Better Now Than Later: a Response to Crime and Punishment
Summary:
A critique of Fyodor Dostevsky's Crime and Punishment mainly focuses on the theme of guilt, and how that ends up overpowering Raskolnikov. Raskolnikov believed he had the best of intentions at the beginning, but as most extreme plans go, it turned into complete chaos.
There is an extraordinary aspect in Fyodor Dostevsky's Crime and Punishment that mirrors something my mother used to say to me as a child: "It's better if you tell me now rather than later." Of course, most times she said it was when I had done something bad, and she knew it, but wanted me to tell her myself. I believe that saying applies to this novel as well, albeit to a more serious degree. After the main character, Rasklonikov Romanovich, commits a horrible crime, the book really begins. Instead of a "murder novel" which has the revelation of the crime at the end, most of the events in the novel surround the different mental and psychological self-controversies that affect the killer after the crime.
Raskolnikov spends the majority of the novel trying to figure out how to get away with the murder of Alyona Ivanovna and her sister (Lizaveta Ivanovna), whom he quite brutally hacked with an axe. He wonders if anyone knows about what he did, and at the same time tries to keep himself together. Raskolnikov wonders .".. how many more difficulties there were still to be overcome and how many murders even he might still have to commit before he could get away from there and make his way home, he would most probably have left everything and would have gone to give himself up, and not because of any fear for himself, but in sheer horror and disgust of what he had done" (99). Before the murders, the main character distances himself from any thoughts that the pawnbroker, whom he planned to kill, had any real value in society. To Raskolnikov, the pawn broker was "a nasty, harmful, wicked louse, an old hag of a moneylender, a woman who was of no use to anybody, for whose murder a score of sins should be forgiven, a woman who made the life of the poor a hell on earth" (529).
It is because of this that he is convinces himself that his actions are just, but the more time he has to think about it, the more confused and mentally unstable he becomes. One repetitious sign of that lacking stability was when Raskolnikov would talk to himself. "I'm a louse first of all because I'm now arguing that I am a louse [...] because I made up my mind to carry out my plan according to all the rules of arithmetic... And, finally, I am a louse,' he added, grinding his teeth, 'because I myself am perhaps worse and nastier than the louse I killed, and I knew beforehand that I would say that to myself after killing her! Can anything in the world be compared with such a horror"'" (292). Raskolnikov has to learn the path to redemption, before he can overcome what he has done.
All that Raskolnikov wants is to help out other people who had been swindled by the pawnbroker. But those original intentions went out the door when the murders actually occurred. Instead, Raskolnikov practically forgot about the jewels and valuables he collected to help his neighborhood, and his entire life went towards keeping himself out of trouble and helping his family. Mind you, he did try to care for Marmeldov and his family, but his intentions were mostly about not getting caught, especially after the detective began showing up asking questions. Raskolnikov had intense feelings of helplessness and confusion when he realized "he would not ever be able to talk to anyone about anything" because he was accidentally hinting about his involvement in the murders every time he talked to his friends or family (246).
To add to that, the detective, Porfiry Petrovich, multiplies the insanity that is plaguing Raskolnikov. In one incident, when Rasklonikov is at the police station talking to Petrovich, Petrovich gives Rasklonikov the idea that he is onto what Raskolnikov did. "So why shouldn't I let my suspect run about the town for a bit [...] You see, if, for instance, I were to put him under lock and key a little too soon, I may, as it were, lend him some moral support by such action - ha, ha! You're laughing"" (353).
Raskolnikov's main motivation to kill the pawnbroker is actually fairly simple to understand. After hearing a student talk to an officer in a pub about "Kill[ing] her, take[ing] her money and with the help of it devot[ing] oneself to the service of humanity and the good of all", he took the person's idea and completely ran with it (84). Raskolnikov drove himself to madness after murdering the pawn broker and her sister because he had no one to confide his emotions in. Whether or not his loss of reason happened because of guilt or repulsion at himself, he ended up wanting to get caught and eventually turned himself in. "You see [...] I've come to the conclusion that this way will perhaps be more to my advantage [...] I'll be sent to prison..." (533-534). The same thing happens when a child just gives up while trying to get away with the stealing of a cookie. They know they are about to get caught and (most of the time) would rather turn themselves in than have another person force them to.
I remember an incident a couple of years ago, when I lived with my uncle and his family, that mirrored that exact facet of human nature. My cousin, who was seven at the time and slept with a stuffed rabbit, was treating me as if I was a second class citizen in his house. So, I came up with the brilliant idea to take the rabbit away, and hide it in a place that he would never look. Unfortunately, the entire house soon learned that the rabbit was the only thing that actually put my cousin into a state that was restful enough for sleep, which not only greatly affected him, but the rest of us. Therefore, no one was able to get to sleep very easily the next week and a half because Michael was crying every night about his lost "Hoppy Springer." But I stood my ground and refused to give up the whereabouts of that rabbit, even when my mother and uncle grilled me about any involvement I had in the rabbit's disappearance. Of course I felt guilty about it. Hearing my cousin cry every night wasn't any picnic, but at that point it was almost like telling the adults what I had done would have been worse than anything else, so I just would not do it.
Raskolnikov believed he had the best of intentions at the beginning, but as most extreme plans go, it turned into complete chaos. Unfortunately, that aspect of human nature is in all of us, and sometimes it comes through. Raskolnikov thought he was doing what was best for his fellow neighbors who had also been swindled by the pawnbroker, but he did not think his actions all the way through. I thought I was doing what was best for my cousin and myself, but I too did not think my actions all the way through. But, when someone realizes that their decision might not have been the best one, their mental anguish is much worse than if they were just to confess.
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