Dostoevsky's Guilt

In Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky creates a psychological thriller, in which he reimagines his own life through the eyes of Raskolnikov. Whereas the Russian government sentences Dostoevsky to Siberia as punishment for sedition, Siberia serves a means of atonement for Raskolnikov. This type of religious undertone reinforces the novel’s existentialistic messages that emphasizes individual existence, freedom and choice. It holds the view that humans define their own meaning in life, and try to make rational decisions despite existing in an irrational universe. Thus, humans create their own purpose in life and their choices define who they are. Dostoevsky utilizes figurative language, specifically biblical allusions, as a way of conveying and clarifying these themes to the reader. By connecting to Bible, the author universalizes the intention, allowing the reader to apply the text to their own lives, and granting the audience further insight into the novel. Thus, biblical allusions help enrich the themes of Crime and Punishment while also cementing the central message of salvation- anyone, even murderers, have the potential to redeem themselves.

The central theme of Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky deals with conformity’s role in society. Dostoyevsky uses conformity to make Raskolnikov mentally ill and eventually turn himself in to face the punishment for his crimes. Religion influences every character in the book, but none more ardently than Raskolnikov. Understanding religion’s role as a force for conformity in Crime and Punishment provides a powerful insight into character motives and, furthermore, philosophical influences.

In the novel “Crime and Punishment”, the author, Fyodor Dostoevsky gives the reader a glimpse into the mind of a tormented criminal, by his guilt of a murder. Dostoevsky’s main focal point of the novel doesn’t lie within the crime nor the punishment but within the self-conflicting battle of a man and his guilty conscience. The author portrays tone by mood manipulation and with the use of descriptive diction to better express his perspective in the story, bringing the reader into the mind of the murderer.

The paradigm of suffering functions as one of the foremost features of the human condition. In response, humanity immediately desires rationalization, and seeks a certain purposefulness in their suffering. Though universal and inevitable, this suffering may often appear unmerited or unjust. Throughout time, many have claimed a monopoly on this answer. In fact, one would be hard pressed to find a religion or a philosophy that neither addresses nor justifies human suffering. It is in this space that Dostoevsky’s intensely penetrating novel, Crime and Punishment, operates. Throughout Crime and Punishment, suffering persists as a recurring motif that extends itself through many characters, and is inextricably connected to the characters’ inert

Dostoevsky's 1865 novel Crime and Punishment is the story of an expelled university student's murder of an old pawnbroker and her sister. The idealistic ex-student, Raskolnikov, is ultimately unable to live up to his own nihilistic theory of what makes a "Great Man" and, overcome by fits of morality, betrays himself to the police. Exiled to Siberia, suffering redeems the unfortunate young dreamer. Crime and Punishment is similar in many ways to Balzac's Pere Goriot, especially in respect to questions of morality. In Balzac, the master-criminal Vautrin lives by an amoral code similar to Raskolnikov's theory of Great Men--unrestrained by conscience, Vautrin holds that laws are for the weak, and those clever enough to realize this may

Often times in literature, we are presented with quintessential characters that are all placed into the conventional categories of either good or bad. In these pieces, we are usually able to differentiate the characters and discover their true intentions from reading only a few chapters. However, in some remarkable pieces of work, authors create characters that are so realistic and so complex that we are unable to distinguish them as purely good or evil. In the novel Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky develops the morally ambiguous characters of Raskolnikov and Svidrigailov to provide us with an interesting read and to give us a chance to evaluate each character.

Within Crime and Punishment, the true nature of man is explored as Fyodor Dostoyevsky calls into question the moral code of man and the systems with which we define human ethics. Perhaps the most significant usage of artistic devices within the novel is the use of Christian symbols to introduce the thematic concept of salvation due to acceptance of Christianity. Christian symbolism helps give meaning to the novel and allows the author to deliver his thesis on the saving power of Christ to the reader. These themes are used to the greatest effectiveness when the author references the salvation of Raskolnikov and Marmeladov, and how this was brought about due to

Dostoyevsky gives the reader no such comfort. The reader wants to see Raskolnikov have some good excuse for killing the old woman, some sense of moral justification of the act so we can turn his accusers into "bad guys" and himself and his friends the "good guys". The reader gets nothing of the sort, Crime and Punishment is no fairy tale. The suspense in Crime and Punishment is caused by Dostoyevsky's superb characters, and the longing for a moral sense of right and wrong.

In Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel, Crime and Punishment, Marmeladov is a minor character whose story is told in only a few short chapters of the first two books, and yet, Marmeladov plays an important role in the novel. Both Marmeladov and Raskolnikov are desperate men trying to function in a bleak world. Both men feel alienated in a world which has no meaning. Despite his miserable existence, Marmeladov hopes to find salvation through his anguish. Marmeladov reflects the themes of guilt and suffering that Raskolnikov later shares. Dostoevsky suggests that suffering is the only path to redemption.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky is regarded by many as a “novelist of ideas.” A novelist of ideas is an author who presents psychological and moral dilemmas in his writing. The goal of a novelist of ideas is to get the reader to think about these dilemmas. One of the ideas Dostoyevsky focuses on in Crime &Punishment is the motivation an individual has to commit a crime. In a traditional crime novel, the reader does not know who committed the crime and therefore does not know the motive of the criminal. However, Crime & Punishment is not a traditional crime novel. The novel is told from the point of view of the criminal and explains the reason why he commits a crime. The three internal motivations of a criminal that are explored in Crime & Punishment are financial gain, justice and a sense of responsibility for protecting his family, and the “Extraordinary Man” theory.

We, as human beings, have an instinctive necessity to follow some code of morality. There is and always will be a threshold for how many sins, carnage, and moral misdeeds a human will commit before entering a state of remorse and wanting to atone for his, or her actions. Raskolnikov, the protagonist of Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, was at constant battle with himself and the spirit of perverseness. Initially, Rodya’s actions are almost cyclical in nature: doing one compassionate act then regretting said action and later proclaiming disparagement in the most prideful way possible. He was arrogant and fostered haughty distain towards the world. This grating outlook contributed to his belief in fatalism and rationalization of his poor actions. Although he defended his actions in the sanctuary of his rather unstable mind, Rodya was unable to escape from the past and echoes of the murders followed him wherever he went.

The main character in 'The Fall, a judge-penitent, is guilty of a specific crime of passivity, morally immobile and unable to act. The central event is the scene of the bridge in which he does not act and into this inertia, Camus sinks his reader into the darkness of the human condition, offering no solutions or

Crime and Punishment, written by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky; is a philosophical crime fiction novel. The story is very powerful in that it goes beyond the book and into the lives of the audience; making the audience feel some type of relation between themselves and the story. Dostoevsky was brilliant in creating a fictional world where the characters seem to be found within the audience, transitioning from a fictional story to a self-help book. He employes many life lessons in the story, which give the audience a new perspective on themselves.

"Crime and Punishment", is an exchange on the declaration of human's unique sin and the significance of life in Christianity. The novel talks about the "Wrongdoing" of human from a religious viewpoint and portrays "Discipline" from the point of view of humanism. It talks about self salvation in human instinct. Roskolnokov in Crime and Punishment is his own adversary, and battles with his two separate characters. One which feels he is better than conventional men and the other which is caring, mindful and touchy to people around him.

The research paper critiques the choice of crime presented in The Stranger by Albert Camus and Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. By focusing on the detachment and solitary meaning creation of the protagonists of both the novels, the paper discovers similarities and differences in the existential questions answered by the protagonists through their choice of crime. In an existentialist viewpoint meaning is constructed by the conscious individual in an attempt to find a rational explanation for his/her existence. The paper reveals different dimensions of the notions of detachment and freedom based on the existential outlook of the protagonists. The protagonist’s crimes and their response to the ideas of punishment and repentance which the State and Christianity try to impose upon them depict a conflict between the individual and the society. Analyzing this conflict the paper finds that the deviation of the protagonists from serious consideration of prevailing social principles is a result of their detachment and solitary life. The idea of meaninglessness of existence is analyzed by examining the crimes of the protagonists and