Crime and Punishment

Author: (Russian) Dostoevsky
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-08-01
Features: The novel depicts a poor university student, Raskolnikov, who is influenced by anarchism and believes himself to be a superman, capable of doing as he pleases. Forced by livelihood, he kills an usurer landlady and her innocent sister, creating a shocking murder case thats all of Russia. After experiencing a painful inner repentance, he ultimately surrenders under the persuasion of the Christian Sonya, is sentenced to exile in Siberia, and his psychological changes before and after the crime are vividly portrayed. The work reveals the difficult lives of the lower classes in Russia. Crime and Punishment is a profound and realistic work by Dostoevsky. With a sharp pen, he mercilesslys the social reality of Russia at that time, deeply touching every corner of the lower strata, making one feel suffocated—the theme of being desperate is the main melody of the novel. Various social reasons force the poor and helpless people into a dilemma.
An excerpt from the novel: Occasionally, I come across a touching and religious myth, where God and angels show indifference to human suffering, leaving the protagonist with a sense of inexplicable terror. When the earth is still filled with the cries, groans, and sighs of those seeking redemption, he refuses to enter God’s heaven: One day, an angel or a six-winged angel places me on his wings, wanting to take me to the heavenly kingdom in the gospel to meet the "Creator." I feel myself flying above the earth, higher and higher. I hear long and sorrowful voices drifting from the earth toward me, like a monotonous chant from a mountain stream echoing through silent peaks. But now I recognize the human voice: it is a cry mixed with pleas, interspersed with groans that are prayers, sighs from dying chests, all merging into a powerful sound, a symphony so heart-wrenching that it fills me with compassion. I feel the sky darkening, I can no longer see the sun or the joy of the universe. I turn to the angel beside me and say, "Have you not heard?" The angel, with a calm and bright face, looks at me. He says, "This is the prayer of people from the earth to God." As he says this, his white wings shimmer in the sunlight; to me, they seem black and filled with terror. "If I were that God, I would cry until my eyes are dry," I exclaim, truly feeling as if I were crying like a child. I let go of the angel’s hand and fall to the ground. I feel that I have too much compassion to live in heaven.
There is a great Russian writer who is always listening to the groans of the earth—he is Dostoevsky. He is concerned with the humble circumstances and terrible fate of the "poor," filled with compassion for the "injured and humiliated." The "I" in the story reminds one of a similar figure in Dostoevsky’s work—the Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov, who pours out the innumerable suffering of humanity and the horrific abuse and torment endured by women and children. He believes that if everyone, including innocent children, must "atone" for their sins, exchanging such suffering for future harmony, then the price of harmony is too high, and we cannot afford the cost to enter that state. Therefore, he urgently wants to return his ticket. He explains, "I do not want harmony; it is out of love for humanity." Indeed, he too is "too compassionate," and thus cannot accept God’s world or live in heaven. Because what he seeks is not ten percent or ninety percent, but the happiness of all, a harmonious world without the tears and groans of the weak.
The Austrian writer Zweig keenly noticed this creative characteristic of Dostoevsky and gave him a warm affirmation in his book The Three Masters. The psychologist Freud once wrote to Zweig, thanking him for lending him The Three Masters, and in the letter, he gave Zweig due praise, calling him an interpreter of the artist Dostoevsky. The Three Masters (1820) is a famous biographical work by Zweig, chronicling the lives of three literary masters: Balzac, Dickens, and Dostoevsky. He wrote in the book, "Let us look around us—on the streets, in the shops, in lowly houses and bright halls—what are these people thinking? They want to be happy, content, wealthy, and powerful. Among Dostoevsky’s protagonists, who seeks these things? Not one. They do not want to stay anywhere, not even in happiness. They are always moving forward. They have no desire for this world!"
Crime and Punishment is a profound and realistic work by Dostoevsky. With a sharp pen, he mercilesslys the social reality of Russia at that time, deeply touching every corner of the lower strata, making one feel suffocated—the theme of being desperate is the main melody of the novel. Various social reasons force the poor and helpless people into a dilemma. Marmeladov, in a tavern, tells a young stranger the cruelty of life, lamenting, "Do you know, sir, do you know what it is like to be desperate? It is such a situation!" He cannot help but cry out in despair, "Let everyone have a way forward!" Besides this nine-grade official, Kateryna Ivanovna, Sonya, Dunya, and Raskolnikov are all desperate. The university student Raskolnikov, "choked with poverty," drops out of school because he cannot afford tuition. Dunya, the sister of his beloved brother, accepts the marriage proposal of the wealthy lawyer Luzhin, whom she does not love, for her brother’s education and future. Raskolnikov learns of this from his mother’s letter, which brings him great pain. "Almost from the moment he began to read the letter, his face was soaked with tears; but when he finished, his face was ashen, his face twisted in spasms, and a fleeting smile of pain, anger, and cruelty crossed his lips," he "pondered for a long time." He had no hesitation for a moment—he could not accept his sister’s sacrifice. At this point, he had already been planning something in his mind. After long hesitation and waiting, and thanks to a coincidence, he finally carried out his plan—killing the usurer Alyona Ivanovna, and unintentionally harming an innocent, her step-sister Liza Veta Ivanovna, who was often mistreated by her and accidentally stumbled upon the crime scene, also falling victim.
The day before this crime occurred, Raskolnikov overheard two students and a young officer discussing Alyona Ivanovna in a small tavern: "From the perspective of public interest, what is the meaning of this tubercular, foolish, and cruel old woman living in the world?" On the other hand, "the young new generation, because it is not helped, withers, and such people are countless everywhere!" Then, "if she is killed and her money taken, to use it later to serve all of humanity, to benefit the public—is this not a minor crime that accomplishes thousands of good deeds?" Raskolnikov is surprised because he had just had the same thought in his mind. Raskolnikov does not believe he has committed a crime. True, he killed a person. But "everyone kills, the world is bleeding now, and it has often bled before," those who kill without restraint are crowned kings and called saviors of humanity. In his view, people can be roughly divided into two types: the "ordinary" and the "extraordinary." The former must abide by existing laws and moral codes, following the rules. The latter has the right to transcend certain obstacles when necessary to practice their ideals, bound by existing laws and morality. The protagonist expresses his views in different moods and situations. He tells Sonya, "I tell you: I want to be Napoleon, that’s why I killed—you understand?" Before Sonya, he is willing to speak his mind: "Sonya, now I know, the clever and strong are their rulers. The bold are considered right. Those who hold disdain for many things are lawmakers. The bolder than everyone else is more correct! Only the blind cannot see!" Sonya understands, "This terrible belief is his belief and his law." In short, Dostoevsky creates the image of a superman and gives a strong critique of this character. Raskolnikov’s image and the idea of a superman who does as he pleases and is beyond good and evil are completely consistent. Over ten years later, Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra was published, in which he systematically expounded his philosophy of the superman.