Crime And Punishment By Feodor Dostoevsky Essay
, Research Paper
The chief character of the novel Crime and Punishment by Feodor Dostoevsky, Raskolnikov, is in world has two wholly beliing personalities. One portion of him is rational. He is cold, hardhearted and inhumane. He exibits enormous stubbornness. It is this side that enables him to perpetrate the most awful offense conceivable & # 8211 ; taking another human life. The other portion of his personality is warm and compassionate. This is the side of him that does charitable Acts of the Apostless and battles out against the immorality in his society.
The confusion in Raskolnikov? s psyche is best seen when he tries to assist a miss in the street who has been raped and left to the caprices of anyone who finds her. Raskolnikov tries to protect her from the immorality of the street, intestine so stops himself when he is revulsed by the evil of his society. Why did I take it upon myself to interfere? Was it for me to seek to assist? Let them eat one another alive & # 8211 ; what is it to me? At one clip Raskolnikov is both caring and concerned and yet he is able to force aside the whole matter by being wholly apathetic. This is how Raskolnikov is able to perpetrate his offense. His rational side ignores his scruples and is able to perpetrate the offense in a rational and orderly manner. It is his double character that serves as his penalty. One side of him is able to perpetrate the slayings so the other must bear the penalty. He is tortured by the inhuman treatment in world and yet he himself is able to reiterate it.
Ralkolnokove justifies his offense through a doctrine that he has come up with. The adult male with power is the adult male to govern over all others. But this power is merely given to those who dare to take it. Raskolnikov wanted to see if he had the bravery to take that power. He besides had to conflict with his rationalisation of the murbers. He claimed that since Alyona, the first slaying victim, was such a parasite to people, it was wholly right to kill her. He ne’er mentions his other victim, Lizaveta, because she was the sweet and harmless one whose slaying he can non confront.
The two other characters of the novel who represent these two different sides are Sonya Marmeladov and Svidrigailov. Sonya is the warm side of Raskolnikov. She is a cocotte forced into that field because her male parent drinks off all of the money in the household. She is mild and submissive. She will give her male parent her last kopek even if
he comes to her wholly intoxicated. Raskolnikov is at one time attracted to and
repulsed by this personality. Svidrigailov is the cold and degage personality that Raskolnikov both loathes and embracings.
The end of the novel is to do Raskolnikov into one character. Sonya helps convey Raskolnikov back into his emotional, humanist side.Through her agony, she shows him that it is of import to hold a love for all humanity and that no individual should of all time be able to be like a parasite off of another individual. Porifery, the official look intoing the offense, acts as the intellectual who shows Roskolnikov that all mind must be used for the good of world.
As said before the character Raskolnikov in the novel Crime and Punishment is among one of the most realistic and credible characters I have of all time read approximately. He is besides the most confusing and overwrought adult male I have been introduced to this full twelvemonth. Raskolnikov possesses the most variable personality conceivable and this makes the concluding behind his actions a enigma, particularly in the instance of the slaying. Determining the principle in killing the old pawnbroker is a complex procedure that necessitates deep idea from the reader. It is besides a hard point to reason because Dostoevsky? s novel is so intensely elaborate that different readers can stress different facets of the book in order to try to explicate Raskolnikov? s workss.
Guilt every bit good as rational concluding prove to be the chief motivation factors behind the offense of Raskolnikov. Throughout the fresh his actions are normally a consequence of his dramatic intelligence or his tormenting scruples, or in the state of affairs of the slaying, both. Raskolnikov? s thought to kill the old pawnbroker stems from a theory he was developing. It was likely that during his surveies at the university he was aquatinted with the popular doctrines of two German minds of the clip.
One of these philosophers is George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who had formulated a construct of an exceeding person he called a? demigod? . Hegel? s demigod exists for good intents. He stands above and beyond the ordinary adult male and works for the good of all work forces. The most controversial portion of this demigod theory that Raskolnikov evidently adopts is the Machiavellian belief that the terminal justifies the mean. This means that anything that could hold a good result for many should be considered irrespective of the forfeit of the few. If the purpose is baronial the method will be justified. Harmonizing to Hegel, any detrimental portion of a community should be removed, and one bantam offense will be wiped clean by the good workss that occur because of it.
Another prevailing German theoretician was Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche who had a differing sentiment of the demigod. His thought was that the demigod does non populate for benefit of society, but alternatively for his ain personal satisfaction. Nobility ne’er prompts any of his purposes. Nietzsche was a god-fearing atheist who believed that either no God exists or that He was dead, so his demigod is a adult male who, without fright of God, exerts his ain desires wholly. He has the strongest will and is able to coerce his power over others merely to satisfy himself or assert laterality. The Nietzschean demigod does non necessitate solace from anyone and is able to populate wholly entirely. The wants of others should ne’er impact the powerful will of the demigod.
When Raskolnikov was developing his ain demigod theory he borrowed elements from both Nietzsche and Hegel, so applied them to his state of affairs in order his ain obscure hypothesis. To Raskolnikov, all work forces fall into two classs, the ordinary and the extraordinary. Ordinary work forces are inferior to the extraordinary, and they live in entry. They have no authorization to interrupt any Torahs and they live merely to reproduce more of their ain sort.
On the other manus, the extraordinary adult male is bound by no regulations. He lives by no Torahs merely because he is extraordinary. Raskolnikov thinks that being great relies on interrupting from the common cast of society. This includes interrupting the Torahs made by and for the ordinary people. He feels that when one complies to public jurisprudence he ceases to be a great adult male. Since
the accomplishments of the demigod will finally profit all of world he has the cardinal right to make up one’s mind whether to stay to Torahs or non. He has the place to transgress any obstruction that stands in the manner of carry throughing his potency. He feels that extraordinary work forces that act in this manner thrust civilisation frontward to new degrees of achievement.
In this manner Raskolnikov justifies his offense. The Alyona is an evil old pawnbroker who hurts people who come to her for pawning, hence he grounds that slaying her would extinguishing a harmful member of society. Alyona besides has tonss of valuables that would otherwise be wasted if he did non take it upon himself to administer them to the needy. Raskolnikov permits force in the name of scruples.
However, it is non in Raskolnikov? s nature to trust wholly on his rational logical thinking to acquit his offense. Guilt plays a major function in actuating him to kill Alyona. His intense love for his household, and the despairing fortunes that were emerging was likely the make up one’s minding factor that drove Raskolnikov to really perpetrate the offense. His obstinate love for Dunya made him take action against her at hand matrimony to Luzhin. He was non the type of adult male to let his household to endure while he stood aside incapacitated. I feel that this was the straw that broke the camel? s back and impelled him to take action.
It is highly of import to understand that Raskolnikov had non wholly worked out his theory at the clip of the slaying. All of his single thoughts were at that place, but many connexion disagreements arise. The theory is basically contradictory sometimes because he had non wholly devised his program before he committed the homicide. One chief contradiction in the theory is that he believes the slaying was executed for the benefit of all work forces, but so in bend, believes that, as a demigod, he should non be concerned with the predicament of the ordinary adult male. Incomplete apprehension of his ain ideas such as this leads Raslkolnikov to the possibility of confession and redemtion.
Raslkolnikov uses Napoleon as an illustration of his extraordinary adult male throughout the book. He feels that he symbolizes the demigod because he stood above common jurisprudence, and had the nervus to perpetrate villainous Acts of the Apostless in order to make his ends. However, Raskolnikov does non see another possibility who fits the cast of the extraordinary demigod.
Svidrigailov represents an about perfect incarnation of the demigod. He is a cold intellectual who emphasizes his ain will above all else. Everything Svidrigailov does is done to either give him pleasance or topographic point him above the normal morality. When Dunya denies him love, though, he eventually comes to recognize that he is genuinely unable to stand entirely above everyone else without company. Where Svidrigailov falls short, so does Raskolnikov. Consequently, when he tries to stand entirely, like a Nietzschean demigod, he finds that he can non bear to be cut off from the remainder of humanity. This drives Raskolnikov to squeal his offense in order to once more go a member of society. Solitude opens him to the chance of confession, and he in bend admits his offense every bit good as his ain defect to Sonia.
The indispensable factors of psycho-analysis that are of import in a reading of Raskolnikov & # 8217 ; s behaviour in the novel Crime and Punishment, and whose struggle consequences in Raskolnikov & # 8217 ; s going a felon are the Idaho, the superego, and the self-importance. We see that these three parts of Raskolnikov? s mind property to his unusual behaviour and in the terminal his destiny as a felon.
Before get downing an appraisal of Raskolnikov? s mind we must discourse Raskolnikov & # 8217 ; s background, he is an rational, a pupil, and we see obvious effects of an over used mind throughout the novel. Although Raskolnikov is an rational at the beginning and throughout the novel, when we see a flashback to his childhood, we see a dramatic scene where Raskolnikov show & # 8217 ; s great compassion towards a Equus caballus. A struggle between mind and compassion is a cardinal point of the book. The struggle arises because mind is non really good at being compassionate, and compassion is by and large non logical. This is one of the imposing factors within the mind of Raskolnikov.
Although Raskolnikov & # 8217 ; s compassion can be classified neatly under superego, morality principal. Mind does non suit straight into resistance with it under Idaho. Intellect would best be classified under self-importance, world principal. The chief occupation being to happen a balance between Idaho and superego. A really good illustration of this mediation, is after Raskolnikov gives money to Sonia. This is an utmost extension of his superego, the self-importance lets it skid by. But after Raskolnikov & # 8217 ; s self-importance or mind analyzes this action he realizes it has broken the balance excessively much and he regrets it. Almost the same thing happens when Raskolnikov kills the old adult female. After the self-importance analyzes it, the self-importance disapproves, once more a tipping of the graduated table.
A conducive factor to Raskolnikov? s helter-skelter mind and major factor in the dark attitude of Raskolnikov is his despairing milieus. We are greeted with dark, dirty, desolate, metropolis where there is no hope anyplace. He is surrounded by rummies and cocottes, there are merely a few people within the novel who have even an intimation of contentment. Populating in this environment it is apprehensible how he could be so suffering.
Geting back to criminalism, we see that the felon could most probably be said to be missing superego, and be a individual ruled by the Idaho. But this is non truly the instance. Crime is a symbolic look of tensenesss and struggles in the mind of the felon ( Introduction to Criminology, 2 ) There is nil but a struggle, that for the most portion has resulted in a deadlock. But every now and once more, one portion of the mind takes power and this leads to Raskolnikov & # 8217 ; s fickle behaviour. Raskolnikov? s behaviour is simply a consequence of struggle between two extremes, taking him to be so sort yet so barbarous at times.
One thing which has non been discussed is Raskolnikov? s theory that the extraordinary individual need non adhere to jurisprudence. Without traveling into excessively much item this could be said to be an effort by Raskolnikov to apologize the desires of his Idaho with his mind. Leading him to the unusual decision that it is justified to kill person if it is good to certain people.
In decision, Raskolnikov is the merchandise of a cruel and despairing society and tortured by a helter-skelter mind, and finally his fickle behaviour leads him to his ruin.
