Comparing Raskolnikov And Dostoyevsky

In the early nineteenth century, the extraordinary man theory, or the “Übermensch”, was widely introduced to the public. Two philosophers, Georg Hegel and Freiderich Neitzsche, brought up two points of this theory. While both philosophers believed that there were a certain, select handful of extraordinary people in the world that were above the laws of ordinary men and did not have to submit to their moral code, the philosophers disagreed on the motivation of the extraordinary man. Hegel believed that the "Übermensch" could ignore the laws as long as his actions benefited the human race. On the other hand, Neitzsche believed that the superman could break the laws to benefit his own self.

In Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, the so-called

In the first five parts, Raskolnikov takes a Hegelian view of his crime believing he is doing mankind a service by removing the dishonest and unfair pawnbroker. He doesn’t, at the time, realize the true evil inside of him. In the starting of the book when he does meet Alyona, he unfairly describes her, noting her as a “diminutive, withered up old woman” as if to convince the readers not to worry or care about her fate. In fact that is the last time the readers even hear of the pawnbroker being described as a “woman”. Furthermore afterwards the event of her murder is described as “that” like Raskolnikov, not even in his thoughts, can say he murdered the two

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! So I killed the principle, but I didn’t step over, I stayed on this side . . . All I managed to do was kill. And I didn’t even manage that, as it turns out . . .”

Raskolnikov, armed with the Hegelian point of view, sees as killing the women as beneficial to the survival of mankind. While internally justifying his sanity, even in this text with the moments of losing pace in thought and exaggerations of exclamation one can that he is finding it hard to grasp onto what he has done and is not ready to admit to himself yet his wrongdoing. He even justified to himself why he wouldn’t get caught, even forcing out the phrase “A hundred suspicions don't make a proof.” that he was somehow born with the ability to be better than everyone else even at murdering another human