. Russian critics hailed the work, and Dostoyevsky was acclaimed as one of Russia's most significant writers and thinkers. However, he still faced financial ruin, and the next year he wrote, in just one month, a novella called The Gambler in order to pay his debts. He subsequently married the stenographer to whom he had dictated the work, Anna Snitkina. She helped reform his life, and they lived abroad for several years. Foremost among his later novels are The Idiot (1869), The Possessed (also translated as The Devils, 1871), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880). With Crime and Punishment, these books express the essence of Dostoyevsky's social and moral philosophy and his insight into human character. In the last decade of his life, Dostoyevsky finally gained critical acclaim, social prestige, and financial security. He died in St. Petersburg in 1881.
Dostoyevsky's reputation and his influence remain strong to the present day. Virtually all his books have been translated into English and are in print. His insights into the complexities of human psychology anticipated the theories of Sigmund Freud and other early psychologists. (Indeed, Freud acknowledged Dostoyevsky's importance in this field.) Later novelists as diverse as Robert Louis Stevenson, Franz Kafka, Albert Camus, and Iris Murdoch all drew inspiration from Dostoyevsky's themes and characters, while Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn carries on with Dostoyevsky's unique brand of Russian nationalism and Christianity. With his contemporary Leo Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky is today regarded as one of the two greatest nineteenth-century Russian novelists and indeed as one of the most important novelists of any nation or period.
Historical Context
Dostoyevsky's Russia: Social and Political Background
For most modern Americans, the Russia of Dostoyevsky's time is almost incomprehensible. Sir Winston Churchill's comment in 1939 that Russia "is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma" can apply equally to the Russia of the 1860s when Dostoyevsky wrote Crime and Punishment. In the simplest terms, much of Russia's historical difference from the West has to do with the fact that for centuries it was cut off from Western Europe. The Reformation, the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment that helped transform the countries of Western Europe from feudalism to modern nations with well-educated citizens and important cultural institutions barely touched Russia. Moreover, large-scale foreign invasions (from the Mongols in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to the Nazi armies in the early 1940s) periodically devastated the country. As a result, Russia has historically been suspicious of other nations. Also, early in its history, Russia developed a tradition of government that centralized immense power in the hands of an emperor—the tsar—and a handful of his advisors. In the mid-1500s, Tsar Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible) established what became the model for Russian government for the next 400+ years, alternating short-lived periods of ineffectual reform with periods of severe repression.
Relatively "liberal" rulers such as Tsar Peter the Great (reigned 1682-1725) and Tsarina Catherine the Great (reigned 1762-96) pursued a policy of "westernization." They attempted to import modern technology and manners from Western Europe. At the same time, however, they held tightly onto absolute power and ruthlessly suppressed any challenge to the established political order.
During the period when Dostoyevsky was in school and establishing his literary career—the 1830s to the 1860s—Russia was stirred by intense intellectual debate. The small class of the educated people recognized that major changes were needed if the huge but backward country was to address its social problems and find its way successfully in the world. One general approach to change was proposed by certain intellectuals collectively known as Westernizers. The Westernizers were influenced by German philosophy, by social ideas that developed in Western Europe during the Industrial Revolution, and by contemporary European revolutionary movements. The Westernizers were not united in their goals or methods. There were various factions. Some favored gradual democratic reforms, while others called for revolution to replace the tsarist government with a socialist regime.
Another group of thinkers, known as the Slavophiles, proposed an entirely different approach to Russia's problems. Broadly speaking, the Slavophiles felt that Western ideals of rationalism and modernization were dangerous and alien to Russia. Rather than relying on a program of legislation and material improvement, the Slavophiles argued that Russia could only fulfill its destiny when Russians returned to their native spiritual values. Although they disagreed with the Westernizers, the Slavophiles were also opposed to the existing Russian government.
As a young man, the Westernizers influenced Dostoyevsky. In the mid-1840s he joined the Petrashevsky Circle, a small group that met weekly to discuss socialist ideas. IN addition, his travels in Western Europe in the 1860s and 1870s reinforced his distaste for modern industrial society. In the great novels of his mature period, including Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky expresses his sympathy with the Slavophiles and attacks the Westernizers and radicals. Raskolnikov reflects the viewpoint of the radical Nihilists (from the Latin word "nothing"), who rejected all the traditional conventions of society.
By the time Dostoyevsky wrote Crime and Punishment Tsar Alexander II (reigned 1855-81) was in the midst of a significant reform policy. In 1861 the Tsar signed a proclamation that freed millions of Russian serfs (peasants who lived and worked in conditions similar to slavery). This was followed by reforms of local government, the courts, and the military. (The police inspector Porfiry Petrovich refers to these reforms.) However, these reforms failed to resolve the major problems in Russia and helped to create new problems. Again, the immense social problems facing Russia at the time—widespread poverty, ignorance, and social agitation—form the background to Crime and Punishment.
Literary elements of Crime and Punishment
Narrative
Crime and Punishment is written in the third person. However, Dostoyevsky's narrative focus shifts throughout the novel. Crime and Punishment is widely credited as the first psychological novel, and in many passages, Dostoyevsky puts us inside Raskolnikov's head. We view the action from Raskolnikov's viewpoint and share his often-disordered and contradictory thoughts. These passages read more like a first-person confession than a detached third-person fictional narrative. At the same time, he describes exterior events with clear realism. Critics have pointed out that Dostoyevsky is essentially a dramatic novelist.
Setting
The action of the book takes place in St. Petersburg, the capital city of Russia, in the summer of 1865. (The brief epilogue is set in Siberia.) Crime and Punishment is a distinctly urban novel. In choosing a definite urban setting, Dostoyevsky was paving new ground for Russian fiction. His Russian predecessors and contemporaries such as Gogol, Turgenev, and Tolstoy generally set their stories on country estates.
Moreover, St. Petersburg is not just a backdrop, but it is an inherent part of the novel. Dostoyevsky recreates St. Petersburg's neighborhoods and its streets, bridges, and canals with great realism. In his narrative, Dostoyevsky does not give the full street names, but uses only abbreviations. Readers familiar with St. Petersburg would probably have been able to identify most of these specific locations, as modern scholars have done.
Much of the action takes place indoors, generally in cramped tenement apartments. With these settings, Dostoyevsky creates a tense, claustrophobic atmosphere.
Most of the book's main characters are not natives of St. Petersburg, but have come to the city from Russia's far-flung rural provinces. Thus, they are not at ease in this urban setting. Provincial Russians might normally regard the capital city, created by Peter the Great as Russia's "window on the West," as a place of opportunity. However, for Raskolnikov, Katerina Ivanovna, Svidrigailov, and other characters, the city turns out to be a destination of last resort, a place where their diminished expectations are finally played out. The setting emphasizes this sense of the city as a dead-end.
Most readers tend to think of Russia as a "winter" country, with lots of snow and cold weather. Dostoyevsky contradicts these expectations by setting his story during an unusual summer heat wave. The heat and humidity add to the general sense of discomfort that pervades the narrative. They also reflect and reinforce the feverish state that afflicts Raskolnikov throughout the book.
Structure
Crime and Punishment is divided into six parts plus an epilogue. Each part is broken further into several chapters. For the most part, each chapter centers on a self-contained dramatic episode. Much of this episodic structure is attributable to the fact that Crime and Punishment was written for serialization in a magazine. Magazine readers wanted each installment to be complete in itself and to contain colorful incidents. Many chapters end with the sudden, unexpected arrival of a new character. By introducing such developments at the end of many of the chapters, Dostoyevsky maintained a high level of suspense. He knew that his readers would be curious to know what would happen in the next chapter and that they would look forward to the next installment. Moreover, an unresolved complication at the end of a particular chapter would also stimulate Dostoyevsky to write the next chapter. This method of writing helps account for the numerous abrupt shifts in the plot focus.
Coincidence
Like many other important nineteenth-century novelists, Dostoyevsky does not hesitate to use coincidence to advance the plot. Indeed, many of the crucial developments in Crime and Punishment depend on sheer coincidences that seem highly unlikely to the modern reader. However, coincidence was an accepted literary convention of the period. Dostoyevsky does not attempt to explain away his coincidences, but on the contrary he simply states them as matters of fact. He uses this technique as a shortcut to bring together certain characters and set up dramatic situations.
Themes/Motifs/Symbols
Introductory Note
Crime and Punishment is a psychological novel. This means the plot is not primarily concerned with action, but centers on the psychological progression of the protagonist.
There are two key philosophies set up in opposition in Crime and Punishment which are key to understanding Raskolnikov’s changing mentality. One is Christianity, which most Western readers are familiar with. The other is Nihilism.
Nihilims asserts:
In other words, there is no absolute truth; you should do whatever is most beneficial to the greater good; and morality is entirely relative. Raskolnikov’s theory of the Ubermensch (Superman) ties in with Nihilistic beliefs.
Many of the young men in the novel discuss and believe in Nihilistic principles. Sonya, on the other hand, reads to Raskolnikov out of the Bible. Raskolnikov’s experience with trying to live under the ideals of Nihilism versus trying to live under the ideals of Christianity (especially as it pertains to his guilt) is arguably the text’s central conflict.
Vocabulary
Define and label the part of speech for each word.
Part 1: Part 2: Part 3: Part 4: Part 5: Part 6/Epilogue:
resolute loathe perplex depravity disdain tangible
aversion trifling impetuous ephemeral credulous malicious
innate incessant eccentric candid benevolent aberration
scoundrel obstinate contempt articulate anguish dissolute
poignant enigma notorious obstinate expiate profligate
indifferent capricious dissent censure dejected provocative
indignant stagnate incredulous mitigate impromptu vexation
reproach scrupulous disconcerting confound vindictive deter
haughty apathy refute condescending ascetic
revere aesthetic temperament zeal
Russian Patronymics
Russians typically have a middle name, called a patronymic, which is formed from the father’s first name. For sons, the patronymic is formed by adding –ovitch to the father’s first name; for daughters, the patronymic is formed by adding –ovna to the father’s first name. Thus Rodion, the son of Roman Raskolnikov, becomes Rodion Romanovitch Raskolinikov, and his sister, Avdotya, becomes Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikov.
Raskolnikov, Luzhin, Svidrigailov, Zametov, Marmeladov, and Razhumikin have symbolic meanings that the Western reader might not realize:
Raskol’nik – schismatic Luzha – puddle Razum- reason, intelligence
Zametit’—to notice Marmelad – sort of sweet candy or jam
Svidrigailov – name from medieval Russian history, Lithuanian prince
Characters
Because of the Russian tradition of using patronymics, keeping track of the characters and their various nicknames can be difficult to a Western reader. The list below includes each character’s full name and nicknames. The underlining indicates the name most frequently used in the novel. Add notes about the identity of each character as you read.
Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov (Rodya, Rodka)
Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladov (Sonia, Sonechka)
Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikov (Dounia, Dunya, Dunechka)
Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov
Marfa Petrovna
Dmitri Prokofich Razumikhin
Katerina Ivanovna Marmeladov
Porfiry Petrovich
Semyon Zakharovich Marmeladov
Pulcheria Alexandrovna Raskolnikov
Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin
Andrei Semyonovich Lebezyatnikov
Alyona Ivanovna
Lizaveta Ivanovna
Zossimov
Praskovya Pavlovna
Nastasya Petrovna (Nastenka, Nastasyushka)
Ilya Petrovich
Alexander Grigorievich Zametov
Nikolai Dementiev (Mikolka)
Polina Mikhailovna Marmeladov (Polya, Polenka, Polechka)
Amalia Fyodorovna
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
At the end of this unit, the student should be able to…
• love
• prayer
• repentance/confession
• punishment/suffering
• forgiveness/redemption
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