Analysis Of Dreams In Crime And Punishment By Fyodor Dostoevsky

Why do we dream during sleep? The dreams are often very compelling, that makes us wonder of the purposes. But does dream has a purpose? Many psychologists believe dreams have many different features of purposes such as foreshadows the future, imagination of what we cannot be, put us in a difficult situation to confront and more. In the novel “Crime and Punishment,” the author Fyodor Dostoevsky utilizes different “dreams” to foreshadow the future event and to reveal his true inner consciousness toward his evil crime.
The first dream in the novel comes from Raskolnikov a day before he commits the crime. He dreams about back in his childhood, when he was seven years old, and as he is walking with his father, they notices a drunken peasant, Mikolka, beating his old

feeble horse for not able to pull a heavy wagon full of people.

The crowds shouted “Fetch an axe to her!” and Mikolka “dealt a stunning blow to the poor mare… [and] stood on one side and began dealing random blows with the crowbar. The mare stretched out her head, drew a long breath and died.” After witnessing this terrible murder, young Raskolnikov “put his arms around her bleeding dead head and kissed it, kissed the eyes and kissed the lips.” This dream foreshadows the murder of old pawnbroker and her innocent sister. The old horse represents Alyona Ivanova and Lizabeta Ivanova and two main characters of the dream, young Rodya and Mikolka, symbolizes Raskolnikov’s two conflicting side of consciousness. The young boy represents Rodya’s caring and sympathetic side which shows the goodness conscience and uncertainty of committing crime. On the other hand, Mikolka represents the evil side of Raskolnikov, no feeling towards the murder and heartless of killing innocent lives. Likewise

Raskolnikov believes the death of pawnbroker would benefit society by using her money towards poverty, Mikolka also feels the society would benefit from the death of old useless horse. Moreover, the insensible beating of the horse is similar to Raskolnikov’s brutal axe attack on the innocent two women. Mikolka’s cruel act lies the larger design of Raskolnikov’s intended murder of the pawnbroker. By parallelizing the characters in the dream to pawnbroker and Raskolnikov, the author foreshadows the impending destruction of crime.
Furthermore, Dostoevsky uses dreams to reveal Rodya’s true inner consciousness toward the crime after he had committed. For instance, Raskolnikov begins to realize that he is not an extra-ordinary man – meaning “transgress the law; they are destroyers or disposed to destruction according to their capacities.” He dreams about returning back to the crime scene where he finds the pawnbroker under a coat. Rodya becomes “frenzy and he began hitting the old woman on the head with all his force, but at every blow of the axe the laughter and whispering from the bedroom grew louder and the old woman was simply shaking with mirth.” In the fear of pawnbroker’s revival (in the dream), Raskolnikov begins to strike her with axe over and over, but only thing he could see is Alyona’s ominous laughter towards him. Raskolnikov originally believed he was the chosen extraordinary man to remove the pawnbroker for good of society. But, through this dream as the start of inner punishment, Rodya begins to realize he is incapable of killing Alonya because he is just an ordinary man that feels guilty about the crime. Moreover, Rodya finally becomes aware of his inner conflict in the last dream in prison. In this dream, the world suffers from the plague from microscopic bugs that infects people to believe “themselves so intellectual”. Inside of the war, “only a few men could be saved in the whole world. They were a pure chosen people, destined to found a new race and a new life, to renew and purify the earth.” Raskolnikov veritably realizes he had this plague of Hegelian –superior than others- that sickened his consciousness and he is not part of those only a few men that could save the world. By ridding his feeling of superiority, Rodya is now able to repent his sins.
Dreams in this novel plays a significant role of driving Raskolnikov to final realization of his identity as an “ordinary man”. Through dreaming, Raskolnikov gets punish psychologically by feeling the guilt of murdering two innocent women. The author Fyodor Dostoevsky firstly utilizes the dream to foreshadow the murder of pawnbroker and shows Rodya’s two complete inner consciousness, then step by step uses dreams to pull down Rodya’s psychological view of superiority.