Of Dreams In Crime And Punishment, By Fyodor Dostoevsky

Raskolnikov goes psychotic. Svidrigailov commits suicide. In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, these two principle male characters experience dreams that are a result of their extreme guilt. The dreams portrayed in the novel reveal aspects of their subconscious selves. Nightmares are dreams that connect to the unconscious soul that cause a dreamer to wake with the profound feeling of loss of life or dismemberment with a sense of threat to his or her self-esteem and interpersonal security (Van de Castle 351). The significance of the central characters’, Raskolnikov and Svidrigailov, literal, waking, or sleeping dreams can be explored by examining their pasts and personalities that transformed them into the men they have become. In the novel, both waking and sleeping dreams have a
A guilty conscience contributes to the emotional and cognitive state one experiences when they have done something culpable or immoral. Commonly referred to as a ‘bothered conscience’, guilt sinks deep into our subconscious and manifests as anxious thoughts (Edward 3). Throughout the novel both characters portray their dreams as distressed emotions. Raskolnikov created the ‘Extraordinary Man’ in order to justify his killings, and Svidrigailov killed himself over his anxiety of his dreams. A person’s action and circumstances mediate between them and the emotion which locates differently between emotion and the major concepts that constitute these beliefs. As revealed by Sigmund Freud, guilt can be a powerful explanatory concept, to the idea of pairing guilt and shame (Deigh 427). If one has staked their identity on being a member of society and attributed their worth to the membership, the shortcoming they experience comes as a serious blow to their pride and