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Raskolnikov finally returns to his
own hovel where he broods all the
following day. Dostoyevsky paints a
desperate picture of destitution and
Raskolnikov’s isolation from society.
The author’s mastery of
psychological realism fully exposes
Raskolnikov’s inner deliberations
and machinations over how to act
on his thought, which is to commit
a crime (by killing the pawnbroker,
Alyona Ivanovna), and he draws the
reader tangibly and empathetically
close to Raskolnikov’s mind—the
mind of a murderer. We feel his
terror, and we experience the dirtystreets and depraved citizens of
St. Petersburg through his eyes. We
become witnesses as scenes are
played out in his mind, and we lie
beside him in his squalid home.
We, too, start to feel the awful sense
of the inevitability of the act, from
its imagined conception through
to its grim and bloody reality.
Just as Freud would later argue
that dreams enable understanding
of waking experience, Dostoyevsky
offers insights into his antihero’s
mind through his dreams. In one
dream, Raskolnikov witnesses
drunken peasants beating a horse
to death. Heavy with symbolism,
the dream foreshadows the crime
he is about to commit, but it is also
a reference to his desensitization to
atrocity, and to the loss of his free
will to act. Much later, he dreams
that microscopic bugs cause
insanity, dissent, and a propensity
to violence in humans—an allusion
to Raskolnikov’s state of mind.The shock of violence
The murder of Alyona Ivanovna
is portrayed with a powerfully
visceral actuality. Raskolnikov
clubs the old woman with an axe
until her skull is “broken and even
battered in on one side.” Over the
floor lies “a perfect pool of blood.”
The moments hang in chillingly
real tension as Raskolnikov unlocks
a wooden chest under the bed and
retrieves the riches of “bracelets,
chains, earrings, pins.” And the
scene is not complete. There are
more footsteps in the room where
Alyona Ivanovna lies. “Suddenly, he
jumped up, seized the axe and ran
out of the bedroom.” So ends the
first part of the novel.
Dostoyevsky presents several
potential motives for this crime,
the most prominent of which is
Raskolnikov’s perception of himself
as a “superman”—someone superiorCRIME AND PUNISHMENT
to others, above the law, who feels a
disgust for society and the mindless
behavior of the herds of “ordinary”
people. At one point, Raskolnikov
remarks that all great men have
been criminals, transgressing
ancient laws and shedding blood
if it were “of use to their cause.”
Dostoyevsky’s exposition of
this motive is thought to reflect
his anguish at the changes he
observed in Russian society—the
rise of materialism, the decline of
the old order, and the popularity
of selfish and nihilistic philosophies.
Raskolnikov’s crime, and his later
unraveling, serve as a caution to
those of Dostoyevsky’s compatriots
inclined to revolutionary change.Guilt and redemption
In the unfolding consequences of
the murder, we follow Raskolnikov
around the streets of St. Petersburg
in his desperation and fevered
delirium. He stumbles upon the
drunk, dying Marmeladov who has
been run over by a carriage and
horses, and is drawn closer to
Marmeladov’s daughter, Sonya,
who is left to support the family
alone. Raskolnikov meets PorfiryTsar Alexander II abolished serfdom
in Russia in 1861. The prostitutes found
in St. Petersburg’s seedy Haymarket
area, a haunt of Raskolnikov, were
predominantly desperate peasant girls.Raskolnikov recalls dreams he had
while delirious in the hospital. In one a
plague of microbes had infected people
and driven them insane, all convinced
that they “alone had the truth.”The really great men
must, I think, have great
sadness on earth.
Crime and
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