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.
As Rodya analyzes Luzhin’s character, he realizes that intellect unrestrained by moral purpose is dangerous due to the fact that many shrewd people can look right through that false façade. Luzhin’s false façade of intellect does not fool Rodya or Razumikhin, and although they try to convince Dunya into not marrying Luzhin, she does not listen. Rodya believes that Luzhin’s “moral purpose” is to “marry an honest girl…who has experienced hardship” (36). The only way he is able to get Dunya to agree to marry him, is by acting as if he is a very intellectual person, who is actually not as educated as he says he is. This illustrates the fact that Rodya knows that it is really dangerous because he knows that people can ruin their lives by acting to be someone they are not. Rodya also knows that people will isolate themselves from others just so that no one will find out their true personality. This is illustrated in through the fact that Luzhin tries to avoid Dunya and her mother as much as possible. The way he writes his letter, exemplifies his isolation, for Luzhin does not know how to interact with society. He has no idea how to write letters to his fiancée and his future mother in law. This reflects on Rodya’s second dream because he is unable to get Dunya married off to a nice person. He feels isolated from everyone else because his intellect caused him to sense that Luzhin is not telling the truth about his personality. However, it was due to his lack of moral purpose that Rodya berates his sister’s fiancé. He is unable to control himself, and due to his immoral act of getting drunk, Rodya loses all judgment and therefore goes and belittles Luzhin. Although Rodya’s intellectual mind had taken over and showed him that Luzhin wa...
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