Raskolnikov: A Dual Or Split Personality

Raskolnikov: A Dual or Split Personality

Prior to this novel, Dostoevsky had used characters whose personalities were dual ones. However, it is not until this novel that he exposes the reader to a full study of the split personality. Raskolnikov's dual personality is the controlling idea behind the murder and behind his punishment. Raskolnikov is used as a representative of the modern young Russian intellectual whose fate is intricately bound up in the fate of Russia herself. Therefore, the story is a parable of the fate of a nihilistic and skeptical youth in nineteenth century Russia, a position once held by Dostoevsky himself, but he later rejected the revolutionary opinions and came to hate and fear them. Crime and Punishment was to be a vision of the ultimate error and moral sufferings of those who had so cut themselves off from established authority and morality that they lost all respect for human life. Therefore, the life and aims of Raskolnikov became in some ways the fate of the young Russian intellectuals.

But Dostoevsky loved Raskolnikov. Dostoevsky presents most of the story from Raskolnikov's viewpoint, and most of the actions and most of our views are seen through his eyes. Dostoevsky, as author, seldom leaves Raskolnikov except when, in some short scenes, his thesis demanded attention elsewhere.

The plot of the novel presents a double conflict, one external and one internal: the one conflict between the estranged individual and his hostile universe, the other a clash between an isolated soul and his ethical or aesthetic consciousness. Since the plot is a double conflict, the first general problem is to understand Raskolnikov's dual personality. There are several ways of seeing this. In its broadest view, Raskolnikov fluctuates between the ideas of complete self-will and power, and extreme meekness and self-submissiveness.

Actions in the novel that seem to be contradictory