In every story, a character develops with the plot from an initial individual that leads to an ultimate, either improved or distorted, character. However in these stories there is one driving factor that pushes the transformation of the character: hope. Many authors utilize hope to justify the characters’ actions in their novels, because it gives them a motivation to continue pursuing the conclusion of the story. Similarly in Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky places a form of collective hope in Raskolnikov that revolves around searching for his meaning in life. In the novel it is inevitable to associate the actions of the characters to their differing hopes, therefore coming to the compromise that hope explains the process of a character's journey. As a consequence, many readers mistaken hope as a source of aggression, or murder in the case of Crime and Punishment, or even misunderstand isolation as an influence on his violent actions and sufferings; however, hope rather affects the end result in discovering personal meaning for Raskolnikov, because this hope explains his actions throughout the plot.
The source of hope that Raskolnikov places reveals and influences his thoughts throughout the story. From the beginning of Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov places his hope in the Übermensch ideal, which convinces him to act in any means because he is superior to others, influencing him to “want to attempt a thing” as horrific as murder (2). Throughout his years of living in solitude in “his little room” (420) that is degraded and tattered, Raskolnikov develops a utilitarian character, in which he believes the sacrifice of “one death” (68) is justified for “a hundred lives in exchange” (68). Many times, this character t...
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...d his reactions to the future events to follow. By placing his hope on Sonia and Christianity, he was able to endure the years of imprisonment in Siberia and return as a new man, not only to others, but also to himself. The novel interestingly implies us to see that the once Raskolnikov who saw himself as the over man who has the right to act in any means to justify his view on society, becomes humble in front of the eyes of Christianity. However when their actions and attitudes are changed, the underlying factors of hope must be taken notice of as well. The change in hope simultaneously in their change in character is not just a coincidence, but intentional in the eyes of Dostoevsky to help Raskolnikov discover his personal meaning.
Works Cited
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment. Trans. Constance Garnett. New York: Bantam
Dell-Random House, 2003. Print.
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Merriam -Webster defines hope as “a desire accompanied by expectation or belief in fulfillment.” I see hope as neither polished nor refined. Hope sometimes is misunderstood as a characteristic that has to do with religion; however, hope is used in more than just a religious sense. Although hope is not a physical attribute, one can easily see the physical appearance of the person change, who has hope. Hope fuels desire to not give up, it provokes a positive outlook on the future, and makes way for change.
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Within the tortured mind of a young Russian university student, an epic battle rages between two opposite ideologies - the conservative Christianity characteristic of the time, and a new modernist humanism gaining prevalence in academia. Fyodor Dostoevsky in the novel Crime and Punishment uses this conflict to illustrate why the coldly rational thought that is the ideal of humanism represses our essential emotions and robs us of all that is human. He uses the changes in Raskolnikov's mental state to provide a human example of modernism's effect on man, placing emphasis upon the student's quest for forgiveness and the effect of repressed emotion. The moral side of Raskolnikov's mind requires absolution in a Christian manner. This need obliviates his claim to be a Nietzschean superman, and illustrates that all humans have a desire for morality.
In Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov's initial crime, failure, and acceptance of mistakes are his road to overcoming his ego, as well as self discovery.
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