Society’s Creation of Soiled Doves

Society throughout time has always played a large role in humans’ day-to-day lives regarding everything from stylistic choices to the way they think and act. In the book Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Doeskyesjy, Sonja the daughter of Marmaladov and Katerina petrovina engages in in prostitution in order to support her family. Sonja however is no less of a person due to her poor economic standpoint, still having a faith base her reason is pure and her prostitution is to entirely support her family. Sonja as a person showed such selflessness that she puts herself before other regardless of what’s at stake. In her case like so many other young women Prostitution was a last resort in order to provide for her family. This being said society itself more or less forces the girls into prostitution and then proceeds to place a stigma on the soiled doves for committing impure acts. In crime and punishment the Russian society forced Sonja into prostitution in order to maintain societal regularities like so many girls before her throughout history.

As an altruistic individual, Sonja often puts others lives before her own. She repeatedly chooses to place herself in poor situations due to inheriting a genuinely kind hearted spirit. As her father continues being an alcoholic and drunk, his sole responsibility of being the family’s provider is left neglected and is then handed over to Sonja. All the while her mother continually strives to maintain an opulent lifestyle, and shows no sign of stopping in the near future. In order to sustain her mothers lifestyle Sonja quickly puts her mother along with her younger siblings before herself and unselfishly chooses to be a prostitute because even though subconscious Sonja’s motive is to help others. (T...

... middle of paper ...

...t also exceeds her womanly role as she steps up and demonstrates power and control by taking care of her family. Another aspect that Sonja represented was the large religious presence in Russia. During the 1860s when the book was written around 80 percent of the country recognized themselves as Russian Orthodox Christians. With Sonja providing much of the religious aspect during the book, she exemplifies the importance of religion to the Russian culture. This can be especially noted during the epiloge when RASKL uses the new testament given to him by Sonja to gain some sense of closeness to her. (USE QUOTE HERE). Another thing Sonja represented was the freeing of the serfs in 1861. This allowed for a growth of the middle class like Sonja and her family. With the growth of the middle class Russia was able to gradually assume a more important role in world trade.