F. M. Dostoevsky “Crime and Punishment”: analysis of the work

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Average rating: 4.4

Total ratings received: 7546.

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment” is the writer’s most famous work, included in the golden fund of world literature. Written during a difficult period in the author’s life, it touches on many serious issues that remain relevant to this day. The novel is quite complex and deep, but a detailed analysis of the work will help to better understand the main idea and problems of the novel, the actions of the main characters. The analysis of “Crime and Punishment” will be especially useful for 10th grade students and in preparing for the Unified State Exam in literature.

The material was prepared jointly with a teacher of the highest category, Kuchmina Nadezhda Vladimirovna.

Experience as a teacher of Russian language and literature - 27 years.

Story

The idea of ​​​​creating the novel “Crime and Punishment” is connected with the life of F.M. Dostoevsky in hard labor. The writer planned to show the social problems of his time. Before writing the novel “Drunk”, to which the novel “Crime and Punishment” dates back, F.M. Dostoevsky wrote many works that reflected the fate of poor people in an unjust society. Initially, “Crime and Punishment” was conceived as a story of several pages, but then the plot of the crime was combined with the story of Marmeladov. While working on the work by F.M. Dostoevsky changed his plan, the range of themes and problems became wider, and the composition of the novel changed. The writer moves away from the form of confession and constructs a third-person narrative. The work was first published in the magazine “Russian Bulletin” in 1866.

The history of the creation of Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment

The life of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, author of the world-famous and beloved novel Crime and Punishment, could not be called simple. A person who was always inclined to go his own way often suffered from this - he was punished with exile and hard labor, but Dostoevsky’s free and pure spirit could not be broken by these difficulties, which seem so pitiful in comparison with this truly great personality.

The idea for the novel “Crime and Punishment” arose from Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky back in 1859. At that time, Dostoevsky was in hard labor and most of all wanted to throw out everything that had accumulated in his soul on paper - in the form of some kind of human confession, simply wanting to get rid of the burden of internal experiences and open his soul to people, to show what was happening to him inside. However, the writer began direct work on the novel, which later became a real pride in the treasury of Russian classical literature, only six years later - that’s how long it took Dostoevsky to decide to write such a difficult psychological novel about the real development of one person, Rodion Raskolnikov.

Work on the novel “Crime and Punishment” took place in truly inhuman conditions. Suffering from constant poverty, in which even the most talented writers often found themselves at that time, Fyodor Mikhailovich wrote in almost complete darkness, suffering from eternal hunger and the inability to correct anything in his life. However, time passed, the novel was approaching its logical conclusion, and Dostoevsky wondered what kind of person Raskolnikov should ultimately turn out to be - a person in whom altruism or cruelty towards other people would still win? It was decided to leave both, and that is why the image of Rodion Raskolnikov became so symbolic and so iconic - the image of a contradictory and confused man who ultimately finds himself.

In my opinion, both the history of the novel’s conception and its immediate creation were connected with difficult events in Dostoevsky’s life, and that is why the novel turned out to be so real, so deep and so multifaceted. Each new reading of the work “Crime and Punishment” reveals something new in it, something that readers did not notice before or simply did not want to see. Without a doubt, Fyodor Dostoevsky is a true genius of Russian literature of the nineteenth century and an equally talented psychologist who managed to understand the true essence of man.

Genre

“Crime and Punishment” incorporates the characteristics of different types of novels. It can be called social, since the problems of the work are related to the role of man in society. From the detective novel, the work takes the line of investigation of one crime. For the same reason, it is possible to characterize “Crime and Punishment” as a crime novel. The work touches on many important issues that are relevant at all times - this allows us to find the signs of a philosophical novel. The peculiarity of the work is that it has the dominant role of the signs of a psychological novel, since the main part of the work is devoted to the thoughts and reflections of the main character.

F. Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment”, the originality of the genre

Lesson 73.

The novel “Crime and Punishment”: the originality of the genre.

lesson plan on the board:

A novel about the “right to blood.”

1. The history of the creation of the novel “Crime and Punishment.”
2. Time of writing and appearance of the work.
3. Responses of Dostoevsky's contemporaries to the publication of the novel.

In 1866, the magazine “Russian Bulletin”, published by M.N. Katkov, published the manuscript of Dostoevsky’s novel, which has not reached our time. The surviving notebooks of Dostoevsky and individual fragments of the manuscript give reason to assume that the idea of ​​the novel, its theme, plot, and ideological orientation did not take shape immediately; most likely, two different creative ideas later merged:

1. On June 8, 1865, before leaving abroad, Dostoevsky suggested to A.A. Kraevsky, editor of the journal Otechestvennye zapiski, wrote the novel “Drunk People”: “it will be connected with the current issue of drunkenness. Not only the question is examined, but all its ramifications are presented, mainly pictures of families, raising children in this environment, etc. There will be at least twenty sheets, but maybe more.”

The problem of drunkenness in Rus' worried Dostoevsky throughout his creative career. The gentle and unhappy Snegirev says: “... in Russia, drunk people are the kindest. We have the kindest people and the drunkest. People in abnormal states become kind. What is a normal person like? Wicked. The good ones drink, but the good ones also do bad things. The good are forgotten by society, life is ruled by the evil. If drunkenness flourishes in a society, this means that the best human qualities are not valued in it.”

The state actually encourages drunkenness and the growth of the number of taverns: “Almost half of our current budget is paid for by vodka, i.e. in the present day, popular drunkenness and popular debauchery - therefore, the entire future of the people. We, so to speak, pay with our future for our majestic budget as a European power. We cut the tree at the very root in order to get the fruit as quickly as possible.”

Dostoevsky shows that this stems from the inability to manage the country's economy. If a miracle happened and people all stopped drinking at once, the state would have to choose: either force them to drink, or financial collapse. According to Dostoevsky, the reason for drunkenness is social. If the state refuses to take care of the future of the people, the artist will think about it. Dostoevsky saw the state as a breeding ground for alcoholism, and in the version presented to Kraevsky, he wanted to talk about the fact that a society where drunkenness flourishes and the attitude towards it is lenient is doomed to degeneration.

Unfortunately, the editor of Otechestvennye Zapiski was not as far-sighted as Dostoevsky in identifying the reasons for the degradation of the Russian mentality and refused the writer’s proposal. The plan for “Drunks” remained unfulfilled.

2. In the second half of 1865, Dostoevsky began working on a “ psychological report of a crime”:

“The action is modern, this year. A young man, expelled from the university students, a tradesman by birth and living in extreme poverty...decided to kill an old woman, a titular councilor who gave money for interest. The old woman is stupid, deaf, sick, greedy...evil and eats up someone else’s life, torturing her younger sister as her housekeeper.” This version clearly states the essence of the plot of the novel “Crime and Punishment.” Dostoevsky’s letter to Katkov confirms this: “Unsolvable questions arise before the murderer, unsuspected and unexpected feelings torment his heart. Forced to die in hard labor, but to join the people again. The laws of truth and human nature took their toll.”

The further Dostoevsky worked and thought about the plan for the story, the more its plan and scope grew. The material from “The Drunks” organically flowed into the story about the killer.

Upon returning to St. Petersburg at the end of November 1855, the author destroyed almost the entire written work: “I burned everything. The new form (a hero’s confession novel - V.L.), the new plan captivated me, and I started again. I work days and nights and yet I work little.” From that time on, Dostoevsky decided on the form of the novel, replacing the first-person narration with a narration from the author, its ideological and artistic structure.

The writer liked to say about himself: “I am a child of the century.” He really was never a passive contemplator of life. “Crime and Punishment” was created on the basis of Russian reality in the 50s of the 19th century, magazine and newspaper disputes on philosophical, political, legal and ethical topics, disputes between materialists and idealists, followers of Chernyshevsky and his enemies.

1866 The year the novel was published was special: on April 4, Dmitry Karakozov made an unsuccessful attempt on the life of Tsar Alexander II. Mass repressions began.

Dostoevsky’s novel, published in Katkov’s magazine, turned out to be an ideological opponent of the novel “What is to be done?” Chernyshevsky. Polemicizing with the leader of revolutionary democracy, speaking out against the struggle for socialism, Dostoevsky, nevertheless, treated with sincere sympathy the participants in the “split of Russia”, who, in his opinion, being mistaken, “selflessly turned to nihilism in the name of honor, truth and true benefit ”, while revealing the kindness and purity of their hearts.

Critics immediately responded to the release of Crime and Punishment. Critic N. Strakhov o.

QUESTIONS TO
REINFORM THE MATERIAL COVERED . ( Separate slide)
1. What was the first stage of working on the novel? Its outcome? The story “Drunk”, issues of raising children in families of alcoholics, the tragedy of poverty, lack of spirituality, etc. The story remained unfinished because Kraevsky refused to publish Dostoevsky.

1. What fundamentally new features did the new version of the novel include? The earliest sketches of the work date back to July 1855, the latest - to January 1866. Analysis of the drafts allows us to state:

o first-person narration is replaced by narration from the author;

• it is not the drunkard who is brought to the fore, but the student, driven by environment and time to murder;
• the form of the new novel is defined as the confession of the protagonist;

o the number of characters has been significantly expanded: the investigator, Dunya, Luzhin and Svidrigailov are represented as psychological doubles of Raskolnikov;

• Various episodes and scenes from the life of St. Petersburg were developed.

1. In what direction did Raskolnikov's character develop?

In the original version of the novel, the narration is told in the first person and is a confession of the criminal, recorded a few days after the murder.

Continuation of the lecture.

First person form

made it possible to explain some of the “oddities” in Raskolnikov’s behavior.
For example, in the scene with Zametov: “ I wasn’t afraid that Zametov would see that I read it.
On the contrary, I even wanted him to notice that I was reading about it... I don’t understand why I was drawn to risk this bravado, but I was drawn to take a risk. Out of anger, maybe out of animal anger
that doesn’t reason.”
In the final text, the hero says these same words to Sonya after his confession. Here there is a noticeable difference in the depiction of the character of the hero. In the second version, where the narration is already conducted in the third person, the humanity of his intentions is more clearly visible: thoughts of repentance come immediately after committing a crime: “ And then, when I become noble, a benefactor of all, a citizen,

I will repent
.
I prayed to Christ, lay down and went to sleep.” Dostoevsky did not include an episode in the final text - Raskolnikov’s reflection after a conversation with Polenka: “Yes, this

full resurrection
, he thought to himself.
He felt that his life had suddenly changed, hell had ended and another life had begun... he was not alone, not cut off from people, but with everyone. Risen from the dead. What happened? What is it that he gave away his last money? What nonsense. This girl? Sonya? - Not just that, but all together. He was weak, he was tired, he almost fell. But his soul was too full.” Such thoughts are premature for the hero; he has not yet drunk the cup of suffering in order to be healed, therefore Dostoevsky transfers the description of such feelings to the epilogue.

The first manuscript describes the meeting with his sister and mother differently:

1. The relationship between Raskolnikov and Sonya in the first version was also shown differently.

The images of Sonya and Svidrigailov are more fully revealed in the final version of Crime and Punishment

1. How did Dostoevsky's contemporaries see the relevance of Crime and Punishment?

Since the late 50s of the 19th century, St. Petersburg newspapers have reported with alarm about the increase in crime. Dostoevsky to some extent used some facts from the criminal chronicles of those years. This is how the “case of student Danilov” became widely known in its time. For profit, he killed the moneylender Popov and his maid. The peasant M. Glazkov wanted to take his guilt upon himself, but was exposed.

Dostoevsky was greatly impressed by the trial of Pierre Lacenaire (France), a professional killer who tried to present himself as a victim of an unfair society, and his crimes as a form of struggle against evil. At his trials, Lacenaire calmly stated that the idea of ​​becoming a killer in the name of revenge was born to him under the influence of socialist teachings. Dostoevsky spoke of Lacenaire as “a phenomenal, mysterious, scary and interesting personality. Low sources and cowardice in the face of need made him a criminal, and he dared to present himself as a victim of his age.”

The scene of the murder committed by Raskolnikov is reminiscent of Lasener’s murder of an old woman and her son who accidentally ended up in the apartment.

Dostoevsky took a fact from life, but tested it with life. He triumphed when, while working on Crime and Punishment, he learned from the newspapers about a murder similar to Raskolnikov’s crime. N. Strakhov recalled: “I don’t know whether the readers were amazed by this, but Fyodor Mikhailovich was proud of such a feat of artistic prophecy.”

With extraordinary sensitivity, Dostoevsky was able to highlight individual, personal facts, but indicating that the “primordial” forces had changed the direction of their movement.

General characteristics of the novel

“Crime and Punishment” is one of the best works of world literature, the value of which increases with the advent of each next generation.

Following the traditions of “novels of education”, in which the basis of the action is responsibility for the crime committed (“Oedipus the King” by Sophocles, “Macbeth” by Shakespeare), Dostoevsky introduces an innovation into the development of this problem: he hardly acquaints the reader with the biography of the hero, with the process of his intellectual development to crime. From the first pages, the reader gets acquainted with the hero, who has long thought about his plan.

Next, Raskolnikov finds himself on the verge of death. If he could be disingenuous or lie to himself, it is unlikely that the author would have made him the main character. But Raskolnikov is honest even after the murder. According to the author, his story comes down not to the fall, but to the moral growth of the hero. Realizing his mistake, Raskolnikov does not become an alcoholic, does not sink to the bottom of life, but finds the strength within himself for spiritual rebirth. The death of his dark idea becomes the source of the beginning of his personality.

The theme of Crime and Punishment is the story of the psychological and moral consequences of murder. Making the history of the hero's internal experiences after the crime committed the subject of merciless moral and psychological research, Dostoevsky does not for a minute separate Raskolnikov and his inner life from the outside world. Each meeting of the hero with another character in the novel leads him to new, purely external clashes with him, but at the same time it becomes the next stage in the history of the hero’s mental and moral testing by his own conscience and the conscience of the people around him. In a broader sense, the theme of the work is perceived as the pain of a humiliated person, doomed by the state to loneliness and suffering.

The meaning of the title of the work

At first

Raskolnikov calls his preliminary visit to Alena Ivanovna a test, but then formulates the murder itself with this word. He killed to test himself whether he was capable of realizing the idea. Crime is a plot taken from modern reality, from a long everyday series. But if Raskolnikov had taken the pawnbroker’s money for himself, or he had killed either Luzhin or Svidrigailov, who had encroached on his sister, his murder would have simply been characterized as a criminal case.

Raskolnikov was not a maniac with a pathological thirst for blood. The intoxication of blood is characteristic of immoral people, executioners by nature. Raskolnikov considered reality to be the executioner.

A crime is a fact of murder, taken from life, but passed through the artist’s imagination, rethought, poured into a philosophical form that combines lines of meaning, social, moral, political problems, the essence of a tragedy in which a generation, a people, and humanity are involved. Raskolnikov’s crime contains everything that would justify his idea.

But if the idea he had suffered through contained an insoluble contradiction, if it was flawed from the very beginning, then at the first test of practice it should self-destruct.

Raskolnikov’s idea turned out to be untenable, but the hero does not immediately realize the social and philosophical meaning of what happened: at first only his pride suffered, the experiences associated with the investigation and trial were perceived as scenery. So attractive in his own right, Raskolnikov was rejected by people as a murderer not by coincidence, but as the creator of a theory dangerous to them.

People close to him and strangers did not recognize his right to kill, did not want to justify him, did not believe in him, as the Jews believed in Jesus, who raised Lazarus. The motive for rejection is punishment. In the “crime” Raskolnikov confronts the world, not accepting it, rejecting it entirely. In “punishment” the hero again confronts the world, but this time a criminal, condemned, unfortunate one, which rejects Raskolnikov. The beginning of the novel - its end - is a description of suffering as punishment.

Composition . “Crime and Punishment” is one of Dostoevsky’s most perfect works in composition. It consists of six parts and an epilogue. The reader is shown scenes of the trial of Raskolnikov in two guises: moral and legal.

Murder is considered in the background, and the analysis of the psychological state of the individual, the moral character of the “criminal” comes to the fore.

The first three parts of the novel, with all the struggle between the motives of “justification” and “condemnation”, are subordinated to “condemnation”, the three subsequent ones are subordinated to “justification”. The novel consists, as it were, of two halves, which are also defined as “for” and “against”, “before” and “after”. In each part of the work, Raskolnikov is compared with persons who highlight some aspect of his personality.

The plot of “Crime and Punishment” is based on a description of the reasons for the murder, the old woman, the death of Raskolnikov’s victims and the exposure of the criminal.

The plot of the novel thus covers the suffering of a man who “has no one to go to.”

Conflict . The state system and the environment that formed Raskolnikov pushed him to look at every person, no matter who he was, as a louse. The hero's feeling of contempt develops into hatred.

Raskolnikov loved invisible humanity, but hated individual people. Lowering the ax on Alena Ivanovna’s head, he could console himself with the hope that people like Lizaveta and Sonya would recognize that he was right and make him their ruler. Having committed murder, Raskolnikov became not the leader of the oppressed, but rejected by society, for the sake of which, in fact, he committed a crime.

This is how the conflict of “Crime and Punishment” is defined - the conflict between Raskolnikov and society, which has preserved the entire past history.

Genre . Almost everyone who wrote about Dostoevsky noted the special dramatic or tragic form of his novels, proving that this is a tragedy novel, “because in it, as in the tragedy of the ancients or in the tragedy of Shakespeare, the conflict of daring and natural necessity reigns, subjugating everything.” A tragedy novel is created by the organic introduction of a tragic conflict into an epic narrative.

The duel between investigator Porfiry Petrovich and Raskolnikov is one of the most intense plot lines in the narrative outline of the novel. From this point of view, Crime and Punishment presents the elements of a criminal adventure novel. The love story of Sonya and Raskolnikov runs through the entire work. In this sense, “Crime and Punishment” can be classified as a love-psychological novel. Its action takes place against the backdrop of the appalling poverty of the inhabitants of the attics and basements of the aristocratic Petersburg. The social environment described by the artist gives grounds to call “Crime and Punishment” a social and everyday novel.

Reflecting on Raskolnikov’s thoughts before and after the murder, analyzing the struggle of passions in the soul of Svidrigailov or the mental anguish of the old man Marmeladov, we feel the great power of Dostoevsky, a psychologist, who convincingly connected the psychology of the heroes with their social status. In Crime and Punishment, the features of a socio-psychological novel are also visible.

Raskolnikov is not a simple murderer from poverty, he is a thinker. He tests his idea, his theory, his philosophy of life. In the novel, the forces of Good and Evil in the theories of Svidrigailov, Sonya, and Luzhin are tested, which defines Dostoevsky’s work as a philosophical novel.

Raskolnikov's theory makes us think about the most pressing political problems, thus formulating the ideological orientation of the work.

Issues . Crime and Punishment poses the fundamental social and ethical problems that will plague Dostoevsky throughout his life. First of all, this is the question of possible ways of development of the human personality in the living conditions of Russia in the 60s. Dostoevsky condemns the rebellion of a strong personality acting on the principle of “everything is permitted.” Raskolnikov transgresses not only the legal laws of society, but also the moral “human” law. This is how the writer perceived a person of the “new generation”.

Revealing the inner world of his heroes with cruel truthfulness, Dostoevsky shows the fruitless attempts of the “little man” to break out of the life framework of the “humiliated and insulted.”

The writer intensely studied the spiritual world of the people of his era, trying to guess the main thought of a person, society, humanity, to penetrate, as he himself said, into “the future results of present events.”

All the plot lines, the actions of the characters, stormy dialogues, dreams and nightmares - everything is brought together into the main focus of the novel: the depiction of the world of human suffering.

HOMEWORK : re-read part 1, chapter 1; Part 2, Ch. 2, 6; Part 3, Chapter 6. Underline (mark, bookmark) the description of the city. In your workbook, make a general heading “Dostoevsky’s Petersburg.” In small margins write down definitions for the proposed plan, on the wide part of the page - a quote - confirmation from the text. Example:

The title of the work and its meaning

The title of the novel is completely related to the main storyline. At the center lies the crime committed by Rodion Raskolnikov. But most of the novel consists of the hero’s thoughts, his inner thoughts and experiences associated with the hero’s peculiar punishment for his theory.

Initially, the narration was told from the perspective of the main character, which created the confessional character of the work. However, subsequently F.M. Dostoevsky abandoned this idea, the narration began to be told from a third person, which made it possible to see an objective and independent “view from the outside.”

Theme and idea of ​​the work. Issues

The theme of the novel “Crime and Punishment” was to show the life of poor people in inhumane social conditions. F.M. Dostoevsky showed how completely pure and just people had to look for a way out of their difficult situation, and sometimes this way out was cruel and sinful. This is the main idea of ​​the novel.

The scope of Crime and Punishment is broad. The author raises eternal problems: life and death, friendship and love. In addition, F.M. In the novel, Dostoevsky touches on the problems of religion, kindness and mercy, crime and punishment for it.

Theme and genre of the novel

The main theme of Crime and Punishment is the oppression and suffocating poverty of the bulk of society, and no one cares about its sad situation. In addition, the theme of personal delusions, hopelessness and rebellion due to terrible poverty and social inequality runs through the novel.

The issue of imaginary beliefs that are touched upon in the work does not lose relevance at all times. Rodion's theory of permissiveness and committing crimes in the name of good intentions is destructive. It was precisely this that became the cause of terror and arbitrariness.

In his work, Fyodor Mikhailovich wanted to convey to the reader his own Christian ideas about the path of life, according to which it is necessary to try to live, observing the principles of morality, without succumbing to selfishness and pride. The author teaches to sacrifice your interests for the benefit of others, to do good. That is why at the end of the epilogue the main character comes to faith, which helps save his soul.

Dostoevsky's novel can be simultaneously classified as a psychological and philosophical work. The author himself called his creation “a report on the commission of a crime.” This literary masterpiece simultaneously combines several components:

• criminal;
• psychological;
• love;
• detective;
• social.

The novel “Crime and Punishment” harmoniously intertwines the frightening reality of ordinary life and the fantasy of Rodion’s dreams. If we touch on the topic of the literary direction of the work, it fully corresponds to realism.

Plot. Conflict. Key episodes.

The plot of the work is connected with the theory of Rodion Raskolnikov, which is the driving force of the entire narrative. The division of people into “those who have the right” and “trembling creatures” becomes the reason for the actions of the protagonist, and also becomes the main conflict of the work: because of the theory, Raskolnikov enters into controversy with himself.

The key episodes are the murder of the old pawnbroker, the confession of Raskolnikov, and the reading of the Gospel by the main character and Sonya.

Image system

The central character of the world-famous novel is Rodion Raskolnikov. His unique counterparts are Luzhin and Svidrigailov, who have their own specific theories of life.

A special role in the narrative is played by Sonechka Marmeladova, whose image is associated with the problem of mercy and self-sacrifice. The fate of her family becomes a separate storyline.

If Luzhin and Svidrigailov confirm Raskolnikov’s theory, then Sonya and Porfiry Petrovich, who is a kind of inner voice of the central image, point out its inconsistency.

Artistic media

F.M. Dostoevsky uses the technique of psychologism in his work. The writer pays special attention to the inner world of the main character, his position relative to the world around him.

To convey the characters of the main characters, F.M. Dostoevsky uses many means: the use of portrait characteristics, which allows one to reveal both the appearance of the hero and the inner side of his image; the use of dialogues and monologues, which allows you to reveal the image using speech characteristics; the use of symbolic images and dreams that reveal the reasons for the characters’ actions; everyday description, which is not only the background of the action, but also the living condition in which the heroes live and which affects their inner world.

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment” is the greatest work of Russian and world literature. The psychological basis of the novel allows us to see the inner world of a person who committed a crime and was in contradiction with himself.

Genre originality of the novel Crime and Punishment by F. M. Dostoevsky

The genre of “Crime and Punishment” (1866) is a novel in which the main place is occupied by the social and philosophical problems of the Russian life of the writer today. In addition, in “Crime and Punishment” one can note genre features: a detective story (the reader knows from the very beginning who the killer of the old pawnbroker is, but the detective intrigue remains until the end - Raskolnikov admits, will he fall into the trap of investigator Porfiry Petrovich or slip out?), an everyday essay (a detailed description of the poor quarters of St. Petersburg), a journalistic article (Raskolnikov’s article “On Crime”), spiritual writing (quotes and paraphrases from the Bible), etc. This novel can be called social because Dostoevsky depicts the life of the inhabitants of the slums of St. Petersburg. The theme of the work is to show the inhuman conditions of existence of the poor, their hopelessness and embitterment.

The idea of ​​“Crime and Punishment” is that the writer condemns his contemporary society, which allows its citizens to live in hopeless need. Such a society is criminal: it dooms weak, defenseless people to death and at the same time gives rise to a retaliatory crime. These thoughts are expressed in Marmeladov’s confession, which he pronounces in a dirty tavern in front of Raskolnikov (1, II). Describing the poverty and misfortune of the Marmeladov family, the Raskolnikov family, Dostoevsky continues the noble tradition of Russian literature - the theme of the “little man”. Classical Russian literature often depicted the torment of the “humiliated and insulted” and attracted public attention and sympathy for people who found themselves, even through their own fault, at the “day of life.” Dostoevsky shows in detail the life of poor St. Petersburg neighborhoods. He depicts Raskolnikov’s room, which looks like a closet, Sonya’s ugly apartment, and the passage room-corridor where the Marmeladov family huddles.

The author describes the appearance of his poor heroes: they are dressed not just poorly, but very poorly, so that it is a shame to appear on the street. This concerns Raskolnikov when he first appears in the novel. Marmeladov, met by a beggar student in a tavern, “was dressed in a black, old, completely tattered tailcoat, with crumbling buttons. Only one of them still held the braid, and it was on this that he fastened it. A shirtfront was sticking out from under the nankeen vest, all crumpled, dirty and stained” (1, II). In addition, all the poor heroes are starving in the literal sense of the word: Katerina Ivanovna’s little children are crying from hunger, Raskolnikov is constantly dizzy from hunger. From the internal monologues of the main character, from Marmeladov’s confession, from the half-mad cries of Katerina Ivanovna before her death, it is clear that people are brought to the limit of suffering by poverty, the disorder of life, that they very keenly feel their humiliation.

Marmeladov exclaims in confession: “Poverty is not a vice... But poverty, dear sir, poverty is a vice, sir. In poverty you still retain your nobility of innate feelings, but in poverty no one ever does. For poverty, they don’t even kick you out with a stick, but with a broom, you sweep them out of human company, so that it would be all the more offensive...” (1, II). Despite his open sympathy for these heroes, Dostoevsky does not try to embellish them. The writer shows that both Semyon Zakharovich Marmeladov and Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov are largely to blame for their sad fate.

Marmeladov is a sick alcoholic who is ready to rob even his small children for the sake of vodka. He does not hesitate to come to Sonya and ask her for the last thirty kopecks for a drink, although he knows how she earns this money. He realizes that he is acting unworthily towards his own family, but still drinks himself to the cross. When he tells Raskolnikov about his latest binge, he is very worried that the children probably haven’t eaten anything for five days, unless Sonya brought at least some money. He sincerely regrets that his own daughter lives on a yellow ticket, but he himself uses her money. Raskolnikov understood this well: “Oh yes Sonya! What a well, however, they managed to dig and are using it!

"(1, II). Dostoevsky has an ambiguous attitude towards Raskolnikov. On the one hand, the writer sympathizes with the student who must earn his poor living with penniless lessons and translations. The author shows that the anti-human theory about “creatures” and “heroes” was born in the sick head of the protagonist when he was tired of honestly fighting shameful poverty, because he saw that scoundrels and thieves were thriving around him. On the other hand, Dostoevsky portrays Raskolnikov’s friend, student Razumikhin: life is even more difficult for him than for the main character, since he does not have a loving mother who sends him money from her pension. At the same time, Razumikhin works hard and finds the strength to endure all adversity. He thinks little about himself, but is ready to help others, and not in the future, as Raskolnikov plans, but now.

Razumikhin, a poor student, calmly accepts responsibility for Raskolnikov’s mother and sister, probably because he truly loves and respects people, and does not think about the problem of whether it is worthy or not to shed “blood according to his conscience.” In the novel, the social content is closely intertwined with the philosophical (ideological): Raskolnikov's philosophical theory is a direct consequence of his desperate life circumstances. An intelligent and determined man, he thinks about how to correct an unjust world. Maybe through violence? But is it possible to forcibly impose a fair society on people against their will? The philosophical theme of the novel is a discussion of the “right to blood,” that is, consideration of the “eternal” moral question: does a high goal justify criminal means?

The philosophical idea of ​​the novel is formulated as follows: no noble goal justifies murder, it is not a human matter to decide whether a person is worthy of living or unworthy. Raskolnikov kills the moneylender Alena Ivanovna, whom the writer himself portrays as extremely unattractive: “She was a tiny, dry old woman of about sixty, with sharp and angry eyes, a small pointed nose and bare hair. Her blond, slightly gray hair was greased with oil. Some kind of flannel rag was wrapped around her thin and long neck, similar to a chicken leg...” (1, I). Alena Ivanovna is disgusting, starting with the above portrait and the despotic attitude towards her sister Lizaveta and ending with her usurious activities; she looks like a louse (5, IV), sucking human blood.

However, according to Dostoevsky, even such a nasty old woman cannot be killed: any person is sacred and inviolable, in this respect all people are equal. According to Christian philosophy, a person’s life and death are in the hands of God, and people are not allowed to decide this (therefore, murder and suicide are mortal sins). From the very beginning, Dostoevsky aggravates the murder of the malicious pawnbroker with the murder of the meek, unrequited Lizaveta. So, wanting to test his capabilities as a superman and preparing to become a benefactor of all the poor and humiliated, Raskolnikov begins his noble activity by killing (!) the old woman and the holy fool, who looks like a big child, Lizaveta. The writer’s attitude towards the “right to blood” is clarified, among other things, in Marmeladov’s monologue.

Speaking about the Last Judgment, Marmeladov is confident that God will ultimately accept not only the righteous, but also degraded drunkards, insignificant people like Marmeladov: “And he will say to us: “You pigs! the image of the beast and its seal; but come too!” (...) And he will stretch out his hands to us, and we will fall down... and cry... and we will understand everything!

Then we will understand everything!..” (1, II). “Crime and Punishment” is a psychological novel, since the main place in it is occupied by the description of the mental anguish of a person who committed a murder. In-depth psychologism is a characteristic feature of Dostoevsky’s work. One part of the novel is devoted to the crime itself, and the remaining five parts are devoted to the emotional experiences of the killer.

Therefore, the most important thing for the writer is to depict Raskolnikov’s torments of conscience and his decision to repent. A distinctive property of Dostoevsky’s psychologism is that it shows the inner world of a person “on the brink”, in a half-delusional, half-insane state, that is, the author tries to convey a painful mental state, even the subconscious of the heroes. This distinguishes Dostoevsky's novels, for example, from the psychological novels of L. N. Tolstoy, where the harmonious, varied and balanced inner life of the characters is presented. So, the novel “Crime and Punishment” is an extremely complex work of art, which closely combines pictures of Russian life contemporary to Dostoevsky (60s of the 19th century) and discussions about the “eternal” question of humanity - the “right to blood.” The writer sees the way out of Russian society from the economic and spiritual crisis (otherwise known as the first revolutionary situation) in people turning to Christian values.

He gives his solution to the posed moral question: under no circumstances does a person have the right to judge whether another person should live or die; the moral law does not allow “blood according to conscience.” Thus, Dostoevsky’s “eternal” question is resolved in a highly humane manner; the novel’s depiction of the life of the lower classes is also humane. Although the writer does not absolve the blame from either Marmeladov or Raskolnikov (they themselves are largely to blame for their plight), the novel is structured in such a way as to evoke sympathy among readers for these heroes.