Crime and Punishment: The Raskol’s Redemption

Crime and Punishment: The Raskol’s Redemption

“Crime and Punishment” is a novel written by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. The novel explores the existential anguish and moral confusion experienced by Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student. When he commits a double axe murder of a local pawnbroker and her sister, the novel charts his journey towards his eventual confession and redemption.

When Raskolnikov, also called Rodya, murders the despicable pawnbroker, he tries to justify it to himself with a number of vague, contradictory excuses, some of which he outright dismisses later in the novel. Near the end of the book, however, he has an outburst when he says to Sonya — his love interest —, that “I wanted to dare, and I killed.  I only wanted to dare, Sonia — and that's the whole reason!”  Feeling dejected, powerless, and anguished over the fruitlessness of his barren youth, Rodya was experiencing an existential crisis. To prove his worth to himself, he formulated a dichotomy between people, the ordinary who followed their leaders and their laws, and the extraordinary, who were leaders, and rather than accepting the laws of others, made laws themselves. His reason behind the murder, though not his reasoning, was that he wanted to prove to himself that he was an “extraordinary man”, or in other words, an ubermensch.

This is a variation of the Hegelian concept of the “extraordinary man”, who acts with the noblest of purposes, and if the ends are noble, then the means can be justified. For Hegel, who we can assume Dostoevsky was referencing, the ends were always more important than the means. Rodya’s concept of the “extraordinary man”, yet, is better defined by Friedrich Nietzsche in his book “Thus Spake Zarathustra” which would be published roughly 20 years later. For Nietzsche, the ideal man rose above conventional Christian morality to create and impose his own values using the power of their own will. The ideal man was also in possession of “the will to power”, the drive to achieve and attain the highest possible position in life. This philosophy is quite similar to Rodya’s, who thought that extraordinary man must be above mankind and not be concerned with what mankind will think of him, and through this sort of boldness, will forge a new world for the rest of society.

His philosophy, however, presents contradictions within himself. For one, he despises his sister Dunya’s ex-employer, Svidrigailov. He presents the very traits that would make Raskolnikov's ideal man: he flouts conventional morality, concern for others, and uses his will to take control of his own fate. Be that is it may, Svidrigailov’s values don’t go beyond depraved, malicious vulgarity and reckless pleasure-seeking, to the point that he rapes a blind, dumb girl, allegedly drives a servant to suicide and attempts to rape Dunya. With the situational irony of Raskolnikov's values, and disgust for and fear of a man who presents those values (albeit to an extreme extent), Dostoevsky demonstrates the contradictions in this philosophy. Luzhin, Dunya’s fiancee and a ruthless, manipulative capitalist, serves as a more moderate example of Raskolnikov's ideal man, yet he too receives his derision and disgust.

Dostoevsky makes it clear that Rodya is indeed in possession of strong moral faculties. He is constantly plagued by the guilt of his crime, to the extent that he immediately fell ill for several days from the mental trauma of his crime, and almost confesses on several occasions. When a local pauper dies, he gives what little money he has for his funeral. Upon finding out that his sister is going to sacrifice herself for her family by marrying Luzhin, he doesn’t hesitate to tell her not to. The cold, theorizing, “extraordinary man” aspect of him is clearly premeditated, and without the opportunity to premeditate, he automatically makes moral decisions with his warmer, conscientious side. In Freudian terms, Rodya acts from his superego by impulse. This quality of his, and the internal conflict which stems from it and paves the way to his eventual redemption.