Arguments on the topic: Good and evil in the novel “Crime and Punishment” (F.M. Dostoevsky)

Good

1. The embodiment of kindness and responsiveness in the novel “Crime and Punishment” is Sonya Marmeladova. The heroine selflessly sacrificed herself for the sake of her family when hunger and poverty forced her stepmother to reproach her stepdaughter for inaction. Then Sonya threw a scarf over her head and went out, and late in the evening she brought home thirty rubles. The symbolic number, equal to Judas’ fee for betraying Christ, means that the heroine sold and betrayed herself. But by this act she saved Katerina Ivanovna’s children from starvation. For many months she went to shame, and gave all the money to her stepmother, without reproaching her or demanding anything in return. She even helped her drinking and degenerate father, who was responsible for her downfall. Thus, the holiest and purest manifestation of kindness is saving people at the cost of self-sacrifice.
2. Kindness is, first of all, patience and a willingness to sacrifice one’s interests for the sake of peace and good in the family. Lizaveta, the sister of the old pawnbroker, possessed such qualities. The heroine was a real slave to her tyrannical sister and fulfilled all her whims without demanding anything in return. At the same time, the woman worked and kept the house in order, but gave all the money to Alena Ivanovna. The old woman was rude to the kind and sensitive Lizaveta, even beat her, refusing her the most necessary expenses, but the heroine still loved her and did everything to ensure that there was peace in their home. Knowing that all the pawnbroker’s money would go to the monastery for the eternal remembrance of the soul, she worked and did not ask for her share. The moral power of kindness lies in this boundless angelic patience.
3. Kindness is not a momentary whim, not one noble gesture, but a system of worldview and behavior. It is precisely this quality that determines the whole life that Pulcheria Alexandrovna, Rodion’s mother, demonstrates. The heroine saved and sent all her modest funds to her son so that he could get an education and live with dignity. She tried to work, save and limit herself in everything, just to help Rodion and bring him into the public eye. Day after day, time after time, she deprived herself of the most necessary things, but she pulled through and supported Raskolnikov, without giving up or reproaching her son. Her whole life was continuous proof that kindness requires the exertion of all human strength.
4. Good always defeats evil, because it is natural for a person, in contrast to imposed and artificial evil. This is confirmed by an episode from the novel “Crime and Punishment”, when Dunya Raskolnikova was left alone with Svidrigailov, who wanted to take her by force. Arkady prepared very well: he rented a remote apartment and sent his neighbor Sonya out so that no one would hear the victim’s screams. Even the police wouldn’t believe her, because a decent girl wouldn’t go to an unmarried man’s apartment late at night. Everything was on Svidrigailov’s side in this dark hour, and even the fact that Dunya could not kill the man. But much stronger than the bullet was her quiet and gentle request: “Let me go.” The cruel cynic Svidrigailov could not overcome this plea. His soul rebelled against his depraved essence and forced him to let go of the victim. Dunya ran away from the apartment, and the hero himself realized his defeat: he could not go against this virtuous girl, who could have killed him, who brought her so much suffering, but did not. In this scene, the author clearly proved the superiority of good over evil: the bright side is indestructible and is always alive in the human heart.

The image of Sonya Marmeladova in the novel “Crime and Punishment”

Sonya Marmeladova

Key qualities

Sonya Marmeladova is one of the key characters in Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky's famous novel Crime and Punishment. Thanks to this image, readers think about the best human qualities: self-sacrifice, mercy, the ability of devoted love and sincere faith in God.

Ideas and image of Sonya

Sonya is a young girl about eighteen years old, thin, blue-eyed and fair-haired. She is the daughter of the former official Marmeladov. After losing his place in the service, he began to drink incessantly, which is why his wife Katerina and their children lead a miserable existence and starve. The girl sacrifices the purity of her body in order to provide food for her family, but she does not blame Katerina Ivanovna for this, who forced her to go to the panel, but simply resigns herself to her fate. Sonya commits sin for the sake of her family, but she is very ashamed of herself and of God, in whom she deeply believes. Due to the fact that she has transgressed moral laws, she is embarrassed to be around decent women - Raskolnikov’s mother and sister; Sonya cannot even sit down in their presence, fearing that it will offend them. Every act of a meek and modest girl is performed not for her own sake, but for the sake of someone; despite her occupation, Sonya appears before readers as a true Christian and righteous woman. All the girl’s actions are based on endless, Christian love for her neighbors: because of her love for her father, she gives him money for drinks, because of her love for Raskolnikov, she helps him cleanse his soul and goes with him to hard labor.

Sonya as a path to redemption

The image of Sonya Marmeladova and her ideas are a kind of opposite to the image of Rodion Raskolnikov and his theory. The girl is guided in everything by the law of God and therefore does not understand the ideas of the young man; for her, all people are equal, and no one can rise above everyone else, much less take someone’s life. It is Sonya Raskolnikov who tells about the crime he committed, and thanks to the girl, he was able to repent and confess to this and the investigation. Sonya is ready to go to hard labor with him, because she also transgressed the biblical commandments and believes that she must suffer for the sake of purification. “We are cursed together, we will go together,” Rodion Raskolnikov tells her. The young man’s fellow convicts felt the kindness and love for everything around him emanating from Sonya, who treated everyone with respect, and therefore fell in love with her. Thanks to Sonya, Raskolnikov was subsequently able to truly repent of his actions, turn to God and start a new life with new convictions.

Favorite hero of Dostoevsky

Sonya Marmeladova was one of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky’s favorite heroines. Through the image and beliefs of the girl, the writer reveals his own thoughts and ideas regarding faith in goodness and God, love for people and justice.

Evil

1. If good and evil are always fighting among themselves, and the battlefield is the hearts of people, then evil is doomed to defeat. This was proven by F.M. Dostoevsky in the novel “Crime and Punishment” using the example of Rodion. Poverty forced him to become a murderer, to lose faith in God and to trample on his eternal laws. Raskolnikov, a kind and sympathetic young man, committed a crime to prove to himself that he belongs to the elite, which, in his opinion, is allowed to kill people in pursuit of their great goals. But life itself proved to Rodion the fallacy and inhumanity of his theory: after the murder, he almost went crazy from a feeling of guilt, and Sonya helped him - that same “trembling creature” who had no right to anything. She overcame more difficult trials and remained strong and kind - the way Rodion, deep down, wanted to be. In the Epilogue, the hero is transformed and follows Sonya along the road of repentance and mercy. Thus, evil once again lost to good, because it is natural and inseparable from man.
2. Selfishness has the most direct relation to evil, which was proven by F.M. Dostoevsky in the novel “Crime and Punishment” using the example of Luzhin, Dunya’s fiancé. The hero covered up his selfish considerations with good intentions and always acted in his own way, even if the action went beyond the bounds of decency and even the law. The reader gets to know him in absentia when he reads a letter from Pulcheria Alexandrovna. From it he learns that the “generous” groom has already hinted more than once that he is doing great honor to the poor girl by taking her as his wife. There is no place for Dunya’s mother in their family, because Luzhin will already incur large expenses. However, in practice, a respected lawyer settled the bride in rooms in which a well-bred girl was ashamed to even appear. But the true essence of the greedy and selfish hero was revealed not even in this, but in the fact that he forced the girl to choose between him and her brother. The cruelty and uncompromisingness of Luzhin, who knows about the poverty and grief of women, amazes the reader. However, like his attempt to take revenge on Rodion, when he threw a hundred rubles to Sonya and publicly accused her of theft. But before us is not a criminal and a drunkard, but a prosperous and respected person who simply loves himself and only himself. It is selfishness that becomes the main reason for the evil committed by Luzhin.
3. Any mistake can and should be corrected, and even evil cannot be irreversible. Thus, Marfa Petrovna, Svidrigailov’s wife, ruined the reputation of her governess completely undeservedly and unfairly. Dunya rejected Arkady Ivanovich’s advances in every possible way, categorically forbade him to touch her, but Marfa Petrovna thought differently: when she saw them alone, she made a hasty conclusion about their connection and kicked the girl out. She embarrassed her throughout the city and made it so that she could not find a new job. Everyone considered Dunya a fallen woman, and poisonous gossip denigrated the entire Raskolnikov family. Seeing this persecution, the husband gave his wife Dunya’s letters proving her innocence. Then Marfa Petrovna corrected the situation with her own hands: she visited all her acquaintances and restored the governess’s reputation by showing and reading her letter. Having corrected the mistake, she also found a good groom for the girl and left a large sum of money as an inheritance. This example proves that everyone makes mistakes, and each of them can correct them by destroying the evil generated with their own hands.
4. Evil can be caused by many vices, but one of the most popular moral diseases is depravity of character. So, Arkady Svidrigailov, obeying his base passions, derails his entire life, like the lives of many of his victims. A relative of Marfa Petrovna, Luzhin told the reader that she bought Arkady Ivanovich from a debt prison, where he was imprisoned for cheating, and used her connections to stop the criminal prosecution of her husband for violence against a minor girl. But this lesson did not stop Arkady Ivanovich: with the permission of his wife, he began to debauch and induce peasant women to fornication. Then came the harassment of Duna Raskolnikova. But failure did not stop the hero: he beat his wife with a whip, after which she died under very mysterious circumstances. Arriving in St. Petersburg, he again began to annoy Avdotya and almost took possession of her by force. All these disgusting and evil actions were the result of the moral corruption of Svidrigailov’s soul. The source of his evil was the thirst for debauchery, which enslaved his will.

Essay on the topic: Sonya Marmeladova - fallen or saint? in the novel "Crime and Punishment"

_________________________________________________________________________________________________ Composition. Sonya Marmeladova - fallen or saint? in the novel “Crime and Punishment” Essay. Sonya Marmeladova - fallen or saint? in F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment”

All the heroes of F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment” have a difficult path full of trials, leading either to moral rebirth or to spiritual death. It will not be difficult to classify Raskolnikov as one of the first, just as Svidrigailov belongs to the second. One of the main characters of the work, Sonechka Marmeladova, puzzled me - who is this girl with a difficult fate: fallen or saint? Sonya is a girl of about eighteen, small in stature, with blond hair and wonderful blue eyes. Her mother died early, and her father married another woman who has children of her own. Need forced Sonya to earn money in a low way: selling her body. But she is distinguished from all other girls engaged in the same craft by her deep faith and religiosity. She chose the path of sin not because she was attracted to carnal pleasures; she sacrificed herself for the sake of her younger brothers and sisters, her drunken father and her half-crazed stepmother. In many scenes, Sonya appears to us completely pure and innocent, be it the scene of her father’s death, where he repents of his actions that doomed his daughter to such an existence, or the scene when Ekaterina Ivanovna asks for forgiveness for her cruel words and treatment of her stepdaughter. I justify the fragile Sonya, who chose this difficult path. After all, the girl does not plunge headlong into the pool of passion, she is still spiritually pure before God. She may not go to church, fearing accusatory words, but in her small room there is always a Bible on the table, the verses of which she knows by heart. In addition, Sonya not only saves the lives of her relatives, in the novel she plays another important role: Sonechka Marmeladova saves the lost soul of Rodion Raskolnikov, who killed the old pawnbroker and her sister Lizaveta. Rodion Raskolnikov, who had been looking for a long time for a person to whom he could tell about what he had done, and who already wanted to commit suicide, comes to Sonya. It was to her, and not to Porfiry Petrovich, that he decided to tell his secret, because he felt that only Sonya could judge him according to his conscience, and her judgment would be different from Porfiry’s. This girl, whom Raskolnikov called a “holy fool”, having learned about the crime committed, kisses and hugs Rodion, not remembering herself. She alone is able to understand and experience their pain with people. Not recognizing anyone's judgment other than God's, Sonya is in no hurry to accuse Raskolnikov. on the contrary, she becomes a guiding star for him, helping him find his place in life. Sonya helps Raskolnikov “resurrect” thanks to the power of her love and ability to endure any torment for the sake of others. Immediately after she learned the whole truth, she decided that now she would be inseparable from Raskolnikov, would follow him to Siberia and, with the power of her faith, would force him to believe too. She knew that sooner or later he himself would come and ask her for the Gospel, as if a sign that a new life was beginning for him... And Raskolnikov, after rejecting his theory, saw before him not a “trembling creature”, not a humble victim of circumstances , but a person whose self-sacrifice is far from humility and is aimed at saving the perishing, at effectively caring for his neighbors. All that can be used to characterize Sonya is her love and faith, quiet patience and endless desire to help. Throughout the entire work, she carries with her the light of hope and sympathy, tenderness and understanding. And at the end of the novel, as a reward for all the difficulties she endured, Sonya is given happiness. And for me she is a saint; saint, whose light illuminated the paths of others... .

Arguments on the topic: Revenge and generosity in the novel “Crime and Punishment”

Literature is full of examples of both generous and vengeful heroes. Some we, as readers, can take as an example, while others are clear illustrations of what not to do. Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” also contains such opposite characters, capable of atrocities and revenge or goodness and generosity.

1. ( Revenge is useless and leads to bad consequences ) Raskolnikov’s crime can be called a kind of revenge. He is tormented by social injustice, that the extremely repulsive old money-lender, for all her wealth, is unusually greedy, and poor people live in poverty. Thinking through and analyzing the theory of “trembling creatures with rights,” the hero nevertheless decides to challenge the current situation. However, his means to achieve his goal are robbery and murder, so no good came of his so-called revenge - the hero only conscientiously experienced what he had done, not knowing how not to go crazy. Revenge most often implies cruelty, therefore, even to achieve a fair result, you should not resort to atrocities: the taste of a well-deserved victory will not be so sweet, but rather only spoiled by the bitter taste of revenge.
2. ( The power of generosity and its role in human relations ) Thanks to the positive qualities of other characters, Dostoevsky’s novel is painted in bright colors. Sonechka Marmeladova, having learned about Rodion Raskolnikov’s act, did not give up on the hero. On the contrary, the girl sincerely wanted to save the soul of the poor young man, so she advised him to repent of his crime. Sonya even reads to Raskolnikov the legend of the resurrection of Lazarus with the hope of the revival of a new life. Realizing that Raskolnikov regrets the murder, she sympathizes with him, not leaving him without support. Sonya's immense love for people and responsiveness were able to pull Rodion out of a terrible abyss. Thus, the author emphasizes the power of generosity, which can save the human soul.
3. ( Magnanimous people often become victims of harshness; this quality does not bring happiness ) Unfortunately, even kind and compassionate people can face unfair revenge and cruelty. Often they become innocent victims of the situation, as happened with Sonya Marmeladova. At her father's wake, Luzhin, Dunya Raskolnikova's failed fiancé, put a hundred rubles in the girl's pocket in order to later accuse her of theft. Luzhin had nothing specifically against Sonya: thus, he only wanted to take revenge on Raskolnikov for kicking him out of the apartment. Knowing that Rodion had a great attitude towards Sonya, Luzhin took advantage of the situation, but Lebezyatnikov saved Marmeladov’s daughter from slander. The hero's revenge was not successful; everyone was only convinced of his immorality.
4. You can fight for justice without revenge . Investigator Porfiry Petrovich is very talented in his field, and he guessed about Raskolnikov’s crime long before his confession. Having no evidence against the main character, he tried to psychologically bring Rodion into the open. After reading Raskolnikov’s article, his fainting and indignation that the investigator is playing with him instead of acting according to form, Porfiry Petrovich is only convinced of his intuition: “It’s no longer possible to give yourself away.” However, Porfiry pushed Raskolnikov to confess not in order to make his work easier, or to somehow take revenge on the criminal with real punishment. On the contrary, he did this out of deep generosity and compassion, because turning himself in can mitigate the hero’s punishment. Porfiry Petrovich is a man for whom justice is not an empty phrase, but in his work he compassionately shows generosity towards the suffering Raskolnikov.
5. ( The price of generosity, an example of a generous person ) Showing generosity is not an easy task; sometimes you have to give up what you want and make concessions. The Raskolnikov family lived very poorly, and in order to get out of their difficult situation, Rodion’s sister Dunya was going to marry the calculating businessman Luzhin. Raskolnikov understood that his sister was doing this not out of love, but out of a desire to help their mother and Rodion himself. Not resigning himself to this situation, the main character insists on terminating the engagement: he understood that it would be in Luzhin’s interests to reproach Dunya and command his future wife, because he saved her from poverty. Dunya was ready to do this, which speaks of her care and desire to help her family. But, fortunately, Rodion here also turns out to be not stingy with generosity, and does not allow his sister to ruin her life. Being generous is not so easy; for this you need to be ready for self-sacrifice. In addition, it is equally important that the people for whom one makes concessions appreciate it.
6. ( Can revenge be fair? Revenge of fate ) Svidrigailov is the embodiment of Raskolnikov’s theory. At first glance, he is not bothered by pangs of conscience, but he is guilty of more than one death. But, if judicial punishments never overtook the hero, this does not mean that Svidrigailov was not avenged by fate. Arkady Ivanovich himself admits to Raskolnikov that ghosts come to him, which means that the character feels his own guilt. Revenge can be fair and committed not by man, but by fate, this is exactly what Svidrigailov expected. For everything he had done, the hero was avenged by an unfortunate fate - he was left without support, as a result of which he could not stand it and committed suicide.
7. The generosity of friends can help anyone out in difficult times. Having committed the long-awaited crime, Raskolnikov can no longer behave as usual, although he tries to avert any suspicion from himself. The murder of the old pawnbroker did not save him from poverty, because the hero, in the pangs of conscience and fear, got rid of everything stolen. His friend Razumikhin repeatedly comes to Rodion’s aid, noticing that something strange is happening to his friend. Comrade is not limited to material assistance. When Raskolnikov realizes that he is ashamed to be with his mother and sister, he asks Razumikhin to be with them and support his family. Rodion could completely rely on his friend, and he generously supported Raskolnikov as best he could.

Author: Maria Vorobyova
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