The beginning of Part IV of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment depicts the acquaintance of Raskolnikov and Svidrigailov who came to introduce himself personally. He reveals that it was not his only motive for coming, as Svidrigailov was seeking Raskolnikov’s help because he wanted to see his sister, Avdotya Romanovna or simply Dunya (Dostoevsky 222). He says that he is concerned about her welfare but without Raskolnikov’s support she will not accept the proposition for the interview.
Dunya is engaged to Luzhin, but Svidrigailov believes that they are not meant to be together. So, he wants to see her and assist her rupture with Luzhin and make her a present of ten thousand rubles (Dostoevsky 230). The motive for this gift is that Svidrigailov realizes that he might have caused some trouble to Dunya in the past, so he wants to reclaim his fault in her eyes, without any self-interest. In addition to that, he came to let Raskolnikov know that his sister is mentioned in the will of Marfa Petrovna, Svidrigaylov’s deceased wife, who left three thousand rubles to her (Dostoevsky 232).
What we find out about Svidrigailov from his conversation with Raskolnikov is that he is a man who is not interested in others’ opinions, especially when these opinions are about him and his behavior. Moreover, he is a man not without connections, who has many friends, makes new acquaintances easily and quickly, is well-dressed and rich, idle and deprave (Dostoevsky 225, 230). Moreover, we see him as one who believes in ghosts, as Svidrigailov claims that his deceased wife, Marfa Petrovna, often visits him and even talks to him, and stresses that all his stories are true because he rarely lies (Dostoevsky 227-228).
Bearing in mind Svidrigailov’s motives, we can say that he is a man of honor, as he wants to compensate his fault in Dunya’s eyes and worries about her future. However, remembering that Svidrigailov had feelings for Avdotya Romanovna, even though he claims that they have gone away, we cannot be sure that his intentions are pure. Even Dunya later acknowledges that his offer might be a part of some terrible plan of returning her, as Svidrigailov might still be in love with her (Dostoevsky 245). As we see him eavesdropping the conversation between Sonia and Raskolnikov (Dostoevsky 262), we can come to the conclusion that he is as well inquisitive.
However, Dostoevsky presents us with an alternative image of Svidrigailov, that of Luzhin. He claims that he is sure that Svidrigailov was the cause of his wife’s death, at least, moral (Dostoevsky 235). From what Luzhin has heard from Marfa Petrovna, Svidrigailov had a long relationship with a young woman with whom he lived before marriage. This young girl was found hanged, but Marfa Petrovna saved Svidrigailov from responsibility for this death with her money and influence (Dostoevsky 236). So, Luzhin claims that Svidrigailov is an astute man who will meet the end of his days in jail because all his deeds, especially the implication in his wife’s death, will be disclosed (Dostoevsky 236).
Putting together what was told by Luzhin and what we found about Svidrigailov from his own words and deeds, the conclusion is evident: he is a man of mystery, as the true nature of his motives is unknown. In addition to that, it is complicated to find out whether he tells the truth.
Works Cited
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment. Trans. Constance Garnett. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 2001. Print.
One of the greatest psychologists in the world literature, the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky employed his literary talent in order to explore the most obscure and intricate nooks of human nature.
Delving unprecedentedly deep in the mysteries of human soul, he created his novels that present outstanding examples of psychological analysis of the most morbid issues and ideas. Dostoyevsky’s famous Crime and Punishment features a poor ex-student Raskolnikov who commits a premeditated murder of an old prosperous pawnbroker excusing his actions by the demands of the greater good and the general justice.
However, despite those exalted aims, Raskolnikov suffers pangs of conscience and mental anguish for a prolonged time before he finally ventures to confess his crime. The act of confession is one of the central themes in Crime and Punishment, since it is the climax point of the novel signifying crucial changes in Raskolnikov’s mental and physical state.
As such, the genre of confession was not new for literature: started as early as 400 AD by the Confessions of St. Augustine, the genre of intimate avowals of one’s secret sin enjoyed a growing popularity in European literature of the nineteenth century. In the eighteenth century Jean-Jacques Rousseau widely applied this genre in his autobiographical writings.
Remarkably enough, Dostoyevsky repeatedly referred to Rousseau’s confessions, polemicizing with the latter’s interpretation of the genre. Traditionally, confessional genre was viewed as “a narrative in which the confessor recounted some secret crime or scene and then depicted the gradual reform and rebirth that resulted from pangs of conscience and expiation through suffering” (Lantz 364).
But while Rousseau’s confessor’s were represented as inherently virtuous beings, Dostoyevsky rejected such interpretation of the penitent and viewed the nature of man as not virtuous but “innately stupid and limited” (Lantz 365). This latter approach is by large reflected in Crime and Punishment which was supposedly conceived as a novel titled “Confession” (Frank 60; Lantz 71).
Committing murder under a fanatical belief that his unlawful and inhumane action could be justified by a higher purpose of liberating the world from an evil parasite, Raskolnikov represents a supercilious figure lost in lofty and overweening ideals which contrast his miserable daily existence. The crime he commits is provoked not so much by financial need as by his desire for self-assertion as a unique and heroic personality. As Svidrigailov states in his dialogue with Dounia,
“Napoleon attracted him tremendously, that is, what affected him was that a great many men of genius have not hesitated at wrongdoing, but have overstepped the law without thinking about it. He seems to have fancied that he was a genius too — that is, he was convinced of it for a time. He has suffered a great deal and is still suffering from the idea that he could make a theory, but was incapable of boldly overstepping the law, and so he is not a man of genius.” (Dostoyevsky 507)
Having forced himself into a presumably heroic action and thus demonstrated his non-conformity with the social standards, Raskolnikov soon finds himself overcome by a mental disorder that necessitates him to seek a way out of the emotional instability and physical indisposition he experiences.
Inherent in every psychological situation, there are obvious choices before Raskolnikov: either to relieve his suffering rapidly by committing suicide or to go through the pangs of conscience and confess his crime to the world. The idea of suicide comes to Raskolnikov not once; he repeatedly faces suicide committed by others, and those incidents trigger decisive changes in his life attitudes and policies.
On one occasion, having witnessed a woman drown herself in the Neva River, he gives up his initial intentions of putting an end to his life and resolves to resume an active life attitude: “Enough! … Life is real! … My life has not yet died with that old woman!” (Dostoyevsky 176–178, 197–198). On another occasion, learning of Svidrigailov’s suicide he finally decides to confess his crime to the police.
With regard to Svidrigailov there emerges another significant connection in the novel. Svidrigailov symbolizes the cynicism of life, and Raskolnikov falls into deep despair at such attitude of nihilism. In Svidrigailov’s suicide he sees the defeat of disbelieving attitude and therefore turns to faith in search of salvation. A demonstrative scene in this respect is the episode when Sonia is apprehensive of Raskolnikov’s suicide for “his lack of faith” and he suddenly turns up asking her for a cross (Dostoyevsky 537–538).
This act symbolizes that Raskolnikov’s inner struggle between suicide and confession, between disbelief and faith, has ended in the victory of the latter and in acceptance of God as the only judge to the world’s injustice (Peace 73). By saying “I have come for your cross, Sonia”, Raskolnikov admits his improper act and states his intension to confess his crime publicly and accept all the consequences of his misdeed (Dostoyevsky 538).
Sonya is another key character of the novel: she assists Raskolnikov with his arrival at the necessity for confession and reunion with the moral world. She is the first person to whom the murderer comes with his confession, and the way she reacts to his revelations is decisive for the future development of events.
Her understanding and empathic reaction to his words — “But aren’t you suffering, too?” “It’s better I should know, far better!” “Only speak, speak, I shall understand, I shall understand in myself!” (Dostoyevsky 430), — and her encouragement of confession and letting the sin off his soul by bowing down and kissing the earth he has defied open a promise of forgiveness and regaining harmony with the world of morality.
Before talking to Sonia, Raskolnikov’s “guilt and the wish to confess were as strong as his rage” (Breger 34). After it, the rage was gone and only the guilt and the urge of confession were left, since he realized that confession would be the only way to shed off his guilt and cease the remorse.
In the figure of Raskolnikov, Dostoyevsky demonstrates an example of a personality split between two extremes: on the one hand, Raskolnikov aims at restoring the world justice; on the other hand, he realizes the wrongfulness of his crime. Since Raskolnikov by large grants his first extreme on an arrogant idea of uniqueness and superiority rather than pure justice restitution, he is punished by moral suffering, as well as physical illness.
The only way-out envisioned by Dostoyevsky in this case is in faith and grace that provide ultimate redemption. Raskolnikov achieves faith through a long struggle between his nihilism, disbelief, and despair on the one hand, and Sonia’s call to repentance and public confession, on the other hand. The resulting love Raskolnikov acquires in the end can be thus seen as a sign of heavenly grace and rewards for his resignation and righteousness.
Works Cited
Breger, Louis. Dostoyevsky: The Author as Psychoanalyst. New York, NY: New York University, 1989. Print.
The protagonist of Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment is a mediocre student Radion Raskolnikov, who commits a fatal crime. In the novel, Fyodor Dostoevsky shows that evil lurks in every person. Internal fears and insecurities, disappointments, poverty, and difficulties in life may catalyze the commission of a crime. Whatever are the factors that influenced Raskolnikov’s crime, murder remains murder. In the same way, the greed and avarice of the old Alyona Ivanovna do not justify the commission of such a violent and severe crime. Probably, a person who is unable to influence the development of inner anger deserves pity, but by no means sympathy, nor justifying.
At the beginning of the novel, Dostoevsky portrays Raskolnikov as a fanatic who is eager to test his theory. According to Rosenshield (2020, p. 79), the student was inspired by the Great Man idea, in which “actions of great men are justified by the god-like nature of their intentions.” Long before the crime, Rodion Raskolnikov was trying to prove the rights of “higher” people to commit crimes, to reject the laws if crimes are committed in the name of a great idea. Social injustice and hopelessness had originated an absurd theory about “higher” and “lower” representatives of society in the protagonist’s mind. He attributed himself to the “higher” and, according to the theory he had the right to commit the murder.
Through the protagonist’s image, Fyodor Dostoevsky shows that evil and cruelty may lurk in every person. As Saner (2010, p. 12) states, “people know what they are, but they do not know what they may be.” Therefore, it should not be assumed that the only reason for committing a crime was adherence to the given theory. Perhaps Raskolnikov already had the inner evil that was required to commit the murder. According to Weinberg (n.d., p. 1078), “people’s behavior is partly governed by their consciousness, so understanding behavior will necessarily require working out a detailed correspondence between the objective and subjective.” Thus, Raskolnikov’s intentions were stored deep in his subconscious and soul. Consequently, in every person’s soul, there may be held eternal stigmata in the form of fear, pain, and agony, hurting which may awaken people’s cruelty and anger.
The stigma for Raskolnikov were poverty and injustice, one of the reasons for which was his future victim, an old woman Alyona Ivanovna. The woman, in his opinion, was not bringing any benefit to society, but only poisoning his life with her stinginess and heartlessness. Raskolnikov describes her in the most unpleasant terms since she was lending money at a high-interest rate. According to Dostoyevsky (2019, p. 6), “she was a tiny, dried-up little old crone of around sixty, with sharp, evil-looking eyes and a short-pointed nose.” In his opinion, she belonged to the “lower” category and, consequently, deserved to be punished. According to Neupane (2020, p.165), “the protagonist murders a former pawnbroker, Alyona Ivanovna, and his sister Elizaveta with a hope of freeing the society from corruption.” By doing so, the main character eagers to reach justice and social balance in society.
The motivation for the murder, according to the villain, are good intentions. Raskolnikov believes that “a hundred thousand good deeds could be done and helped, on that old woman’s money, hundreds, thousands perhaps, might be set on the right path” (Dostoyevsky, 2019, p. 63). Throughout the novel he devalues her life, deciding that her money may help other people. Intrusive thoughts arise in his head and order to “kill her, take her money and with the help of it devote oneself to the service of humanity and the good of all” (Dostoyevsky, 2019, p. 63). Thereby, Dostoevsky describes how young people may get influenced by different theories and ideologies and may try to apply them before carefully and rationally analyze them.
Raskolnikov was longing to elevate violence justified by a primitive resentment, and took the first conscious step towards this, which should not be justified. However, ultimately, in the fight against inhumanity and cruelty, Raskolnikov’s actions themselves are inhumane. He acts cruelly, thereby only increasing the amount of evil in society. According to Neupane (2020, p.165), “he violates law of the land and moral codes to prove his extraordinary strength at the pretext of transforming society.” Such a cruel and evil doing should not be justified by no means. Even though the pawnbroker was indeed a malicious old woman, it should not explain the committed crime. Raskolnikov, like every other person, has no right to decide who deserves to live in society and who does not. His negative attitude towards Alyona Ivanovna, the pursuit of a Great Man theory, nor his social status should not excuse the murder.
The senselessness of the theory and the intentions of Raskolnikov may be also proved by the fact that he did not use the pawnbroker’s money for his initial goals. Instead, “he hides it under a rock for fear of being taken for his crime” (Neupane, 2020, p. 168). However, driven by fear, the protagonist realizes the cruelty of what he has done. One of the crucial characters who had influenced his confession was his wife, Sonia. According to Neupane (2020, p. 168), Sonia “encourages Raskolnikov to go to the police and confess his crime to God and ask for forgiveness.” Further, Dostoevsky describes the sufferings experienced by the criminal, thereby making him the victim of his own crime.
Throughout the novel, Fyodor Dostoevsky allegedly claims that through suffering lies the path to self-purification. Just like evil and cruelty, justice may lurk within every person. Internal punishment and remorse are the measures of a person’s weaknesses and vices. Raskolnikov goes through mental agony after realizing his own mental deformity. However, the confession does not negate nor justify the fact of the murder and does not remove his guilt.
References
Dostoyevsky, F. (2019). Crime and Punishment. Independently published.
Crimes can be different. Some people commit felonies due to despair and circumstances. Others enjoy the process and have no idea how to live differently. The difference between these two groups is the feeling of guilt. The people from the first group usually have a strong feeling of guilt, and it makes their life miserable. They subconsciously want to confess if not to law enforcement then to somebody at least. The representatives of the second group have no such feeling as their conscious concedes the right to do bad things and believe in their righteousness. However, there is a group of felons who think they can do anything and avoid punishment, but then, they cannot cope with the feeling of guilt. Rodion Raskolnikov is one of such people. Using the ingenuity of Fyodor Dostoevsky and his eternal masterpiece Crime and Punishment, the paper is going to prove the idea that the actual crime committed by Rodion Raskolnikov was the arrogance he had towards the world.
Actual Crime
The actual crime of Rodion Raskolnikov was not the fact of the double murder, intentional and conscious. It was a terrible deed by itself, but it was only the result of Raskolnikov’s true crime. He is guilty of being too weak to admit his mediocrity and accept it (Dostoyevsky 103). Rodion wanted too much and had too little because, in his mind, he was too great. In reality, Rodion was just a regular young man with gigantic ambitions. On the one hand, ambitions are good since they create momentum and make people develop. On the other, Raskolnikov had not enough will to be the man he wanted to be.
He only wanted to dare according to his own words. Dostoyevsky described it as follows: “… that power is only vouchsafed to the man who dares to stoop and pick it up. There is only one thing, one thing needful: one has only to dare! … I wanted to have the daring … and I killed her” (739-740). It is clear that at some point, Rodion had found the courage to pick up the power he dreamt of so much. Unfortunately for him, Raskolnikov appeared to be not so outstanding as he thought he was. Sonya had made Rodion the man he was, conscious and good deep inside. This contradiction had made him so miserable that the inevitable punishment followed. Dostoyevsky depicted a man with unreasonable ambitions and goals not supported by the essence of this individual. It should be said that the author did it perfectly.
Conclusion
Summing, the paper proved the idea that the actual crime committed by Rodion Raskolnikov was the arrogance he had towards the world. Rodion’s problem was his inability to stick to the concept of his exceptionality and superiority over others. Such a contradiction between his conscience and arrogance has made Rodion be there where he appeared to be at the end of the novel. Raskolnikov made the wrong choice based on the wrong assumptions, so everything went wrong until then. The problem was in the lack of character strength that would help Rodion to be closer to the image he had made up in his head for himself. The inevitability of punishment, presented by Dostoyevsky, is based in this case solely on Raskolnikov’s weak character and his inconsistency.
Works Cited
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment. Mineola: Dover Publications, 2001. Print.