Throughout the novels Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky and The Stranger by Albert Camus, sun, heat, and light play a significant role in the development and understanding of the novel and the characters in it. Upon the initial reading of The Stranger, the reader may have a general acknowledgment of a relationship between the novel’s protagonist, Mersault, and the sun and heat, either proceeding or following one of the novels significant events. What is harder to understand on the first read, is the reason why this is important and what it means. On the opposite side of the field is Crime and Punishment. The imagery relating to weather and heat have an obvious connotation and importance, as they generally appear before an important event, but the aspect of the novels setting has a different importance. As author Thomas Foster declares in his reading guide How to Read Literature Like a Professor, “weather is never just weather. It’s never just rain. And that goes for snow, sun, warmth, cold and probably sleet,” (75). Regarding these two novels, sun and heat are never just sun and heat, but hold a particular implication that some readers are able to disregard. Whereas The Stranger’s BLANK concerning the sun and its incredible heat can be tied to Meursault’s impaired judgment, the sun in Crime and Punishment can be connected to Raskolnikov’s gradual downfall into insanity, weakening his judgment and reducing his patience.
Because the sun plays a crucial and symbolic role in both Crime and Punishment and The Stranger, the significance and relationship within each of the protagonists in the novel is partially similar. Within both novels, during heat spells, both characters become incredibly confuse and frazzled. Often their...
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... going [. . .] All he knew, all he felt was that everything must be changed “one way or another,” he repeated with desperate and immovable self-confidence and determination” (156 – 157). This quote references the idea that if Raskolnikov and his obsessive willpower were to be left unchecked, he would eventually be driven to insanity. This is the difference that separates the two protagonists and their relationships with the sun.
Devoid of the important similarity of sun and heat imagery, the reader lacks crucial information in regards to the analysis and characterization of the protagonists in Crime and Punishment and The Stranger. While both of the main characters are greatly affected by heat and environment, Raskolnikov’s uncertain and easily pressured personality and Meursault’s hatred of love is what enhances the differences between the two protagonists.
...ing to compensate for them. As his guilt is almost done eating him inside and out, Raskolnikov finally admits and with a new love, he points his life in a whole new direction. Svidrigailov’s moral ambiguity seems to play a smaller part in the whole picture than Raskolnikov’s, making a subplot for the story and adding details to make it more exciting.
... Sin is not tolerated in this society. A key character and a foreshadowing event of the entire plot is the burning of the Transgressor. Equality explains that while being burned alive, it seems that he suffers no pain because he discovers the meaning of individualism. This directly relates to the joy, and lack of pain Equality 7-2521 feels while being beaten because he had not revealed the secret of the light bulb.
Through vivid yet subtle symbols, the author weaves a complex web with which to showcase the narrator's oppressive upbringing. Two literary
In The Stranger, Albert Camus describes the life of the protagonist, Meursault, through life changing events. The passage chosen illustrates Meursault’s view during his time in prison for killing the Arab. In prison, one can see the shifts in Meursault’s character and the acceptance of this new lifestyle. Camus manipulates diction to indicate the changes in Meursault caused by time thinking of memories in prison and realization of his pointless life. Because Camus published this book at the beginning of World War II, people at this time period also questions life and death similar to how Meursault does.
The conflict between good and evil is one of the most common conventional themes in literature. Coping with evil is a fundamental struggle with which all human beings must contend. Sometimes evil comes from within a character, and sometimes other characters are the source of evil; but evil is always something that the characters struggle to overcome. In two Russian novels, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment and Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, men and women cope with their problems differently. Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment and the Master in The Master and Margarita can not cope and fall apart, whereas Sonya in Crime and Punishment and Margarita in The Master and Margarita, not only cope but pull the men out of their suffering.
We see Raskolnikov as a man in extreme poverty at the opening of the book, dropping out of college, and living in a small and dirty apartment. Although he has a family who cares about him, the man hardly seems to care about anything at all. Dostoevsky explains that the poor ex-student was “...so immersed in himself and had isolated himself so much from everyone that he was afraid not only of meeting his landlady but of meeting anyone at all. He was crushed by poverty; but even his strained circumstances had lately ceased to burden him.” (quote) Raskolnikov also has major drinking issues, as he “... [tries] to find sympathy and feeling in [drinking].” (Dostoevsky, 3)) From these poor qualities of the young man’s life, Raskolnikov begins to detach and isolate himself from the rest of the society.
Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment incorporates the significance of murder into the novel through a multitude of levels. The act of killing is not only used to further the plot point of the novel, but also offers insight to the reader of Raskolnikov’s ideology and psyche. This is portrayed through both his initial logic and reasoning behind the plotting of the crime, as well as through his immediate and long term reactions after killing Alyona Ivanovna. The emotional and physical responses instilled in Raskolnikov after killing Alyona Ivanovna as well as his justification for doing so helps illustrate his utilitarianism by offering accurate insight into the character’s moral values. These reactions also serve to show the instability of Raskolnikov’s character due to his changing emotions from being completely justified as the ubermensch to showing a sense of great regret. By including the act of killing, Dostoevsky further develops Raskolnikov’s character, and provides another level of detail to readers concerning his ideology and beliefs prior to his actions.
In Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, Raskalnikov undergoes a period of extreme psychological upheaval. By comparing this death and rebirth of Raskalnikov's psyche to the story of the resurrection of Lazarus, Dostoevsky emphasizes not only the gravity of his crimes, but also the importance of acceptance of guilt.
In Camus' novel The Stranger the predominate motif of the sun has been variously interpreted by many critics as a symbol of Meursault's repressed emotions.
He concerns himself not with the process of murder, but with the impact murder leaves on the psychology of the criminal, suggesting that actual imprisonment counts, so little and much less terrible than the stress, doubt, fear, despair and anxiety of trying to avoid punishment. The working of Raskolnikov mind after the killing, the intense guilt and half-delirium state in which guilt throws him, enables the reader to understand this character as an embodiment of beliefs and characteristics that impels him to commit his crime, and provides a clear picture of the character within the context of the events that took place in the novel
Within The Stranger, Albert Camus includes a passage concerning the story of the Czechoslovakian man. Camus employs this passage not only to foreshadow Meursault’s final fate, but also to emphasize Meursault’s antihero status by creating foils between Meursault and the Czechoslovakian man. The Czechoslovakian man has a brief appearance in the story which plays a large part in Meursault’s emergence as a dynamic character. Meursault’s emotionless demeanor throughout the story distinguishes him as a flat character, at face value, at least. Once he enters prison, he must find ways to pass time, and one of those ways becomes recalling how to remember. The story of the Czechoslovakian man turns into one of his means of remembering, as he reads and rereads this story, memorizing details and forming actual opinions. These shifts within Meursault represent his first real commitment to any single entity, even if that entity exists only to pass time.
Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment explores the themes of guilt and the consequences of committing immoral actions. Of all the deep, thought-provoking concepts put forth in Crime and punishment, the idea that guilt can be an adequate punishment more valid than any punishment executed by society as a whole is the most far reaching and supported by the novel. Crime and Punishment follows Rodian Raskolnikov’s life from just a few days before he commits two brutal murders to when he confesses his crimes and is convicted and sentenced to several years in prison. Initially, Rodian had successfully gotten away with the murder of two people. Raskolnikov’s guilt-driven madness has given him an immunity and even investigators he confesses to think he couldn’t be guilty. As a result, his guilt continues to feed on his conscience to the point where he is constantly miserable. Raskolnikov’s true punishment is the futility of his attempt to escape the guilt of his actions without confessing and feeling adequately punished.
Dostoevsky was made aware of the problems with Nihilistic ideas while he was exiled in Siberia. Crime and Punishment was Dostoevsky’s first attempt at a psychological analysis of a person’s inner struggles to rationalize this radicalism. Raskolnikov represents that intelligentsia and is being used by Dostoevsky to portray and warn against succumbing to these ideals. Dostoevsky uses Raskolnikov’s life to illustrate the implications and applications of this Nihilist to the public and then expands upon it in Demons.
Crime and Punishment revolves around main character, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, and the physical, mental, and spiritual repercussions he endures after he commits murder. In other words, “the whole novel is built around the unique process of disintegration in the hero's soul” (Bem 2). When we first meet Raskolnikov, we learn he is a relatively young ex-student who has fallen into the poverty stricken slums of St. Petersburg, Russia. He has become unhealthily anti-social and bitter towards humanity and is now trapped within and tortured by his own thoughts. It is revealed that he is struggling internally with the idea of murdering a pawnbroker, Alena Ivanovna, with...
An egocentric attitude can be seen in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. Dostoyevsky's young Raskolnikov is staggeringly arrogant. Raskolnikov commits a murder and a failed robbery in the story. His journey in overcoming his ego can be seen through his initial crime, denial of failure, and acceptance of mistakes.