Essay about A Nihilistic Analysis of Crime and Punishment

meek and submissive, and would give her father her last copeck even if he comes to her brutally drunk. Raskolnikov is at once attracted to and repulsed by this personality. Svidrigailov is the cold

Criminology is a field that has been researched prolong. Most of the information explaining crime and delinquency is based on facts about crime (Vold, Bernard, & Daly 2002, p.1). The aim of this paper is to describe the theories of crime and punishment according to the positivists Emile Durkheim and Cesare Lombroso, and the classical criminologist Marcese de Beccaria. The theories were developed as a response to the industrialisation and the modernisation of the societies in the 18th and 19th centuries and were aiming to create a rational society and re-establish social solidarity (Vold et al 2002, p.101). The criminological perspectives of crime and punishment will be discussed in a form of dialogue between the three theorists exploring

The crime is defined as the law-breaking cruel action committed by the criminals. These criminals usually have some deep trauma deep in their heart and the sudden bursting of all the negative sentiments will result in very devastating consequences of hurting other human beings. This essay will mainly compare Perry Smith in In Cold Blood and Misfit in A Good Man is hard to find, which is both the main character and the main criminal in the two crime stories. They have a lot of things in common as a criminal with minor differences. They a are both cynical to the society; They have both found themselves isolated from the society.

Warning! A runaway robber has just been caught in the middle of the highway. Policemen are investigating the case and considering if they should punish the criminal or let him go. How will prison affect the person? Will he benefit from time in prison or will it only make him worse? The theme of justice and punishment is explored in real life and books. Life in prison may have some positive influences, but to a large extent it is not successful in changing someone’s mindset. In the book “In Cold Blood”, Truman Capote uses syntax,diction, and a variety of details to support the theme that justice and punishment is not effective.

The protagonist, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, a former student, decides to murder and rob an old pawn broker, Alyona Ivanovna, not due to his desperate need of money, but due to a theory he wants to test. Raskolnikov leaves no evidence which would lead the investigation to him; however, the police lieutenant in charge of the case, Porfiry Petrovich, a meticulous thinker, understands Raskolnikov’s theory and has a big role in influencing the student to confess. Between the murder and the confession, Raskolnikov undergoes a long and painful process of thought. His friend, Razumikhin Prokofych, along with a prostitute and his future significant other, Sonia Semyonovna Marmeladova, are part of the protagonist’s path. In the end, Sonia turns out to be Raskolnikov’s salvation as she helps him find redemption and start living

In Fyodor Dostoevsky book Crime and Punishment, women at this time in Russia were not the equals of men in terms of education and power. In Crime and Punishment the women in the story were self-sacrificing in their actions, which in return paid off for the women. Majority of women, in Crime and Punishment, such as Sonya were selfless in their actions. The women in this story play a motherly role towards the men. Women in this story may have lived in a male dominated society, but it seemed that the words the women spoke in this story were very strong in influencing the men. Sonya plays a major role in Raskolnikov's life, being the person Raskolnikov relies on while he was in and out of prison. Raskolnikov felt a heavy connection with Sonya

After the gruesome murder in Part 1 of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov becomes indecisive in his guilt, ethics, and even daily actions, and through the uncertainty he loses all the control he had in his life. He goes around debating whether he should turn himself in, the people he should tell, and his future actions. In his indecisiveness he begins to feel helpless, and through his friend’s death and his total exhaustion, it seems like he loses only more control. His day culminates, as he arrives home, only to realize he forgot his family’s expected arrival, and becomes inadequately prepared to deal with his family’s caring concern. After having so much power through the murder

Raskolnikov murders an old pawnbroker woman for seemingly no reason at all. His sister and mother move to St. Petersburg following his sister's engagement to a man whom Raskolnikov was extremely displeased. Raskolnikov undergoes severe mental trauma, and falls ill after the

Marmeladov feels great amounts of guilt for his drinking, but his meaningless existence depresses him so much that he does nothing. He is more than poor, he is destitute. Marmeladov explains why alcohol consumes his entire life:

  The American government operates in the fashion of an indirect democracy. Citizens live under a social contract whereby individuals agree to forfeit certain rights for the good of the whole. Punishments for crimes against the state are carried out via due process, guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. The use of capital punishment is decided by the state, which is legal in thirty-seven states. It is a moral imperative to protect the states' rights to decide their own position on the use of capital punishment.

Does taking another’s life actually avenge that of another? The disciplinary act of capital punishment, punishment through death, has been a major debate in the United States for years. Those in support of capital punishment believe that it is an end to the reoccurrence of a repeat murderer. The public has, for many years, been in favor of this few and pro-death penalty. Yet as time goes on, records show a decrease in the public and the state’s support of the continuation of capital punishment. Those against capital punishment believe it is an immoral, spends taxpayers’ money improperly, and does not enforce a way to rehabilitate criminals and/or warn off future crimes.

The opening establishes and embodies the world of the justice system, “the man’s world”, accompanied by its seriousness, organisation and harshness in its outlook on reality, the depiction of a typical arrest, identification and trial of a convicted criminal. However, this “world”, according to Wood is threatened, stating that it is somewhat disrupted by the protagonist’s “frivolousness, selfishness, and triviality” (272).

Should one person have the right to end another human's life? It is a question most people have the answer for when it comes to capital punishment. Capital punishment is known to some people one of the cruelest punishment to humanity. Some people believe giving a person the death penalty doe's not solve anything. While other's believe it is payback to the criminal for the crime they have committed. There have been 13,000 people executed since the colonial times, among 1900 and 1985 there were 139 innocent people sentence to death only 23 were executed. In 1967 lack of support and legal challenges cut the execution rate to zero bringing the practice to a complete end by 1972. Although the supreme court authorized its resumption in 1976

Sofia Semionova Marmeladov is a large part of Crime and Punishment, acting as both a love interest and a moral compass for Raskolnikov. Despite her pivotal role in the narrative however, she is a victim of women’s usage in literature in the most literal sense. She is a prostitute, being used and abused by men every night for the sake of bringing in money for her abrasive family. Sonia is viewed in the lowest regard by most, and is particularly by her stepmother. Literary tropes aside, Sonia’s personality does not benefit at all from her nightwork. While some might take the job of prostitution and use it to harden themselves from emotional pain, Sonia’s tender nature makes her more susceptible to the night by night terror that she faces. Her innocence is articulated by Marmeladov when he is talking about how he borrowed money from her and says “She gave me thirty kopecks with her own hands, the last she had, everything, I could see that myself…. She said nothing. She only looked at me in silence….” (Dostoyevsky, 19). Her reaction towards him, rather than fighting for her hard earned money, she meekly gives it to him, demonstrates how subservient she has become, how used to being used she is. Despite prostitution being legal in Russia at the time, Sonia being forced into the profession is immoral, another example of how she is used. While she

Nihilism is one of the most difficult philosophies to accurately define because of its ambiguous nature. In its simplest form, one might consider it an extremely pessimistic form of skepticism in which the individual discounts even the idea of existence. Therefore, to a nihilist, all values, relationships, authority, beliefs, and emotions are baseless and empty. First popularized in Ivan Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons in 1862, nihilism is associated with a revolutionary movement that occurred in Russia from 1814 to 1876. The principles of nihilism often can be linked with those of utilitarianism, existentialism, and anarchism. Dostoevsky demonstrates his aversion to this philosophy through