The Protagonist's Theory of Two Types of People
From abject poverty, the protagonist develops a theory that is designed to justify many moral aspects of life and save those who are in need from poverty and other misfortunes. The essence of the hero-born theory is that people by nature are divided into “great” ones, those who rule the world, create history; and for those who are just “material”, who are not capable of fateful actions, the lives of such people are worth nothing. Raskolnikov considers himself to be in the first category; he is almost sure that he is a kind of “Napoleon”. The hero is eager to test his theory in action; in the name of the idea, he plans to kill the old pawnbroker, who has already outlived her usefulness and is ruining other people’s lives.
As a result, Raskolnikov failed his own theory. He considered himself an order of magnitude higher than other people, but turned out to be the same as the others: sensitive, weak, emotional, humane. His trouble is that he is a living person with a soul, conscience and feelings. He is not capable of killing a person and enjoying life as if nothing had happened. This revelation shocks the hero, and for a long time he is on the verge of madness, trying to establish a balance between soul and mind.
What a psycho. Raskolnikov's condition before, during and after the murder?
What kind of mental state could a person have who was about to kill an old money-lender who was of no use to anyone and only by doing this would do a good deed by ridding the world of the villain? A person who is driven to despair by current circumstances, miserable living conditions, poverty, and the inability to help his loved ones?
And around him there is only life with its poverty, the miserable slums of St. Petersburg, the dirt of the streets and the “stench”, “stuffiness”, the dominance of money and the miserable life of people? How can he feel, convincing himself that he is doing a good thing and thus justifying his actions? Probably, Rodion Raskolnikov was at that moment, before committing the crime, endowed with a certain determination, he thought through his actions in detail.
It is influenced by several circumstances. This is his life in such conditions, a “cramped closet”, the inability to pay for university education; a letter from his mother, where she tells him that Dunya is going to marry Luzhin; his meeting and conversation with Marmeladov; Raskolnikov's dream.
On the one hand, Raskolnikov strives to help all the doomed by doing one good deed, driven by a humane goal: “In one life, thousands were saved from rot and decay. One death and a hundred lives in return!
On the other hand, he has a theory that people are divided into two categories:
“the lower ones, who serve only as material for the reproduction of their own kind, and the higher ones, that is, the actual people who, in the name of achieving the goal, can afford everything, even “
blood according to conscience."
And he himself does not know which category he belongs to: “Am I a trembling creature or do I have the right?” What was his condition before his action?
- he himself does not believe that he can do such a thing: “God!
- he exclaimed, “is it really possible, am I really going to take an ax, start hitting her on the head, crushing her skull.” I will slide in sticky, warm blood, pick the lock, steal and tremble; hide, covered in blood. with an axe. Lord, really?” During the crime, Rodion Raskolnikov carried out his plans and acted according to plan.
His mind was dominated by ideas and he did everything as he decided.
He even wanted to leave more than once. After committing the crime, he was overcome by fear and distraction.
After the crime, the main character of the novel experiences something like “cloudness of mind.” It seems to him that everyone knows about what he has done.
In the end, he is ready to admit to what he did. Before committing the crime, Rodion reasoned:
What are the reasons for Raskolnikov's crime? (Based on the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky “Crime and Punishment”).
Contents “Crime and Punishment” is one of Dostoevsky’s most complex and perfect works.
The author tried to solve many problems in it: from social and moral to philosophical. As Fyodor Mikhailovich noted, his new novel is a “psychological report of a crime” committed by a poor student Rodion Raskolnikov, who killed an old pawnbroker.
However, the novel is not about an ordinary criminal crime.
Raskolnikov is not just a murderer.
This is an “ideological” crime, where the criminal is a thinker and philosopher. Dostoevsky’s world is contradictory, “for” and “against” are in constant struggle - both in the souls of the heroes and in the author’s attitude towards them. Why did Dostoevsky give him this surname and such a name?
Alienation from people, cutting off ties with them, splitting - this is the essence of the hero. Having committed murder, Raskolnikov is even more separated from humanity:
“A gloomy feeling of painful, endless solitude and alienation suddenly consciously affected his soul...”
.0 people viewed this page.
Register or log in and find out how many people from your school have already copied this essay. See also the work “Crime and Punishment”: We will write an excellent essay according to your order in just 24 hours. A unique essay in a single copy.
“Crime and Punishment” is one of the best works of the great Russian writer of the second half of the 19th century, F. M. Dostoevsky. Meanwhile, it is difficult to find another classical work so long ago and unanimously recognized, the assessments of which would be so contradictory and even contradictory, and these discrepancies are connected precisely with the question of the motives of Raskolnikov’s crime and F.’s attitude towards them.
M. Dostoevsky. According to many researchers, the concept of duality of motives still dominates. The first is the theory of “might is right,” which reflected the spirit of the times and was the product of the social theory of nihilism: “I wanted to become Napoleon, that’s why I killed.”
The second is the complete opposite of the first: the desire for good to people, the desire to save one’s sister from death, and to give oneself the opportunity to make amends for the crime through good deeds throughout the rest of one’s life. Some researchers find three, four or even more motives, but they all gravitate towards the two poles listed above. In general, when starting to work on the novel, Dostoevsky wrote: “.
to destroy uncertainty, that is, to explain the whole murder one way or another. " There are literary scholars who believe that Dostoevsky failed to do this: he never came to the conclusion of how exactly to motivate the crime, and there were two “inconsistent” motivations left, and uncertainty remained. The second, more common point of view is that at first Dostoevsky had hesitations, but he resolved them “dialectically,” that is, by combining both.
It turns out that Raskolnikov wants, or it only seems to him, to be a “good Napoleon.” This phrase combines incompatible things, but this is where the grain, the essence of the issue, lies.
Everything that served as the motive for the crime
Does the hero suffer because of the murder of the old woman?
After committing a crime, Rodion Raskolnikov is tormented not by the fact that he took the life of a person, but rather by the reaction that he did not expect from himself: he is scared, disgusted, disgusted that he is not who he thought he was. At the end of the novel, the hero understands that the biggest crime was that he could not do what he should have done - step over and continue to live as if nothing had happened. He could not stand the mental anguish, he went and surrendered to the police, turned himself in - the only thing the hero regrets is that he is a “trembling creature.”
The murder of the pawnbroker in itself does not torment the hero. He was sincerely imbued with the idea and its death was an inevitable fact. Rodion dreams of the old woman - it is his soul that is tormented by sin. More terrible than mortal sin for the hero is the fear of ridicule and exposure: it is not for nothing that in his dreams he imagines that he is killing the victim, and she is laughing at him. Laughter is heard from the neighboring rooms, from the stairs - this is a symbol of the fact that Raskolnikov is afraid of ridicule and condemnation.
Why does Raskolnikov suffer?
To understand why Raskolnikov suffers and is tormented after the crime, it is important to analyze the hero’s path to this step and his theory. Whether the hero repented of taking the life of a person, and what upset him most after committing the crime, you will learn from our article.
From abject poverty, the protagonist develops a theory that is designed to justify many moral aspects of life and save those who are in need from poverty and other misfortunes.
The hero is eager to test his theory in action; in the name of the idea, he plans to kill the old pawnbroker, who has already outlived her usefulness and is ruining other people’s lives. As a result, Raskolnikov failed his own theory.
He considered himself an order of magnitude higher than other people, but turned out to be the same as the others: sensitive, weak, emotional, humane. His trouble is that he is a living person with a soul, conscience and feelings. He is not capable of killing a person and enjoying life as if nothing had happened. This revelation shocks the hero, and for a long time he is on the verge of madness, trying to establish a balance between soul and mind. After committing a crime, Rodion Raskolnikov is tormented not by the fact that he took the life of a person, but rather by the reaction that he did not expect from himself: he is scared, disgusted, disgusted that he is not who he thought he was.
At the end of the novel, the hero understands that the biggest crime was that he could not do what he should have done - step over and continue to live as if nothing had happened.
The murder of the pawnbroker in itself does not torment the hero. He was sincerely imbued with the idea and its death was an inevitable fact. Rodion dreams of the old woman - it is his soul that is tormented by sin. More terrible than mortal sin for the hero is the fear of ridicule and exposure: it is not for nothing that in his dreams he imagines that he is killing the victim, and she is laughing at him.
Laughter is heard from the neighboring rooms, from the stairs - this is a symbol of the fact that Raskolnikov is afraid of ridicule and condemnation. Pride did not allow Raskolnikov to live there, in Siberia, in hard labor: he was ashamed of himself for being too weak to realize his plan to the end. He could not help others, made his family unhappy, did not save a single soul and ruined his own. Rodion is not tormented by his conscience for taking the life of a person - he experienced this fact quite calmly.
He suffers only from the awareness of his own weakness, from the fact that his theory has failed. I killed myself! The hero is not happy about the purpose of the crime: the obtained jewelry and the opportunity to save thousands of lives. All goals and desires fade into the background; conscience and pride do not allow the hero to live on. Only love gives Raskolnikov a chance to find peace and reconcile with people. Why does Raskolnikov suffer and torment after the crime? Question 1 from Start test in new tab.
Login Registration.
Raskolnikov in the novel “Crime and Punishment” by F.
M. Dostoevsky
“Crime and Punishment” is a famous work by Fyodor Dostoevsky. It was first published by the Russian Bulletin magazine in 1866. The work is considered the first great novel in the period of the author’s already mature work.
It is becoming popular not only among contemporaries. Today it is included in the school curriculum. Young readers carefully analyze the actions of the main character and write an essay on the topic of Raskolnikov. The narrative focuses on the mental suffering and moral dilemma that the main character Rodion Raskolnikov tried to solve.
“Crime and Punishment” tells the story of an impoverished student who not only developed, but also carried out a plan to kill an unscrupulous loan shark because of her fortune. Raskolnikov claims that with money from a pawnshop he will be able to do good deeds. In order to somehow justify the crime, the character argues that he has rid the world of a useless parasite.
Moreover, he commits murder in order to test his hypothesis that some people are not only capable of doing this, but even have the right to do so.
Raskolnikov in the novel Crime and Punishment several times compares himself to Napoleon Bonaparte.
Rodion believes that murder is permissible if it is committed in pursuit of a high goal. The novel “Crime and Punishment” is quite complex. Strictly speaking, this work is a detective story.
But one where the reader knows who killed from the very beginning.
There is no intrigue associated with the search for the killer. Here, the solution to the crime has not a criminal, but a philosophical and psychological meaning.
The murder itself is not easy. It is rather theoretical. What is the theory that Rodion Raskolnikov follows in the novel “Crime and Punishment”?
There are two categories into which the human race is divided. Some people are great, leading all of humanity to the goal, implementing great plans and moving history forward. They can afford absolutely everything.
Even a crime is in order to achieve one’s bright goals. Others are small and insignificant, unremarkable people. Their life is not interesting or important to anyone. History mercilessly rams them into their own foundation.
And then Raskolnikov wonders what category of people he himself, Rodion Romanovich, belongs to. In an effort to answer it, the hero commits a crime. Is Raskolnikov in the novel “Crime and Punishment” Even when everyone knows that he is a murderer, he does not lose the favor of his loved ones: not his mother, not his sister, and especially not Sonya. Rodion doesn’t even lose the reader’s sympathies.
Despite his crime, he still appears as a pure soul. This is a person who is very susceptible to the pain of the whole world, to social injustice.
Rodion Romanovich is responsive. But the worst thing is that he is the theorist. His thought seems to suppress life itself, coming into conflict with it and even trying to impose some kind of his own scheme on it. All events in the work “Crime and Punishment” take place on the threshold - on the verge of life and death, common sense and madness.
