Guilt in Crime and Punishment In Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky tells a story of a young man that has been forced out of his studies at a university, by poverty. In these circumstances, he develops his theory of an extraordinary man (Frank 62). This conjecture is composed of the ideas that all great men must climb over obstacles in their way to reach their highest potential and benefit human kind. In Raskolnikov's life, the great obstacle is his lack of money, and the way to get over this obstacle is to kill a pawnbroker that he knows. The victim is a rich, stingy, and heartless old crone, and by killing her, taking this evil from the world, Roskolnikov does many great deeds for mankind (Jackson 99),(Kjetsaa 182). "The little old crone is nonsense!' [Raskolnikov] thought, ardently and impetuously. 'The old woman was a mistake perhaps, but she's not the point! The old woman was merely a sickness…I was in a hurry to step over…it wasn't a human being I killed, it was a principle!" (C&P, Pevear 274). Consciously, Raskolnikov refuses to accept guilt for committing the crime because he believes that there is nothing to be sorry for. Subconsciously, he knows that he has taken a human life and must suffer the consequences. His guilt and suffering because of it can be seen in his delirium. Right after Raskolnikov kills the pawnbroker he falls ill. When he sleeps, he has nightmares; when he walks, he sees ghosts. These visions are his subconscious telling him that he is wrong for not taking fault and confessing his sin. In his delirium Raskolnikov believes that he sees ghosts. "And just now I imagined that perhaps I really am mad and was only seeing a ghost"(C&P, Pevear 295). He believes that he has seen a ... ... middle of paper ... ...e Sonia (C&P, Pevear 547-549). This is where he begins to appreciate her goodness and purity and to learn to enjoy life and to abandon his egoistic theory. The chosen people are the ones that are like Sonia, kind, quiet and faithful, not the rationalists and superior ones (Mortimer 116). So in this dream, Raskolnikov sees that for his unrepentant thoughts, he would die in the pestilence. Through Raskolnikov's fears, the reader is able to see that he does feel guilt. When he is awake and sober in mind, he is an egoist and believes that he is extraordinary. It is through his visions of ghosts and phantoms, that one can feel the guilt haunting him. Through his dreams, he sees for himself that his beliefs are wrong. Works Cited: Dostoevsky, Fyodor M. Crime and Punishment. Trans. Jessie Coulson. Ed. George Gibian. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1989.
The heat of the blazing sun, the bead of salty sweat running off your nose into your parched mouth, and the sight of a barren desert. Well set, caring, young Stanley Yelnats, from Holes, by Louis Sachar, is filled with perseverance and excitement. Stanley, is one big, caring, loving kid.
... himself in the service of others. Though Raskolnikov initially holds the belief that he is a higher being among others, his sense of regret and internal conflict after the murder shows otherwise. If Raskolnikov truly embodied the ubermensch as he envisioned himself to, he would show no sign of sorrow for bringing “happiness” to the rest of society, as well as providing justice for all the people Alyona Ivanovna has scammed. In Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov’s sense of emotional and physiological regret works against him, and helps portray to readers his false sense of justice and self image. By using murder as a key event, Dostoevsky gives readers an opportunity to understand the protagonists’ logic and justification for killing, how the character would react in such extreme situations, and how those reactions reflect his view toward society and his own beliefs.
In the book Holes Stanley Yelnats gets sent to a detention camp because of bad luck. His bad luck was that he was standing under a bridge when a stolen pair of a famous basketball player’s shoes got dropped on his head. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time because of an ancient family curse. The curse put on his family was set because of Stanley’s pig stealing great-great grandfather who disrespected one of the ancestors of Zero, the boy who committed the crime that Stanley was convicted of. Zero, who was also in the camp, told Stanley that his ancestor had told Stanley’s great-great grandfather how to get rid of the family curse but that he never got rid of it. This is the first time that Stanley realized that the curse could be broken. This curse is taken away at the end of the book. Stanley’s fate and bad luck were changed because he did something that his great-great grandfather was supposed to do.
He concerns himself not with the process of murder, but with the impact murder leaves on the psychology of the criminal, suggesting that actual imprisonment counts, so little and much less terrible than the stress, doubt, fear, despair and anxiety of trying to avoid punishment. The working of Raskolnikov mind after the killing, the intense guilt and half-delirium state in which guilt throws him, enables the reader to understand this character as an embodiment of beliefs and characteristics that impels him to commit his crime, and provides a clear picture of the character within the context of the events that took place in the novel
After the botched crime Raskolnikov is plagued his failures. "He was conscious at the time that he had forgotten something that he ought not forget, and he tortured himself." (107) After he carelessly kills both women, and allows for the evidence to be found, Raskolnikov realizes he did not commit the perfect crime. This devastates his ego, so he tries to cling to his previous self perception. He is also plagued with feelings of guilt. His guilt, combined with the mistakes he made during the crime, shatter his self perception of perfection.
Raskolnikov is obsessed with his “superman theory”. He is constantly trying to prove that he is part of the 10% of extraordinary people in the world. He wants to become an eminent figure such as Napoleon. At first he believed that the murders he committed would make him part of this elite class. Once he realized that he had made mistakes during the crime he began to question his theory. After much frustration he decided to go to the scene of the crime. This gave him a rush that made him feel invincible. He believed that this would prove if, or if not he was “super”. Once he realized that he wasn’t part of this class, he suffered a mental breakdown. This pushed him to confess his crime to Sonya. She helped him rationalize his crime and admit his guilt. The outcome of this conversation was that it helped him admit his fate.
“hole” that the narrator refers to is the basement home that he discovers later in the novel.
Their similarities helps them understand each other; through their experiences. For one, they are both outcasted socially. Stanley has no friends and always bullied, by Derrick Dune in school, and by X-Ray and his gang in Camp Green Lake. Speaking of Camp Green Lake, both have nicknames given by X-Ray and the two are just children. Similarly, Zero and Stanley were unlucky at some point. Stanley bears his family curse of luck, while Zero lost his mother and is homeless. Zero and Stanley are misunderstood. For example, Stanley was accused for stealing Clyde Livingston’s shoes; and Zero being assumed to be dumb. Finally, to end in a happy note, Stanley and Zero are rich at the end of the
The main character in Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov, has nihilistic ideas, which ultimately lead to his own suffering. Raskolnikov, an impoverished student, conceives of himself as being an extraordinary man who has the right to commit any crime. He believes that as an extraordinary man that he is beyond good and evil. Since he does not believe in God, he cannot accept any moral laws. To prove his theory, he murders an old pawnbroker and her step sister. Besides, he rationalizes that he has done society a favor by getting rid of the evil pawnbroker who would cheat people. Immediately after the murders, he begins to suffer emotionally. Raskolnikiv “[feels] a terrible disorder within himself. He [is] afraid of losing his control…” (Dostoevsky 95). He becomes ill and lies in his room in a semi-conscious state. As soon as he is well and can walk again, he goes out and reads about the crime in all the newspapers of the last few days. The sheer mention of the murder...
One final illustration of Holden’s misconception of death is evident in Chapter 12, on pages 81-82. In this instance Holden once again poses the question of what happens to the ducks in the lake in Central Park during the winter. This driver, Horowitz, responds much more climactically than the anonymous driver in Chapter 9. , and he provides a ardent series of remarks. Horowitz changes the subject of the conversation from ducks to fish, because he can cope with them. Horowitz is also a believer of the rightness of things. His departing comment: "Listen,…if you was a fish, Mother Nature’d take care of you, wouldn’t she?
Last of all throughout the story Stanley at the beginning showed insecurity, in the middle loyalty, and at the end confidence. Zero helped him be the person he is in the middle and at the end. In Holes, the lesson is to trust friendship and learn that all people aren’t what they seem, and it changes us for the
During this, slaves were given freedom, gifts were exchanged, and banquets and happiness prevailed. (Encarta 98 Encyclopedia, 1998)Holiday GreeneryEvergreens, the symbol of eternal life, have long been used for Christmas time decorations. The Christmas wreath represents everlasting life and God's endless love for us. Kissing under a mistletoe supposedly started out when early Roman enemies stopped fighting when they met under a mistletoe. Holly is the most known Christmas greenery, and there are several legends about it, one is that Jesus' crown was made of holly, and the holly berries represented his blood. (All About American Holidays, 1962)The Christmas tree: The Christmas tree is an evergreen trimmed with lights, decorations, and tinsel, is derived from a "paradise tree", or the tree in the Garden of Eden.
From the moment when Raskalnikov murders the old woman, his personality begins to change drastically. Dostoevsky challenges the reader to understand the madness which ensues by first demonstrating that the ideas and convictions to which Raskalnikov clung died along with the women. While the reader struggles with this realization, Dostoevsky incorporates the Biblical legend of Lazarus as a symbolic mirror for Raskalnikov's mind. By connecting the two, the reader encounters the foreshadowing of a rebirth of morals and beliefs, though what form this may assume remains cryptic. As references to Lazarus continue to occur, the feeling of parallelism increases in intensity. Just as Raskalnikov slowly struggled through madness, Lazarus lay dying of a terrible disease. When Lazarus eventually dies, Raskalnikov mimes this by teetering on the edge of insanity, the death of the mind. Eventually Sonya begins to pull Raskalnikov back to reality by relieving a portion of his guilt. As his Christ figure, she accomplishes this by providing the moral and spiritual sturdiness which Raskalnikov lost after his debasement during the murders. Sonya affects him not by active manipulation, but via her basic character, just as Christ personified his beliefs through the manner in which he lived his life. No matter what Raskalnikov says or does to her, she accepts it and looks to God to forgive him, just as Jesus does in the Bible. This eventually convinces Raskalnikov that what he did was in fact a crime and that he must repent for it and"seek atonement".
...orce behind his confession and struggle with his conscience. Does this lessen its impact as a motive? Of course not, due to the Russian psyche. Raskol'nikov may not have explicitly mentioned a "will to suffer" in his thoughts prior to the murder, but as a Russian who professed to believe in God and the Eastern Orthodox Church (although it was not always apparent, he was at least raised in such an environment), he sought suffering. It may not have been an active goal, but it was there, hiding in his subconscious. Such a complex motive is worthy of such a complex subject.
After inferring from the rationality of Raskolnikov’s hypothesis on illness that the rest of his working theory would too be correct, the reader is led down a path of definite expectations for his/her “extraordinary” narrator. This path would have been one whereby Raskolnikov was able to implement widespread well being as a result of his murders. Furthermore, he would have been able to avoid submission to the common law of the “ordinary” people in order to preserve his greatness.