Crime And Punishment By Dostoyevsky

Novel Term Paper on Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky

The psychological novel by Dostoyevsky opens by describing an impoverished Raskolnokov’s predicament. He sets out to pawn his items to Alyona Ivanovna whom he plots to murder. The next day he receives a letter from his mother, telling him of their situation and of his sister’s engagement. Raskolnikov sees this as a sacrifice for him and he also remembers the daughter of the man he met in a tavern and it dawns on him how passive he was realizing that he has no work and merely lives in a decent home. Soon afterwards, he falls asleep and dreams of watching a peasant beat an overburdened horse to death. When he awakes from his slumber, he then makes his first plot to murder Alyona Ivanovna.
During the first visit, he seeks the sympathy of the prostitute. The, he wonders how could she go on living despite her humiliating profession. Then he came to an answer that it might be religion. Thus, he asks her to read the Gospel and the story of Lazarus, the man who was restored from death to life. In his second visit, he professes his crime to Sonya though not through words. In a scene that uncannily recalls the original murder of the pawnbroker and Lizaveta, Raskolnikov looks into Sonya’s eyes, and she reacts with the same terror he had seen on Lizaveta’s face. In an instant, she perceives his guilt. Instead of turning away from him and displaying disgust and horror, she embraces him and shows how much she understands her sufferings. Her selfless acceptance of his suffering gives Raskolnikov new strength. He tells her that he committed the murder to find out whether he was someone special, someone with the right to step over conventional codes of behavior. He now asks her what to do. She tells him to go to the crossroads, kiss the earth, and make a public confession. God will then send him new life. Yet Raskolnikov is not ready to surrender, and he leaves her apartment in a renewed state of indecision. Unknown to Raskolnikov and Sonya, Svidrigailov was eavesdropping. He then blackmails them that if Sonya wouldn’t love him, he’d spill the beans about the crime of Raskolnikov.
It specifically shows that Russian literature is pessimistic, realistic and socially significant. Pessimism is displayed through the gritty and gray description of St. Petersburg and of the impoverished state of the characters. Didactic extremism is also seen when Raskolnikov has to learn all his life’s lessons by making a terrible crime and which ends him up in prison. He also experienced a lot of torture from his guilty conscience to be able to admit his crime, which in the end was able to give him emotional liberty through the love he felt for Sonya. With these statements and claims, Crime and Punishment definitely shows Russian temperament and views about punishment, forgiveness and