“Crime and Punishment” is a famous work of Fyodor Dostoevsky. It was first published by the journal "Russian Herald" in 1866. The work is considered the first great novel in the period of the author’s already mature work. It is becoming popular not only among contemporaries. Today it is included in the school curriculum. Young readers are engaged in a thorough analysis of the actions of the main character and write an essay on the theme of Raskolnikov.
Why is the crime committed?
The story focuses on mental suffering and the moral dilemma that the main character Rodion Raskolnikov tried to solve. "Crime and Punishment" tells of an impoverished student who not only developed, but also executed a plan to kill an unscrupulous usurer because of her condition.
Raskolnikov claims that he can do good deeds with money from a pawnshop. To somehow justify the crime, the character argues that he saved the world from a useless parasite. Moreover, he commits murder in order to test his hypothesis that some people are not only able to do this, but even have the right to do so. Raskolnikov in the novel Crime and Punishment compares himself several times with Napoleon Bonaparte. Rodion believes that killing is permissible if it is committed in pursuit of a lofty goal.
The meaning of the work, or Theory of the protagonist
The novel "Crime and Punishment" is quite complicated. Strictly speaking, this work is a detective story. But one where the reader knows who killed, from the very beginning. There is no intrigue associated with the search for the killer. Here the solution to the crime has not a criminal, but philosophical and psychological meaning. The murder itself is not easy. It is rather theoretical.
What is the theory that Rodion Raskolnikov follows in the novel Crime and Punishment? There are two categories into which the human race is divided. Some people are great, leading all of humanity to the goal, implementing big plans and moving history forward. They can afford absolutely everything. Even a crime - in order to achieve their bright goals.
Other small and insignificant, unremarkable little people. Their life is not interesting to anyone and is not important. History mercilessly rams them into their own foundation. And then Raskolnikov asks the question of what category of people he himself, Rodion Romanovich, belongs to. Trying to answer him, the hero goes to the crime.
The sympathy of the reader and other characters of the work to Rodion
Is Raskolnikov in the crime and punishment novel a negative hero? Even when everyone knows that he is a murderer, he does not lose the favor of his loved ones: neither his mother, nor his sister, nor even Sonya. Rodion is not even deprived of readership. Despite his crime, he still appears as a pure soul.
This is a person who is very susceptible to the pain of the whole world, to social injustice. Rodion Romanovich is responsive. But the worst thing is that he is the theorist. His thought seems to suppress life itself, coming into conflict with it and even trying to impose on it some kind of its own scheme.
Charity, or Self-deception Mechanism
All events in the work "Crime and Punishment" take place on the threshold - on the verge of life and death, common sense and madness. This is one of the characteristic features of the poetics of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Very clearly, the novel describes the mechanism of self-deception. Raskolnikov after the crime tries to convince himself that he committed it in order to become a benefactor, to save his family, sister and mother.
In fact, he is deceiving himself. Rodion Romanovich committed this crime for himself in order to prove not only the likelihood of his theory, but also that he can do this, because he is not a “louse”, as Raskolnikov himself puts it. His quotes from the work are also filled with the meaning of the theory that the character so stubbornly embodies. But to understand the fallacy of Rodion’s opinion, it’s enough to consider, for example, Sonya, who is his antipode in the novel. She, too, crossed a certain line, but at the same time, the girl really sacrificed herself to others.
Rodion Raskolnikov. Crime and Punishment, or Falling Personality
Dostoevsky’s novel is a work about the fall and resurrection of a person. About the struggle in her soul of a false idea with a conscience. And conscience for Fedor Dostoevsky is the voice of God, a messenger of the highest meaning and truth. It would seem that such a thing is to kill a harmful old woman who is useless and evil to no one. But it turned out that, having killed her, Rodion Raskolnikov killed himself. He drove himself into a corner of solitude, isolation and loneliness.
And a way out is possible only on the way to overcoming a false idea. And the heroine of the novel Sonechka Marmeladova helps Rodion Romanovich in this . She is the bearer of the highest truth in this work. The truths of love, sacrifice and forgiveness. With its help, the identity of the murderer of Rodion Raskolnikov can be reborn.
Possible resurrection of the main character
The reader sees how Marmeladova and Raskolnikov in the novel "Crime and Punishment" are transferred to the banks of the great Siberian river. This happens at the end of the work. Already not stone Petersburg under the feet of the characters, but ordinary earth, soil. Around the greenery, forest and river. And this is very important. It is here that the resurrection of the hero is possible. But he has not yet repented.
The only thing Rodion Romanovich regrets is that he made a confession. The convicts feel this and hate him, but they love Sonya. Because for any Russian person, according to Fedor Dostoevsky, it is important to know that although he sinned, the very concept of sin does not refute. There is a supreme court. And Raskolnikov would like to cancel it. For this he was hated by convicts.
The cure of Rodion Romanovich with the help of Sonya
Further in the work follows Raskolnikov’s dream about an ulcer that swept the whole earth, about murders, that people cannot agree among themselves. And this is all a consequence of the idea of ​​Rodion Romanovich. In that case, if it covered the whole earth. It is after this dream that the main character begins to recover.
As Fedor Mikhailovich himself says, his heroes were resurrected by love. But the work remains open. The novel ends with words about a new story that is yet to come. The last word about the hero and the world is not said by the author. The text space remains open. Apparently, just as the fate of Dostoevsky himself was discovered.
History of writing a work
“Crime and Punishment” is a turning point for Fedor Mikhailovich both in his personal life and in literature. Dostoevsky conceived his novel in the summer of 1865. At that time, he lost most of his fortune, could not pay the bills, and even allow himself proper nutrition.
At that time, the author owed large sums of money to his creditors, but nevertheless at the same time tried to help the family of his brother Mikhail, who died at the beginning of the previous year. And it was at this difficult moment that Fyodor Mikhailovich met Anna Snitkina, who at first was his stenographer. And later she became the second wife.
Having married her, Dostoevsky goes abroad, fleeing from creditors. He also takes on the huge debts of his brother. They spend four years abroad, and all this time Fedor Mikhailovich continues to create his new works. Nevertheless, the novel "Crime and Punishment" can be considered the most fateful for the writer.