Crime and Punishment - Sin and Redemption. Review on Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Crime and Punishment - Sin and Redemption.

But that is the beginning of the new story, the story of the gradual renewal of a man, of his gradual regeneration, of his slow progress from one world to another, of how he learned to know a hitherto undreamed of reality. {Epilogue}.

A complex gripping novel,existential in character, a novel which has to be read more than once to be understood.This is the story (giving you the outline)Raskolnikov wants to murder a pawnbroker- in between Raskolnikov meets a drunkard(Marmeladov)- helps his impoverished family- he commits the murder-he falls ill (insane)- confesses - redeemed (Do Read the novel).Certain instances in the novel has to be mentioned:

Marmeladov's family is very poor, to survive he makes his daughter Sonia (Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladov)a prostitute and he thinks God will forgive her (for the sin is out of love) [note:Raskolnikov helps them).

Raskolnikov believes that extraordinary/superior men can breach the law, he sanctions ''bloodshed by conscience'' and also says Crime? What crime? Killing a foul, noxious louse, that old moneylender, no good to anybody, who sucked the life-blood of the poor, so vile that killing her ought to bring absolution for forty sins - was that a crime?(chp7 part 6).

Svidrigaïlov is a man who can commit sin without moral pangs- a man whom Raskolnikov wants to emulate- This man is fond of children(sexually).He loves Raskolnikov's sister Douniya and tries to seduce her but in the end leaves her free- after this he has a vision of having sex with a five year old girl- He shoots himself (Alas his love for Douniya was true and that was his salvation).

Raskolnikov first confesses to Sonia and later falls in love with her (the book ends thus).

Dostoevsky anlayses Sin,Fate,Redemption,Ego and Suffering. Life is what one chooses- this is what existentialism is all about.Dostoevsky was influenced by Sartre who believes one chooses before one acts. Raskolnikov chose to kill inspite of something forbidding him to do so. In a way he chooses insanity for he desires illness- he has visions,dreams and also a habit of thinking abstract.He is basically good but there must be a volcanic eruption for the transformation to take place. Mind constantly chooses, in some it becomes restless and when it becomes restless, it needs an eruption - the eruption begins here in raskolnikov's act of murder and ends in his confession.

Tragedy in itself is conquering pessimism as Nietzsche(German Philosopher) said. One confronts what one fears,like Raskolnikov. But Dostoevsky does not provide a distinction between Fate and Will(free)-It is for the reader to decide- according to me Dostoevsky does not distinguish Fate and Will. Raskolnikov's Will to murder is his Fate(for he chooses).Raskolnikov is a complex psychological character wanting to do something-he wants to commit a murder not out of personal revenge but because he feels that pawnbroker loots the poor(for so he hears a conversation of some who speak of murdering the pawnbroker).

In Svidrigaïlov Dostoevsky presents Sin personified -alas in the end he shows him as a human being who is capable of love.Think of the evolution of the world- it is a mystery or even if known -where do we hide our faces? (Punishment is transformation).

The Process of evolution is on and on and on.How many more murders until we evolve.(They sometimes become inevitable for some). Raskolnikov evolved, so Hope we all will.

In Reverence to Dostoevsky