Prompts for CRIME and PUNISHMENT

Prompts
for
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

1. Read the following except from Dostoevsky’s CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (pages 47 - 50) in which Raskolnikov, in a feverish state has a deeply disquieting dream. Analyze the excerpt in terms of motif, symbols and imagery which represent the psychological state of Raskolnikov.


2. In a carefully constructed essay, examine the motif of delirium that Dostoevsky uses throughout the story. Note when and how it is used: after Raskolnikov’s commission of the crime, and before Svidrigailov commits suicide. Do these characters’ delirious states support or refute Nietzche’s ideas of the übermensche? Why or why not. Give supporting details from the text.




3. In a carefully constructed essay, examine the fall of Katerina, her illness, her disastrous wake for her husband, her family’s eviction, and the final scene in the street with her children. Does the fall of Katerina prove or disprove the effectiveness of the Utilitarian Theory? Give specific examples of where it’s proven or disproven. What role - if any - does Raskolnikov play in helping katerina? Who steps in after Katerina’s death to help the orphans? Why is this ironic?




4. Examine the symbolism of the cross in CRIME AND PUNISHMENT: specifically when Sonia gives Raskolnikov the cross which - ironically once belonged to Lizaveta - and when she tells him to bow down and kiss the ground in humility at the crossroads.





5. In the epilogue of CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, Raskolnikov has a disturbing dream in which the worlds’ people are infected with a virus. Discuss the significance of that dream as it pertains to the theme of CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. Discuss also the symbolism used by Dostoevsky in the Epilogue to reveal Raskolnikov’s transformation; for example, the time of year this dream occurs, Lent and Easter, Sonia’s illness and subsequent reappearance. Could Sonia’s reappearance be analogous to Lazarus’ story in the Bible?


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?

Please work on this essay in class on Thursday and Friday, April 3rd and April 4th. It will be due on Friday, April 4th.