Crime And Punishment By Dostoevsky Essay, Research Paper
Literature’s MVP, Dostoevsky
If literature is a game, then Fyodor Dostoevsky is one of literature’s most
talented and respected players. All of Dostoevsky’s works are not only highly
regarded by his readers, but also scholars of literature. Sigmund Freud stated that
Dostoevsky’s place in literature is “…not far behind Shakespeare” (Freud 972). The
novel most commonly referred to as his masterpiece is Crime and Punishment. This
novel is written with such genius that practically anyone could enjoy it (anyone who
would be willing to read a five hundred page novel, that is). Dostoevsky uses many
devices to keep his reader’s attention. He uses the timeless intrigue of a detective
story but still produces an intellectually challenging novel. Crime and Punishment
can be read and enjoyed by the average reader, but also challenges the intellectually
superior reader by the use of psychological insights. Crime and Punishment’s
characters are filled with deep psychological and spiritual questions that haunt the
reader long after the story is read.
Janko Lavrin stated that Dostoevsky tapped into “…the most hidden recesses
of man’s soul and spirit, he was the first European novelist to explore the
unconscious and to annex it wholesale to modern literature…” (973-4). Victor
Terras elucidates one of the fundamental differences in the psychological
development of Dostoevsky’s characters and other nineteenth-century novelists’
characters:
They are developed centrifugally rather than centripitally. As the novel
progresses, the reader keeps discovering new character traits in a
Dostoevskian hero, and some of these traits will come quite
unexpected. As a result the character in question keeps growing fuller,
more complex, and more intriguing…Dostoevsky himself did not
believe in psychological determinism and insisted on the double-edged
nature of all psychological analysis. (Terras 28-29)
Fyodor Dostoevsky’s remarkable insight into the psychology of man is seen in the
development of Raskolnikov’s dream of the drunken peasants beating the old horse
to death. He dreams that he is back in his childhood and as he is walking with his
father, he sees a drunken peasant trying to make an old horse pull a heavy wagon
full of people. When the old horse is
angry and beats the horse to death. The dream is significant on several planes,
perhaps the most notable is that the dream is tied to Raskolnikov’s plan to murder
the pawnbroker. When Raskolnikov awakens, he wonders if he can actually “take
an axe, split her skull open, tread in the sticky blood and hide”(qtd. in Breger 23).
In the dream Raskolnikov is both the vicious peasant who kills the horse, and the
boy who feels great compassion for the horse. This “double-edged nature” as
Terras put it, is the type of psychology Dostoevsky used to make Raskolnikov really
appeal to Crime and Punishment’s readers.
Dostoevsky once wrote a letter to A.N. Maikov focused around a question
“with which I have been tormented, consciously or unconsciously all my life– that
is, the existence of God” (qtd. in Dirschel 59). In Dostoevsky’s writings “…the
fight for belief is accompanied by the most vigorous apology for unbelief. But for
this reason they are all the more poignant both as literature and as human
documents”(Lavrin 976). Dostoevsky’s personal struggle with the question of faith,
and also his own experience as a doubting believer, are manifested in the characters
he develops. A large number of Dostoevsky’s books, (including Crime and
Punishment), are written within the framework of a Christian doctrine; juxtaposing
characterizations of believers and non-believers such as Raskolnikov and Sonia; and
enforcing the ultimate good in developing a belief in Christ. Dostoevsky also uses
his characters to describe the mental suffering and questioning that realizing the
truth of Jesus Christ caused him. Dostoevsky projected his own inner turmoil and
his doubting faith into his characters to “…achieve a kind of catharsis…” and
perhaps prevent himself from going mad (Lavrin 974).
In the game of literary composition, Fyodor Dostoevsky is still one of the
most talented and respected players. His works are still highly regarded by all
readers, including literary critics and scholars. Dostoevesky’s masterpiece Crime
and Punishment is written with such propensity that anyone, from the average reader
to the superincumbent reader, can enjoy this novel. The psychological and spiritual
questions pondered by Crime and Punishment’s characters will haunt any reader
long after the novel has been read.