Nihilism In Crime And Punishment By Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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The book Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky has a main ideology in which the novel is based on. The protagonist, Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment embodies the idea of nihilism and the Übermensch. Dostoyevsky places the main character with the ideology that he wishes to shine light on. In this case, Dostoyevsky, hoping to criticize the philosophy of nihilism allows Raskolnikov to believe he is a kind of Übermensch, transcending society and making greater decisions and later renounce nihilism it to show its flaws.
The philosophy of Nihlism leads Raskolnikov to many of his decisions and has a large role in his actions. Nihilism rejects the notion of there being any intrinsic meaning in anything in life. It presents a perspective that views death as the end where all the actions at which life had hinged on no longer matter. Raskolnikov’s believed that there is no longer meaning once one is dead. In addition, Dostoyevsky wished to criticize the idea of an Übermensch. The idea of the Übermensch is that a person who is born better than everybody else will be able to transcend society’s decisions and make his own decisions for the greater good of society. This belief although not directly stated is very present in Raskolnikov’s forethought and action in murdering. In killing Alyona, Raskolnikov justifies it with a utilitarian stance. He believed that although society would say it was wrong for him to murder an innocent lady, that what he was doing was for the greater good of society. He hoped to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Towards the beginning of the book, before he kills Alyona, Raskolnikov, who was not confident in killing Alyona overhears two students talking about killing Alyona “without the ...

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...was so immersed in himself and had isolated himself so much from everyone that he was afraid not only of meeting his landlady but of meeting anyone at all” (3), to highlight how isolated of a person he was. This is what allowed him to attempt to become this Übermensch figure, however Dostoyevsky makes him fail in his Übermensch status to criticize the reality of such a figure.
In conclusion, the protagonists Raskolnikov is simply a tool used by Dostoyevsky in order to make his point and criticize the idea of an Übermensch as well as the philosophy of nihilism. Dostoyevsky set his character with flaws that showed his true human self and that ends up criticizing nihilism. Raskolnikov is allowed to succeed at first in the murder of Alyona to give the reader the idea of the Übermensch, but is set up to ultimately fail to give Dostoyevsky’s final regards on the subject.

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