Guilt, Suffering, Confession and Redemption in Crime and Punishment
"You keep lying!" screamed Raskolnikov, no longer able to restrain himself. "You're lying, you damned clown!" And he flung himself on Porfiry, who retired to the doorway, but without a trace of panic. "I understand everything, everything!" He approached Porfiry. "You're lying and taunting me so Ill give myself away-" "You can't give yourself away any more than you have already, Rodion Romanovich, old man. Why, you've gone into a state. Don't shout, I'll call my men, sir!" (Dostoyevsky, 34)
No humane person with any values is able to commit a heinous crime without some feeling of guilt or remorse afterwards. Slowly, this guilt festers and eats away at one's conscience until the point of escape, reached by confession, thus leading to salvation. Throughout Dostoyevsky's Crime and. Punishment the main character, Raskolnikov is stricken with guilt and suffering that eventually lead to his confession and redemption motivated by many forces.
Crime and Punishment is the story of a young "intellect", Raskolnikov, who develops a superman theory. In his hypothesis, he felt that certain men were extraordinary and could commit unethical acts without punishment or a guilty conscience. In his case, he wanted to rid the earth of a parasite through the vicious slaying of an old pawnbroker, Alyona, and her sister, Lizaveta, in order to gain money so that he could continue his studies and to see if he was truly extraordinary. Was he truly the Napoleon that he thought he was? Could he walk over people with no regard for their feelings or sufferings as Napoleon had? (Literary Criticism, 68) "He is obviously no superman or Napoleon, but didn't get enough fre...
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...ut its overwhelming power and the fact that it made such a painful impression on readers that those with strong nerves fell ill and those with weak nerves had to give up reading it. (Kjetsaa, 183)
Works Cited
Bloom, Harold. Modern Critical Interpretations. New York, New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1988.
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment. New York, New York: New American Library, Inc., 1968.
Gale Research Co. Nineteenth Century Literature Criticism. Detroit, MI 1984, Vol. 7.
Kjetsaa, Geir. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, A Writer's Life. New York, New York: Viking Penguin Inc., 1987,
Magill, Frank. Masterplots. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Salem Press, 1976.
Terras, Victor. Handbook of Russian Literature. New Haven, CT; Yale University Press, 1985.
Timoney, John. Speech on Crime and Punishment. Mt. Holyoke College, November 10, 1994.
Sclerotinia stem rot (SSR) is caused by fungus named sclerotinia sclerotiorum (Lib.) de Bary. It is a common disease in oilseed rape (Brassica napus) field. In Sweden, S. sclerotiorum can cause 60% yield reduction in infected fields (Nordin, 1992). SSR is a major disease of canola in North Dakota. The incidence ranged from 7-19% in North Dakota from 1991 to 1993. ( Lamey, 1995). It occurs almost every year and in most regions of the state. Symptoms on canola appear when flowering appear two to three weeks after infection. Mushy is the first visible symptom. Petals are the first part to be infected, then infection can spread to leaf petioles and finally to stems. Light brown discoloured patches will show on stems, branches and pods. These lesions will expand and the plant surface becomes greyish-white color. When main stem is infected, the canola plant will be easy to lodging. Hard, black structures called sclerotia (survival structure of the pathogen) will be produced on infected tissues after the infection is well-established. It can be found inside of infected stem.
Deep down, Raskolnikov’s motives behind his deed amount to something profound in the end, how he rejects his past and learns much from it. Santangelo’s criticism touches on the meaning of Raskolnikov’s motives, but seems incomplete in terms of the impact their resolutions have on the end of the novel and Dostoyevsky’s message. This is where the motives transform into greater meanings. How does Raskolnikov redeem himself at the end? Is there one choice that explains the action? Each of his choices alone and together are gripping because seldomly is a person’s emergence from transgression the product of a single force. All results are intertwined with unfathomable levels of choice that begin subliminally but come down to a conscious decision. Dostoyevsky had the audacity to expose the root complexity of human emotion, then show how it can consciously choose its ending, happy or unhappy. Raskolnikov’s redemption was a public, pragmatic, individual, and ideological
In Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov's initial crime, failure, and acceptance of mistakes are his road to overcoming his ego, as well as self discovery.
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