In the composition of the novel F.M. Dostoevsky's “Crime and Punishment” Raskolnikov’s dreams occupy a crucial place, being an integral part of the construction of the work. Dreams in the novel are a reflection of the hero’s inner world, his ideas, theories, thoughts hidden from his consciousness. This is an important component of the novel, which gives the reader the opportunity to penetrate Raskolnikov’s inner world , to understand the very essence of his soul.
Dreams in Psychology
Studying a person’s personality is a very delicate science, balancing between exact settings and philosophical conclusions. Psychology often operates with such mysterious and ambiguous categories as "consciousness", "unconscious", "psyche". Here, to explain a person’s actions, the dominant is his inner world, sometimes hidden even from the patient himself. He pushes his immoral thoughts and feelings deep inside, ashamed to admit them not only to others, but even to himself. This causes mental imbalance, contributes to the development of neurosis and hysteria.
Psychologists often use hypnosis or dreaming to unravel a person’s condition, the true causes of his moral suffering. It is a dream in psychology - this is an expression of the unconscious in the psyche of a person, his suppressed "I".
A dream as a method of psychoanalysis in a novel
Dostoevsky is a very subtle psychologist. It is as if he turns the souls of his heroes inside out in front of the reader. But he does this not explicitly, but gradually, as if drawing a picture in front of the viewer, in which everyone should see special patterns. In the work Crime and Punishment, sleep is a way of revealing Raskolnikov’s inner world, his feelings, emotions and thoughts. Therefore, it is so important to determine the content of Raskolnikov’s dreams, their semantic load. It is also necessary in order to understand both the novel itself and the personality of the hero.
Church and tavern
Throughout the work, Rodion Romanovich dreams five times. More precisely, three dreams and two half-delirium occurring on the verge of consciousness and unreality. Raskolnikov’s dreams, the brief content of which allows you to grasp the deep meaning of the work, allows the reader to feel the inner contradictions of the hero, his “heavy thoughts”. This happens in the case of the first dream, in which the hero’s struggle is going on to some extent. This is a very important point. This is a dream before the murder of the old percent-woman. It is necessary to focus on it. This is a system-forming episode, from which, like a stone launched into the water, waves diverge on each page of the novel.
Raskolnikov's first dream is a product of a painful imagination. He sees him in his "little room" after he met a drunken girl on the boulevard. The dream returns Rodion to a distant childhood when he lived in his hometown. Life there is so simple, ordinary and boring, that even on holidays nothing can dilute the "gray time". Moreover, Raskolnikov’s dream was portrayed by Dostoevsky in gloomy, repulsive colors. The contrast creates only the green dome of the church and the red and blue shirts that belong to drunken men.
In this dream, there are two places that are opposed to each other: a tavern and a church in a cemetery. The church in the cemetery is a certain symbol: as a person begins his life in the church, he ends it there. And the tavern, in turn, is associated with Rodion with anger, meanness, ossification, drunkenness, filth and depravity of its inhabitants. The fun of the inhabitants of the tavern, both in those around and in the smallest Rody, causes only fear and disgust.
And these two centers - the tavern and the church - are not by chance located at a small distance from each other. By this, Dostoevsky wants to say that a man, no matter how disgusting he may be, can at any moment end his low life and turn to the forgiving God. To do this, you just need to start a new, “pure” life, a life without sins.
Old children's nightmare
Let us turn now not to the symbols of this dream, but to Rodion himself, who in a dream plunged into the world of his childhood. He again experiences a nightmare, which he witnessed in early childhood: Rodion and his father go to the cemetery to visit the grave of a little brother who died at the age of 6 months. And their path ran through the tavern. At the tavern stood a draft horse, which was harnessed to a cart. A drunken horse owner came out of the tavern and began to invite his friends to ride in a cart. When the old horse did not budge, Mikola began to whip her with a whip, which he then replaced with a crowbar. After several blows, the horse dies, and Rodion, seeing this, rushes at him with his fists.
First sleep analysis
It is this dream in the novel Crime and Punishment that is the most important component of the whole novel. It allows readers to first see the murder. Only the murder is not conceived, but real. The first dream has a meaning that carries a huge semantic and symbolic load. It clearly demonstrates where the hero developed a sense of injustice. This feeling is a result of Rodion's quest and mental suffering.
Just one in the work “Crime and Punishment” Raskolnikov’s dream is a thousand-year experience of oppression and enslavement of people by each other. It reflects the cruelty that rules the world, and the incomparable longing for justice and humanity. This idea with striking skill and clarity F.M. Dostoevsky was able to show in such a short episode.
The second dream of Raskolnikov
It is interesting that after Raskolnikov saw his first dream, he no longer sees dreams, except for a vision that visited him before the murder - a desert in which there is an oasis with blue water (this is a symbol: blue - the color of hope, the color of purity). The fact that Raskolnikov decides to get drunk from the source suggests that not everything is lost. He can still abandon his “experience”, avoid this terrible experiment, which should confirm his extravagant theory that killing a “harmful” (bad, vile) person will certainly bring relief to society and make the life of good people better.
On the brink of the unconscious
In a febrile seizure, when the hero thinks little because of delirium, Raskolnikov sees how the landlady of his apartment is allegedly beaten by Ilya Petrovich. This episode, which occurred in the second part of the novel, cannot be singled out as a separate dream, since it is more “delirium and auditory hallucinations”. Although this to some extent suggests that the hero foresees that he will be a "renegade", an "outcast", i.e. on a subconscious level knows that punishment awaits him. But also, perhaps, this is a game of the subconscious, which speaks of the desire to destroy yet another “trembling creature” (the landlady of the apartment), which, like the old woman-interest-maker, is not worthy, according to his theory, to live.
Description of Raskolnikov's next dream
In the third part of the work, Rodion, who has already cracked down on Alena Ivanovna (also killing the innocent Lizaveta Ivanovna at the same time), has another dream, which gradually turns into delirium. Raskolnikov's next dream is like the first. This is a nightmare: the old interest-bearing woman is alive in a dream, and to futile attempts to kill herself she answers Raskolnikov with laughter, a laugh “sinister and unpleasant”. Raskolnikov is trying to kill her again, but the crowd’s hubbub, which is set up clearly unkindly and maliciously, does not allow him to do the job. Dostoevsky shows the torment and throwing of the protagonist.
Psychoanalysis of the author
This dream fully reflects the state of the hero, who was “broken”, as his experiment showed him that he was not able to cross human lives. The laughter of the old woman is a laugh at the fact that Raskolnikov turned out to be not “Napoleon”, who can easily juggle human destinies, but an insignificant and funny person. This is a kind of triumph of evil over Raskolnikov, who failed to destroy his conscience. Purely compositionally, this dream is a continuation and development of Raskolnikov's reflections on his theory, according to which he divided people into "creatures trembling" and those who "have the right." This inability to step over a person will lead Rodion to the line, to the possibility of “being reborn from the ashes” in the future.
Last dream
The last dream in the novel Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov’s dream is another peculiar half-wit-delirium, in which you need to look for hope for the possibility of the rebirth of the hero. This dream relieves Rodion from the doubts and searches that tormented him all the time after the murder. Raskolnikov’s last dream is a world that must disappear due to illness. It is as if there are spirits in this world that are endowed with the mind, who have a will that can subjugate people, making them puppets, possessed and crazy. Moreover, the puppets themselves, after infection, consider themselves truly smart and unshakable. Infected people kill each other, like spiders in a jar. After the third nightmare, Rodion is healed. He becomes morally, physically and psychologically free, healed. And he is ready to follow the advice of Porfiry Petrovich, ready to become a "sun." He thus approaches the threshold beyond which lies a new life.
In this dream, Raskolnikov looks at his theory with completely different eyes, now he sees that it is inhuman and regards it as already dangerous for the human race, for all mankind.
Healing
Thus , Raskolnikov rethought his whole life, drastically changing his worldview. The main achievement of Raskolnikov is his rejection of an untenable theory. His victory is that he was able to free himself from error. The hero gradually approached spiritual and moral perfection, i.e. a path has passed, though difficult, painful and filled with suffering, but nevertheless cleansing and spiritually regenerating. It is precisely Dostoevsky’s suffering that is the path to true happiness.
Final chord
The article presented Raskolnikov’s dreams briefly and concisely, but as accurately as possible, without losing important points. These dreams are very important in the content of the work. They, like a thread, connect events in the novel. It is the descriptions of dreams that help the reader concentrate extremely on the plot twists and turns, on the system of images that the author introduces. The dreams of the hero prepare the reader for subsequent scenes and are of great importance for understanding the basic ideas of the novel. They are also significant for the work in the artistic and visual sense.
In addition, dreams are very important because they help determine the psychological state of Rodion, his feelings and emotions. The author through the dreams of the protagonist conducts an important psychological analysis. Raskolnikov’s dream, in which he sees himself as a child, allows us to understand his mental well-being. He then tried to compare his aversion to killing a horse with the feelings of a real killing that he had in mind. Perhaps if he listened to his feelings, he could have avoided an internal schism, which became a terrible tragedy for him. In addition, the first dream clearly makes it clear to the reader that Raskolnikov is not a missing person, that he has inherent compassion and a desire to protect the weak. This allows you to look at the "vile killer" from a different angle.
Dreams in the novel have their own individual functions and moods in each particular episode of the novel, but their general purpose is unchanged. The meaning of Raskolnikov's dreams is to reveal the main idea of the work. The idea that tells us that every person is a value cannot be divided into "lice" and "useful." An idea that shows that no one has the “right” to decide human destinies. An idea that testifies to how painful conscience is.
Many writers used dreams in their works, but few were able to achieve what F.M. Dostoevsky. The way he subtly, deeply and at the same time vividly described with the help of sleep the psychological state of the character, affects not only the layman, but also true connoisseurs of literature.