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Crime and punishment fyodor dostoevsky example dissertation
Crime and punishment fyodor dostoevsky example dissertation
Nature of crime essay
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Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment is a prime example of torn perspectives and moral ambiguity. Who is to determine what is right and what is wrong? Who or what is it that condemns an action as good or evil? We have yet to truly answer these questions as a people, but many have individual solutions- setting their own individual boundaries and beliefs. It is clear in Crime and Punishment that the leading man, Rodia Raskolnikov, is conflicted by his desires to fulfill the duties given to him through his upbringing and innate goodness, and those that he has formulated under his Napoleonic Theory. He continues to struggle with his own definition of write and wrong/good and evil without a solid, consistent basis. Ultimately, the story’s goal …show more content…
If one takes the concept of him as two people, the entire novel/the reader’s understanding of it relies on these relationships and his own with his other half of self. The journey of Raskolnikov throughout Crime and Punishment gives forth Dostoyevsky’s ultimate plan for this piece as he intended to get across the internal chaos of men and power and their desires to seek it out. There is consistent questioning on Raskolnikov’s part- ever questioning whether or not to confess to the murders to the police or go on living and separate himself from what he had done. He was deciding whether or not to consider what he had done a crime. In the thought of his Napoleonic principles- it wasn’t. The pawnbroker did nobody good but herself- she was a parasite sucking the blood/life from the community she commanded. In the thought of his untainted self, it was murder. Plain and simple. His punishment for pursuing the idea of having an upper hand on others is to deal with the internal repercussions that cannot possibly handle the mental tug of
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.
First, Dostoevsky gives the reader the character, Raskolnokov. He is the main character, whom Fyodor uses to show two sides of people their admirable side and their disgusting side. He loves Raskolnokov, which is why Fyodor uses Raskolnokov’s point of view throughout the whole novel. Personally, Fyodor dislikes some of his qualities but understands that all people are plagued with some bad traits, and that Raskolnokv is trying to make emends for some of his wrong doings, i.e. the murder of the pawnbroker and her sister. He knows that what he did was wrong and is willing to suffer for his crime, and he does throughout the whole book with his constant depression. Dostoesky believes in punishment for your crimes, this is why he shows Raskolnokov suffering through most of the novel, to show his great love for penance. Dostoevsky likes the kind giving nature of people; this is why he portrays the main character as a kind, gentle, and giving, person. Often, Raskolnokov thinks only of others benefits such as when he helped Katerina by giving her all his money for Marmelodov, as well as his caring about what happens to his sister with her marriage to Luzhin. Raskolnokov hates Luzhin’s arrogant and pompous attitude, which reflects Dostoevsky’s animosity of the same qualities in people in the real world.
The author of Crime and Punishment, Fodor Dostoevsky, was born in Moscow, Russia, in 1821. In 1841, he graduated from military engineering school, but he soon left the military to pursue literature. Reform dominated Russia in the mid-1800s, and Dostoevsky held liberal, Western, views. Dostoevsky's ideas toward new radicals practicing Nihilism are paramount in Crime and Punishment, where he advances the idea that Nihilism is "detrimental to society and can lead to suffering and chaos" (Lin). Crime and Punishment takes the reader on a mentally perilous journey through the mind and actions of Raskolnikov, a Russian man who deals with tremendous guilt after committing murder. Dostoevsky use...
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.
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.
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.
Dostoevsky's 1865 novel Crime and Punishment is the story of an expelled university student's murder of an old pawnbroker and her sister. The idealistic ex-student, Raskolnikov, is ultimately unable to live up to his own nihilistic theory of what makes a "Great Man" and, overcome by fits of morality, betrays himself to the police. Exiled to Siberia, suffering redeems the unfortunate young dreamer. Crime and Punishment is similar in many ways to Balzac's Pere Goriot, especially in respect to questions of morality. In Balzac, the master-criminal Vautrin lives by an amoral code similar to Raskolnikov's theory of Great Men.
When Raskolnikov helps Sonia, he begins to feel sympathy. Before committing the murder, Raskolnikov was malignant. At that point, he knew he must go through with the killing but he changes his mind when he meets Sonia and her family. At Marmeladov’s death, Raskolnikov gives them all of his money: “Allow me now…to do something […][h]ere are twenty roubles” (188). Raskolnikov recognizes how pitiful the family’s situation is. He is so concerned that he provides aid for them. Raskolnikov does so because beneath his present malicious thoughts, in his natural, true, mind he does not want these people to suffer. This event begins Raskolnikov’s reawakening of his sympathy. He as well aids Sonia when Pyotr accuses her of stealing money from him (396). Here Raskolnikov understands Pyotr’s true intentions
Torn between his sense of morality and his belief in nihilism, Raskolnikov becomes estranged from society. Nihilism is the rejection of all moral and religious principles and even that life is meaningless. Throughout the novel, Raskolnikov is trying to relieve the tensions between these two extremes. In the beginning, Raskolnikov has hit a low point within his life. He feels helpless because his sister is marrying for money to help his family, he is beyond poverty and cannot even afford to pay rent, and he has no job. Raskolnikov feels at the mercy of the world and completely and utterly helpless. He hates having to rely upon the Pawnbroker for help and even money. When the idea first pops into his head to murder the pawnbroker, it starts to become a potential reality. The ideology of murder is masked behind Raskolnikov’s belief that it would be for the greater good to eliminate the pawnbroker because of her mean spirited nature. Driven mad by the possibility of a choice, which Raskolnikov convinces himself exists because of nihilism. Raskolnikov because of his torn morality goes between extreme submissiveness to over powering those around him. Overall, Raskolnikov decides to commit the murder in an attempt to see if he can transcend his morality. This is what Terras refers to in the context of The Brothers Karamazov, where tensions between Raskolnikov’s façade and his true self are creating an external and internal struggle that causes him to have a
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...
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.
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...
Throughout the book, “Crime and Punishment,” by Fyodor Dostoevsky, we see key words that play major roles in the plot and development of the story. Five words, in particular, act as front-runners in symbolic themes; they are crime, punishment, poverty, suffering, and child. There is no doubt that these words play a major factor in the novel because not only do we see these words often, but also we experience the words as they are lived through by many of the major characters. What some readers might not realize is that Dostoevsky does not let only one of the words dominate a scene in the book; they are intermingled concepts. Where there is one of the five major words of the novel, Dostoevsky usually accompanies it with another. All five of the words are dependent of each other and without one of them, the novel would not demonstrate the story and powerful themes that Dostoevsky was looking to present.
The beauty of Crime and Punishment is that there are no absolutes. It is a 19th century murder mystery, with the identity of the murderer clear, but the murderer's reasons far from being so. Although each chapter was replete with uncertainty, no other facet of the novel caused greater vexation both during the reading and even after its conclusion than what drove Raskol'nikov to commit the murder. That is not to say that he committed murder without purpose or reason, that he was just a cookie cutter villain with no purpose; instead, he is a multi-faceted character that is both likable and a scoundrel at once. The protagonist himself is unsure why he plans and carries out what he does. As he went to bury what he had stolen, he asked himself: "If it all has really been done deliberately and not idiotically, if I really had a certain and definite object, how is it I did not even glance into the purse and don't know what I had there, for what I have undergone these agonies and have deliberately undertaken this base, filthy, degrading business?" (Part II, Ch. 2, pgs. 92-93). The reader is not left completely in the dark, however, as motives were established. The caveat being that motive is plural, and motive is usually a mutually exclusive term. The first motive to be presented, and the strongest in the novel during Raskol'nikov's planning stages, was the issue of poverty. He was destitute, living in squalor, and in need of money to crawl out of his grave-like flat. After the murder was committed and Raskol'nikov came under suspicion, he came face to face with the inspector general, Porfiry Petrovich. Their discussion made the cut-and-dried appearance of the motive tu...
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.