Raskolnikov Personality

624 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Transformation of raskolnikov in crime and punishment

After reading Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, I felt strong relation to each and every character in the novel, whether it was Pyotr Petrovitch self-absorbed and or egocentric nature, or Porfiry's psychological questioning of Raskolnikov. Every character has a different nature about them, therefore providing me a different perspective of their actions. In reading Crime and Punishment I had a greater interest in the lead character, Raskolnikov, I was very observant of his actions, thought process and role in the entire novel and found them to be quite interesting. Raskolnikov’s name means “schismatic” or “split” which by his personality and decision making process led me to believe that he has split personalities and or bipolar …show more content…

“He had decidedly withdrawn from everyone, like a turtle into its shell, and even the face of a maid who had the task of serving him, drove him to bile and convulsion”. At one point he wants to be alone, he withdraws from society, yet later on in the novel he wants to do the exact opposite. Raskolnikov was not used to crowds and, as has already been mentioned, fled all company, especially of late, but now something suddenly drew him to people”, this happens on multiple occasions, his sudden change of heart for things. I believe there is a moral and immoral side to Raskolnikov thus creating the theory of bipolar disorder. For example, when his friend Marmeladov is killed in a terrible accident Raskolnikov offers the family 20 roubles, because of Marmeladov's family’s destitute situation, though later on he seems to regret his decision because it was the rest of his money. In one situation he also saves a drunken woman from being taken advantage of, even offering her money as well. This especially goes to show in Dunya and Pyotr’s marriage, he notices Pyotr’s bad intentions towards Dunya, who he loves, therefore telling her “I do not want this marriage and therefore you must refuse him tomorrow”, even telling her to choose between either him or Pyotr, however awhile later he tells

Show More
Related

  • Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime And Punishment

    1732 Words  | 4 Pages

    As the story unfolds, Dostoevsky introduces the reader to Raskolnikov, a troubled young man who is extremely isolated from those who surround him. He lives in a small, dingy, dusty, and dirty room in a small unattractive house. He lives in an abstract world neglecting the real. He is quite separate from all the people with whom he has contact. In the opening chapter, Raskolnikov is said to be, "so completely absorbed in himself, and isolated from his fellows that he dreaded meeting, not only his landlady, but any one at all" (1). People come physically close to him, but everyone is forced to remain distant mentally. He walks through the crowded, noisy, dirty streets of St. Petersburg physically but somehow he never does so mentally, moving through the streets like a zombie, not a man. He is not aware of his location and often jostles bewildered pedestrians. Therefore, at the outset of the novel Dostoevsky illustrates the apparent schism between the mind and body of Raskolnikov.

    Read More

  • Literary Techniques Used by Fyodor Dostoyevsky in Crime and Punishment

    2235 Words  | 5 Pages

    However, it soon emerges that he, despite the physical nature of his situation, has a very active mind. To reveal whether he is of a special "breed" of humans, he finds it necessary to kill, and the unfortunate subjects of his experiment are an old pawnbroker and her sister. After the murders, Raskolnikov is subject to a series of mental and emotional changes, eventually leading to his confession and, later, his arrest, trial and eight-year prison sentence.

    Read More

  • Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment

    1270 Words  | 3 Pages

    Dostoevsky does not like all of Raskolnokv though. He hates his aloofness. Dostoevsky cannot stand anti-socialism and believes that people should be together and not dislike “meeting at any time'; with anyone. Constantly Raskolnokov alienates himself from all his friends and family to go alone about his way, which ends up getting him into trouble because of his radical thinking, like his theory that some people can transcend the law because of some extraordinary powers. The trouble that Raskolnokov gets into is Fyodor’s way of showing that continually parting yourself from society is unhealthy for a person and that they need other human contact to be complete.

    Read More

  • Egoism in Crime and Punishment

    423 Words  | 1 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Rationalizing Radicalism in "Crime and Punishment" vs. "Demons" by Dostoevsky

    1375 Words  | 3 Pages

    Dostoevsky was made aware of the problems with Nihilistic ideas while he was exiled in Siberia. Crime and Punishment was Dostoevsky’s first attempt at a psychological analysis of a person’s inner struggles to rationalize this radicalism. Raskolnikov represents that intelligentsia and is being used by Dostoevsky to portray and warn against succumbing to these ideals. Dostoevsky uses Raskolnikov’s life to illustrate the implications and applications of this Nihilist to the public and then expands upon it in Demons.

    Read More

  • Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment

    2299 Words  | 5 Pages

    Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment begins with Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov living in poverty and isolation in St. Petersburg. The reader soon learns that he was, until somewhat recently, a successful student at the local university. His character at that point was not uncommon. However, the environment of the grim and individualistic city eventually encourages Raskolnikov’s undeveloped detachment and sense of superiority to its current state of desperation. This state is worsening when Raskolnikov visits an old pawnbroker to sell a watch. During the visit, the reader slowly realizes that Raskolnikov plans to murder the woman with his superiority as a justification. After the Raskolnikov commits the murder, the novel deeply explores his psychology, yet it also touches on countless other topics including nihilism, the idea of a “superman,” and the value of human life. In this way, the greatness of Crime and Punishment comes not just from its examination of the main topic of the psychology of isolation and murder, but the variety topics which naturally arise in the discussion.

    Read More

  • Morally Ambiguous Characters in Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment

    779 Words  | 2 Pages

    Often times in literature, we are presented with quintessential characters that are all placed into the conventional categories of either good or bad. In these pieces, we are usually able to differentiate the characters and discover their true intentions from reading only a few chapters. However, in some remarkable pieces of work, authors create characters that are so realistic and so complex that we are unable to distinguish them as purely good or evil. In the novel Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky develops the morally ambiguous characters of Raskolnikov and Svidrigailov to provide us with an interesting read and to give us a chance to evaluate each character.

    Read More

  • Comparison of Raskolnikov and Svidrigailov in Crime and Punishment

    574 Words  | 2 Pages

    In his book Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky explores the paths of two men, Raskolnikov and Svidrigailov. These two men encompass many similar problems and obstacles throughout their lives. Both commit murders and are faced with the long and mentally excruciating journey of seeking redemption. They also share many characteristics of their personalities. The reason that the outcomes of their lives are so drastically different is due to the fact that they have completely different perspectives on life.

    Read More

  • Gender and Evil in Crime and Punishment and The Master and Margarita

    2109 Words  | 5 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Conflict in Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky

    652 Words  | 2 Pages

    Within the tortured mind of a young Russian university student, an epic battle rages between two opposite ideologies - the conservative Christianity characteristic of the time, and a new modernist humanism gaining prevalence in academia. Fyodor Dostoevsky in the novel Crime and Punishment uses this conflict to illustrate why the coldly rational thought that is the ideal of humanism represses our essential emotions and robs us of all that is human. He uses the changes in Raskolnikov's mental state to provide a human example of modernism's effect on man, placing emphasis upon the student's quest for forgiveness and the effect of repressed emotion. The moral side of Raskolnikov's mind requires absolution in a Christian manner. This need obliviates his claim to be a Nietzschean superman, and illustrates that all humans have a desire for morality.

    Read More

  • Resurrection of Lazarus in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment

    452 Words  | 1 Pages

    In Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, Raskalnikov undergoes a period of extreme psychological upheaval. By comparing this death and rebirth of Raskalnikov's psyche to the story of the resurrection of Lazarus, Dostoevsky emphasizes not only the gravity of his crimes, but also the importance of acceptance of guilt.

    Read More

  • Comparing Crime and Punishment and Notes from the Underground

    490 Words  | 1 Pages

    In Crime and Punishment, we see Raskolnikov caught between reason and will, the human needs for personal freedom and the need to submit to authority.  He spends most of the first two parts stuck between wanting to act and  wanting to observe.  After he acts and murders the old woman, he spends much time contemplating confession. Raskolnikov seems trapped in his world although there is really nothing holding him back; he chooses not to flee and not to confess, but still acts as though he's suffocation (perhaps guilt?)In both novels defeat seems inevitable. Both characters believe that normal man is stupid, unsatisfied and confused.  Perhaps they are right, but both characters fail to see the positive aspects of humans; the closest was the scene between the narrator of Notes from the Underground and Liza.  In this scene he almost lets the human side show, rather than the insecure, closed off person he normally is.

    Read More

  • Character Development in Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

    1278 Words  | 3 Pages

    One of the most profound and obvious changes in Raskolnikov’s character can be seen in the newfound appreciation for other people and human relationships he discovers at the end of the novel. When the reader is first introduced to Raskolnikov, Dostoevsky quickly makes it apparent that he has little to no regard for others, writing on the very first page that Raskolnikov was “so completely absorbed in himself, and isolated from his fellows that he dreaded meeting, not only his landlady, but anyone at all” (1). Indeed, in Raskolnikov’s mind, “to be forced to listen to [the landlady’s] trivial, irrelevant gossip […] and to rack his brains for excuses, to prevaricate, to lie” is the most loathsome thing imaginable (1). His disdain toward other people is so great that the mere thought of interacting with anyone for any length of time repulses him. On some occasions...

    Read More

  • Crime and Punishment and Raskolnikov's article, On Crime

    3487 Words  | 7 Pages

    Raskolnikov's article, "On Crime," is vital to the understanding of his beliefs. This article also has a profound effect on Crime and Punishment as a whole, the subject matter being one of the main themes of the novel. The idea of the "extraordinary man" is referred to literally throughout the book, but also notable is the subconscious effect the idea has on Raskolnikov. Sometimes Raskolnikov is not even aware of this influence. It is important to note originality, or the ability to "utter a new word," as a defining characteristic of the extraordinary man. Therefore, we must take into account the presence of similar ideas, those of Pisarev, Nietzsche, and nihilism, as these might bring to light the possibility that Raskolnikov is not original, a possibility that haunts him throughout the novel.

    Read More

  • Raskolnikov’s Theory of Extraordinary Men

    1286 Words  | 3 Pages

    According to Raskolnikov’s theory in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment”,there are two types of people that coexist in the world; the “Extraordinary” and the “Ordinary”. The ordinary men can be defined as “Men that have to live in submission, have no right to transgress the law, because they are ordinary.”(248). To the contrary “extraordinary” men are “Men that have a right to commit any crime and to transgress the law in any way , just because they are extraordinary”(248).  Dostoevsky’s theory is evident through the characters of his novel. The main character, Raskolnikov, uses his theory of extraordinary men to justify contemplated murder.  There is a sense of empowerment his character experiences with the ability to step over social boundaries. He is led to believe the killing of the pawnbroker is done for the perseverance of the greater good. It is ironic that character who is shown to be powerful in the early stages of the novel subsequently go on to show many weaknesses.

    Read More

More about Raskolnikov Personality

Open Document