Prompt
for
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
Please read carefully the following prompt and then write a well organized essay which examines Dostoevsky’s use of imagery, symbolism and motif to create the internal landscape of the character.
A thick milky mist covered the city. Svidrigaylov walked along slippery, greasy, wooden pavement towards the Little Neva. His mind still held the illusory vision of its waters rising in flood during the night, and pictured Petrovsky Island, the wet paths, the soaking grass, the dripping trees and bushes, and at last that one bush...In an effort to think of something else, he looked disapprovingly at the houses. The avenue was empty of cabs and passersby. The little bright-yellow wooden houses, with their closed shutters, looked dirty and dejected. The cold and damp were penetrating his whole body and making him shiver. Occasionally, he came across signs outside little shops and market-gardens, and he conscientiously read each one. The wooden pavement had come to an end, and he was passing a large stone building. A dirty, shivering cur, with its tail between its legs, crossed his path. A man in a greatcoat lay, dead-drunk, face down on the pavement; he passed him and went on. A tall watchtower caught his eye on the left. “Bah!” he thought. “This is a good enough place; why do to Petrovsky? At least, there will be an official witness...” He almost smiled at this new idea and turned in S. street. Here stood the large building with the watch tower. Near the big closed gates a little man, wrapped in a soldier’s grey greatcoat and wearing a copper helmet that made him look like Achilles, was leaning his shoulder against the wall. He looked with sleepy indifference at Svidrigaylov as he approached. His face had the eternal expression of resentful affliction...etched on (his) face. For a short time the two, Svidrigaylov and Achilles, stood contemplating one another in silence. At length Achilles decided that it was out of order for a man who was not drunk to be standing two yards away and staring at him without a word.
“Vell, vot do you vant here already?” he asked, without moving or changing his position.
“Nothing, brother. Good morning to you!” answered Svidrigaylov.
“So go somevere else!”
“I am going to foreign parts, brother!”
“Foreign parts?”
“To America.”
“America?”
Svidrigaylov took out the revolver and cocked it. Achilles raised his eyebrows.
”Vot now, this is not the place for jokes!”
“Why shouldn’t it be?”
“Because it isn’t.”
“Well, brother, it doesn’t matter. It’s a good place...If you are asked, say I said I was off to America.”
He lifted the revolver to his right temple.
“But you can’t do that here! This is not the proper place!”
Achilles, whose eyes had been growing rounder and rounder, started forward.
Svidrigaylov pulled the trigger.
**********
Finally, why does Svidrigaylov say that he is going to America? Remember Hamlet’s soliloquy in Act Three in which he says, “But that the dread of something after death, / The undiscovered country from whose bourn / No traveler returns, puzzles the will/ And makes us rather bear those ills we have / Than fly to others that we know not of?
Could America be the metaphoric country from whose bourn (shore) no traveler returns?
for
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
Please read carefully the following prompt and then write a well organized essay which examines Dostoevsky’s use of imagery, symbolism and motif to create the internal landscape of the character.
A thick milky mist covered the city. Svidrigaylov walked along slippery, greasy, wooden pavement towards the Little Neva. His mind still held the illusory vision of its waters rising in flood during the night, and pictured Petrovsky Island, the wet paths, the soaking grass, the dripping trees and bushes, and at last that one bush...In an effort to think of something else, he looked disapprovingly at the houses. The avenue was empty of cabs and passersby. The little bright-yellow wooden houses, with their closed shutters, looked dirty and dejected. The cold and damp were penetrating his whole body and making him shiver. Occasionally, he came across signs outside little shops and market-gardens, and he conscientiously read each one. The wooden pavement had come to an end, and he was passing a large stone building. A dirty, shivering cur, with its tail between its legs, crossed his path. A man in a greatcoat lay, dead-drunk, face down on the pavement; he passed him and went on. A tall watchtower caught his eye on the left. “Bah!” he thought. “This is a good enough place; why do to Petrovsky? At least, there will be an official witness...” He almost smiled at this new idea and turned in S. street. Here stood the large building with the watch tower. Near the big closed gates a little man, wrapped in a soldier’s grey greatcoat and wearing a copper helmet that made him look like Achilles, was leaning his shoulder against the wall. He looked with sleepy indifference at Svidrigaylov as he approached. His face had the eternal expression of resentful affliction...etched on (his) face. For a short time the two, Svidrigaylov and Achilles, stood contemplating one another in silence. At length Achilles decided that it was out of order for a man who was not drunk to be standing two yards away and staring at him without a word.
“Vell, vot do you vant here already?” he asked, without moving or changing his position.
“Nothing, brother. Good morning to you!” answered Svidrigaylov.
“So go somevere else!”
“I am going to foreign parts, brother!”
“Foreign parts?”
“To America.”
“America?”
Svidrigaylov took out the revolver and cocked it. Achilles raised his eyebrows.
”Vot now, this is not the place for jokes!”
“Why shouldn’t it be?”
“Because it isn’t.”
“Well, brother, it doesn’t matter. It’s a good place...If you are asked, say I said I was off to America.”
He lifted the revolver to his right temple.
“But you can’t do that here! This is not the proper place!”
Achilles, whose eyes had been growing rounder and rounder, started forward.
Svidrigaylov pulled the trigger.
**********
Finally, why does Svidrigaylov say that he is going to America? Remember Hamlet’s soliloquy in Act Three in which he says, “But that the dread of something after death, / The undiscovered country from whose bourn / No traveler returns, puzzles the will/ And makes us rather bear those ills we have / Than fly to others that we know not of?
Could America be the metaphoric country from whose bourn (shore) no traveler returns?
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