The Search for Dostoyevsky in Crime and Punishment

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The Search for Dostoyevsky in Crime and Punishment

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky who is known as a great novelist wrote timeless classics such as The Idiot, Crime and Punishment, and The Brothers Karamazov, was not only a novelist, but a good psychologist who uncovered the secret sides of the human beings in a very effective way. His novels also affected Freud, Nietzsche, and Joyce. However there is one point that is a mystery. Did Dostoyevsky really reflect his own feelings, especially his fears, into the characters of his novels?

Fyodor was born in Moscow on October 30 in 1821 in Hospital for the poor, the second of seven children. His mother Mme Marya Feodorovna and father Dr. M. Andrey Dostoyevsky whose surname comes from a small village, Dostoevo, came from the Lithuanian nobility. Dr. Dostoyevsky’s father was a priest in Ukrainia who wanted his son to be a priest like him. However, Andrey ran away from home to become a doctor when he was fifteen. He was accepted to the Imperial Medical-Surgical Academy in 1809, and continued his career in various hospitals. Fyodor’s only elder brother Mikhail was born in 1820, one year earlier than Fyodor (Troyat 37). They lived in a small apartment on the hospital grounds for a long time. When Fyodor reached the age of thirteen, Dr. Dostoyevsky became a nobleman, and moved to Darovoe where he bought a small land about 150 versts.

Dostoyevsky mentioned about his mother with a great love. According to him, she was a cheerful, warm and adorable person. He lost her mother in 1837 when he was about sixteen. His father, however, draws a contrast portrait with his mother. He suffered from headaches that affected his character deeply in a negative way. Althou...

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...rform, and made him feel like a murderer. This is the fear of a lonely person which forced him to create his unique characters.

Many times, I feel guilty as if

I committed a murder.”

F. M. Dostoyevsky

Works Cited

Conradi, Peter J. Fyodor Dostoevsky. Basingstoke : Macmillan , 1988.

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment. New York: The Modern Library, 1950.

Frank, Joseph. Dostoyevsky The Seeds of Revolt 18211849. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1976.

Frank, Joseph. Dostoyevsky The Years of Ordeal 1850 - 1859. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1983.

Jones, Malcolm. Dostoyevsky After Bakhtin Readings in Dostoyevsky’s Fantastic Realism. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990.

Simmons, Ernest J. Dostoyevsky The making of a novelist. London: John Lehmann Ltd, 1950.

Troyat, Henri. Dostoyevsky. Istanbul: Cem Yay?nevi, 1973.

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