Everything Cuts Both Ways

In Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment “Everything cuts both ways...”(303) are words said by Raskolnikov the protagonist of the novel whose mind is pulled into conflicting directions by his desire to become an extraordinary individual who rejects the moral law, committing crimes to aid the underprivileged like himself and his moral obligation to confess to the murder he commits as a result of his desire. Raskolnikov's conflicting dilemma aids in illuminating the meaning of the novel as a whole in the sense that immoral acts cause an individual psychological torture and (like Raskolnikov) the criminal will only find peace within if he confesses.

Although Raskolnikov murders the pawnbroker and her sister Lizaveta who was an innocent bystander, no one is able to prove him guilty. However, throughout most of the novel Raskolnikov is psychologically tortured by his own mind that stresses and troubles him into finding out what his true motive for committing the immoral act of murder was. Initially, although Raskolnikov becomes a criminal as a result of murdering, the author describes through Raskolnikov’s mental dilemmas that the reason he murderers is because of his belief that certain extraordinary individuals exists, and as a result it was his duty to overstep the law and kill the pawnbroker for the better of all who were

However, even through his own extreme mental ruin, Raskolnikov is unable to end his life and so he finds himself with no choice but to finally confess coming to the conclusion that he is indeed ordinary and subjected to the societal punishment but can ultimately be in