Jeffry Breitbach The Novel Paper #1

Jeffry Breitbach

The Novel - Paper #1

During this period of history the slavophiles thought the western idea of individualism went hand in hand with selfishness. This arose in the sense that they had a great amount of mutual responsibility before Russia started to become westernized, something slavophiles had wanted to preserve. Once westernization began slavophiles feared that people would worry more about themselves and their personal goals than their families and communities, values that had been so highly regarded before the westernization of Russia. Dostoevsky was a known slavophile, or at least a branch of slavophile called “Pochvennichestvo”, which he along with Konstantin Leontyev and Nikolay Danilevsky founded. He maintained that political parties ultimately led to social discord and he rejected the materialistic western European type culture that Russia had started to develop. Following Peter the Great’s travels to other European countries many things started to change in Russia. Education institutions started to arise; many foreigners were brought in and gave many responsibilities with great reward, and even the construction of new cities under a vast amount of western European influence. This caused a large amount of national debt to accrue. “The inflated paper money, the excessive taxation, the reliance on heavy popular drinking, and the absence of budgetary discipline: all these evils were symptoms of a state which was straining itself beyond what the resources of land and people would bear at the current level of technology.” (Hosking, 2001) This not only upset the people not wanting Russia to abandon its old ways, but left them despising change. Things like, “The government is consciously robbing the people, and then dividing up the spoils with the tax farmers and other who have participated in the crime.” (Hosking, 2001), were said often by people like Dostoevsky who were opposed to Russian changes, making it no surprise that he would go on to write a novel with an underlying them against the westernization of Russia. In spite of all this, it is true that Dostoevsky successfully used Rodion Raskolnikov to demonstrate the destructiveness of Western ideas in Russia.

The first reason that shows Dostoevsky successfully used Raskolnikov’s character to demonstrate the destructiveness of western ideas was his introduction of personality shifts, and the consequences that arose because of these shifts. The choice of world raskol is an interesting thing to start with meaning split. Being that Raskolnikov is fictional, Dostoevsky had the choice to make the name whatever he wanted and used this variation of the word split to convey a point. In this book the split of personalities proved to be not healthy and starting leading Raskolnikov towards insanity. During the changes in his personality from one subset to another his darkness seems to amply throughout time. At some point Rsakolnikov may go out and do a good deed, but then later in the story he would only continue to get darker and darker reverting to his frenzied alter ego. In the book Raskolnikov says, “a person comes to a certain limit and if you do not overstep it, you will be unhappy, but if you do overstep it perhaps you will be even more unhappy” (Dostoevsky, 1992). This connects to him wanting to step in and do something with his life. With his desire to get back into the university in hopes that he will someday be able to look after his mother in old age, it leaves him with a decision to make. If he does not kill the old pawn broker, Alyona Ivanovna, then he fears he will be running his family into the ground and never make it back to the university. At the same time he has realized that when he did decide to overstep the limit that it has caused his partial insanity, he now jumps between characters of his alter ego and has little control over his life and its outcomes, ultimately making him less happy in the end. Also there is a clear connection between the title of the book and the consequences of individualism. The title clears states the book for what it is, Crime & Punishment. Crime refers to the attempt to follow the western ideology of individualism. Raskolnikov fails in the book to realize when to revert to his family, demonstrating consequently the social and personal punishments that follow when people act individually. Raskolnikov has everlasting self-righteousness; he doesn’t know when to turn back inevitably showing the flaws of western ideology and how it can be detrimental to Russia. Also on Raskolnikov’s road to repentance and acceptance of his crime he thinks that Sonya has three options, “she can change into a hardened and corrupted person, she can commit suicide, or she can go crazy” (Dostoevsky, 1992). This relates to the struggles that Raskolnikov continues to feel during his endeavors of individualism. He likely thinks many of the same things about himself and his options since taking the individualistic approach and wonders if he can live like this forever.

The second reason that shows how Dostoevsky used Raskolnikov’s character to demonstrate the destructiveness of western ideas was through his use of character connections. Characters like Svidrigaylov, Marmeladov, and Luzhin all demonstrate ways that Dostoevsky used character connections to show the destructiveness of western ideology. Dostoevsky finds connections between all three of these characters and Raskolnikov throughout the book and many times makes it quite obvious. First we will begin to talk about the connections between Raskolnikov and Marmeladov, the first character with similarities introduced in the book. Both appear to have members of their family that love them and are working towards their benefit. Although Dunya and Sonya are helping Raskolnikov and Marmeladov in different ways there can most definitely be parallels made between selling sex for money, and your marriage for money. In both cases, Marmeladov and Raskolnikov are dependent at some point on assistance from these girls, ultimately stemming from their individualistic selfish tendencies. Marmeladov’s selfishness resulting from his drinking problem, while Raskolnikov’s results from his lack of motivation. The next connection that will be made is the connection between Luzhin and Raskolnikov. Although this is the least obvious it does appear in one small instance in the book. After we have discovered Luzhin to be one of the antagonists of the book from accusing Sonya of stealing, and his frugalness to his future mother-in-law and bride to be when traveling, we can make connections of their individualism. Also connections can be made between their professionalism. After the mother hears Raskolnikov speak in a business manner this connection becomes more clear, as well the connections between the similarities in professions of the two. Lastly after repeatedly receiving bad vibes from Svidrigaylov this is the most obvious and most recurrent of all the connections that can be made to Raskolnikov. The main connection can be made in their interactions with each pawn broker and the accompanying agony that happens to each of the younger women associated with the pawn brokers. After Svidrigaylov proclaims their similarities Raskolnikov can do nothing but refute his statement. He does not want to associate himself with a man as bad as Svidrigaylov, but in comparison they both do possess a bit of craziness. Svidrigaylov reveals this to Raskolnikov, but Raskolnikov fails to see the connection between his rapid changing multiple personalities and Svidrigaylov’s issues. With the connections that can be made it is unclear to as if Raskolnikov would have ever made any rash decisions such as Svidrigaylov’s to commit suicide, but it is evident that they both were undergoing mental problems and emcompassed a sense of self-righteousness. Raskolnikov’s coming from his theory of extraordinary and ordinary people, thinking he had the right to kill other human beings, and Svidrigaylov’s from his need to get his way in all situations, sabotaging whatever he need to along the way.

The final way that Dostoevsky shows destructiveness of western ideas through Raskolnikov is by the way he has Raskolnikov continually hurt the beloved characters of the story that are in support of him. Dostoevsky has made characters such as Sonya, Dunya, and Lizaveta clear cases of sympathy. This opposes the idea of westernization because throughout the story Rsakolnikov is hurting the truly good people of Russia, in this case his family and friends. Raskolnikov obviously represents the idea of abandoning mutual responsibility and his family and adopting individualism many times during the story. For example this is done when he abandons his family and says to never return. This is a way for Dostoevsky to show the harms of westernization and the destructiveness individualism can cause to families. Dostoevsky also shows the harms of individualism by the sociopathic personality he gives Raskolnikov at times during the story. Raskolnikov shows movement from what seems to once have been a family oriented, mutually responsible member of the family, to someone who “hates” his mother and sister. He begins to realize, “They even love as though they hate.... Oh, how I... hate them all!” (Dostoevsky, 1992). This statement shows that he loves his mother and sister when they are not around but hates when they are, a true indication of his transition to individualism. Other instances of individualism can be seen when he announces that he never actually loved his recently deceased fiancé. Dostoevsky does this in opposition of the view of western ideas to demonstrate the harmful effect individualism can have on Russians. Also Raskolnikov is eventually feared by his mother and sister, showing the symbolic representation between the mutual responsibilities of the slavophilic ways that eventually transform into the individualistic ways of westernized ideas. This demonstrates how Raskolnikov is harming his family when his family says things like, “little did I think that I should ever fear seeing him” (Dostoevsky, 1992), and when Dunya denounces him directly to his face. Being that Raskolnikov is the main character we constantly long for him to make the right decisions and are always looking out for his best interests. But it isn’t until the end of the story where he is taken to jail, given a light sentence, and happily in contact with Sonya that we are happy with the conclusion. If the Epilogue was not on the story it would not have seemed to have a happy ending, and finally for that reason we are content with the way the story ended after the epilogue. With Raskolnikov’s good attributes being brought to light and it being evident that he will have a chance at freedom again we are happy because of the way we expect him to act post prison life. We expect him to turn around go back to his family, or at least the ones remaining, and support them. This signifies that he would be going against his ways of individualism and returning to the slavophilic way of life where mutual responsibility trumps individualism. This is the true reason why the story can be seen to have somewhat of an open, but happy ending.

With this being said, along with all the changes of the time it makes sense that the movement to individualism and westernization would be frustrating for Dostoevsky as well as other Russians. With such a dense amount of foreigners in positions of power at the time, and famous quotes like, “Sire, I request to be promoted to the rank of German”, (Hosking, 2001) when something was done well by a Russian soldier it shows that the new system of westernization took away many of the powers of native Russians. Rightfully so, Dostoevsky being opposed to Russian westernization and its switch to materialism, he would use discrete symbols in his novel to show western ideas destructiveness through the protagonist character of Rodion Raskolnikov.

Works Cited

Dostoevsky, F. (1992). Crime and Punishment. New York: Vintage Books.

Hosking, G. (2001). Russia: People and Empire. US: Library of Congress Catalog.