𝓡𝓸𝓭𝓲𝓸𝓷 𝓡𝓪𝓼𝓴𝓸𝓵`𝓷𝓲𝓴𝓸𝓿~

about the character

Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov is the main character in Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment. gender: male Family: Mother - Pulcheria Alexandrovna Raskolnikova Age: 23 years emotionally unavailable

image creation

The fact that the Napoleonic theme began to interest Dostoevsky long before he began working on the novel is confirmed by the memoirs of Apollinaria Suslova. She wrote that back in 1863, the writer, observing a girl in Italy who was taking lessons, suddenly said: “Well, imagine, such a girl… and suddenly some Napoleon says: ‘Destroy the entire city.’ It has always been like this in the world.” According to Yuri Karyakin, "the era was obsessed with Napoleonomania" - hence Pushkin's lines "We all look to Napoleons" and Porfiry Petrovich's phrase addressed to Raskolnikov: "Who in Rus' does not consider himself Napoleon now?" Dostoevsky's drafts contain notes related to the psychological portrait of Raskolnikov - the writer intended to endow the protagonist with such qualities as "exorbitant pride, arrogance and contempt for society"; at the same time, it was emphasized that "despotism is his trait" [2]. However, in the process of work, the image of the character became more complex; evidence of this is the review given to Rodion by his university friend Dmitry Razumikhin: "As if two opposite characters alternate in him." On the one hand, Raskolnikov is gloomy, sullen, secretive; on the other, he is capable of sincere impulses [3]. Thus, when he first arrives at the Marmeladovs' house, the hero quietly puts all his money on the window of their room; he stands up for Sonya, whom Luzhin accuses of stealing[2]; his affection for people is sometimes born out of pity, and therefore he warmly remembers the "sick girl... the ugly one" - his first love[3]. At the same time, Rodion consciously distances himself from society - even while studying at the university, he "stood apart from everyone, did not go to anyone and received people at his place with difficulty"[4]. According to literary scholar Valery Kirpotin, in his isolation from the world, he is close to another of Dostoevsky's characters - Ivan Karamazov.

the main character in the novel

Horror grips you, no, you climb the stairs of the house, Raskolnikov, and count those thirteen steps of the last flight, which are also mentioned in the novel; or when, leaving "Raskolnikov's", you pass by the former janitor's room with those two steps down where Raskolnikov took the axe to commit murder. It is impossible to believe that Dostoevsky's heroes did not live in these places, so precisely indicated by him. The illusion of reality is amazing. Raskolnikov is a former law student from St. Petersburg, forced to leave his studies at the university due to lack of funds. He lives extremely poorly. “He decided to kill an old woman, a collegiate registrar (there is a mention in the text as a collegiate secretary), who gave money on interest. The old woman is stupid, deaf, sick, greedy, takes huge interest rates, is evil and eats up other people’s time, tormenting her younger sister as her worker. “She is no good for anything,” “What is she living for?”, “Is she useful to anyone?” etc.”[7]. "He gives four times less than the thing is worth, and takes five or even seven percent a month, etc." ("Crime and Punishment," Part I, Chapter VI). However, he does not dare to commit a crime until he receives a letter from his mother, which tells of the upcoming marriage of his sister to a certain Mr. Luzhin. Realizing that his sister does not love her future husband, but sacrifices herself for the well-being of the family and, to a greater extent, for Raskolnikov himself, he tricks his way into the old woman's apartment, kills and robs her, simultaneously killing a random witness in the same apartment. Having his theory that people are divided into ordinary people who go with the flow, and people like Napoleon, who are allowed everything, Raskolnikov, before the murder, classifies himself as belonging to the second category; however, after the murder, he discovers that he fully belongs to the first.

appearance

The hero's appearance is described twice in the novel. At the beginning of the work, Raskolnikov is presented as a tall, slender young man "with beautiful dark eyes", "remarkably handsome"; later, Dostoevsky created a different portrait of Rodion Romanovich - after the crime, he resembles a man who is struggling to overcome severe physical pain: "His eyebrows were drawn together, his lips were compressed, his gaze was inflamed." The author applied a similar "method of double portraiture" to the description of the appearance of other characters - in particular, Sonya and Svidrigailov. This artistic device allowed the writer to show that his heroes went through a series of difficult trials in a short period of time, which were reflected in their appearance.

the protagonist's crime

Raskolnikov's crime, as Yuri Karyakin noted, does not begin at the moment the student appears with an axe in the pawnbroker's house; the literary scholar created a chain demonstrating the sequence of actions: word → calculation → deed. The "word" refers to Rodion Romanovich's article, which investigator Porfiry Petrovich calls "the first, young, hot attempt at writing." "Calculation" is an attempt to correlate the harm brought to the world by the pawnbroker with the benefit that can atone for the deed: "One death and a hundred lives in return - but this is arithmetic." Finally, the "deed" is the murder itself. However, one "deed" begins to drag along a whole string of other "deeds": the death of Lizaveta (who was probably pregnant, too); the self-incrimination of the dyer Mikolka, who took the blame for Raskolnikov's crime; the serious illness and death of the hero's mother. "The reaction turns out to be unforeseen, chain and uncontrollable." Researchers note two key moments that determined the hero's behavior before and after the crime. The murder plan hatched by Raskolnikov could have remained his "gloomy fantasy" for a long time, if not for the letter the hero received from his mother - in it Pulcheria Alexandrovna says that Dunya, Rodion Romanovich's sister, who worked as a governess in Svidrigailov's house, is forced to leave her job due to unambiguous claims from the owner; now she has no other options for saving the family from poverty except marriage to Luzhin. From the moment the letter is received, abstract "arithmetic" and an abstract "idea" turn "into an engine running at full power," noted Valery Kirpotin. The second moment is connected with the murder weapon: when the hero takes the life of Alyona Ivanovna, the blade of the axe is pointed at Raskolnikov's face; in the situation with Lizaveta, on the contrary, "the blow fell directly on the skull, with the tip." According to literary scholar Sergei Belov, these scenes demonstrate the absolute power of the axe: "The impotence to cope with the murder weapon was the beginning of Raskolnikov's downfall."

the protagonist's crime (2)

Thus, the crime immediately turns into punishment: the hero understands that the answer to the question “Am I a trembling creature, or do I have the right?” has already been received, and he himself is by no means a “superman”[12]. The writer needed real objects in many ways to convince himself of the reality of the events he was creating. Thus, his wife, Anna Grigoryevna, recalled: “Fyodor Mikhailovich, in the first weeks of our married life, while walking with me, took me into the courtyard of a house and showed me the stone under which his Raskolnikov had hidden the things he had stolen from an old woman.” Such topographic precision was Dostoevsky’s creative method[13].

biography and appearance

Raskolnikov is a young man of twenty-three years old, until recently a law student at the university. Of the young man's close relatives, there is his mother, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, and his sister Dunya, who live in the Ryazan province. Raskolnikov's father died long ago, as did his younger brother Rodion, who did not live to be six months old. Raskolnikov has not seen his relatives for almost three years, so the letters he receives from his mother are filled with anxiety. Pulcheria Alexandrovna worries that her Rodion has succumbed to the "latest fashionable unbelief," has he abandoned his faith in the "grace of our Creator and Redeemer?" Rodion has an attractive and striking appearance. The young man is "remarkably handsome, with beautiful dark eyes, dark-blond, taller than average, thin and slender." Razumikhin, Raskolnikov's university friend, has come to know Rodion well over the course of a year and a half of their communication and paints his psychological portrait as follows: "Gloomy, gloomy, arrogant and proud; recently (and perhaps much earlier) suspicious and a hypochondriac. Generous and kind... Sometimes... cold and insensitive to the point of inhumanity... as if two opposite characters alternate in him." Raskolnikov has not attended university for several months "for lack of means to support himself," and at the moment he has neither lessons nor money.

personality characteristics

Leaving the university had a negative impact on both the inner state and the appearance of the hero. He was overcome by severe depression, he was constantly "in an irritable and tense state, similar to hypochondria." He could spend days without leaving his coffin-like closet, and if he did appear on the street, he immediately attracted the attention of passers-by with his dejected appearance. "He was so poorly dressed that another, even a familiar person, would be ashamed to go out in such rags on the street during the day." Due to the lack of money, Rodion had long since stopped paying for the apartment, so he tried to catch the eye of his landlady as little as possible. This situation was so humiliating for Raskolnikov that he gradually began to feel a malicious contempt for everything around him, and his eyes increasingly showed an expression of "deepest disgust." All these signs indicated that his entire being was beginning to be taken over by an as yet unclear but obsessive idea. But there were other traits in Raskolnikov's character that revealed his ability to empathize and do good. Thus, from Razumikhin's testimony to the investigation, it becomes known that Rodion Romanovich, while still a student, supported a fellow student with tuberculosis, and after his death, took custody of his old and infirm father. He drove the old man to hospitals, and when he died, buried him at his own expense. Raskolnikov's landlady told about a fire in which her children almost died. Rodion managed to pull them out of the apartment and himself received burns. Recently Raskolnikov committed another noble act, giving his last money for the funeral of Semyon Zakharovich Marmeladov.

the birth of the protagonist theory

Raskolnikov does not fit into the framework of ordinary heroes. He is a special type of hero-thinker, for whom the main thing is the search for truth, justice and justice. But the nobility of this goal pales in comparison to the methods he is going to use to achieve it. Despite the fact that the society to which the hero belongs is already saturated with the ideas of nihilism and socialism, he chooses a special path that leads him to the creation of his own theory. About six months ago, at the very time when Raskolnikov decided to leave the university, he had the idea to write an article. He chose the psychological state of a criminal as the topic and called it "On Crime". A few months later, it was published in the newspaper "Periodic Speech". The whole point of the article was that all people are divided into two categories: lower and higher. The lower category includes the majority, which Raskolnikov calls material for the reproduction of their own kind. The higher category includes people who are capable of bringing something new to society, thanks to their talents. The people of the lower category under his control are called upon to increase the number of human beings, to be obedient and not to break the laws. Raskolnikov calls the representatives of the higher category "legislators and founders of humanity." For the sake of an idea, these chosen rulers are given the right to step "over blood," to break the law, to liquidate any number of people in order to "make their discoveries known to all humanity." The question that haunts Raskolnikov is the following: to what category of people does he belong? He admires Napoleon and Mohammed. They sinned, destroyed a huge number of people, but not only remained unpunished, but also went down in history as great personalities. Ordinary people are not capable of such actions. The very structure of the world presupposes the trampling of people under their control by "Napoleons." The figure of the "superman" Bonaparte becomes a symbol of his theory for Rodion.

the birth of the protagonist theory (2)

Discussing Raskolnikov’s article, Razumikhin and Porfiry Petrovich are horrified by its anti-human ideology and come to the conclusion that his theory is more terrible than military doctrine, where it is officially permitted to “spill blood.” Meanwhile, the theory completely takes over Raskolnikov's thoughts and will. It grows to such an extent that Rodion no longer doubts that he can kill. But to kill not only for the sake of enrichment and continuing his studies, and not even only to help his mother and Dunya, but in order to test it on himself, to prove to himself whether he is a trembling creature or whether he has the right. Consequently, it is not the theory that is being tested in this case (for Rodion it remains unshakable), but the hero himself. His goal is to determine to what class of people he belongs: "... I needed to know then, ... whether I am a louse, like everyone else, or a man? Whether I can step over or not!"

decision making

Raskolnikov learned the address of the pawnbroker Alyona Ivanovna from his fellow student at a time when he was literally dying of hunger. He pawned a gold ring, a gift from Dunya, and got very little money for it. From the first visit, a feeling of disgust for this greedy and vile old woman arose in him. That same evening, he became an involuntary witness to a conversation between a student and a military man, the subject of which was the same Alyona Ivanovna. The student passionately argued that the life of this old woman, who is rich as a Jew, but takes huge interest from her clients, does not bring any benefit to society. Then came the proposal to kill the pawnbroker and use her money for good purposes. The overheard conversation and the theory of "blood for conscience" - all this gradually begins to acquire the features of a still vague plan. Overcome by thoughts, Rodion goes to the tavern, where he meets Semyon Marmeladov. His drunken confession and Sonya's story that shocked Rodion, his mother's letter informing him of Dunya's forced marriage, drive the young man to extremes and reveal "old, painful, unsolvable" problems. At night, Raskolnikov has a dream in which he returns to his childhood, and during a walk with his father he witnesses the brutal murder of a puny horse. This scene shocks Rodion so much that he wakes up, determined to abandon his plan. But that same day he learns that Alyona Ivanovna will be home alone in the evening. This news puts the final point in his doubts. He wanders into his wretched little cell, "like a man sentenced to death." His will, reason, freedom remain somewhere beyond his consciousness. On the day of the murder, as if led by someone's hand, unable to resist, he crosses the threshold of his victim's house.

the torments of the protagonist

The murder of the pawnbroker and her innocent, pregnant sister Lizaveta forces Raskolnikov to experience a huge shock again and again. Now he finds himself “on the other side of good and evil,” as if separated from the rest of humanity by a vast desert. Suddenly he realizes the tragedy of his impending loneliness, and he develops a four-day nervous fever. Having gathered his last strength and overcome the fever, he goes out into the street in a semi-delirium with only one goal: to solve everything at once. But at the sight of a lively street crowd, a sharp desire to live suddenly returns to him. “If only to live, live and live! No matter how to live – just live!” Returning home, he begins to pray, but becomes ridiculous to himself. He is again overwhelmed by a wave of hopelessness, now he wants only one thing – solitude.

the main character and Sonya Marmeladova

Raskolnikov is tormented not so much by the fact that he took the life of the pawnbroker and her sister, but by the realization that he turned out to be weak and unable to bear the consequences of this crime. He is haunted not by remorse, but by the thought that he had no right to "cross the line", having turned out to be so weak by nature. Self-flagellation and suffering bring Raskolnikov to complete exhaustion. He begins to understand that he will not be able to get out of this nightmare on his own and in despair goes to Sonya Marmeladova. The girl does not reject him after his confession, but, on the contrary, listens to him with sympathy and advises him to go to the square and repent before people. "Kill? Do you have the right to kill?" she asks him. Sonya's immutable truth is that every person is God's creation and his life is inviolable. Sonya herself is in a difficult situation, but she draws strength from the Bible and shares it with Raskolnikov, who lacks this strength. Sonya patiently explains to Rodion how important love and sacrifice are for people, that only love can warm the human soul and return the meaning of life. Raskolnikov is alien to Sonya's theory, and he resists her arguments for a long time. But she manages to prove her case using her own life as an example. Rodion begins to believe the girl and soon realizes the complete failure of his theory, which is confirmed by his words: "And who made me a judge here, who should live, who should not live?" It is Sonya, a young girl, almost a child, who turns out to be the savior of Raskolnikov's tormented soul and leads him to the path of repentance. After the verdict, she does not leave him and follows him to hard labor, which further strengthens Raskolnikov's faith in love. The hero finally realizes that the path he chose was a mistake, and now another path opens up before him - rebirth through suffering, a path that will lead him to spiritual purification.

the role of the hero in the work

In creating a complex psychological image of Raskolnikov, Dostoevsky aims to expose the moral problems of modern society and to analyze the idea of ​​"Napoleonism" that was gaining popularity from the point of view of Christian morality. He depicts a hero who, in his desire to change the world, chooses inhumane and anti-human methods. The author tries to prove the egoism and complete failure of the idea of ​​the "superman". To do this, he describes in great detail the collapse of the theory of Raskolnikov, who was never able to become "Napoleon". The punishment for the crime turns out to be as terrible as the crime itself. After all, there is nothing more terrible than the pangs of conscience and the suffering of a repentant person. The writer leads his hero to purification through faith and love, which prove to him the immorality of the theory of the "superman".

development of the hero as the plot progresses

At the beginning of the story, Raskolnikov is described by the author as a kind, intelligent, proud man. He is ready to help others and is not without compassion. But the poverty in which he is forced to vegetate makes him gloomy and withdrawn. He can hardly bear his humiliating situation. The lack of opportunity to change anything gradually leads the hero to the loss of moral guidelines. He develops a theory according to which some people can do everything, including murder, while others can do nothing. Raskolnikov wants to prove that he belongs to the first category of people. To implement this idea, he develops a plan to kill what he considers a superfluous person – an old woman pawnbroker. He carries out his plan, unintentionally killing Alyona Ivanovna's sister, Lizaveta. After the crime, the hero is tormented by nightmares, loneliness drives him crazy, he begins to hate himself. Sonya Marmeladova, to whom he tells his secret, convinces the hero to confess. Under her influence, Raskolnikov's views change, he begins to be imbued with faith, his heart thaws for love. He renounces his senseless theory. He will have to spend many years in hard labor, where complete atonement for his guilt and spiritual rebirth await him.

the author's attitude to the hero

Dostoevsky does not express a clear position regarding his hero, allowing readers to evaluate the image of this character themselves. At the same time, the author, being a humanist, does not justify Raskolnikov's actions. He believes that every person, including the disgusting pawnbroker, has the right to life, and Raskolnikov is not a god to decide whether to leave her alive or kill her. Thus, Dostoevsky is an opponent of even those crimes that are committed for the sake of good deeds, including the global goals of changing society for the better to alleviate the lot of the "humiliated and insulted." Using Raskolnikov as an example, the author showed the immorality of violence as a way to change the world for the better, because violence, first of all, is a huge destructive force for the criminal himself.