The final wrapping up of CRIME AND PUNISHMENT:
Part Six, Chapters 3 & 4:
Porfiry and Sonia act as a sort of chorus urging Raskolnikov to confess to his sins. After his meeting with Porfiry, Raskolnikov is filled with a sort of moral exhaustion. He runs into Svidrigaylov with whom he has a strange and disturbing connection - Svidrigaylov is Raskolnikov's alter-ego. He expresses certain aspects of Raskolnikov's psyche. Despite all of Svidrigaylov's debauchery he is still a vital man, relatively unfazed by the horrors of his actions. This disparity of energy between Svidrigaylov and Raskolnikov points out once again that Raskolnikov is not an extraordinary man for he is emotionally and physically dissipated by guilt whereas Svidrigaylov is still robust. Raskolnikov must live within the confines of man's law, while Svidrigaylov lives his life above the laws, untouched by other people's
opinions.
At the end of the meeting Svidrigaylov bids Raskolnikov adieu and tells him that they share a connection but implies that they have different paths to take, that Raskolnikov's path leads to redemption through confession.
Chapter 5:
Svidrigaylov has sent Dounia a disturbing letter which reveals that her brother is the murderer. Raskolnikov does not see her as she passes him in the street to meet Svidrigaylov who has tricked her into meeting him in his apartment. Svidrigaylov holds her captive in his room and tries to blackmail her into having sex with him by threatening to tell her mother the truth about Raskolnikov. Dounia calls him a murderer for she knows how his wife, Marfna Petrovna, really died - at his hands, by poisoning. She pulls out a gun and tries to kill him but she misses. He even stands there and allows her to reload but the gun misfires. Realizing that she is actually doing him a favor by trying to kill him, she throws the gun down. Svidrigaylov is devastated by the realization that she can never love him; he gives her the key to unlock the door so she can escape. Dounia leaves her gun behind. Svidrigaylov picks it up, examines it and notices that there is one bullet left in the chamber....
Svidrigaylov has genuine feelings for Dounia for she represents goodness and unlike others, her goodness prevents her from being repulsed by him.
Chapter 6: Svidrigaylov wanders the streets of St. Petersburg until late at night. He checks into a cheap hotel where he falls into a troubled sleep disturbed by the nightmare images of the faces of the children he has abused. He wakes up in a state of delirium where he has difficulty in discerning reality from the nightmares - much like Raskolnikov after the murders. He wanders again into the streets of St. Petersburg, finds a sentry in a public park, informs him that he is going to America, pulls out Dounia's gun and kills himself with a bullet to the head.
Svidrigaylov is not one of the extraordinary men after all; he is a man plagued by conscience. His, "I"m going to America!" comment probably represents to him a trip to a far and unknown country. To Dostoevsky and to most Russians at that time, America was a distant, exotic and unknown country. Remember the line from Hamlet: "...a far distant bourne from which no traveler has returned...." Svidrigaylov is referring to death when he puts the gun to his temple. When Dounia refuses him that is the end of all hope for Svidrigaylov for he had hoped that he might seek redemption through her goodness. When she rejects him, he realizes there is no hope for him, and that the only path of redemption for him lies in death.
Friedrich von Schiller (1759 - 1805) German romantic poet and idealist whose writings express an idealized version of the world. Schiller wrote about sensitive souls so it is ironic that Svidrigaylov, who is anything but sensitive, is the one who mentions him.
Svidrigaylov jokes that he thought Razumikhin was a seminary student studying for the priesthood. Razumikhin's name is a common one for recently graduated seminary students whose names are changed by the bishops of their schools.
"La nature et la verite: (French) natural and truthful.
"Ou va-t-elle la vertu nicher": (French) Where does one go to conceal herself in virtue?
Chapter 7: Raskolnikov's goes to visit his mother who has been driven almost mad by grief. Although he stops short of confessing to his mother, it is clear that she is aware that something terrible has occurred. Because he has suffered he is able to accept love from his mother and to show her love. However, Dostoevsky is a brilliant observer of human nature and once again, Raskolnikov vacillates between guilt and confession, and anger and rationalization. Although he has decided to confess - because he see it as the only way out - Raskolnikov again clings to his "ubermensch" and utilitarian theories, that killing one horrible person is not really a crime at all if it liberates others from suffering. He complains that love has weakened him and that if only he were unloved then he would have been successful in the murders.
Chapter 8: Raskolnikov takes the cross from Sonia (symbolically accepting his guilt) and goes out to the human maelstrom that swirl in the streets of St. Petersburg. There in the streets of St. Peterburg, he is swept along by a river of humanity and again vacillates on making his confession. He reaches a crossroad (yes, the symbolism is a little obvious here but in folklore and myth, crossroads have always carried heavy symbolic significance - remember the crossroad in OEDIPUS REX?) where he kneels, kisses the ground in Christ-like humility and publicly confesses his sins - to the mockery of the passersby. He sees Sonia standing in the distance witnessing his suffering, and he realizes that their two fates are forever forged together.
Dostoevsky, ever the master story teller, keeps us in keen anticipation until the very end. Will he confess or not? Raskolnikov walks in to the police station, where he meets the incredibly chatty Ilya Petrovitch, the "explosive lieutenant", who maintains a nonstop running monologue; after a few minutes of this, Raskolnikov turns around, walks out, only to meet the eyes of the watchful Sonia, turns back around, goes back upstairs and makes his simple confession: "It was I killed the old pawnbroker and her sister Lizaveta with an axe and robbed them." Ilya Petrovitch stands there shocked with open mouth and the other clerks in the office come running up to hear the amazing confession.
Nihilism: A philosophy which holds that there is no meaning to life and therefore no purpose for improvement.
Epilogue: At the trial, Raskolnikov refuses to defend himself, claiming that poverty and cowardice were the reasons for his actions. Porfiry takes the stand and (true to his word) states that he never suspected him of the murders. Raskolnikov is sentenced to eight years of hard labor in Siberia. And true to her word, Sonia accompanies him to Siberia and waits for him.
He is moody and sullen in prison, and because the other prisoners see him as an atheist and an intellectual, they hate him. He is also very difficult and removed from the faithful Sonia.
The first year of his imprisonment (at Easter, which is symbolic of renewal), he falls ill and has a disturbing nightmare of a plague that has wiped out the population of Europe. The plagues' microbes have intellect and will, and infect people with the belief that their theories, their opinions, their philosophies are infallible; the infected people try to band together and kill others with competing theories, opinions and philosophies, but as soon as they band together, they immediately fall to quarreling and kill each other. Soon the entire continent of Europe is lying in waste and ruin. Raskolnikov is repeatedly tormented by this dream. The dream obviously is his psyche, his unconscious revealing to him the inevitable folly of his theories, that all theories based on intellect are by their very nature prone to extremism and destruction.
He catches a glimpse of Sonia through the bars of his cell, and he has a powerful emotional and spiritual reaction to the sight of her, small and frail, standing there waiting for him. Shortly after that, she falls ill and is not able to visit him for awhile. When she returns to him after his illness, quietly, humbly and timidly reaching for his hand, he is filled with an intense emotional and spiritual awakening and he clasps her hand for the first time with passion and with love.
He has a spiritual rebirth and after serving his years of imprisonment, he leaves Siberia with his faithful Sonia to begin their new lives together.
A little addendum: Dostoevsky was very much like Raskolnikov when he was a young man - radical, socialistic and atheistic. He was arrested and condemned to death for crimes against the Czar. He and a group of other young intellectuals were lead before a firing squad and seconds before the command to "fire" was shouted, a cavalryman arrived with the news that their execution had been commuted and that they were going to live. (This was probably all pre-planned to do a head trip on the prisoners.) One prisoner supposedly went insane at that moment, and Dostoevsky, who had apparently always suffered from some sort of epileptic seizures, began to experience epileptic seizures in severity. Dostoevsky and the other prisoners were sentenced instead to hard labor in Siberia. During his imprisonment, he, like Raskolnikov, experienced a spiritual awakening where he rejected the intellectual theories of his youth, and embraced a very conservative, religious philosophy instead. Perhaps the older Dostoevsky is writing about - and to - the younger Dostoevsky.
In one of the earlier drafts, Dostoevsky had Raskolnikov commit suicide but decided that suicide would not be in keeping with his personality.
Part Six, Chapters 3 & 4:
Porfiry and Sonia act as a sort of chorus urging Raskolnikov to confess to his sins. After his meeting with Porfiry, Raskolnikov is filled with a sort of moral exhaustion. He runs into Svidrigaylov with whom he has a strange and disturbing connection - Svidrigaylov is Raskolnikov's alter-ego. He expresses certain aspects of Raskolnikov's psyche. Despite all of Svidrigaylov's debauchery he is still a vital man, relatively unfazed by the horrors of his actions. This disparity of energy between Svidrigaylov and Raskolnikov points out once again that Raskolnikov is not an extraordinary man for he is emotionally and physically dissipated by guilt whereas Svidrigaylov is still robust. Raskolnikov must live within the confines of man's law, while Svidrigaylov lives his life above the laws, untouched by other people's
opinions.
At the end of the meeting Svidrigaylov bids Raskolnikov adieu and tells him that they share a connection but implies that they have different paths to take, that Raskolnikov's path leads to redemption through confession.
Chapter 5:
Svidrigaylov has sent Dounia a disturbing letter which reveals that her brother is the murderer. Raskolnikov does not see her as she passes him in the street to meet Svidrigaylov who has tricked her into meeting him in his apartment. Svidrigaylov holds her captive in his room and tries to blackmail her into having sex with him by threatening to tell her mother the truth about Raskolnikov. Dounia calls him a murderer for she knows how his wife, Marfna Petrovna, really died - at his hands, by poisoning. She pulls out a gun and tries to kill him but she misses. He even stands there and allows her to reload but the gun misfires. Realizing that she is actually doing him a favor by trying to kill him, she throws the gun down. Svidrigaylov is devastated by the realization that she can never love him; he gives her the key to unlock the door so she can escape. Dounia leaves her gun behind. Svidrigaylov picks it up, examines it and notices that there is one bullet left in the chamber....
Svidrigaylov has genuine feelings for Dounia for she represents goodness and unlike others, her goodness prevents her from being repulsed by him.
Chapter 6: Svidrigaylov wanders the streets of St. Petersburg until late at night. He checks into a cheap hotel where he falls into a troubled sleep disturbed by the nightmare images of the faces of the children he has abused. He wakes up in a state of delirium where he has difficulty in discerning reality from the nightmares - much like Raskolnikov after the murders. He wanders again into the streets of St. Petersburg, finds a sentry in a public park, informs him that he is going to America, pulls out Dounia's gun and kills himself with a bullet to the head.
Svidrigaylov is not one of the extraordinary men after all; he is a man plagued by conscience. His, "I"m going to America!" comment probably represents to him a trip to a far and unknown country. To Dostoevsky and to most Russians at that time, America was a distant, exotic and unknown country. Remember the line from Hamlet: "...a far distant bourne from which no traveler has returned...." Svidrigaylov is referring to death when he puts the gun to his temple. When Dounia refuses him that is the end of all hope for Svidrigaylov for he had hoped that he might seek redemption through her goodness. When she rejects him, he realizes there is no hope for him, and that the only path of redemption for him lies in death.
Friedrich von Schiller (1759 - 1805) German romantic poet and idealist whose writings express an idealized version of the world. Schiller wrote about sensitive souls so it is ironic that Svidrigaylov, who is anything but sensitive, is the one who mentions him.
Svidrigaylov jokes that he thought Razumikhin was a seminary student studying for the priesthood. Razumikhin's name is a common one for recently graduated seminary students whose names are changed by the bishops of their schools.
"La nature et la verite: (French) natural and truthful.
"Ou va-t-elle la vertu nicher": (French) Where does one go to conceal herself in virtue?
Chapter 7: Raskolnikov's goes to visit his mother who has been driven almost mad by grief. Although he stops short of confessing to his mother, it is clear that she is aware that something terrible has occurred. Because he has suffered he is able to accept love from his mother and to show her love. However, Dostoevsky is a brilliant observer of human nature and once again, Raskolnikov vacillates between guilt and confession, and anger and rationalization. Although he has decided to confess - because he see it as the only way out - Raskolnikov again clings to his "ubermensch" and utilitarian theories, that killing one horrible person is not really a crime at all if it liberates others from suffering. He complains that love has weakened him and that if only he were unloved then he would have been successful in the murders.
Chapter 8: Raskolnikov takes the cross from Sonia (symbolically accepting his guilt) and goes out to the human maelstrom that swirl in the streets of St. Petersburg. There in the streets of St. Peterburg, he is swept along by a river of humanity and again vacillates on making his confession. He reaches a crossroad (yes, the symbolism is a little obvious here but in folklore and myth, crossroads have always carried heavy symbolic significance - remember the crossroad in OEDIPUS REX?) where he kneels, kisses the ground in Christ-like humility and publicly confesses his sins - to the mockery of the passersby. He sees Sonia standing in the distance witnessing his suffering, and he realizes that their two fates are forever forged together.
Dostoevsky, ever the master story teller, keeps us in keen anticipation until the very end. Will he confess or not? Raskolnikov walks in to the police station, where he meets the incredibly chatty Ilya Petrovitch, the "explosive lieutenant", who maintains a nonstop running monologue; after a few minutes of this, Raskolnikov turns around, walks out, only to meet the eyes of the watchful Sonia, turns back around, goes back upstairs and makes his simple confession: "It was I killed the old pawnbroker and her sister Lizaveta with an axe and robbed them." Ilya Petrovitch stands there shocked with open mouth and the other clerks in the office come running up to hear the amazing confession.
Nihilism: A philosophy which holds that there is no meaning to life and therefore no purpose for improvement.
Epilogue: At the trial, Raskolnikov refuses to defend himself, claiming that poverty and cowardice were the reasons for his actions. Porfiry takes the stand and (true to his word) states that he never suspected him of the murders. Raskolnikov is sentenced to eight years of hard labor in Siberia. And true to her word, Sonia accompanies him to Siberia and waits for him.
He is moody and sullen in prison, and because the other prisoners see him as an atheist and an intellectual, they hate him. He is also very difficult and removed from the faithful Sonia.
The first year of his imprisonment (at Easter, which is symbolic of renewal), he falls ill and has a disturbing nightmare of a plague that has wiped out the population of Europe. The plagues' microbes have intellect and will, and infect people with the belief that their theories, their opinions, their philosophies are infallible; the infected people try to band together and kill others with competing theories, opinions and philosophies, but as soon as they band together, they immediately fall to quarreling and kill each other. Soon the entire continent of Europe is lying in waste and ruin. Raskolnikov is repeatedly tormented by this dream. The dream obviously is his psyche, his unconscious revealing to him the inevitable folly of his theories, that all theories based on intellect are by their very nature prone to extremism and destruction.
He catches a glimpse of Sonia through the bars of his cell, and he has a powerful emotional and spiritual reaction to the sight of her, small and frail, standing there waiting for him. Shortly after that, she falls ill and is not able to visit him for awhile. When she returns to him after his illness, quietly, humbly and timidly reaching for his hand, he is filled with an intense emotional and spiritual awakening and he clasps her hand for the first time with passion and with love.
He has a spiritual rebirth and after serving his years of imprisonment, he leaves Siberia with his faithful Sonia to begin their new lives together.
A little addendum: Dostoevsky was very much like Raskolnikov when he was a young man - radical, socialistic and atheistic. He was arrested and condemned to death for crimes against the Czar. He and a group of other young intellectuals were lead before a firing squad and seconds before the command to "fire" was shouted, a cavalryman arrived with the news that their execution had been commuted and that they were going to live. (This was probably all pre-planned to do a head trip on the prisoners.) One prisoner supposedly went insane at that moment, and Dostoevsky, who had apparently always suffered from some sort of epileptic seizures, began to experience epileptic seizures in severity. Dostoevsky and the other prisoners were sentenced instead to hard labor in Siberia. During his imprisonment, he, like Raskolnikov, experienced a spiritual awakening where he rejected the intellectual theories of his youth, and embraced a very conservative, religious philosophy instead. Perhaps the older Dostoevsky is writing about - and to - the younger Dostoevsky.
In one of the earlier drafts, Dostoevsky had Raskolnikov commit suicide but decided that suicide would not be in keeping with his personality.
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