Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment is not just
a tale of crime and its consequences but a profound exploration of the human
psyche and philosophical inquiry.
At the heart of this masterpiece lies a complex interplay of
moral dilemmas, existential crises, and the quest for redemption. Dostoyevsky
uses the journey of his protagonist, Raskolnikov, to delve into profound
questions about morality, free will, and the nature of evil. Through
Raskolnikov's internal struggles and interactions, Dostoyevsky presents his
philosophical views, challenging readers to contemplate the boundaries of right
and wrong.
Dostoyevsky's philosophy in Crime and Punishment is
deeply rooted in the existentialist tradition, grappling with the themes of
guilt, punishment, and the possibility of redemption. The novel presents a
stark examination of utilitarianism, as Raskolnikov initially believes that his
crime can be justified by a greater good. However, as the narrative unfolds,
Dostoyevsky dismantles this notion, illustrating the inescapable nature of
moral law and the inherent value of human life.
Through a rich tapestry of characters and events, Dostoyevsky's work challenges readers to reflect on the essence of justice, the power of conscience, and the transformative potential of suffering and repentance.
According to Goodreads, Crime and Punishment is one of the best books ever.
INTRODUCTION TO CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
When the first instalment of Crime and
Punishment appeared in the journal Russian Messenger in January
1866, its debt-ridden author, Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky, had not yet
finished writing the novel.
However, even before the entire work had appeared in serial
form, the novel was a public success. Russian readers and critics recognized
that, artistically and socially, Crime and Punishment was one of the
most important novels of its time, and it was widely discussed.
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.
Like many of the great 19th-century
novelists, Dostoyevsky often uses coincidences to move the plot forward, and
the story takes on a compelling life of its own. Dostoyevsky's use of parable
and of dream sequences is also original and remarkable.
Furthermore, Dostoyevsky creates a gallery of memorable
characters, including the proud and tormented ex-student Raskolnikov and his
two murder victims; the drunken civil servant Marmeladov and his daughter; the
meek prostitute Sonya, whose love helps to redeem Raskolnikov; Raskolnikov's
devoted sister, mother, and best friend (Dunya, Pulkheria Aleksandrovna, and
Razhumikhin); Dunya's scheming suitor Luzhin and the sinister Svidrigailov; and
the canny police investigator, Porfiry Petrovich.
Finally, beyond its powerful plot and colourful characters, Crime
and Punishment is marked by its insightful treatment of several major
themes. Among other things, the book is an exposé of social conditions in
19th-century Russia, a satirical analysis of liberal and radical politics, and
a religious call for redemption through suffering.
As an intensely dramatic study of the nature of good and
evil, it is commonly considered the quintessential Russian novel.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
When Fyodor Mikhaylovich 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 child in a family
that eventually consisted of seven children. Family life was unhappy:
Dostoyevsky's father, a doctor, ruled with an iron hand; his mother, a meek
woman, died when the author was 16. 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 in this subject 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 a
literary career, writing several short stories and novels, including The
Double (1846). The concept of the “double”—the notion that a person may
have a divided personality, symbolized by a good or evil twin—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 (known
as the “Petrashevsky Circle” after their leader, Mikhail Petrashevsky). The
group discussed literary and political ideas and advocated reforming the
autocratic tsarist government. 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 labour in Siberia. Dostoyevsky later alluded to this event in Crime
and Punishment and in other books. (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 inmates, 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
(1861-1862).
After his release from the 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 travelled 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 was also afflicted by epilepsy, a condition little understood at the time.
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 the need to earn money. In 1864 he wrote Notes from the
Underground, whose narrator is a self-confessed “sick... spiteful...
unattractive man”, an embittered character who resents society. Immediately
after this book, Dostoyevsky started work on Crime and Punishment
(1866), regarded as his first true masterpiece.
Important 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 in just one month he wrote a short
novel called The Gambler (1866) 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
(1868-1869), The Possessed (also translated as The Devils,
1871-1872), and The Brothers Karamazov (1879-1880). 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 has carried on Dostoyevsky's unique brand of Russian nationalism and Christianity.
Some scholars have gone so far as to claim that Dostoyevsky's view of the Russian character and politics prophesied the Russian Revolution and the terrible deprivations that Russia suffered under Soviet Communist rule in the 20th century.
With his
contemporary Leo Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky is today regarded as one of the two
greatest 19th-century Russian novelists and indeed as one of the most important
novelists of any nation or period.
PLOT SUMMARY TO CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
BOOK 1
As the novel Crime and Punishment begins,
an impoverished student named Rodion Raskolnikov sets out to visit a pawnbroker
in a poor section of St Petersburg, the Russian capital. This visit serves as a
trial run for a sinister mission: Raskolnikov plans to murder and rob the 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 Raskolnikov financial assistance after the
wedding. As he sees it, Dunya is sacrificing herself for her brother, 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 flat 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 flat undetected.
BOOK 2
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 the examining
magistrate, 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. In my opinion they ought to obey because that is their destiny,
and there is nothing at all degrading to them in it. The second group are all
law-breakers and transgressors, or are 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 fulfilment of his ideas, to march over corpses, or
wade through blood, then in my opinion 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 that I speak in my
article of their right to commit crime.”
Porfiry wonders whether Raskolnikov might consider
himself to be an “extraordinary man”, and if so, whether the murder of the
pawnbroker could be connected with his cynical theory. Porfiry hints that he
suspects Raskolnikov of the murder, but he avoids making definitive accusations
at first, thus keeping Raskolnikov on edge.
While this covert duel between Raskolnikov
and Porfiry Petrovich continues, Dostoyevsky develops several subplots.
Marmeladov is run over by a carriage, and when Raskolnikov takes the dying man
home, he sees Sonya. Struck by her image of humble self-sacrifice, he feels
drawn to her. In the meantime, Raskolnikov's sister Dunya breaks off her
engagement to Luzhin, who has become insufferably demanding. Yet she now must
contend with a new pursuer, her former employer Svidrigailov.
Svidrigailov is rumoured to have abused young women and to
have beaten his wife. He had made advances to Dunya when she worked for him,
and his scandalous behaviour had unjustly given her a bad reputation. Now he
turns up again.
Wracked by continuing anxiety, Raskolnikov makes
two important visits to Sonya's flat. In the first visit, he alternates between
antagonizing her and seeking her sympathy. He wonders how she could go on
living despite her humiliating profession. It occurs to him that the answer may
lie in religion. He asks Sonya to read aloud the Gospel account of the raising
of Lazarus.
This story of a dead man restored to life perhaps suggests
to Raskolnikov that he too may someday be able to return to normal life. He
tells Sonya that on his next visit he will disclose to her the murderer's
identity.
During his second visit, Raskolnikov reveals
to Sonya his awful crime. The moment of confession takes place without words.
In a scene that uncannily recalls the original murder of the pawnbroker and
Lizaveta, Raskolnikov looks into Sonya's eyes, and she reacts with the same
terror he had seen on Lizaveta's face. In an instant, she perceives his guilt.
Instead of turning away with horror, however, she embraces
him and shows that she understands how much he suffers. Her selfless acceptance
of his suffering gives Raskolnikov new strength. He tells her that he committed
the murder to find out whether he was someone special, someone with the right
to disobey conventional codes of behaviour.
He now asks her what he should do. She tells him to go to
the crossroads, kiss the earth, and make a public confession. God will then
send him new life. Yet Raskolnikov is not ready to surrender, and he leaves her
flat in a renewed state of indecision.
Unbeknownst to Raskolnikov and Sonya, Svidrigailov
had been eavesdropping on their last conversation, and he attempts to use
Raskolnikov's confession as a tool to win Dunya's affections. Luring her to his
flat, Svidrigailov tells Sonya that he knows of Raskolnikov's crime, and he
indicates that he will save Raskolnikov if Sonya gives herself to him. She
tries to leave the room, but he has locked the door. She takes a revolver out
of her pocket, and while he taunts her to shoot him, she pulls the trigger twice.
The first bullet misses, and then the gun misfires. Although Svidrigailov gives
her the opportunity to shoot again, Dunya throws the gun down.
Svidrigailov hopes that she will now surrender to him, but
she tells him that she will never love him, and he lets her go. Disheartened by
her rejection, Svidrigailov spends a fitful night in a cheap hotel. A series of
dreams reveals to him the extent of his internal corruption. In the morning, he
leaves the hotel and shoots himself in front of an astonished guard.
On that same day, Raskolnikov resolves
to give himself up to the police. He makes a final visit to Sonya and departs
for the police station. Crossing a public square, he recalls Sonya's words
about confessing to the world. He falls to his knees and kisses the ground.
The mockery of the bystanders, however, quells his impulse
to make a public confession, so he moves on to the police station. There he
learns that Svidrigailov has committed suicide. He begins to leave the station,
perhaps feeling the lure of suicide himself. Outside the building, however, he
sees Sonya looking at him in anguish. He re-enters the station and declares in
a loud voice: “It was I who killed the old woman and her sister Lizaveta....”
Epilogue
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 towards 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 and compassion.
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.
CHARACTER ANALYSIS
1. Pulkheria Aleksandrovna
Pulkheria Aleksandrovna is Raskolnikov's mother.
A widow, she is 43 years old, but her face “still retains
traces of her former beauty”. When she arrives in St Petersburg with her
daughter Dunya and meets Raskolnikov, whom she has not seen for three years,
she is deeply concerned about him. She finds his behaviour puzzling, and she
worries about him. Raskolnikov is embarrassed (among other things) by his
mother's attention, and he attempts to rebuff her. In his final encounter with
his mother, Raskolnikov reveals his love for her but does not tell her about
his crime.
However, with a mother's intuition, she is more aware of
what is happening to her son than he realizes.
2. Alyona Ivanovna
Alyona Ivanovna is the pawnbroker whom
Raskolnikov murders.
The widow of a college registrar, in Raskolnikov's eyes she
is a suspicious, miserly old woman who preys on unfortunate people who are
forced to pawn their few possessions with her. Raskolnikov reasons that she is
a “vile, harmful louse” who is no good to anyone and who only causes pain and
suffering to others (including her simple-minded sister, Lizaveta Ivanovna).
Therefore, for Raskolnikov, her murder is justified.
However, Dostoyevsky suggests that the murder of even such
an unsympathetic character is a crime against humanity.
3. Katerina Ivanovna
Katerina Ivanovna is the wife of Marmeladov.
Marmeladov tells Raskolnikov that she is “full of
magnanimous emotions” but “hot-tempered and irritable”. The daughter of a
military officer, she was a poor widow when she met Marmeladov, and since her
marriage to Marmeladov she has been reduced to total poverty.
She has three children from her previous marriage. She is “a
thin, rather tall woman, with a good figure and beautiful chestnut hair”;
Raskolnikov guesses that she is about 30 years old. She suffers from
consumption (tuberculosis) and has been driven to despair by her husband's
drunkenness and extreme poverty. In this piteous state she abuses her children,
and on her deathbed she refuses to forgive Marmeladov for his irresponsibility.
After her husband's death, she retreats into the fantasy
that she has an aristocratic background. She dies shortly thereafter.
4. Lizaveta Ivanovna
Lizaveta is the simple-minded younger
half-sister of the pawnbroker Alyona Ivanovna.
Raskolnikov kills Lizaveta when the woman unexpectedly
enters the flat where he has just murdered Alyona Ivanovna. Ironically,
Raskolnikov had earlier expressed some sympathy for Lizaveta, a poor soul who
was abused by her sister. Raskolnikov learned that Alyona would be alone when
he overheard Lizaveta talking to someone in the market. Curiously, his
unpremeditated killing of the innocent Lizaveta plays little part in his
subsequent feelings of guilt.
He later learns that Lizaveta was a friend of Sonya
Marmeladova.
5. Andrei Semyonovich Lebezyatnikov
Lebezyatnikov is a former student of Luzhin,
with whom Luzhin lodges temporarily in St Petersburg.
Lebezyatnikov belongs to a radical utopian organization.
Luzhin attempts to enlist him as a witness when he accuses Sonya of robbery.
However, Lebezyatnikov realizes that Luzhin has framed Sonya, and he speaks up
on her behalf and tells the truth.
Dostoyevsky ridicules Lebezyatnikov's naive political ideas,
but he is commended for his basic honesty and decency.
6. Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin
Luzhin is the manipulative fiancé of
Raskolnikov's sister, Dunya. Luzhin is related to Svidrigailov and
Svidrigailov's wife, Marfa Petrovna, for whom Dunya had previously worked as a
governess. In his early 40s, Luzhin is depicted as a self-important dandy with
uncertain government connections.
He clearly does not love Dunya, and his motives for marriage
are suspect. After a brief acquaintance, he has arranged for Raskolnikov's
sister and mother (Dunya and Pulkheria Aleksandrovna) to follow him to St
Petersburg. However, his arrangements are less than satisfactory. Raskolnikov
takes an instant dislike to Luzhin and insults him; Raskolnikov vows to stop
his sister's marriage to a man whom he regards as a hypocrite and an
opportunist.
Luzhin later falsely accuses Sonya of having robbed him, but
the charges are disproven and Luzhin is humiliated. For Dostoyevsky, Luzhin
embodies superficiality and corruption.
7. Semyon Zaharovitch Marmeladov
Marmeladov is a drunken civil servant; the
father of Sonya and the husband of Katerina Ivanovna.
In the novel's second chapter, Raskolnikov encounters
Marmeladov in a tavern, where Marmeladov tells the former student the story of
his degeneration. Despite his drunkenness, Marmeladov is intelligent and
perceptive, but he has abandoned his job and lost all self-respect.
Consequently, his family has fallen into dire poverty, and
his daughter Sonya has resorted to prostitution in order to help support them.
Marmeladov is fully aware of his irresponsibility and its disastrous
consequences for his family; indeed, he seems to take pleasure in his depravity
and suffering. However, he is unwilling or unable to change his ways and reform
himself. Marmeladov is later run over by a carriage and is fatally injured;
Raskolnikov happens to come along and has the older man carried to his
[Marmeladov's] flat, where he dies. Both comic and pathetic, Marmeladov is
regarded as one of Raskolnikov's “doubles”.
Dostoyevsky may also have intended him to be symptomatic of
a Russian national tendency towards slothfulness and irrationality and an
inability to reform or modernize.
8. Sonya Marmeladova/Sofya Semyonovna/Sonia Marmeladova
Sonya is the meek young prostitute to
whom Raskolnikov first confesses his guilt.
The 18-year-old daughter of the drunken civil servant Semyon
Marmeladov, and the stepdaughter of Katerina Ivanovna, Sonya has become a
prostitute in order to help support Katerina's children. She is thin,
fair-haired, and has “remarkable blue eyes”.
Raskolnikov first learns about her from Marmeladov. Although
other characters scorn Sonya because of her profession, Raskolnikov is drawn to
her because of her innocence. She reads Raskolnikov the biblical passage about
Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. She also tells Raskolnikov that she was a
friend of the murdered woman Lizaveta. When Raskolnikov confesses that he is
the murderer, Sonya is horrified because she realizes that he has murdered his
own human spirit. She forgives him and urges him to go to a public place and
bow down and confess his sin to God.
Sonya follows him to Siberia. Sonya represents Dostoyevsky's
religious faith. Her Christianity emphasizes redemption through suffering.
9. Natasya
Natasya is the cook and only servant of
Raskolnikov's landlady.
Dostoyevsky describes her as a “country peasant woman, and a
very talkative one”. She tells Raskolnikov that the landlady has been talking
about calling the police because he has been behind with his rent and will not
leave. She is very kind to the poor student, bringing him tea and urging her
cabbage soup on him, rather than taking his money to buy sausage.
10. Nikolay
Nikolay is one of the workmen. He is a
house painter who confesses to the murders and who is described by Porfiry as a
“child... responsive to influences”. His false evidence serves to distract
people from suspecting Raskolnikov and provides Porfiry with a chance to urge
Raskolnikov to make a full confession for his own good.
11. Porfiry Petrovich
Porfiry Petrovich is the police inspector
whose interviews with Raskolnikov provide dramatic tension in the book.
A relative of Raskolnikov's friend Razumikhin, he is about
35 years old and podgy. At times he seems a somewhat befuddled, comical
character, but in fact he is extremely perceptive and intelligent. His
investigative methods are highly unorthodox. He is more interested in criminal
psychology than in standard police procedure or material evidence. Raskolnikov
is uncertain how much Porfiry really knows about the crime, and he attempts to
outwit the detective.
However, Porfiry's friendly but persistent and all-knowing
manner upsets and confuses Raskolnikov. In the end, Raskolnikov breaks down and
confesses.
Porfiry's emphasis on criminal psychology reflects
Dostoyevsky's own ideas and interests as a novelist.
12. Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov/Rodya
Raskolnikov is the central character of Crime
and Punishment.
He is a poverty-stricken 23-year-old. Described as an
“ex-student”, Raskolnikov has dropped out of the university presumably because
of his inability to pay his fees.
Beyond this, he has been suffering from a spiritual crisis.
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
therefore not subject to the laws that govern ordinary humans. He has published
an essay on his superman theory. To prove this theory, he intends to kill 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.
Moreover, 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 centres on
Raskolnikov's irrational state of mind and the eccentric behaviour that follows
from this.
On several occasions he comes close to boasting that he
could have committed the crime, and dares others (notably the detective Porfiry
Petrovich) 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.
13. Dmitry Prokovich Razumikhin
Razumikhin is Raskolnikov's best friend.
A former student himself, Razumikhin helps to nurse
Raskolnikov back to health after the latter's breakdown (following
Raskolnikov's murder of the pawnbroker and her sister).
His attitude towards Raskolnikov is complex: he often
berates his wayward friend, but he is also protective towards him. Razumikhin
falls in love with Raskolnikov's sister, Dunya, and he subsequently acts as her
protector. He is a cousin of the police inspector Porfiry Petrovich, to whom he
introduces Raskolnikov. On the surface, Razumikhin is himself no paragon of
virtue. He is unkempt and ungainly, and when he meets Raskolnikov's mother and
sister after a party he is drunk. Razumikhin's name derives from the Russian
word for “reason”.
Some critics have compared Razumikhin and his role in the
novel to Shakespeare's character Horatio, the friend of Hamlet.
14. Dunya Avdotya Romanovna/Dunechka
Dunya is Raskolnikov's sister. She bears a
physical resemblance to her brother, but in contrast to his morbid character
she is self-confident, strong, and straightforward.
She is devoted to Raskolnikov, and initially decides to
marry Pyotr Luzhin primarily for her brother's financial benefit. With her
mother (Pukheria Aleksandrovna), she unexpectedly arrives in St Petersburg from
the provinces and visits Raskolnikov. Raskolnikov is horrified at the thought
of her loveless arranged marriage to Luzhin and attempts to stop it. Indirectly
through Dunya, Raskolnikov also encounters Svidrigailov, whom Dunya had served
earlier as a governess and whose intentions towards Dunya are not entirely
honourable.
Raskolnikov's friend Razumikhin falls in love with Dunya and
serves as her protector; he eventually marries her.
15. Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov
A mysterious wealthy landowner, Svidrigailov
is a shadowy, highly ambiguous character.
He does not appear directly until the last third of the
novel, although he is mentioned earlier. He is about 50 years old but looks
younger. His “strange face” resembles a mask.
He has blue eyes, a blond beard and blond hair, and ruby-red
lips. Svidrigailov's background is thoroughly distasteful. He and his wife had
employed Raskolnikov's sister Dunya as a governess, and he became obsessed with
her. (Marfa Petrovna helped to arrange Dunya's engagement to Luzhin in order to
remove the girl from Svidrigailov’s attentions.) He confesses to Raskolnikov
that his marriage to an older woman, Marfa Petrovna, was one of convenience; he
is a shameless sensualist whose favourite activity was seducing young girls.
There are rumours that he is responsible for the deaths of a
servant, a girl whom he had raped, and his wife; he is occasionally visited by
their ghosts. Svidrigailov has recently arrived in St Petersburg. While lodging
in the flat next to Sonya's, he overhears Raskolnikov tell Sonya that he
[Raskolnikov] is a murderer. Svidrigailov subsequently lets Raskolnikov know
that he is aware of the young man's secret, and he attempts to blackmail
Raskolnikov emotionally.
Yet, for all his lurid interests, Svidrigailov is apparently
capable of compassion. He gives much-needed money to both Dunya and Sonya, and
he arranges for Katerina Ivanovna's children to be put in a good orphanage
after their mother dies.
(However, he hints that his motives for this last act may be
entirely selfish.) After his last meeting with Raskolnikov he again attempts to
seduce Dunya. When this fails, he spends the night in a run-down hotel and is
troubled by dreams about his former victims. In the morning he goes outside,
puts a gun to his head, and commits suicide. Svidrigailov is often considered
Raskolnikov's “double”.
His utterly selfish, callous, and destructive nature points
to what Raskolnikov might become if Raskolnikov were to abandon all conscience
and follow his theories through to their logical conclusion.
16. Zametov
Zametov is the police clerk who tells Porfiry
of his suspicions that Raskolnikov is the murderer early in the story. When
Raskolnikov asks for him at the end of the novel in order to make his
confession, he learns that Zametov is no longer there.
17. Dr Zossimov
Dr Zossimov is a young physician and
friend of Razumikhim who comes to treat Raskolnikov. Described as “a tall fat
man with a puffy, colourless, clean-shaven face and straight flaxen hair”, he
is fashionably dressed and nonchalant in manner, but he is known to be
excellent at his work.
Dr Zossimov continues to look after Raskolnikov, “his first
patient”, he says, and is one of two friends to attend the wedding of
Razumikhim and Raskolnikov's sister.
THEMES AND SUBJECTS
On the surface, Crime and Punishment belongs
to the popular genre known as the crime novel.
A young man (Raskolnikov) commits a murder and then tries to
conceal his guilt and evade arrest.
In the end, he confesses, is arrested, and is sent to prison,
where he begins a process of spiritual regeneration. The novel's suspense
arises not only from the question “what will happen next?”, but from
Dostoyevsky's close and relentless examination of the murderer's psyche.
Dostoyevsky is more interested in important philosophical questions than in the
technical police procedures of bringing a criminal to justice. He is also
interested in the criminal's motives, which are ambiguous. The title indicates
Dostoyevsky's interest in opposites and in the duality of human nature.
The nature of guilt and innocence, the role of atonement and
forgiveness, and the opposition of good and evil (and God and the Devil) all
play an important thematic role in the book.
While Dostoyevsky also examines social and political
problems in the Russia of his day, his concerns are universal.
Guit and Incorruptibility
In large part, Crime and Punishment is
an examination of the guilty conscience.
For Dostoyevsky, punishment is not a physical action or
condition. Rather (much as in Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost),
punishment inherently results from an awareness of guilt. Guilt is the
knowledge that one has done wrong and become estranged from society and from
God. From the very beginning of the novel, Raskolnikov (whose name derives from
the Russian word for “schism”) suffers from this estrangement.
In murdering the pawnbroker, he seeks to prove that he is
above the law. However, his crime only reinforces his sense that he is not a
part of society.
Although she is a prostitute, Sonya is
the embodiment of innocence. She is embarrassed by, and ashamed of, her
profession. In Dostoyevsky's eyes, she is not guilty of any transgression. She
does what she does out of sheer necessity, not out of any base instincts or any
hope for personal gain.
In contrast to Sonya's sense of shame over
the life she leads, Pyotr Luzhin is shameless in the way he manipulates
Raskolnikov's sister and mother (Dunya and Pulkheria Aleksandrovna).
He is guilty of emotional blackmail as well as fraud. Arkady
Svidrigailov is an even more “guilty” character. Luzhin's crimes are
calculated, whereas Svidrigailov's crimes result from his complete surrender to
his evil nature. Rather than facing up to his guilt and its consequences, as
Raskolnikov does, Svidrigailov partially acknowledges his guilt but evades the
consequences by committing suicide. Although Raskolnikov is the central figure
of Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky suggests that Raskolnikov may not
quite be the book's most guilty criminal. Svidrigailov and Luzhin are also
guilty of criminal misdeeds, and they are less open than Raskolnikov to the
possibility of redemption.
Penance and Forgiveness
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 outcome 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; he must
atone for it and 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 her, Sonya 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.
He feels that the only atonement he can make is to commit
suicide because he is spiritually dead.
Übermensch (“Superman”)
Part of the motive for Raskolnikov's
crime comes from a theory that he has developed.
In an essay that he publishes, Raskolnikov argues that
humankind is divided into two categories: ordinary people, and geniuses or
supermen.
Ordinary people must obey the law, but “supermen”—of whom
there are very few in any generation—are entitled to break existing laws and
make their own laws. Raskolnikov cites the French emperor Napoleon as the
epitome of the superman type. He argues that Napoleon rose to power by
overstepping the laws that govern ordinary people.
Napoleon made his own laws and achieved his goals by killing
tens of thousands of people in wars. Since Napoleon was a genius, Raskolnikov
reasons, he was not regarded as a criminal. On the contrary, he was hailed as a
hero. Early in Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov has become obsessed
with the notion that he himself is a “superman”. Therefore, he thinks, he is
not subject to the laws that govern ordinary people. (In the original Russian
text, Dostoyevsky frequently uses a word that means “overstepping” or “stepping
over”—that is, transgressing.
This word is closely related to the Russian word for “crime”
(prestuplenie). Raskolnikov decides to murder the pawnbroker Alyona
Ivanovna partly to prove that he is a superman.
However, his indecision and confusion throughout the novel
indicate that he is not a superman. Moreover, in the course of the novel,
Dostoyevsky seeks to prove that there is no such thing as a superman.
Dostoyevsky believes that every human life is precious, and no one is entitled
to kill.
Dostoyevsky's formulation of the superman theory
(through Raskolnikov) clearly anticipates the ideas developed by the German
philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in the 1880s. For Nietzsche, the superman and
his “will to power” were supreme ideals. Christianity stood in the way of the
superman, and Nietzsche scorned Christianity as a “slave morality”.
Dostoyevsky's view of the superman is absolutely opposed to Nietzsche's. For
Dostoyevsky, following the “superman” theory to its natural conclusion inevitably
leads to death, destruction, chaos, and misery.
Rather than seeing Christianity as a “slave mentality”,
Dostoyevsky views it as the true vision of the human place in the world and of
the human relationship with God. In Dostoyevsky's view, all people are valued
in the eyes of God.
LITERARY STYLE
a. Account
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 is concerned with the
state of mind of the central character, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov. In these
passages—including those that relate Raskolnikov's brooding, the murder itself,
and his encounters with the inspector, Porfiry Petrovich—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. He does not so much tell a story as
enact it. Crime and Punishment is full of dramatic scenes, of which
Raskolnikov's murder of the pawnbroker is only one. There are also a number of
dramatic confrontations between characters. Dostoyevsky's characters rarely
have calm discussions; rather, they have fierce arguments and verbal duels.
Generally (but not always) Raskolnikov is at one end of these confrontations.
At the other, in
various scenes, are his friend Razumikhin, his sister and mother, his sister's
corrupt suitor Luzhin, the police investigator Porfiry Petrovich, the innocent
prostitute Sonya, and the cynical landowner Svidrigailov. These duels and
pairings help to illustrate the idea of the double, discussed further below.
b. Background
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. In confining the action of his novel
entirely to St Petersburg, Dostoyevsky was emulating Charles Dickens, who set
his well-known stories in London.
Moreover, St Petersburg is not only a backdrop, but an
inherent part of the novel. Dostoyevsky recreates St Petersburg's
neighbourhoods and its streets, bridges, and canals with great realism. In his
narrative, Dostoyevsky does not give the full street names, but uses only
abbreviations. (In the very first paragraph, for example, he refers to “S——
Lane” and “K——n Bridge”.)
Readers who were 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 flats. With these settings, Dostoyevsky creates a
tense, claustrophobic atmosphere.
For example, in the weeks before he commits the murders,
Raskolnikov has been lying in his tiny room, brooding. He retreats to this room
after the murders, occasionally leaving his hideaway to wander the city's
streets.
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. (Svidrigailov remarks that “there aren't
many places where there are as many gloomy, harsh and strange influences on the
soul of man as there are in St Petersburg”.)
This sense of the city as a dead-end is emphasized by the
settings. The flats where Raskolnikov and the Marmeladovs live are so small
that there is scarcely enough space for a small group of visitors.
Moreover, at several points in the novel, characters are
threatened with eviction and fear that they will end up on the streets. Near
the end of the book, Katerina Ivanovna and her children beg on the streets by
singing and dancing.
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.
c. Construction/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 centres around 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 instalment to be complete in itself and to contain
colourful 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 instalment.
Moreover, an unresolved complication at the end of a
particular chapter would stimulate Dostoyevsky to write the next chapter. This
method of writing helps account for the numerous abrupt shifts in the plot
focus.
d. Coincidence
Like many other important 19th-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 these coincidences, but on
the contrary he simply states them as matters of fact.
He uses this technique as a short cut to bring together
certain characters and set up dramatic situations.
While he is walking down the street,
Raskolnikov comes upon the scene of an accident. The accident victim turns out
to be Marmeladov, a drunken civil servant whom he had met earlier in the novel.
Marmeladov has been run over by a horse-drawn carriage. Raskolnikov takes
charge of the situation and has Marmeladov carried home, where the injured man
dies. This coincidence leads to Raskolnikov's first meeting with Marmeladov's
daughter Sonya, who has turned to prostitution to support the poverty-stricken
family. Drawn to Sonya by her meek nature and pure heart, Raskolnikov will
later confess to her. In another coincidence, Sonya turns out to have been a
friend of Lizaveta.
This disclosure serves to increase Raskolnikov's sense of
guilt and further points up Sonya's selflessness.
It is also purely coincidental that the
scheming Luzhin happens to be living temporarily in the same building as
Katerina Ivanovna. This makes plausible his appearance at Katerina's funeral
party and his attempt to frame Sonya for robbery. Later, Svidrigailov just
happens by coincidence to be renting the flat next door to Sonya's flat. Thus,
he is able to overhear Raskolnikov's murder confession. Svidrigailov's
awareness of Raskolnikov's guilty secret helps set into motion another chain of
events. There are many more such coincidences in the course of the story. That
such coincidences involving a relatively small number of characters would occur
in a large city like St Petersburg is highly unlikely.
However, Dostoyevsky's narrative has such dramatic force
that the implausibility of these coincidences is quickly forgotten by the
reader.
e. Allegory and Imagery
As already discussed, Dostoyevsky's literary
technique mixes narrative realism, dramatic scenes, and psychological analysis.
He also uses symbolism and imagery, not so much for
aesthetic effect as to emphasize certain points about his characters'
psychology. One of his main symbolic devices is the pairing of certain
characters. Early in his writing career, Dostoyevsky formulated the idea of the
“double”. That is, the belief that there may be two sides to a human
personality.
In giving a character like Raskolnikov several “doubles”,
Dostoyevsky emphasizes certain aspects of Raskolnikov's personality by
contrasting him with these “doubles”.
Among Raskolnikov's symbolic “doubles” are
Marmeladov, Razumikhin, Dunya, Sonya, and Svidrigailov. Where Raskolnikov is
obsessed with a theory, Marmeladov lives entirely by impulse. Where Raskolnikov
is extreme, Razumikhin is reasonable. (The Russian word razum means
“reason”.) Raskolnikov cuts himself off from his family, while his sister Dunya
is completely dedicated to the family. Sonya too sacrifices herself for her
family; furthermore, her meekness and faith contrast with Raskolnikov's pride
and his rejection of God.
Raskolnikov is literally sickened by his crime and does not
give any indication that he will commit more murders, whereas Svidrigailov
takes pleasure in his criminal lust and persists in it.
Appropriately enough, blood and blood imagery pervades
the book. Before he commits the murder, Raskolnikov has a horrific nightmare in
which a group of drunken men flog “a little grey mare” to death. The notion of
“shedding blood” becomes quite literal. Raskolnikov's murder of the pawnbroker
and her sister with an axe is naturally a bloody act.
As he attempts to escape notice, Raskolnikov becomes
obsessed with the idea that he is covered in blood and that this will give him
away. Towards the end of the novel, his sister Dunya tells him that “you have
blood on your hands”; Raskolnikov defiantly replies that the world is covered
in blood.
It can be noted, as well, that the novel's blood imagery is
paralleled by frequent references to tears.
Dostoyevsky uses dreams to give insight into his
characters' psychology, as well as for symbolic purposes. Critics have debated
the meaning of Raskolnikov's nightmare about the horse, mentioned above. As
well as indicating his tormented state of mind, this nightmare may also
symbolize the brutality of murder and the helplessness of the innocent. In the
book's epilogue, in Siberia, Raskolnikov dreams that the world is swept by a
terrible plague that turns people mad. This dream is generally believed to
symbolize what would happen if everyone rejected traditional morality and acted
out Raskolnikov's “superman” theory.
Svidrigailov, too, has terrible dreams and claims that he
has seen the ghosts of his deceased wife and of a servant. The night before he
kills himself, he dreams about a little girl whom he has victimized. In this
dream, he sees the moral consequences of his crimes.
HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT
Dostoyevsky's Russia: Social and Political Background
Sir Winston Churchill's comment in 1939 that
Russia “is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” applies equally to
the Russia of the 1860s when Dostoyevsky wrote Crime and Punishment.
In the most simple 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 13th and 14th 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 national history, Russia developed a
tradition of government that centralized immense power in the hands of an
emperor—the tsar—and a handful of his advisers. (The Russian title “tsar”
derives from the Latin word “Caesar”.)
In the mid-1500s, Tsar Ivan IV (known as Ivan the Terrible)
established what for more than the next 400 years became the model for Russian
government, short-lived periods of ineffectual reform alternated with periods
of severe repression.
Relatively “liberal” rulers such as Tsar Peter the
Great (reigned 1682-1725) and Tsarina Catherine the Great (who was actually
German; reigned 1762-1796) 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
receiving his education and then establishing his literary career—the 1830s to
the 1860s—Russia was stirred by intense intellectual debate. The small class of
educated people recognized that major changes were needed if the huge but
backward country was to address its social problems and prosper.
One general approach to change was proposed by certain
intellectuals collectively known as Westernizers. The Westernizers were
influenced by German philosophy and by social ideas that developed in Western
Europe during the Industrial Revolution. They were also influenced by
contemporary European revolutionary movements. The Westernizers were not united
in their goals or methods. There were various factions. Some favoured gradual
democratic reforms, while others called for revolution to replace the tsarist government
with a socialist regime.
Among the leading Westernizers was Vissarion Belinsky
(1811-1848), the most famous Russian literary critic of his day. Belinsky
praised Dostoyevsky's first book, Poor Folk (1846), and declared that
Dostoyevsky was the literary successor of Gogol.
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
programme of legislation and material improvement, the Slavophiles argued that
Russia could only fulfil 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. By Western
standards, the Slavophiles could be considered romantic and reactionary, but
they made an important contribution to the debate over the future of Russia.
As a young man, Dostoyevsky was
influenced by the Westernizers.
In the mid-1840s he joined the so-called Petrashevsky
Circle, a small group that met weekly to discuss socialist ideas. The group
demanded political reforms and generally opposed the government of Tsar
Nicholas I. In the spring of 1849 the members were arrested; 21 of them,
including Dostoyevsky, were sentenced to death but were pardoned at the last
minute.
During his subsequent imprisonment in Siberia, Dostoyevsky
underwent a profound spiritual and political change. He renounced political
radicalism and came to believe that Russia's hope lay in Slavic idealism. 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, who rejected the traditional conventions of society.
By the time when Dostoyevsky wrote Crime
and Punishment, Tsar Alexander II (reigned 1855-1881) 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 army. (The police inspector Porfiry Petrovich refers to the 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.
Crime and Punishment in a Literary Setting
In the words of the historian
Nicholas Riasanovsky, “Literature constituted the chief glory of Russian
culture in the first half of the 19th century.”
Like most educated Russians of his time, Dostoyevsky knew
and revered the work of the great Russian poets Aleksandr Pushkin (1799-1837)
and Mikhail Lermontov (1814-1841).
In his verse novel Eugene Onegin (written 1823-1831),
Pushkin cast a clear light on Russian society and its problems. Dostoyevsky was
also familiar with the work of the novelist Nikolay Gogol (1809-1852), the most
important Russian novelist before Dostoyevsky himself.
Gogol was a master both of realism and of the fantastic. In
his masterpiece Dead Souls (1842), Gogol examined the state of Russia
with deep psychological understanding. Significantly, certain elements in Crime
and Punishment can also be traced to two non-Russian writers whose work
Dostoyevsky knew and admired, the French novelist Victor Hugo (author of Les
Misérables) and Charles Dickens (author of David Copperfield, which
Dostoyevsky read while in prison). Indeed, Dostoyevsky frequently mentioned
Dickens in his letters and notebooks.
In Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky shares Dickens's
concern with contemporary urban life, poverty, crime, and the sufferings of
children and the innocent.
Among Dostoyevsky's Russian contemporaries, two
other major novelists stand out. Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883) sided with the
Westernizers and lived in Western Europe for much of his life; however, his
subjects are thoroughly Russian. In his best known novel, Fathers and Sons
(1862), he examines the relations between the older Russian democratic
reformers and the younger, more radical generation; he also coined the term nihilist.
Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) is often placed as Dostoyevsky's equal, although
he was very different. His epic novel, War and Peace (1865-1869) began
to appear in instalments around the same time as Crime and Punishment.
In his later years, Tolstoy developed a unique philosophy of
nonviolence that has been compared to the philosophy of Mohandas K. Gandhi.
Interestingly, both Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy knew and
respected Turgenev although both disagreed with him, but Dostoyevsky and
Tolstoy never met.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Crime and Punishment serves as a
profound philosophical treatise, intricately weaving Dostoyevsky's exploration
of morality, free will, and the nature of evil into the fabric of its
narrative.
Through the character of Raskolnikov, Dostoyevsky challenges
the reader to confront the complexities of ethical reasoning and the
consequences of one's actions. The novel's deep psychological insight and
existential themes continue to resonate, highlighting the enduring relevance of
Dostoyevsky's philosophical inquiries.
By examining the tumultuous journey of guilt, punishment,
and potential redemption, "Crime and Punishment" compels readers to
reflect on the universal truths about human nature and the moral imperatives
that govern our lives.