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Crime and punishment by fyodor Dostoyevsky as a psychological novel
Crime and punishment by fyodor Dostoyevsky as a psychological novel
Crime and punishment dostoevsky essay
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Sonya’s affect on Raskolnikov
Sonya, throughout the story had a great affect on Raskolnikov’s changes. In the novel, Crime and Punishment by Fyoder Dostoevsky, this can be seen from all the things Sonya had done for Raskolnikov and what affect the cold person turned loving.
Sonya is the daughter of Rodia’s friend that was forced into prostitution to provide for the family, but all is done willingly out of love. In Sonya, one can see a great sinner as Raskalnikov at peace with her and with God. Sonya’s knowledge that God alone gives one worth allows Sonya to love others unconditionally, including Raskalnikov. Sonya also helps Raskolnikov to get rid of suffering from guilt. Sonya, being extremely religious, believes that everyone deserves a second chance. Sonya then shows Raskolnikov how to be forgiven in God’s eyes. Then convinces Rodia to confess to everyone the murders of the old money lender so that in God’s eyes will be forgiven.
Against Sonya’s meekness and love, Raskalnikov begins to break. At first, Rodia is argumentative, mocking Sonya’s childlike faith. "‘She’s a holy fool!" Raskalnikov thinks to, but yet Rodia is still drawn to Sonya’s strength. At last, Raskalnikov begins to realize that he is not alone, and it is because of this realization that the great sinner began to confess to Sonya. It can be said that, in this confession, Raskalnikov’s strength returns.
However, Raskalnikov’s confession to Sonya is not enough, and S...
Svidrigailov is one of the most unfathomable characters in Crime and Punishment. As the novel goes on, Svidrigailov’s pursuit of Dunya progresses into sheer harassment. After eavesdropping on Raskolnikov’s confession to Sonya, he uses his newly acquired information to lure Dunya into his room. Svidrigailov proceeds to promise help to Raskolnikov if she will give him her hand in marriage. He then threatens to rape her when she tries to run away. Right when Svidrigailov appears to be purely evil, he surprises us all when his rational side kicks in and allows Dunya to leave. Although he may seem to be the cold-hearted villain of the book, his good deeds cannot go unnoticed. It cannot be forgotten that he is willing to give Dunya the three thousand rubbles in his wife’s will and offers ten thousand rubbles to help Dunya because he thinks her marriage will be a disadvantage to her in the end. Once Katerina Ivanonva dies, Svidrigailov also promises to pay for the funeral arrangements and to provide for the children, who will be sent to an orphanage. Although...
Raskolnikov is obsessed with his “superman theory”. He is constantly trying to prove that he is part of the 10% of extraordinary people in the world. He wants to become an eminent figure such as Napoleon. At first he believed that the murders he committed would make him part of this elite class. Once he realized that he had made mistakes during the crime he began to question his theory. After much frustration he decided to go to the scene of the crime. This gave him a rush that made him feel invincible. He believed that this would prove if, or if not he was “super”. Once he realized that he wasn’t part of this class, he suffered a mental breakdown. This pushed him to confess his crime to Sonya. She helped him rationalize his crime and admit his guilt. The outcome of this conversation was that it helped him admit his fate.
Surprisingly when he confesses she does not react with fear or judgement but her reaction is strangely compassionate. She “[flings] herself on his neck and [holds] him tightly in her arms” (424) and he is shocked. The mercy that she shows him is God-like. Raskolnikov's exclamation "I killed myself, not the old crone!"(430) reestablishes the concept of death through sin and exemplifies the idea that he feels he has lost his life and his soul through his sin, which is a religious ideal. Sonya answers him saying "Accept suffering and redeem yourself by it." In this scene Sonya becomes, more clearly than before, a Christ-figure for Raskolnikov. He comes to her seeking salvation. Rodya tells her, "That's why I came, because I'm wicked."(428) He comes to her for help and seeking to shift his burden onto her. Jesus came to save sinners, by taking upon himself the burdens of mankind. Her incomprehensible...
Although the novel begins by focusing on the crime itself, the majority of the book discusses Raskolnikov's struggle through denial and redemption after the murder has been committed. His own "greatness" leads to his denial of God, and his attempt to suppress his conscience causes insanity and sickness. However these negative consequences force him to acknowledge his rectitude and realize his need for confession.
The city of St. Petersburg is portrayed as overcrowded, poor, dirty, and odorous and serves as quite an appropriate setting for the story. During this time, very few were living comfortably. The setting shows the external struggles the citizens and characters faced, but also extends to tie in the many internal struggles of the characters. Before, but particularly after the murders, Raskolnikov was experiencing a time of unrest and both physical and psychological discomfort. After the murders took place, Raskolnikov was thrown into a guilt-ridden delirium. His mind was in a chaotic state much like the ...
From the moment when Raskalnikov murders the old woman, his personality begins to change drastically. Dostoevsky challenges the reader to understand the madness which ensues by first demonstrating that the ideas and convictions to which Raskalnikov clung died along with the women. While the reader struggles with this realization, Dostoevsky incorporates the Biblical legend of Lazarus as a symbolic mirror for Raskalnikov's mind. By connecting the two, the reader encounters the foreshadowing of a rebirth of morals and beliefs, though what form this may assume remains cryptic. As references to Lazarus continue to occur, the feeling of parallelism increases in intensity. Just as Raskalnikov slowly struggled through madness, Lazarus lay dying of a terrible disease. When Lazarus eventually dies, Raskalnikov mimes this by teetering on the edge of insanity, the death of the mind. Eventually Sonya begins to pull Raskalnikov back to reality by relieving a portion of his guilt. As his Christ figure, she accomplishes this by providing the moral and spiritual sturdiness which Raskalnikov lost after his debasement during the murders. Sonya affects him not by active manipulation, but via her basic character, just as Christ personified his beliefs through the manner in which he lived his life. No matter what Raskalnikov says or does to her, she accepts it and looks to God to forgive him, just as Jesus does in the Bible. This eventually convinces Raskalnikov that what he did was in fact a crime and that he must repent for it and"seek atonement".
Crime and Punishment and Notes from the Underground Fyodor Dostoyevsky's stories are stories of a sort of rebirth. He weaves a tale of severe human suffering and how each character attempts to escape from this misery. In the novel Crime and Punishment, he tells the story of Raskolnikov, a former student who murders an old pawnbroker as an attempt to prove a theory. In Notes from the Underground, we are given a chance to explore Dostoyevsky's opinion of human beings.
The people she loves most take her life of commitment and sacrifice for granted. The reader is thus also inclined to give little emphasis to her role in their lives and in the novel as a whole. As someone who has essentially nothing, Sonya is willing to give everything she has to those she loves. She gives of herself willingly and thanklessly. This life of sacrifice truly embodies Sonya's generous character. This genuine nature of her character allows her to reveal so much about those with whom she interacts throughout the novel. With Sonya's seeming "simplicity" in the background, Tolstoy fully develops the characters of Natasha and Nicholas. He uses Sonya as a contrast for his heroine, Natasha, and also as a chart of growth for Natasha's brother, Nicholas. Tolstoy even uses Sonya as a contrast to Princess Mary. Here, if one looks deeper, one will find that there is very little contrast at all between the two women. Most importantly, Sonya is an illustration of society's effects on a poor selfless young girl who puts her needs below those of all others. Tolstoy employs Sonya's character in a variety of situations. Without Sonya, a great deal of his novel's depth and richness would be lost.
It is apparent that the love between Sonia and Raskolnikov plays a crucial role in Crime and Punishment, pushing Raskolnikov in a direction he otherwise would not have gone. Dostoevsky uses their relationship as a tool to develop the philosophical themes in the novel and prompt profound changes in Raskolnikov’s character. Through their love, Dostoevsky demonstrates the importance of human relationships in finding and maintaining happiness. He also seeks to condemn nihilism and disprove the idea that one cannot make one’s own meaning in life by having Raskolnikov adopt Christian existentialism and find his purpose through Sonia.
When Raskolnikov surrenders he accepts his mistakes and rejects his self-centered attitude. "It was I who killed the old woman and her sister, Lizaveta, with an axe, and robbed them," Raskolnikov confesses. (476) With his surrender he not only accepts his methodical mistakes in the execution of the crime, but he sees something beyond himself. He begins to see the magnitude and horror of his act. He had taken a life. By realizing the immorality of his crime and rejecting his self glorifying mind set, Raskolnikov accepts his own humanity.
It is important to understand Raskolnikov’s character before the crime takes place. Although the reader might be tempted to give importance to the aftermath of the crime and observe the effects committing the crime had on Raskolnikov’s physic and psyche, it is necessary to know what kind of person Raskolnikov was and what circumstances led to his being that way before he decided to commit the crime. What preceded the crime is more crucial to unraveling and comprehending Raskolnikov’s motivations. Just as we do not learn Raskolnikov’s name until another character utters it in dialogue to him, likewise the reader comes to build a character profile of Raskolnikov through the observations others offer regarding Raskolnikov. His friend Razumikhin.provides a candid description s...
...nfess his crimes in front of everyone. By admitting to his crimes, God would forgive his sins. Sonya is an important individual in Raskolinkov’s life because she gives him strength to confess and redeem himself.. As they both found in love at the ending, Raskolinkov starts following the theory of the ordinary men. He has a relationship with another ordinary person who helps him understand morals.
...g. Sonia, being the second major character that acts as Raskolnikov’s religious mentor, brings together the religious ideas of a Christian seeking her out her own form of hope and contrasts them with Raskolnikov, a struggling character and fellow sinner. These religious elements throughout Crime and Punishment intertwined with one another leaving the reader to see Raskolnikov’s path to redemption not only as a hero’s journey, but also as a religious rebirth. In all, the religious impact throughout the novel brought a perspective to how Raskolnikov’s character developed as well as how Dostoyevsky intertwined religious meaning into his theme of a lost man trying to find meaning in a life of solitude but instead finding it in in the midst of love.
At the end of the novel Raskolnikov is sitting in a prison cell in Siberia without family, he only has a former prostitute, Sonia, at his side to keep him company. He has murdered two women because of his poverty, one is a pawnbroker and the other Lizaveta. He went days avoiding the law especially Porfry. Even though his mother, his sister Dounia, and his friend Razmuzin tried to help him through his sickness he still confessed after the daughter of Marmeledov, a former government employee whom he met at a tavern, told him to confess.
Punishment has been in existence since the early colonial period and has continued throughout history as a method used to deter criminals from committing criminal acts. Philosophers believe that punishment is a necessity in today’s modern society as it is a worldwide response to crime and violence. Friedrich Nietzche’s book “Punishment and Rehabilitation” reiterates that “punishment makes us into who we are; it creates in us a sense of responsibility and the ability to take and release our social obligations” (Blue, Naden, 2001). Immanuel Kant believes that if an individual commits a crime then punishment should be inflicted upon that individual for the crime committed. Cesare Beccaria, also believes that if there is a breach of the law by individuals then that individual should be punished accordingly.