In 1606 William Shakespeare published one of his best known tragedies; Macbeth. Macbeth is set in Scotland in the 11th century. It begins with the main character, Macbeth, being a heroic, upstanding man. Macbeth is the talk of the Kingdom following the war. But, through a few dramatic twists and turns, it shows his gruesome fall from grace and eventually his death. More recently, a Russian author by the name of Fyodor Dostoevsky published a novel titled Crime and Punishment. The novel was originally written in Russian and then translated to English by many different people. Much like Macbeth, Crime and Punishment tells the story of one man’s fall from goodness. Raskolnikov is the main character of the novel. Raskolnikov begins the story as …show more content…
And this begs the question: What is the good life? Humanity is not boundless. Humanity is bounded by the forces of the natural world: things like food and water, shelter, or sickness. Humans must remain in homeostasis in order to thrive. Humanity is bounded by society: the ideas, words, and actions of the members of a society all effect the direction in which humanity, as a whole, will move. Above both of these, though, every member of the human race is bounded by themselves: the clarity of conscious and subconscious minds, the freedom of thought, and the state of being unencumbered by guilt. For the sake of simplicity, we will call the aforementioned topics “institutions.” The Institution of Nature, the Institution of Society, and the Institution of Self. Now to answer the question, the good life for the men of these stories is one where the institution of self is taken into consideration by the character, and on top of that it is one where the institution of self is lived in accordance to. One must “know thy self,” and live by that knowledge. By these criteria Raskolnikov gets much closer to the good …show more content…
Contrary to Macbeth, Raskolnikov begins his story in poverty and shame. Raskolnikov is too poor to support himself as a student, and too poor to even support himself as a human. The difficulty that begins the story is Raskolnikov will be unable to pay his rent, and will be kicked out onto the streets. Raskolnikov cannot let this happen. He devises a plan to make some money and pay his rent. Raskolnikov plans to murder the pawn broker of his town. He is dead set on following through with this plan until one night, he has a dream that makes him reconsider his position. He dreams, very vividly, of a cart full of drunken peasants beating a cart horse to death. The dream accounts all of the beatings that the mare suffers and the young Raskolnikov flying in fury to try to rescue her. “He ran beside the mare, ran in front of her, saw her being whipped across the eyes, right in the eyes! He was crying, he felt choking, his tears were streaming.” Raskolnikov could not believe the violence before him. He could not hold himself together. And this was merely a dream! Raskolnikov was then swayed. He could not commit the murder. He wasn’t capable. Despite this though, he does go through with the murder. He kills the pawn broker and her innocent sister. After this he becomes violently ill. He is not ill due to natural causes though, his mind created the illness. Raskolnikov did not
In Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment Raskolnikov comes from a poor family and went to Petersburg in order to study. After a while Raskolnikov becomes destitute, living miserably. Raskolnikov is prideful, stubborn, and charismatic,which makes him an interesting character. Raskolnikov’s deep pride is one reason for him killing Alyona the old pawnbroker. Yet, Raskolnikov believed that killing Alyona would help humanity and take away evil from society. Such sentiments are spoken by a man he overhears, “"Kill her, take her money and with the help of it devote oneself to the service of humanity and the good of all. What do you think, would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds?" With strong intentions on helping others, he is
The confusion in Raskolnikov’s soul is best seen when he tries to help a girl in the street who has been raped and left to the whims of whoever may
Throughout history, it has been said that there are two sides to every coin. In Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov is the coin. Raskol, in Russian, stands for “split.” Raskolnikov himself is an extremely split character; throughout this novel, he has two very different sides. In the beaten down, busy town of St. Petersburg, Raskolnikov is constantly ill, alienating himself from society. Once a student, Raskolnikov now lives in shambles and barely has enough money to support himself. Although Raskolnikov appears kind and gentle towards Katerina Ivanovna after her husband's sudden death, his true identity was revealed through the gruesome murder of Alyona Ivanovna and, her half-sister, Lizaveta, which shows that Raskolnikov is actually a barbaric, cold-blooded creature.
As Raskolnikov’s shame takes over him, his mental health gradually deteriorates, despite his previous belief that he held enough intellectual and emotional
The mood of confusion due to the characters disorientation from his guilty conscious is what manipulates the tone. The mood and tone are also expressed during the state of agitation the character encounters when battling his conscious about committing the murder in the first place. Going back to the point of the characters un-confessed sin which is his main cause of his torture; there comes the moment of truth within the story. In the excerpt, the author says, “There had been little difficulty about his trial. The criminal adhered exactly, firmly, and clearly to his statement… He explained every incident of the murder” (lines 4-6). This is the point in the story where Raskolnikov unleashes the demons in his mind and confesses to his sin. It’s shown here just how brutal the battle with his guilty conscious truly was, by Raskolnikov being pushed to a confession, stating the exact incidents and not missing a single detail, all while showing absolutely no remorse for himself. There is finally a sense of hope that is shown for the main character at the end of the excerpt when the author describes the moment in prison after his confession. When the author says “In prison, how it happened, he did not know. But all at once something seemed to seize him and fling him at her (Sonia’s) feet. He wept and threw his arms round her knees. They were both pale and thin; but those sick pale faces were bright with the dawn of a new future, of a full
By doing this, the author, once again, is able to persuade his audience into the belief that Raskolnikov has a fractured mind and that he is mentally
	Raskolnikov presents evidence of his true mental state, and that he wants to be exposed before his peers for the good of society, which allows the reader to see him not as evil, but terribly misguided as a tainted product of the world he has been forced in to. First, he forgets to lock the door and is forced to kill another woman who walks in unexpectedly during his crime. Next, with the door still open, he dallies several minutes washing his axe, taking even more time to scrutinize his clothing for traces of blood, all seemingly in the unconscious hope that someone will walk in on him. So
As a prolonged attempt to preserve his fragile ego, Raskolnikov’s experience with guilt reveals his weak self-esteem. Thus, although Raskolnikov fails his own test of strength, his double murder opens his eyes to the emotional vulnerability he did not expect to see in himself, instilling an ever-present sense of guilt that characterizes the remainder of the novel.
It shall not be, so long as I am alive, it shall not, it shall not! I won’t accept it!” (Part 1. 4.). Raskolnikov begins to alienate himself from his ex-colleague, Razumikhin, although at points it is Razumikhin who supports Raskolnikov the most. It forces Razumikhin to replace Raskolnikov in situations that should have been left to his authority. In a situation where Raskolnikov should have reassured Dounia and Pulcheria of their safety “he waved his hand weakly to Razumikhin to cut short the flow of warm and incoherent consolations he was addressing to his mother and sister” (Part 3. 1). As Raskolnikov began to slowly move away from any form of comfortable socialization and a growing poverty situation, his stubbornness to contain his pride and dignity eventually builds up to the brutal murder of Alyona.
Raskolnikov lives an ordinary life as an ordinary man. He is a good man and has a good heart, but he soon commits a crime that will forever change his life. Raskolnikov is a good man; I believe he is kind, generous, and selfless. Now, how are all of these positive traits found in a murderer? I think was caught in a psychotic moment, his mental state was not all there, and he had a dream, he made a plan, and he committed this terrible crime. A good example of Raskolnikov being a kind hearted person, and selfless is when he sees a young girl at the end of the street, he sees by her a rough looking man staring at her. He starts to get very worried what this man might do to this young girl. He goes down the street to get this young girl, and he pays for a taxi to get her home. This was so generous, and small yet so impactful. Raskolnikov cared about what might happen to this young girl, and did something about it. This showed how selfless Raskolnikov is, and what a kind heart he has. I think this shows Raskolnikov’s true character. From here, he makes some terrible decisions, and is engulfed by guilt, but I believe he is a generous, kindhearted person. In this book, Crime And Punishment, Raskolnikov goes from being an ordinary man with an ordinary life to a murderer, tortured by guilt, haunted by the memory of his crime, and him finding himself again in society after the murders.
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.
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.
Even when Raskolnikov was asleep he received painful messages of others who were suffering, just as he was. In one particular instance, before the double-murder, Raskolnikov is brought back to the poverty he suffered throughout his childhood. He once again feels a great empathy toward the suffered, but this time
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
The author showed his opinion on the structure of the society, social norms and beliefs. He expressed his disagreement with “The Extraordinary Man Theory”. He told the audience that all people have feelings and emotions and cannot rely only on logic and calculations. People cannot hurt others and go unpunished. The ending of the novel helped to strengthen his ideas and convictions. In the end, everyone in the novel received the deserved punishment assigned either by the law or by fate. Raskolnikov and Svidrigailov realized that their actions were wrong and contradicted to the all social norms. They recognized that they were not extraordinary men. Dostoevsky made this novel very educative and filled with morality. It is great for people of all times and generations. It reveals what is good and wrong; it teaches how to be a