Crime and Punishment: Critical Analysis

Seminar

By Saiyed Farheen R

Introduction:

Russian novelist, journalist, short-story writer, whose psychological penetration into the human soul profoundly influenced the 20^th century novel. Dostoevsky’s novels have much autobiographical elements, but ultimately they deal with moral and philosophical questions. He presented interacting characters with contrasting views or ideas about freedom of choice, Socialism, atheisms, good and evil, happiness and so forth. Dostoevsky’s central obsession was God, whom his chracters constantly search through painful errors and humiliations. (Sachdeva 4)

“But you’re a poet, and I’m a simple mortal, and therefore I will say one must look at things from the simplest, most practical point of view. I, for one, have long since freed myself from all shackles, and even obligations. I only recognize obligations when I see I have something to gain by them. You Of course, can’t look at things like that, your legs are in fetters and your taste is morbid. You yearn for the ideal, for virtue. But, my dear friend, I am ready to recognize anything you tell me to, but what shall I do if I know for a fact that at the root of all human virtues lies the most intense egoism?”  (Prince Valkovsky in The Insulated and Humiliated, 1861). (Sachdeva 4)

Fyodor Dostoevsky was born in Moscow, as the second son of a staff doctor at the Hospital for the poor – later Dostoevsky’s father acquired an estate and serfs. Dostoevsky was educated at home and at a private school. With his pious mother he made annual pilgrimages to the monastery of the Trinity and Saint Sergei. Shortly after her death in 1837, he was sent to St. Petersburg, where he entered the Academy for military Engineers. Dostoevsky was commissioned as a 2^nd lieutenant in 1842 and next year’s he graduated as a War Ministry draftsman. He had no interest in military engineering but at the academy he could also study Russian and French literature. (Sachdeva 4-5)

Dostoevsky is considered one of the greatest writers in world literature. Best-known for his novels Prestupleniye I nakazaniye (1866; Crime and Punishment) and Bratya Karamazovy (1880; The Brothers Karamaxov), he attained profound philosophical and psychological insights which anticipated important developments in twentieth – century thought, including psychoanalysis and existentialism. In addition, Dostoevsky’s  powerful literary depictions of the human condition exerted a profound influence on modern writers, such as Franz Kafka, whose works further develop some of the Russian novelist’s themes. The writer’s own troubled life enabled him to portray with deep sympathy characters who are emotionally and spiritually downtrodden and who in many cases epitomize the traditional Christian conflict between the spirits. (Sachdeva 11)

Crime and Punishment: Critical Analysis

When Dosoevsky started work on Crime and Punishment in the summer of 1865 he was depressed and in serious financial straits. A recent gambling spree had depleted his savings, and he owed money for personal expenses as well as bills for Epokha, the journal he founded and had been forced to discontinue. Threatened with debtors’ prison, he was approched by an unscrupulous publisher who offered a ridiculously exploitative contract under which Dostoevsky signed over the copyrights to all his existing works and agreed to write a work of fiction by the end of the following year. For all this he was paid the sum of three thousand rubles, most of which was quickly swallowed up by promissory notes; what little remained was squandered at the gaming tables. Destitute once again, Dostoevsky forced himself to concentrate on his writing, and by that fall had conceived of the idea for a novel length work about a family ruined by alcohol. (Sachdeva 20)

The roots of Crime and Punishments can be found in various episodes in Dostoevsky’s life. His original idea, a murderer’s first-person confession, came to him during his prison term in Siberia- an experience that profoundly changed his political views and instilled in him a life-long respect for order and authority. There is also evidence that he conceived of the Marmaledov family as the basis for a novel to be titled “The Drunkards,” but which was never published. Finally, Dostoevsky was reacting to the political climate in St. Petersburg where the impulses of the revolution could be found in the nihilist and radical movements, which Dostoevsky abhorred. Regardless of its origins, Dostoevsky meant the novel to be as close to perfect as possible. He took extensive- now faous- notes regarding its structure, toying with different points of view, chracter, structure, and plot, and a variety of thematic strains. (Sachdeva 20-21)

The efforts paid off. Crime and Punishment is a superbly plotted, brilliant character study of a man who is at once an evryman and as remarkable as any chracter ever written. It poses a simple question, “Can evil means justify honourable  ends?” and answers it convincingly without didacticism or naivete. Dostoevsky intimates himself so closely with Roskolnikov’s consciousness, and describes his turmoil and angst so precisely and exhaustively, that it is easy to forget that the events take place over the course of a mere two weeks. He encourages us to identify with Raskolnikov: the painstaking descriptions of the student’s cramped, dingy quarters; the overpowering sights and sounds of a stifling afternoon on the streets of St. Petersburg; the excruciating tension of  Porfiry’s interrogation- all serve to place the reader at the heart of the  action: Raskolnikov’s fevered, tormented mind. (Sachdeva 21)

The murder itself is almost incidental to the novel; Dostoevsky devotes no more than a few pages to describing its execution, although he details the painful vacillations that precede the incident and, of course, expose every aspect of its aftermath. Similarly, Roskolnikov’s punishment, in the literal sense, is put off until the epilogue, with his sentence- reduced to seven years due to the accused’s apparent temporary insanity- to a siberian labour camp. (Sachdeva 21)

Thus Dostoevsky brilliantly invites readers to put forth their own notions of Crime and Punishments, and engages us in an irresistible debate: Who is the real criminal? Marmeladov, for abandoning his family? Luzhin for exploiting Dunya? Svidrigailov for murdering his wife? Sonya for prostituting herself? The greedy pawnbroker whom Roskolnikov murdered? Or, to turn the question around: Who among us is not a criminal? Who among us has not attempted to impose his or her will on the natural order? (Sachdeva 21-22)

Futhermore, we are made to understand that Roskolnikov’s true punishment is not the sentence imposed on him by the court of low, but that imposed on him by his own actions: the psychological and spiritual hell he has created for himself; the necessary sentence of isolation from his friends and family; the extreme wavering between wanting to confess his crime, and desperately hoping to get away with it. Compelled, ultimately, to confess his crime- and the confession scene is the only incident in which Roskolnikov actually admits to the crime- we feel that Roskolnikov has suuffered sufficiently. Indeed, the epilogue with its abbreviated pace and narrative distance feels like a reprieve for the reader as well as for the criminal. Finally, in Siberia, Roskolnikov has found space. (Sachdeva 22)

The public reception of Crime and Punishment was enthusiastic- if a little stunned. There was much discussion about the novel’s overwhelming power and rumors of people unable to finish it. Readers were shocked by Dostoevsky's gruesome descriptions and enthralled by his use of dramatic tension. Perhaps the most virulent, and unexpected, criticism came from readers who felt that Dostoevsky's portrait of the nihilist movement was an incident of Russian youth and that its premise was inconceivable. (Sachdeva 22)

For more than a century, critics have argued about the book's message: Is it apolitical novel? A tale of morality? A psychological study? A religious epic? As Peter McDuff  points out in his Introduction to the Penguin Classics edition, interpretation may be more revealing of the critic than of the text. Whatever Dostoevsky's purpose-political, moral, psychological, or religious-one thing is certain? In Raskolnikov, Dostoevsky has created a man who is singular yet universal. He is someone with whom we can sympathize, empathize, and pity, even if we cannot relate to his actions. He is a character we will remember forever, and whose story will echo throughout history. (Sachdeva 22-23)

The family was poor, but their descent from 17^th- century nobility entitled them to own land and serf. Dostoevsky's mother, Maria, was loving and religious; his father, Mikhail, tended toward alcoholism and violence, and his cruel behavior toward the peasants on their small estate resulted in his murder when Fyodor was eighteen years old.

Fyodor was the second of eight children. He was particularly close to his younger sister, Varvara, whose unfortunate marriage may have inspired Dostoevsky's portraits of both Dunya and Sonya. His older brother, Mikhail, shared Dostoevsky's literary and journalistic interests as well as his early social ideals. Together they attended secondary schools in Moscow, then the military academy in St. Petersburg, followed by service in the Russian army.   (Sachdeva 23)

 Dostoevsky broadened his education by reading extensively in an attempt to sharpen his literary skills. As a youth he read and admired writers of all nationalities, including Dickens, Hugo, and Zola, and imitated some of Russia's literary geniuses, particularly Gogol. He also began a tortured acquaintance with Turgenev, which was to continue throughout his life. (Sachdeva 23)

His first novel, Poor Folk, was published in 1846. This tale of a young clerk who falls haplessly in love with a woman he cannot possess led the literary lion Victor Belinsky to proclaim Dostoevsky as the next Gogol. Dostoevsky's entrance into St. Petersburg literary society had begun- but his celebrity status was quickly overshadowed by somewhat obnoxious behaviour. Eventually, Dostoevsky found another group to join, this time a circle of intellectual socialists run by Mikhail Petrashevsky. Given the reactionary climate of the time, the Petrashevsky group's revolutionary ideas were both exicting and dangerous, and, although Dostoevsky was far from being a revolutionary, his alignment with the faction brought him to the attention of the police. In 1849 he had the rest him to the Petrashevsky group were arrested for subversion. (Sachdeva 23)

Dostoevsky was imprisoned at the Peter and Payl Fortress where he and others were subject to a mock execution-an understandably traumatic experience which seems to have triggered an epileptic condition that would plague Dostoevsky throughout his life. He spent the next five years at hard labour in Siberia, where his acquaintance with the criminal community would provide him with the themes, plots, and characters that distinguish many of his greatest works, including Crime and Punishment. (Sachdeva 24)  

Dostoevsky returned to St. Petersburg in 1859. The next decade was filled with emotional and physical turmoil. In 1864 the deaths of his wife, Maria, and his beloved brother, Mikhail, deepened his debt and drove him to gambling. He embarked on a doomed affair with Apollinaria Suslova, who vacillated between admiring and despising him. He also witnessed the dissoulution of his literary journal and formed a disadvantageous relationship with an unscrupulous publisher. Yet the 1860s were also a period of great literary fervor, and in 1865, the publication of Crime and Punishment paved the way for a series of novels-including The Idiot, The Devils, and The Brothers Karamazov-that both reclaimed his position in Russia's pantheon of great living writers, and brought stability to his personal and financial affairs. He married his stenographer, Anna Grigorievna Snitkin, with whom he fathered four children, and established himself as a leading conservative who often spoke out against revolutionary activity.  (Sachdeva 24)

In June of 1880, Dostoevsky attended a celebration of the great novelist, Pushkin, during which he delivered a speech in praise of the writer. His words were met with great adulation, and the event marked what was perhaps the highest point of public approbation Dostoevsky would ever attain. Little more than six months later, on January 28, 1881, Dostoevsky died of a lung hemorrhage. His funeral, attended by nearly thirty thousand mourners, was a national event. (Sachdeva 24)

Moral Relativism in Crime and Punishment - Moral Relativism in Crime and Punishment At the close of Crime and Punishment, Raskolinkov is convicted of Murder and sentenced to seven years in Siberian prison. Yet even before the character was conceived, Fyodor Dostoevsky had already convicted Raskolinkov in his mind (Frank, Dostoevsky 101). Crime and Punishment is the final chapter in Dostoevsky's journey toward understanding the  forces that drive man to sin, suffering, and grace. Using ideas developed in Notes from Underground and episodes of his life recorded in Memoirs of the House of the Dead, Dostoevsky puts forth in Crime in Punishment a stern defense of natural law and an irrefutable volume of evidence condemning Raskolnikov's actions. (Crime and Punishment, web)

The History and Evolution of Punishment for Crime - The incarceration rate in the United States has continued to climb over the past twenty years making it one of the highest in the world. Police officers have been going to work trying to put away people who are breaking the law, but why do criminals continue to do so when they know they have a good chance of getting caught. Crime has been around since societies have evolved and every society has had their own way of dealing with criminal behavior. From early tribal times where the thinking was an eye for an eye, to medieval times when people who stole a loaf of bread would be put to death by being hung, and today with a court system that decides the fate of a criminal.  (Crime and Punishment, web)

Rationalizing Radicalism in "Crime and Punishment" vs. "Demons" by Dostoevsky - Crime and Punishment and Demons by Dostoevsky are two novels that are directly reflective of the time that he spent in exile. Crime and Punishment was a precursor to Demons and laid the foundation for the psychological novel that would characterize these and a later novel by Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky was made aware of the problems with Nihilistic ideas while he was exiled in Siberia. Crime and Punishment was Dostoevsky’s first attempt at a psychological analysis of a person’s inner struggles to rationalize this radicalism. (Crime and Punishment, web)

Egoism in Crime and Punishment - Egoism in Crime and Punishment An egocentric attitude can be seen in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. Dostoyevsky's young Raskolnikov is staggeringly arrogant. Raskolnikov commits a murder and a failed robbery in the story. His journey in overcoming his ego can be seen through his initial crime, denial of failure, and acceptance of mistakes. Raskolnikov commits his initial crime out of arrogance. "The old hag is nothing.... I killed not a human being," he says. (245) Raskolnikov feels that he has justification for killing the pawn broker. (Crime and Punishment, web)

Crime and Punishment in Great Expectations - Crime and Punishment in Great Expectations       Throughout Great Expectations, Charles Dickens's attitudes toward crime and punishment differ greatly from his real-life views. Dickens, according to Phillip Collins in Dickens and Crime, "had strong and conflicting feelings about criminals" (1), which explains why he was known to refer to criminals as both "irreclaimable wretches" and "creatures of neglect" (33). The author's contradictions toward crime stem from the fact that Dickens was constantly torn between his childhood memories of prison and poverty and the legal training he gained as an adult. (Crime and Punishment,web)  

Downfall and Salvation in Crime and Punishment - In the novel Crime and Punishment, the so-called "extraordinary man" theory plays an important role. Raskolnikov, downtrodden, and psychologically battered, believes himself to be exempt from the laws of ordinary men. It is this creedo that makes him believe he has the right to murder Alyona Ivanovna. In the nineteenth century, the extraordinary man theory was widely popular. There were two main schools of thought on the subject, the proponents of which were the philosophers Georg Hegel and Freiderich Neitzsche.   (Crime and Punishment, web)

A Nihilistic Analysis of Crime and Punishment - A Nihilistic Analysis of Crime and Punishment This paper provides an exhaustive analysis, from a Nihilistic perspective, of the novel, Crime and Punishment. The paper is divided into many sections, each with a self-explanatory title in capital letters, such as the section that immediately follows this sentence. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MARMELADOV'S RECOLLECTION SCENE Katerina Ivanovna must deal with a man who drinks his life away while his family starves. Marmeladov recounts their suffering by first describing his loss of a job. (Crime and Punishment)

Psychoanalysis in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment - Psychoanalysis in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment Analyzing the mind of a sociopath has been one of the most important tasks that psychoanalysts face today. The more they know and understand the complexities of the disturbed, the more they hope to find treatments and eventually a cure for the illness that they believe can cause the ultimate violent criminal. Perhaps Dostoevsky himself wanted to weigh in on the mind of the sociopath and the journey toward their violent lives. Due to his vivid description of Raskolnikov, Dostoevsky shows his readers first hand what a sociopath is like. (Crime and Punishment, web)  

Guilt, Suffering, Confession and Redemption in Crime and Punishment - Guilt, Suffering, Confession and Redemption in Crime and Punishment "You keep lying!" screamed Raskolnikov, no longer able to restrain himself. "You're lying, you damned clown!" And he flung himself on Porfiry, who retired to the doorway, but without a trace of panic. "I understand everything, everything!" He approached Porfiry. "You're lying and taunting me so Ill give myself away-" "You can't give yourself away any more than you have already, Rodion Romanovich, old man. Why, you've gone into a state. (Crime and Punishment, web)

19th Century Theories in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment - 19th Century Theories in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment "I teach you the Superman. Man is something that has to be surpassed. What have you done to surpass him?" These words said by Friedrich Nietzsche encompass the theories present in Dostoevsky's nineteenth century novel, Crime and Punishment. Fyodor Dostoevsky, living a life of suffering himself, created the character of Raskolnikov with the preconceptions of his own sorrowful and struggling life. Throughout his exile in Siberia from 1849-1859, his sentiments of suffering, sorrow, and the common man surfaced and heightened, inspiring him to begin writing Crime and Punishment in 1859. (Crime and Punishment, web)

Crime and Punishment as a Polyphonic Novel - The term 'polyphony' was introduced into literary theory by Mikhail Bakhtin in his Ïðîáëåìû ïîýòèêè Äîñòîåâñêîãî. The polyphonic novel is dialogic rather than monologic; this means that multiple voices can be heard, and each voice represents an alternative version of 'the truth'. (NB. The use of dialogue as a formal device does not make a novel polyphonic in the Bakhtinian sense; genuine polyphony entails a sense of ambivalence, a situation where the different voices compete with one another and represent alternative viewpoints between which the reader cannot make a straightforward choice.) In Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov is the main focalizer: his point of view is adopted by the third-person narrator almost throughout (exceptions include a small number of episodes involving Svidrigaylov, and the relatively impersonal first chapter of the the Epilogue.   (Crime and Punishment, web)

 Crime and Punishment - The novel Crime and Punishment occurs in the summer of 1865; a time when radical legal and social changes swept through Russia. The reforms of 1860’s and 1870’s were known as the Great Reforms because they affected every aspect of Russian life. With “an 1861 decree emancipating the serfs and [a] monumental reform of the court system in 1864,” the Russian society was still transitioning from an Estate-of-the-realm style toward a more just system focused on equality (Burnham 1227). The reformed penal system is not just under the modern sense of justice, yet it provided a far greater level of equality than the previous model, dominated by aristocrats and government officials.... (Literary Analysis, Robbins Jr.)

Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky’s theme of ordinary and extraordinary people is the basis of his work of literature, Crime and Punishment, which derives from his own life experiences. Crime and Punishment, is the story of a Russian man named Rodion Raskolnikov. Raskolnikov is an impoverished St. Petersburg habitant student who, “Determined to overreach his humanity and assert his untrammeled individual will commit two acts of murder and theft” (Dostoevsky). To try to amend his actions, he uses the money he steals from the murdered to perform good deeds.” (Crime and Punishment,web)  

Crime and Punishment - Napoleon, Caesar, Aristotle, Washington, Rockefeller. These men have been a part of history for thousands of years. They are remembered for their flaws and triumphs, for their personalities and actions. Whether for good or for evil, they are, and will be, remembered. But then the question arises, are these men special. Do they deserve the remembrance that has been given to them. Are these the men who should be our role models. These questions are a central theme of Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment....   (Classic Literature)

 Crime and Punishment - Crime and Punishment Crime for what, and punishment for whom. May happens in a park and maybe in a room. Maybe at night or afternoon, here or there or close to the moon. A man who makes a crime may be a tycoon or maybe just a vagrant without a small home. Now the problem is for what, for whom do a little vagrant or a tycoon want to be a prisoner or a dark moon. Making crimes comes as a result of many various things in life. The first and the greatest one is called money as the old expression that says “Money is the root of all evil”, As many people who are in need of money makes different types of crimes just to gain that money, however it’s coming through a wrong way....   (Social issues)

Works Cited

Crime and punishment, helpme, web.23 march, 2015.

Sachdeva, Mansi.Ed. Crime and Panishment.New Delhi: Anmol Publication PVT.LTD, 2009, Print.