Booklist 2009 # 48: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (trans. Constance Garnett)

Probably the hardest part of reading a Dostoevsky novel is all the names–the unfamiliar Russian names, the endless barrage of surnames and nicknames,  and the similarity of names (such as Petrovna and Petrovitch). Although entertaining, the novel drags out its central plot; the basic plot can be summarized as guy commits murder because of his warped philosophical beliefs, has a mental breakdown which causes him to confess details of his crime to friends and members of the police, bringing further suspicion upon him, but before the law can arrest him he decides to confess and repent his old ways, rejecting his former philosophy. In between this simple plot the novel focuses on, the main character and murderer, Raskolnikov’s psychological deterioration and turbulent mood-swing.  To fill-in the rest of its massive five hundred pages, the novel explores a plethora of sub-plots, such as the impending marriage of the main character’s sister with a man our protagonist rejects, the misfortunes of an alcoholic who brings his family to ruin, and other episodes that intertwine themselves with the central murder plot.

After suffering in impoverished conditions in the modern city of St. Petersburg, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, a former student at the university, decides to kill an old pawnbroker and steal her money. He believes in a theory of Great Men that convinces him that Napoleon, Alexander, and the like have the right to transgress traditional moral boundaries of the common herd. He believes he has the right to commit this murder because he, too, falls into the category of one of these Great Men. On the night of the murder, he not only kills the old woman, but also her idiotic younger sister. He escapes from the crime successfully, but as a consequence his mind degenerates into mental illness and paranoia. He continually fears people will discover his crime and often incriminates himself by telling the police details of his crime, obsessing over the murder, and even returning to the scene of the crime at one point.

His good-natured friend Razumhikin discovers the ill Raskolnikov and takes care of him, hiring a doctor and refusing to abandon him no matter how poorly Raskolnikov treats him. On top of all this, Raskolnikov has discovered that his sister, Avdotya (also known as Dunya) plans to marry the rich Pyotr Luzhin after a terrible incident working as a governess in the house of the lecherous Svidrigailov who tried to proposition Raskolnikov’s sister into an affair. Raskolnikov in his mentally ill state meets with Luzhin and insults him. Soon, Raskolnikov’s own family arrives as part of the wedding arrangements. Raskolnikov explains his objections to the wedding, and Dunya finally sees the true character of Luzhin during their final meeting. Razumhikin who is of great help to the family by watching out for Raskolnikov and negotiating the treacherous world of St. Petersburg falls in love with Dunya, but is too virtuous to tell her.

Raskolnikov soon finds himself entangled with the fortune of the Ivanonovna family after he gives away the last of his money to help with the funeral arrangements of Marmeladov, a drunken man who told him a few days earlier about his family’s degradation caused by his alcoholism. Marmeladov’s virtuous daughter, Sonya, has been forced into prostitution to make money for the family. Sonya grateful at Raskolnikov’s gift for her father’s funeral soon develops a relationship with him. Raskolnikov believes Sonya holds the key to his redemption and plans to confess his crime to her.  To complicate matters further, Dunya’s former employer, Svidrigailov arrives with the clandestine intentions of seducing Dunya. He takes an apartment beside Sonya’s, and one night when Raskolnikov finally confesses his crime to the girl, he overhears all the details. Svidrigailov taunts Raskolnikov with the knowledge of his murder, but when Dunya rejects his advances, after Svidrigailov almost rapes her, the man kills himself. With the police closing in on him because of all his inability to keep his mouth shut and his mind deteriorating from guilt and fear, Raskolnikov decides to confess his crime, goes to prison in Sibera, and repents his old philosophy of Great Men, replacing it with Christianity and the budding emotions of true love that he feels for Sonya who follows him to Siberia.

Raskolnikov is one of the most interesting characters in all of literature. Many I suspect will find his narcissism, misanthropy, alienation from the world, wild mood swings, and problematic moral philosophy difficult to sympathize with, but Dostoevsky softens his character through various incidents. One incident is a dream Raskolnikov has of a trip with his father to the countryside when he was younger where he tries to shield an injured horse from being tortured by his owner and a gang of drunken men. Another incident is all the moments he tries to help Marmeladov and his family. Razumikhin’s love of Raskolnikov also ameliorates the repugnant side of Raskolnikov, as well as the genuine love Raskolnikov bears for his family. Dostoevsky constructs a diverse character with a lot of different sides to him. Raskolnikov represents a soul corrupted by the new philosophies coming from outside Russian and the terrible conditions of poverty.  All these details set the reader up to believe that Raskolnikov could’ve been a virtuous soul, but that his poor conditions and misguided philosophies he learned in the university warped his thinking. Only through Christianity and genuine love of another human being at the end of the novel does Raskolnikov find redemption. He learns to love and appreciate the world again instead of hating and resenting it.

In stark contrast to Raskolnikov’s bitter narcism is Razumikhin’s friendly altruism. Razumikhin represents the virtuous soul and Aristotle’s “perfect” friendship (teleia philia), although it is a one-sided friendship with Razumikhin encouraging Raskolnikov to become more virtuous. Razumikhin cannot believe Raskolnikov actually committed murder and refuses to believe anything bad about his friend, always trying to protect him when possible. Razumikhin is the friend I think everyone wishes they had. He shows as well that the university ideas need not corrupt a person, suggesting that their is more to Raskolnikov’s deterioration than just his poverty and exposure to philosophical ideas, which functions as a subtle critique of socialism and other philosophies that believe social conditions are entirely to blame for crime. The sad part is that Raskolnikov could’ve been his moral equal. It is no surprise that he falls in love with Dunya. Raskolnikov’s sister is one of the few characters who can match Razumkhin’s virtue, yet at the same time, Dunya is a female version of Raskolnikov, strong-willed, insightful, intelligent, but not adulterated by the philosophies of St. Petersburg; she shows us what Raskolnikov could’ve been had he remained in the countryside, had he made different choices in his life.

As the flap of my book points out Dostoevsky “[a]nticipat[ed] by almost twenty years Friedrich Nietzsche’s concerns with power and the adequacy of Christian morality.” This is a strange comment because in the end, I think Dostoevsky sides with traditional Christianity morality as our best salvation from a cruel world. One of the main points of the book is to show the shortcomings of the new philosophies pervading Russian at the time; he does so in the most explicit way possible, by writing a story where one of those new philosophies leads a young student to commit murder and disregard the sanctity of life by naively fooling himself that it is for the larger social good. Dostoevsky rejects the crass materialism of nihilism and the social theories of Utilitarianism expressed by the likes of the powerful, immoral, and stupid Pyotr Luzhin. In a sense, capitalism and the rise of the bourgeoisie is condemned. Luzhin fantasizes about using his money to take advantage of poor women, in this case, Dunya and making them perpetually grateful for hand-outs. He is the living embodiment of the crass and vulgar bourgeoisie rising to riches through capitalism only to exploit the poor. At the same time, Dostoevsky doesn’t spare socialism. He pokes fun at socialism through a back and forth dialogue between Luzhin and the socialist Andrei Lebezyatnikov, revealing the many ideas of the socialist character, which Luzhin demolishes as silly and ridiculous, and I’m afraid the reader has to agree. Lebezyatnikov still proves himself to possess a moral conscience when he saves Sonya from Luzhin during Marmeldov’s funeral; the latter tries to frame her for stealing money from him. This suggests that Dostoevsky believes that socialism has its heart in the right place, but in actual practice is untenable as a system. No, it seems in the end that only Christianity, free will, and strong personal relationships (with friends and family) offers any hope of redemption for the characters.