Spread The Word

God exists. Although this opinion remains debatable to say the least, Dostoevsky needed to show that he thought of it as an absolute fact. Dostoevsky had converted from atheism before writing Crime and Punishment. While his previous work had shown Dostoevsky as a believer in the new philosophies of the time, Crime and Punishment has various religious influences and takes a stand against these philosophies, such as Nihilism. These religious influences show up often in Crime and Punishment in the form of inexplicable occurrences that stand out from the realistic aspects of the book. Throughout the novel Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky uses supernatural events to represent a godly force and prove his new belief in the existence of godly beings.

Dostoevsky uses supernatural forces to guide and control the characters’ lives. When Raskolnikov goes to see Razumihin, the idea pops into his head almost subconsciously. No plausible explanation exists for “what put the idea of going to Razumihin into [his] head,” and yet he has a very strong impulse to go (42). Following this impulse could have led Raskolnikov into picking up some extra money and not feeling the need to commit the crime. Razumihin’s influence on Raskolnikov later helps lead Raskolnikov to redemption as Razumihin helps Raskolnikov to pick up the pieces of his shattered life and get back up on his feet again. This urge to visit Razumihin therefore resulted due to a supernatural force. When he decides to commit the murder, Raskolnikov thinks “of nothing and [is] incapable of thinking; but he [feels] suddenly in his whole being that he [has] no more freedom of thought, no will, and that everything [is] suddenly and irrevocably decided” (51). Raskolnikov feels that he has no ...

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...ostoevsky to turn a complete one hundred and eighty degrees and wind up so against his original beliefs seems unlikely. Whether he had truly changed his way of thinking or not, Dostoevsky needed to prove to the government that he had. As long as the Tsar believed that Dostoevsky had become a new man, the chance of returning to exile lowered significantly. To write a book that shows an underlying belief in an all-powerful god shows that he has changed.

Whether he did it to spread the word of his own true beliefs or to make the government think he had really converted, Dostoevsky uses the novel Crime and Punishment to prove God’s existence. The book’s many religious references merely scratch the surface of how spirituality influenced Dostoevsky. He uses a supernatural force to represent a god and show how it really hangs over the world and affects people’s lives.