Crime And Punishment Essay

A period of change from one state to another, transition, it’s never easy. In the book Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, the characters lives take place during a time of struggle. People make desperate decisions in time of struggle, making poor decisions cause characters to appear bad but upon closer inspection, goodness can be found. In the short story Young Goodman Brown, Nathaniel Hawthorne tells the tale of man that constantly faces an inner battle between good and evil. In both stories we see the conflict of good vs. evil within the characters that lead them to making their final transformations that evidently lead to their sanity or their demise.

In the novel Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky’s most significant characters, Raskolnikov and Marmeladov, have personas that are distinguished by their negative attributes. In the literature, the bad qualities in these two characters are quickly identified, the good in them only seeps through their deeds or thoughts but more than anything we see the conflict and transformation of good vs. bad within them. Marmeladov is a drunkard and Raskolnikov is a criminal, is it possible for these “bad” people to change?

Semyon Marmeladov’s alcoholism is the cause of many of his family’s problems. His crummy appearance and well known drinking problem are the reasons why he is labeled as a bad person. Marmeladov spends all of his money on booze and all of his time in the bar; meanwhile at home his family is starving without food or money. All of this forces his daughter Sonya into prostitutions for means of support. Although Marmeladov’s actions are bad and cause his family suffering, he describes the love for his family in a way that reveals his true kindness. There are many parts...

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...wn ended his life with emptiness.

Although the characters in Crime and Punishment and in Young Goodman Brown both took on opposite transformations, the religious elements in both novels played a role in the character’s transformations. The inner conflict between good and bad, what’s moral and immoral, are found in all humans. Dostoevsky's novel suggests that although the journey toward rediscovering faith is often a turbulent and challenging one, the benefits of finding redemption through God is worth the time. In Hawthorne’s novel, we see the challenge of losing one’s faith and how this leads to insanity. Either losing faith in religion or rediscovering it, the transitioning from one to the other leads the characters from both novels into a state of conflict within themselves. It takes someone or even an entire society to lead a person into their final decision.