The novel which begins with a simple murder turns into a melting pot of sub-plots: Sonya and redemption, Dunya and female courage, Svidrigailov and suicide, Porfiry and criminal investigation, Luzhin and exploitation, and even poor Raskolnikov and his search for meaning. So pick a plot and share your thoughts.
Porfiry, through his investigations, finds a Raskolnikov’s article, where he expressed his views on greatness and morality. Using this paper and its philosophies as a lens in order to explain the murder revealss many things about Raskolnikov. Although Raskolnikov was motivated to kill Alonya Ivanovna with some degree of altruism towards his sister, some driving force behind the murder seemed to be mysteriously absent. This ideology more than anything was the real reason that Raskolnikov killed the pawnbroker. For months, after writing this article. Raskolnikov had been sitting around, seemingly waiting for an opportunity to test his theory. The reason why he came to the defense of his sister, seems, with the advent of the article, possibly almost selfish; Raskolnikov cared about testing his own greatness rather than his sister’s well-being and happiness. Raskolnikov wants so badly to be this “great man” described in his paper and being intelligent, gifted, and driven, why not? He seemed to intensely mentally prepare himself for the murder of the pawnbroker. In my opinion, the very fact that Raskolnikov ever struggled with the idea of murdering Alonya defeats any chance of him being this superior individual to begin with. Raskolnikov still seemed to be struggling with this identity crisis even after the murder is committed, almost like his evasion of Porfiry and the “law” would secure his “greatness”. However, I believe that this is wrong as well. Raskolnikov specifically described these special people being above moral law, and Porfiry is not the manifestation of moral law. The moral law that must be transcended is a mental barrier. Just as his struggle with murdering Alonya before, his emotion downturn afterwards discredits him as a candidate for greatness. Raskolnikov should even be able to seamlessly rise above the murder of Alonya and even the innocent and simple Lizaveta, pregnant or not, based on his own philosophy. For this reason, I believe that Raskolnikov is no longer struggling with his identity but rather is in denial that he failed to rise to pre-eminence. Raskolnikov wrote and understands this theory of “great men” but now has to come to grips with the fact that he undeniably is not among them.
Sonya serves as foil and counterpart to Raskolnikov. She represents all the injustice and poverty and suffering of St. Petersburg that Raskolnikov most wishes to subvert, and so by rights she should be as wild and radical as he is, but instead she sticks firmly to principles and waits for God to help her. She becomes a prostitute, yes, but only under extreme duress. Otherwise she seems to endure as a dog might endure, working and doing what she can to help the people she loves and blaming herself for their troubles and hoping God will help them. Raskolnikov recognizes the madness in this outlook. By hoping that an untenable situation will be remedied by an intangible God, Sonya is every bit as irrational as the arrogant, exception-making Raskolnikov. She and he, the harlot and the murderer, represent the two extreme reactions to the injustice of the world, as Raskolnikov acknowledges by calling them both mad. Sonya’s approach is thoughtless, Raskolnikov’s heartless. And yet neither can succeed in their philosophy, because Sonya has too much mind and Raskolnikov has too much heart; she understands the futility of what she does, and he can’t bring himself to effectively hurt anyone. By presenting us with these two unsuccessful poles, Dostoevsky seems to be implying that the only possible solution is a middle ground, which Raskolnikov and Sonya achieve by depending on each other.
The more I read, the more I learn, the stronger seems the tie between Marmeladov’s words about shelter: ‘where do you go when you have nowhere to go?’ Not to be overly ambitious, but this maxim may well summarize several of the plotlines we are thrown.
Most of the characters – at least those we worry over – are at a crisis point: they have no shelter from poverty, or what they do possess is a sure road to destitution, physically, financially and morally. No shelter, no power, and no agency – they do not have choices about how to move forward, and to Raskolnikov this is the greatest tragedy: to have no decision-making potential in life. One may as well end it, as far as he is concerned. Sonya, Dunya, Raskolnikov. We are constantly at the end of our seats wondering how these characters are going to make it through to the next chapter (at least, I am). By Raskolnikov’s logic, they may is well spare us the suspense.
But what is truly piquant is that they all find some way to express agency. Raskolnikov asserts choice by stepping over the line (like the Underground Man), simply because that is something over which he has power, and power is what he wants (for good or for evil). Dunya completely turns the tables on Luzhin and shows him to the door. It isn’t clear if she would have done this without the sudden windfall, but she seemed ready beforehand, and more than willing (passionate, even) to follow through. Sonya…well, I’m still curious about her. Redemption, yes…but she is so far too fragile. Ties to her younger half-siblings have made her predicament all the more critical, all the more constrained. But she has a voice, which she used as she read the story of Lazarus.
Rephrased, I guess the question could just as easily be: how far will you go?
Knowing of Dostoyevsky’s legal woes and hard time in Siberia, the character of Porfiry Petrovitch seems to serve as an indictment of law. There is evidence that Porfiry is concerned with justice and believes that society deserves retribution for Raskolnikov’s crime yet these sentiments are surely dwarfed by his persistent sadism and psychological torture. The stress of having one’s life determined by arbitrary edicts and pardons must have left a sour imprint on Dostoyevsky’s mind and it is this presupposition that any life can hang in the balance of law where most of Porfiry’s maliciousness is derived. Between the revelation of Raskolnikov’s article, the tradesman that shouts “murderer, and the tense interview scene that takes place in Porfiry’s office, there is ample evidence to suggest that Porfiry could achieve justice if he so chose yet the path he has elected to take is one that will either end in the confession or the suicide of Raskolnikov. Taking advantage of the claustrophobia inducing guilt and seemingly inevitable sentencing and death, Porfiry has effectively placed Raskolnikov atop a spire where he has no room to move, or in Svidrigailov’s bleak vision of eternity – the bathhouse laden with spiders. Just as he devalued the life the pawnbroker, Porfiry has placed Raskolnikov in a situation where he is in a position to view himself equally as ordinary.
Svidrigailov can only be characterized as a slimy character. After the incident with Dunya and all the rumors about him, there is a very negative picture of this man. When he first speaks with Raskolnikov, we see that he is well spoken and as Raskolnikov puts it, “it even seems to me that you’re of very good society, or can at least be a decent man on occasion”(pg. 284). However, despite how he presents himself, he comes off seedy. There is something distinctly criminal about him; everything he does and says seems suspect. He seems to be a very bleak character that has absolutely no direction in life besides chasing after Dunya, which even he knows is futile. From his attitude towards life he shows that the rumors about his criminal behavior are probably more than just rumor. The ghosts he sees and his vision of eternity as a confined space inhabited by spiders seem to signify the ravings of a guilty mind. He cannot believe in a positive picture of reality or the afterlife because he condemns himself while continuing his life of debauchery. Svidrigailov is a very interesting character to compare with Raskolnikov. They both have a desolate view of the world, they are both intelligent, and both have committed a crime. Somehow Raskolnikov is more endearing than Svidrigailov, but there is a part of Raskolnikov that resembles Svidrigailov. I feel like Raskolnikov severing himself off from the rest of humanity has brought him closer to being like Svidrigailov.
I’d like to take the topic of Sonya’s redemption while expounding a bit on what we had talked about in class on Tuesday. If you can recall, there was something said about Sonya as a flat character, one who does not seem to change much, but rather remains a consistent force of goodness amidst Raskolnikov’s internal debates about what it means to be a Napoleon or a god, whether he can argue himself into believing he fits the criteria, and the rest of his mumblings and bumblings in the streets of Petersburg. Professor Beyer brought to light the fact that this type of character — that of Sonya, of goodness — is perceived by society as “Idiotic,” and it is with this idea that I believe Sonya will not find redemption by the end of the novel.
That Sonya is flat and non-dynamic is true, but I am thinking of her more as a personification of worldly righteousness than a designated personality — a motif, or the negatives of Raskolnikov’s conscience, rather than a character in her own right. Ali is right in that Dostoevsky gives her a voice, but it seems that, instead of using this voice to demand and question, she uses it to influence and motivate. Her reading from the Bible seems somewhat passive, as though she is afraid to push Raskolnikov too much; this feeling may stem from the fact that, instead of quoting the Bible and using it to construct her own argument, she reads from it directly, thereby removing herself from her speech. If this is the extent of her voice, and she continues to bear the burden of supportive her family at the price of her own dignity, then I cannot believe that Sonya will find redemption in a complete sense. Rather, she may be the Christ figure, the one who is not rewarded, but absorbs the pains of others and reflects back only her inner beauty. In this, she may not end up with the gift of redemption within her soul, but will act as a catalyst for others’ salvation. Such is the role of this saintly prostitute.
Raskolnikov torments Sonya in a similar way to how the underground man treats Liza. He goes from looking at her “almost compassionately” to smirking and making pointed references to her situation as a prostitute (316). Yet Dostoevsky clearly marks this faith of Sonya’s as “the solution” and “the explanation of the solution” (324). This idea of true faith and belief in God as the ultimate redeeming quality is mirrored in the raising of Lazarus, which Sonya reads from the New Testament. The moral of his story is that belief in God can conquer anything, even death.
Besides seeing Sonya as a saintly figure, her strong faith makes her seem to me a more of a flat character. Raskolnikov’s internal conflict is of epic proportions, while Dunya struggles with marrying Luzhin and Razumikhin vacillates between his kind desire to help Raskolnikov’s family and his love for Dunya. The fact of Dunya’s faith does not make her flat, but Dostoevsky does not show her internal struggle in the same way as other characters. The reader knows she considered suicide, but that internal conflict plays itself out in Svidrigailov and even Raskolnikov, who also embodies the conflict of finding redemption for sins. Why is the internal conflict not developed in Sonya? Nathan’s assertion that Sonya could be used a motif for worldly goodness seems a plausible answer for why she seems a flat character – it is hard to give “worldly goodness” the depth of a human soul. There are many parallels between she and Dunya, yet I think we are allowed more insights into the depth of Dunya’s character. Is the simplicity of Sonya’s character part of the appeal of the Christian answer that Dostoevsky presents? Raskolnikov leaves Sonya’s apartment ultimately feeling hope in the possibility of redemption, although he doesn’t seem to have suddenly found the will to believe in God. How then, has he found redemption?
Sonya, Dunya and even Raskolnikov seem to have one trait in common – they sacrifice their own moral standards in order to better the lives of those who they love.
For Sonya, this materializes in the form of prostitution in order to feed her family. Somehow prostitution, which is usually considered the most morally defunct and baseless of practices, becomes noble and selfless.
Dunya originally decides to marry Luzhin to pay for her brother’s education and her mother’s existence. Although her own moral code eventually forces her to denounce this engagement, she is still in the business of sacrifice.
Raskolnikov, who in many ways is the most morally questionable, commits his murder as a sacrifice to his family. Of course, he botches the whole affair by forgetting to take the money and giving what he does receive from Luzhin to Katerina.
Thus far, Dostoevsky’s characters are all sacrificing, but at what cost? Who has benefited from these sacrifices? For Sonya, much of her effort funded her father’s alcoholism. Dunya ends up leaving Luzhin after uprooting her entire life for him. Finally, Raskolnikov commits the ultimate sin – murdering another human being – in the name of sacrifice. The results of Sonya, Dunya and Raskolkinov’s selflessness have left me to wonder if Dostoevsky is encouraging self interest over sacrifice. Thus far, this seems to be the case.
Raskolnikov’s search for reason is interesting because he has reason sitting right under his nose, Razumikhin. Razumikhin seems to be a much more levelheaded and logical (as his symbolic name suggests he ought to be) than Raskolnikov. Razumikhin launches solid plans for the future (the publishing company) and manages to take care of Raskolnikov, his sister and mother, and a party full of guests all at once in a state of extreme inebriation. He is remarkable about balancing things and keeping his head in such situations. Although he seems to share many of the same thoughts, opinions, and life circumstances as Raskolnikov he seems much more adept at handling those trials.
I think that Raskolnikov’s flaw comes in possessing that same reason as Razumikhin, yet being unable to master his emotions. Razumikhin himself is not perfect in that department (falling victim to passionate love for Dunya), but he is much more contained. Raskolnikov however, loses his temper and loses control of his passions at key times. His ineptitude during the murders can be attributed to this lack of control. He later loses his temper in front of Porfiry, who plays Raskolnikov like a fiddle. It is these outbursts and this lack of control, which is his hamartia.
As he struggles with his own classification, Raskolnikov must come to realize that because of his inability to reign in his passions, he cannot be a part of that “extraordinary” class.
Svidrigailov exhibits the complete lack of morals that would have really come in handy to Raskolnikov. Like Erik pointed out, he is an unarguably slimy personage. Svidrigailov plays the role opposite to that of Sonya as outlined by Nate. He is static and I challenge anyone to come forward and announce that he identifies with Svidrigailov. However, his primary purpose is not that of a character, but as displaying an extreme. He is a hedonist and a nihilist. These aspects of his personality coupled with accounts of his past actions place him at the limit of the “bad” end of the spectrum. However, Raskolnikov is obviously attracted to him. Svidrigailov commits his offenses with obvious ease and shows little remorse. He is able to act the part of the superior man that Raskolnikov wants to be. However, his nature is not the ideal because his motivation is too sinister. Raskolnikov sees this, as he is obviously drawn toward Sonya as well. Each of the two represents one half of the traits necessary to transgress boundaries- the good intentions and the gall to do it. By presenting Sonya and Svidrigailov in the manner he does and dividing the superman qualities evenly between the two, Dostoevsky shows that the superman in fact cannot exist.
In the long conversation between Sonya and Raskolnikov, which results in Raskolikov confessing his crime to the former, he calls her a “holy fool”. As Nathan and Danielle have pointed out before, she appears to be a little simple in her pureness. However when he calls her a holy fool I was reminded of the appearance the same in the movie Andrei Rublev. In both stories the holy fool, much more than being an active character that progresses the story, they serve as a means of reflection through contrast for the other persons. This becomes clear when he bows to Sonya to kiss her feet and comments that he wasn’t bowing to her, but that “ [he]was bowing to all human suffering”. She represents and while in her representation she might not be a very deep character, she provokes almost all characters to reveals something about themselves. Whether that is in direct interaction with her or in or in their speech and judgments about her, is irrelevant what counts is that As an opposite in morality, belief, etc. of the protagonist (and yet very connected to him in disparity and by attraction), she acts as a platform that sparks his internal monologues about death, life, religion, morality and meaning.
I am really interested in the seemingly simple Sonya, a girl who, in the beginning of the novel, receives very little attention from both Raskolnikov and the author (i.e. not much narrative space is devoted to her). It’s not until the fourth section that readers are informed of any of her motivations. Throughout Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky lets her exist as a generally quiet person without much effort at detailing her actions or wants, yet we now must deal with an ethically upright and exemplary figure in contrast to her morally corrupt surroundings, including the dank subculture of St. Petersburg. We are told the Biblical story of Lazarus, which involves Jesus resurrecting Lazarus from the dead two days after his death—as one of the most profoundly important Biblical stories, we are forced to examine the resonances of the tale within the greater context of the narrative. Indeed, the story points to a rebirth, but as of yet I am unable to determine exactly in regards to what. It certainly indicates Sonya’s extreme faith that her situation will be ameliorated, and could additionally point to her belief in Raskolnikov’s ultimate redemption. Either way, I feel as if Sonya’s character development has the potential to be interesting and complex.
I would like to take this chance to completely disagree with what Danielle said in our last class. I absolutely love the character of Sonya. Danielle claimed that she was quite flat as a character, but I couldn’t disagree more. In many ways, she makes this book for me. The sub plot of Sonya and her search for redemption (and via her, Raskolnikov too) is the best part of Crime and Punishment. The scene where she reads the story of Lazarus is one of my favorite scenes in literature. Not only is she helping Raskolnikov find the meaning that he is looking for, but she is helping herself find the redemption she so desperately needs. It is the story of the two of them helping each other. They are both Lazarus and they are both Jesus. They are the grieving sisters and the amazed crowd. They come to believe in each other while at the same time being the recipient of the other’s belief. Sonya would easily win best supporting character if there were Oscars for books. I can see why Danielle thinks that Sonya is bland (after all, she is described as “meek”), but in fact she turns out to be perfect.
Although reason is, as Barrett pointed out, sitting under Raskolnikov’s nose in the form of Razumikhin, Raskolnikov refuses to follow his example. I believe he knows very well that it is there, but acknowledging it and being “reasonable” would mean he is not the extraordinary man I think he would like to portray himself as. Although he tells Zamyotov that he does not consider himself a Muhammad or a Napoleon, it is quite obvious that he does (his “new word” being his theory on ordinary and extraordinary people, especially his impression that someone can kill someone for the sake of his idea) and that most of his frustration stems from the fact that he is probably, in fact, ordinary. It seems to be sheer luck that he has not been caught by this point; he has almost spilled the beans to Zamyotov multiple times due to his impatience, especially when Zamyotov is playing the “cat and mouse game” with him in his office, and Nikolai has for some reason confessed to have committed a crime of which he is innocent. I agree with Barrett in that Raskolnikov will in the end need to come to the realization that he is no “extraordinary” man and perhaps even that his whole theory is inaccurate, but that will completely change his perception of the “meaning of life” and probably cause him to do crazy things.
Dunya has what Raskolnikov does not, rationality. Dunya is brought out more during Part III where we learn that Razumikhin has fallen in love with Dunya and professes he love for her while both drunk and sober. Dunya most deal with her brother, Raskolnikov, telling her that she mustn’t marry Luzhin while Razumikhin tells her he loves her and must deal with Luzhin not wanting to see Raskolnikov again.
I find it interesting that the roles of man and woman are reversed with Dunya and Raskolnikov. Raskolnikov being the one prone to emotional distraught while Dunya is self-less trying to help others first rather than herself. Raskolnikov’s constant fainting reminds me of soap operas and the the highly dramatic women in them. Why can’t Raskolnikov as the ‘superbeing’ be more put together and practical? While Dunya is able to more balanced out composed.
I’m confused by Raskonikov. After he feels ‘alive’ again by giving money to Marmeladov’s family, he does so from a play that seems to supercede reason. Yet in the section that we have read today, his search to make sense of things returns to the perverted and tragic series of motions that we saw earlier. For me at least, though perplexing, this does continue to make Raskolinkov into a character that I can sympathize with. The fact that he knows, and has experienced, that there is a way to feel alive and whole yet is unable to live in a way that realizes such a fact seems very real to me. Even in his relationship with Sonya, the girl who constantly gives herself to other people – thereby constituting what Raskolnikov means by being alive – he is still lost in St. Petersburg. That cognitive dissonance is authentic to me and, just like I said in the first class, makes Rasknolnikov a more relatable character than he might seem to be at first glance.
Svidrigailov is a rather despicable character…although he has a few redeeming qualities. Even though I felt skeptical of most of Raskolnikov’s prejudices in the beginning of the book his attitudes towards Svidrigailov were understandable. I particularly appreciated how he was able to use Svidrigailov’s name to address the sketchy gentleman pursuing the drunken girl only a few minutes after reading his mother’s letter. Perhaps what’s most remarkable is that he manages to do what Raskolnikov can’t -commit murder without remorse (and without some overarching moral justification). However, in spite of his moral vapidity, Svidrigailov’s indifference fails in his infatuation with Dunya. When I was reading Devils it also seemed that Dostoevsky made a big deal out of pedophilia, Svidrigailov also seems to suffer this condemnation carried out in his suicide.
The illness that Rodya describes in his theory is probably not the kind that happened to himself, where he is so disturbed by his killing another human being that he physically falls ill. I think the illness is one’s deviations from the moral standard. Therefore, if the great man is characterized in part by breaking the common laws to realize his “new word”, then he is also breaking from the accepted moral standards of society.
There seems to be societal forces keeping one from being “extraordinary” – a big rolling stone that crushes everything in its way. I think this is represented by Porfiry. He is the rolling stone of justice and accept moral standards. I’m not saying that it’s bad to have a strong societal moral standard, I’m just saying that this force is there. Porfiry suspects that Rodya views himself as the “extraordinary people” and killed Alyona to prove that point, but Porfiry says that he likes criminals to have time to think over their crime, and even offers to help. This shows that Porfiry does not want this theory of the extraordinary man to flourish, or else all murders can be justified as working towards a greater good. Therefore, I personally think that if Rodya’s motive in killing is simply to prove his theory, then it’s pretty lame. He is no Kepler or Newton, who offered groundbreaking laws on physics.
I think Rodya would have made his point better if he killed Porfiry instead of Alyona. Alyona was not a big enough obstacle to his “new word”. He also doesn’t have to kill Porfiry physically, but just kill the idea of moral standards that is trying to stop Rodya’s theory.
I do think what makes C+P so interesting is the interweaving of various backstories within the central plot of the murder. I found the role of Ruzumikhin to be the most interesting. In the greater scheme of the story, he could be completely removed without really altering the integrity of the plot. He is superfluous. Yet Dostoevsky makes him one of the most focused on characters in the first four parts. He is a poor student, like Raskolnikov, yet money never seems to be a point of interest for his character. When he has want of something he seems always to be able to get it with his intricate network of connections. While Roskolnikov is sick, Ruzumikhin absolutely glories in providing for him, and it becomes obvious that he needs the diversion of Roskolnikov’s company much more than Roskolnikov actually needs his aid. Later on, he condemns himself for one night of belligerence, in which he acts like a hot-tempered and uncouth drunk. However, in his his sobriety he is loyal and highly deferential to Duneshka and her mother, putting Duneshka on a pedestal after having only one interaction with her. Overall he is impulsive, not overly intelligent, and acts like a puppy (that gets kicked by Raskolnikov and keeps coming back).
Raskolnikov is trying to convince himself that he is not held to the same standards as everyone else because he is a superior man. This reminds me of the underground man putting himself to a real test and then starting to crack. Just like Jieming said Porfiry symbolizes the rock of society’s morals that will not allow Raskolnikovs transgressions to go unpunished. Raskolnikov is almost testing himself with the murder, and it looks like he is failing the test..
Between the whole Svidrigailov situation, her brother and mother’s precarious financial circumstances, Razumikhin’s unexpected attraction to her, and Luzhin’s exploitative attempt at marrying her, Dunya has a lot of room in, and ideas to, which she can react. I find it telling that she retains a good deal of independence and ideological, moral strength, which could be taken in this time for ‘female courage.’ Though so much of her livelihood and happiness depends upon others, she manages to tread delicately where need be in order to retain respect (not dishonoring Svidrigailov, sacrificing for her brother, accepting Razumikhin’s offer of protection), at the same time disdaining those advances that she feels undervalue her or cross a certain ethical line (Svidrigailov’s monetary offer, Luzhin’s letter and pretentious assumption of her dependence). I like Luis’ suggestion that Dunya and Raskolnikov have oppositely gendered roles because Dunya, now that we see her outside of her mother’s flowery, slightly obfuscating, introductory letter, actually turns out to be a powerful persona in her own right. She tests her potential fiancé and makes up her mind so decisively against Luzhin that he’s left bewildered by her decisive strength; the story and evidence of her principles will continue to develop, however, considering that Luzhin judges the situation “remediable” (306) with regard to women, who in his mind are always rather weak. Dunya’s directness (especially with regard to Razumikhin and Luzhin) also appears to empower her mother to stand up for herself and her children. As Raskolnikov realized upon receiving his mother’s letter, Pulcheria and Dunya come together to make a courageous and respectable team.