The epilogue of the work “Crime and Punishment” reveals the events that occurred after the trial and sentence. The author of the novel describes the internal state of the offender, which changes throughout the whole story. Particular emphasis is placed on the gradual change in relations between Raskolnikov and Sonya Marmeladova. Spiritual degeneration or spiritual rebirth - what awaits the criminal in custody?
Raskolnikov in prison
At the trial, circumstances mitigating Raskolnikov's guilt were taken into account. Such circumstances served as a sincere confession, and some episodes from his past, which testified to the fact that he is not an inveterate villain.
For example, during his studies, he spent the last money on caring for a fellow student suffering from consumption. Subsequently, he transferred his concerns to the father of the deceased comrade and even buried him at his own expense.
At the risk of life, he saved young children during a fire and received severe burns. The court did not see self-interest in his crime, because he did not use the money stolen from the old woman. Immediately after the crime, in order to get rid of terrible thoughts, he hid them under a stone, without even asking how much money was in the wallet of the murdered percent-girl.
Given all these circumstances, the court considered that at the time of the crime the defendant was in a state of temporary insanity. He received a sentence - 8 years of hard labor.
The inner state of the hero
Having spent almost a year and a half in prison, he was in a state of hopeless apathy and indifference to everything that surrounded him.
His indifference extended to himself. He did not care what he eats, what he drinks, he did not show any interest in his fellow sufferers, he even shunned them.
Fully aware of what happened to him, he no longer saw in life any hopes and prospects for the future. Therefore, he treated his own situation without emotion, observing himself from the side, like someone outsider.
During this time, the mother of Raskolnikov died in Petersburg, never knowing what really happened to her son. Anticipating something was amiss, she was constantly waiting for news from her son, but she was assured that he had gone abroad for a long time.
My sister married Razumikhin, who later planned to move closer to the place where Raskolnikov was serving his sentence.
Sonechka Marmeladova, having inherited his money after Svidrigailov’s death, followed her lover. She settled in the city where the prison for prisoners was located, and began to visit Raskolnikov.
Sonya and Raskolnikov
At first he, not wanting to harbor any more illusions about his position, was cold and even arrogant about Sonya's visits. They annoyed him and seemed unnecessary and annoying.
But when Sonya for some reason could not visit him, Raskolnikov began to feel emptiness and vague longing. An analysis of the epilogue “Crimes and Punishments” shows well the change in Raskolnikov’s attitude towards Sonechka.
Due to the state of detachment in which Raskolnikov was in prison, much passed his attention. Over time, he clearly understood that the convicts, one of whom was himself, did not at all consider him to be “his”.
The prisoners, on the contrary, eschewed him, were afraid, called atheist. As a result, their attitude towards him resulted in unconscious hatred, which almost ended in the death of Raskolnikov.
Convicts and Sonya
The prisoners loved Sonya, but they themselves were not quite aware of what it was for. They liked everything in her, from a gentle smile and ending with a small growth and a slim physique.
Meanwhile, Sonya could not do anything especially valuable for them; she could not help them with money or products. But the convicts loved her for something completely different, because in their position they were valued more than food and clothing.
Sonya in the convicts did not see the pariah of society, outcasts and perished for the world. In each of them she saw a man - God's creation, worthy of love, compassion and understanding. She for many of them became a close person.
Relatives and wives of the prisoners left her parcels for delivery to their husbands and brothers. For those prisoners who did not know the letter, Sonya helped write letters home. An analysis of the epilogue “Crimes and Punishments” gives us the opportunity to see a kind, responsive soul in a small and thin creature.
Understanding the gravity and meaninglessness of the crime committed, repenting of his own pride and "Napoleonic" ambitions would have brought him comfort.
He longed for this repentance, because then all his torment in the prison would have made sense. He wanted to come to understand that he had committed a terrible act, stepped over all spiritual and moral prohibitions and suffered a well-deserved punishment for this.
But, alas, this understanding did not come to him and made existence unbearable. The only thing he regretted and reproached himself for was that he could not bear the burden of guilt for the crime and came to the investigator with confession.
Crucial moment
Constant nervous tension gradually provoked the development of a mental illness in him. Once, in a sickly delirium, he saw a dream that frightened him and shifted something in his mind.
In that dream, people who considered themselves the bearers of overvalued ideas went crazy and died. Only a few survived, those who were not infected with this terrible virus. The world rolled into the abyss, and there was no salvation to anyone.
The role of the epilogue “Crime and Punishment” can hardly be overestimated after describing such an allegorical dream in which the world splits into sinners and the righteous.
Having recovered and returned to work, Raskolnikov finds out that Sonya is now sick, and this caused him anxiety and panic. He begins to vaguely realize that Sonya is that invisible thread that still connects his world plunged into darkness with the human principle. He understands that, having lost her, he will completely and forever lose and ruin himself.
They meet after Sonya’s illness, and then Raskolnikov for the first time takes her hand in his own and cannot let go. An incomprehensible impulse makes him in tears rush to Sonya's knees.
Sonya, frightened by such a manifestation of feelings, was shocked at the first instant. But almost immediately, a happy realization came to her that Raskolnikov loved her endlessly.
Analysis of the epilogue “Crime and Punishment” makes us believe that now the fate of these people is woven into one. And ahead of them is a difficult but joyful path to resurrection in a new life.
The origins of the crime
The theory in Crime and Punishment was expressed by Raskolnikov through an article that he wrote under the influence of his environment.
Being essentially a true humanist, sensitive to any injustice, he is very worried about everything that he witnesses.
Extreme poverty, a miserable gloomy closet in which he feels buried alive, lack of friendly support and work that would somehow support his existence. All this gradually immerses him in the dark world of his own illusions and ideas.
Petersburg with its stuffiness, dust and stench smothers him like a bag thrown over his head. On the streets of the city he faces the social “bottom” of society: the poor, drunkards, mentally unhealthy people, parents crushed by poverty, unhappy disadvantaged children.
The thought of an unfair world order does not give him rest, drives him crazy, gives rise to despair and misunderstanding in the soul. The deepest line that lies between the rich and the poor is so insurmountable that Raskolnikov cannot come to terms with these terrible realities. He is ready to help all of humanity stop suffering even at the cost of his own well-being.
Theory in "Crime and Punishment" from the mouth of a hero
Involuntarily at the epicenter of human suffering, with all his heart sympathizing with the oppressed and destitute, he comes to a concept that frightens its essence, idea.
In his article, he develops the idea of ​​two opposite types of people. Raskolnikov divides them into “ordinary” people and those who are not afraid to say a “new word” in the prevailing social world order.
His idea is based on the “Napoleonic” complex and states that great people, ingenious loners stand above human court and human laws. For the sake of a good goal, a person should not limit himself in the means of achieving it. Raising himself above human morality, he puts forward a crazy statement. Its essence is that even a crime is not considered such if it is aimed at achieving a higher goal.
Having identified himself as “extraordinary” people and being influenced by his idea, he conceived the murder of an old percent-centric woman. The life of a greedy old woman has no value in his eyes, but with his money he plans to do a lot of good for all those in need. The thought of pulling his family out of the quagmire of poverty is fueling his decision.
Life after the crime
After committing the murder of an old woman and her sister, recognizing all his actions are correct, the offender discovers that he is no longer able to live the life of an ordinary person. Having overcome the line that separates good from evil, he condemns himself to unbearable moral suffering. He comes to understand that, having committed violence, he automatically ranked himself in the same category of society that he hated so much. He himself became one who can inflict evil on the weaker and defenseless with impunity. An analysis of the epilogue of Crime and Punishment makes one realize how low the one who dreamed of flying so high fell.
Crossing the forbidden line, he painfully realizes that he broke himself as a person. Raskolnikov begins to realize that the violence he committed against two sisters, in the first place, he committed over his inner nature and morality.
It is this - moral suicide and the inability to get involved in a familiar life - that drives him crazy. He cannot get rid of the feeling of perfect isolation from the "ordinary" world of people. Crime and punishment are problems that do not leave him alone day or night.
He understands that by killing the old woman, he did not solve any world problems. Without repenting of the perfect, he is simply tormented by the realization of the senselessness of the crime. After all, it so happened that if he somehow changed the world, then only his own.
He himself turned his world from light to the pitch darkness, in which he will now have to live. Not freeing a single person from the shackles of poverty and despair, he at the same time plunged himself into the very heart of darkness. A hostage to his own idea, he turned into a living dead.
“Crime and Punishment” is a story about how easy it is to lose your soul, and at the cost of what a great feat a person is able to find himself again.
Epilogue Analysis: Crime and Punishment
The epilogue can clarify much in the personality of the writer. Dostoyevsky’s idea of ​​creating a “psychological novel” came at a time when he himself was serving hard labor and was under the influence of the Christian concept that only love and forgiveness will save the world. Crime and punishment are the problems of society.
What did the author want to invest in the epilogue of the novel Crime and Punishment? Why is Raskolnikov reborn to a new life? What gives this impetus? Is it just a nightmare about the virus of madness that struck people, which pushed him to fall into Sonya’s knees?
No, the rebirth of the hero began from the very beginning of the novel. It was born both in those 13 days that he dreamed of murder, and in those one and a half years, which he spent in mental throwings in prison. All this time, the soul of Raskolnikov, like a lost child, rushed about in search of a way out of the maze of black, asphyxiating thoughts and ideas.
And then there was the next push - the death of the mother. And then the scene in the church, terrible in its essence and unnatural for the supporters of Christianity. The church is a holy place where, by definition, one cannot even raise a hand against an inveterate killer. But after all, it was in the church that “brothers - convicts” were ready to kill Raskolnikov, without realizing to themselves that this man had done such a bad thing to them.
Faced with the death of his mother, looking in the face of his own death and panicky fearing the death of Sonya, who was suddenly ill, Rodion begins to change in his soul.
Analysis of the epilogue “Crimes and Punishments” makes it clear that the process of rebirth ripens somewhere in the recesses of his soul. It ripens for a long time and is difficult, imperceptible to himself. And then in an instant enlightenment takes place: he, crying, rushes to his knees in front of Sonya. And they are silent.
They only look at each other and understand that now everything bad is behind. Readers also understand that it was not Raskolnikov who made Sonia a supporter of his “dream,” but Sonia converted him to her faith.
It is not pride and contempt for the human race at the expense of self-exaltation, namely, the all-forgiving Christian love should ultimately transform the world. An analysis of the epilogue makes it possible to understand that a person without a signal beacon inside can very easily turn aside gloomy, fall under the influence of evil forces.
But the beacon that determines where light is and where darkness is God - the source of all-encompassing and all-forgiving love.
Dostoevsky. Crime and Punishment: Epilogue
Crime and punishment is the meaning of the work. There is never one without the other. And Dostoevsky wanted to convey to the readers the idea that no one will condemn you for your crime more severely and mercilessly than your conscience. Even if you avoid punishment from people, then from the punishment of conscience not one of the most remote corners of the Universe will hide you.
The meaning of the epilogue “Crime and Punishment” is that no evil act can be committed in the name of good. Sonya, personifying Christian humility, selfless love for God and for people is opposed to Raskolnikov with his idea of ​​the non-jurisdiction of an “extraordinary” person.
His theory is refuted that a great goal aimed at a good cause can be accomplished by unworthy means.
Crime is not the worst. The worst thing is punishment. More specifically, self-punishment, self-destruction after a person breaks the laws of society and the laws of his own conscience. Man, crime and punishment are the three main keys of the novel. The most important key is punishment.
Therefore, in the novel only the first part is devoted to the crime itself. All the following are descriptions of the punishment that a criminal expects not so much from people as from a court of his own conscience.
The hero’s salvation is not his idea of ​​dividing people into “two groups,” but Sonya’s love, which “infects” him with his faith in God and that everyone is worthy of divine love.
The epilogue of the novel Crime and Punishment says that Sonya and Raskolnikov are now one and the same indivisible core. And together they will master the difficult road to renewal and happiness. “Crime and Punishment” is the story of a man who lost himself because of his own pride and rediscovered through love.