Classics and the Western Canon discussion
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Crime and Punishment
Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
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Part 5
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Thanks for the summary and discussion openers.I think the contrast is not Luzhin's crime vs. R.'s crime, but rather Sonya, accused but innocent vs R., guilty but "above suspicion."
Lebez's progressive views are a parody of Chernezhevsky's WHAT IS TO BE DONE.
Christopher wrote: "Thanks for the summary and discussion openers.I think the contrast is not Luzhin's crime vs. R.'s crime, but rather Sonya, accused but innocent vs R., guilty but "above suspicion."
Lebez's progr..."
There certainly is a greater contrast in terms of justice there. But I wonder if it is helpful to compare Luzhin and Raskolnikov as offenders (rather than comparing an offender to a victim.) It seems to me that the central issue in both cases is power over other people; the difference is one of degree. Both Luzhin and Raskolnikov "step over" the boundary of common decency in their disrespect for other people, and it's probably no accident that those people are women. Sonya is the perfect "victim:" meek, humble, and forgiving. No wonder then that she becomes a target for Luzhin, or that R. is attracted to her.
Yes, but the other contrast is L.'s self-regard, amour-propre, so that his 'transgression' involves framing and humiliating someone. That he winds up humiliating himself instead of Sonya and R. is just Dostoevsky's art of theatrics. I mean, is it a transgression? It's a fraud, but it depends on society's outrage at theft. I'm going to slip you some money and then claim you took it. Then YOU will be disgraced.
R.'s motives still aren't clear to me, but they don't take society's judgments into account. More like, perhaps murder is not wrong, it's only a convention. This I will prove by murdering someone.
Thomas wrote: "Lebeziatnikov is characterized by his ideology and comes off as slightly insufferable, in my opinion. But he is paired with Luzhin, who eventually makes Lebeziatnikov look good by comparison ..."Chapter 5 really is a rogues gallery of despicable men. I think Sonya plays a central role in this section just so that we can see her virtue held up as a standard to compare with the vices of the men around her, including the drunkard at the wake.
Lebeziatnikov is the least offensive, but is subject to some intense ridicule on the part of the author, not least for his views about cuckoldry and raising other people's children in a commune (which reminded me a little of our discussion on Plato's Republic).
Luzhin's attempt to make Sonya beholden to him financially is sinister, especially the line, "for what better friend could you have at this moment?" I find it hard to trace any thread between this crime and R's murder, in fact it's still not clear to either R or the reader exactly why he killed – he's so confused that, at one point, R even manages to mistake hate for love!
As ever with Dostoevsky's characters, though, not all is straightforward – Lebeziatnikov ends up as Sonya's saviour, and Svidrigailov comes to the rescue of Katerina Ivanovna's children.
I was struck by the beginning of chapter 2 with Dostoevsky interjecting his comments on Katerina Ivanovna’s need to provide a somewhat extravagant funeral for her husband, one she can ill afford. He goes on to comment on “poor man’s pride.”Perhaps the chief element was that peculiar “poor man’s pride,” which compels many poor people to spend their last savings on some traditional social ceremony, simply in order to do “like other people,” and not to “be looked down upon.”
Do we see that kind of authorial intrusion and direct social commentary in fiction nowadays? Maybe we do, but if so, I don’t think it happens as much. Maybe Dostoevsky interjected his comments earlier on in the novel and I missed it. But this struck me as a bit odd and out of place.
Dave wrote: "As ever with Dostoevsky's characters, though, not all is straightforward – Lebeziatnikov ends up as Sonya's saviour, and Svidrigailov comes to the rescue of Katerina Ivanovna's children. ."There is something bizarre about his characters. Nothing is ever clear-cut. Sonya comes close to being a sort of moral center, but she is a prostitute. Lebeziatnikov comes across as a bit ridiculous but he does rescue Sonya. Luzhin is completely despicable. And Svidrigailov, who has admitted to beating his wife, behaves selflessly and with compassion--or so it seems right now.
Dave wrote: "I find it hard to trace any thread between this crime and R's murder, in fact it's still not clear to either R or the reader exactly why he killed – he's so confused that, at one point, R even manages to mistake hate for love! "I think R's motive for the murders is not clear because R himself does not know. The reader has to play psychologist. There are a lot of things I don't like about this book -- it's messy, the characters are inconsistent, the treatment of women is generally abhorrent -- but Dostoevsky draws me in with this psychological challenge.
My take is that R, first of all, does not know who he is. (Maybe his illness, which involves the frequent loss of consciousness, is a physical manifestation of this.) One consequence of this identity crisis is that he has to "decide" who he is, and he ends up reeling in self-deception. He makes himself a Napoleon, or a revolutionary, or some other heroic figure, rather than a down-and-out former law student rotting away in his garret. When he is on the bridge after his dream about Mikolka and the horse, he declares his freedom from all that. With an act of violence he thinks he can simply walk away from the vulnerable little boy, his past, and everything he truly is.
But with this act of violence he is lying to himself. His crime makes no sense in terms of his identity. He gives away the only money he has out of compassion for the Marmeladovs. He tries to rescue a drunken girl on the street. He's basically a nice guy! Why murder an old lady for half-baked ideological reasons, and an innocent Lizaveta for no reason at all except fear? All of the justifications he comes up with in Book 5 Chapter 4 are lies, but they aren't random lies. But as Razumikhin said in his drunken speech earlier in the book, through lies may come the truth.
Thomas wrote: "I think R's motive for the murders is not clear because R himself does not know."Yes, the fact that C&P is a whydunit rather than a whodunit is part of its enduring appeal. Reading modern psychologists like Daniel Kahneman the question of why we make decisions – or why we think we make decisions – is still a live issue.
Even the question of whether a criminal has a mental disorder, and should therefore in some way be excused for their crime, is still very much a live issue in our society today.
As for motivation, that's an interesting point about telling lies as a path to the truth and I hadn't made that connection to Razumikhin's earlier speech. I also wonder if Dostoevsky is less interested in helping us solve this psychological puzzle, and more focused on the social and cultural angle, especially the impact of ideology and modern city life on vulnerable individuals.
Tamara wrote: "Do we see that kind of authorial intrusion and direct social commentary in fiction nowadays?"That's a good point, I hadn't noticed it while reading the passage. Dostoevsky does it quite cleverly by hiding his authorial intrusion under the cover of the third person objective voice. It reminds me a lot of Dickens.
I can't think of any good modern examples. Some writers like Kurt Vonnegut do use authorial intrusion, but more to blur our sense of reality and narrative than to pass comment.
Dave wrote: "I also wonder if Dostoevsky is less interested in helping us solve this psychological puzzle, and more focused on the social and cultural angle, especially the impact of ideology and modern city life on vulnerable individuals. .."I think you raise a good point.
Dire poverty, social circumstances, modern city life have an impact on vulnerable individuals. But the problem is those same circumstances impact different individuals differently. Some folks muddle along as best they can; others go off the edge.
It strikes me that the two individuals who teeter on the brink of insanity and finally go off the edge are Katerina Ivanovna and Raskolnikov. Everyone else, no matter how bad their circumstances and no matter how despicable they may be, remain on this side of sanity. So what do Katerina and R have in common?
Until her death, Katerina continues to flaunt her background—that she comes from a better class of people than her present circumstances allow and because of that, she is entitled to respect and better treatment. She is unable to reconcile herself with the person she once was with the desperate, poverty-stricken person she has now become.
R harbors an attitude of self-importance, a Napoleon complex. He looks down on the people around him and thinks he can outsmart them because of his “superior” intellect. The rules the rest of us have to abide by don’t apply to him. He is better than that. And yet he lives in a hovel, has no money, and relies on his mother to support him.
Perhaps what he shares with Katerina is this attitude that they are entitled in life because of who they once were (Katerina) and what they are (a Napoleon). Perhaps what Dostoevsky is getting at is the individuals most likely to go off the edge are those unable to reconcile what they think they are entitled to in life with their present circumstances. In other words, although social circumstances are a contributing factor, those individuals who experience a “fall” in status, those who don't get the recognition and respect they think they are entitled to, have a harder time coping with the harsh realities of life than others.
I don’t know if this makes any sense.
Tamara wrote: "In other words, although social circumstances are a contributing factor, those individuals who experience a “fall” in status, those who don't get the recognition and respect they think they are entitled to, have a harder time coping with the harsh realities of life than others."Your use of the term, entitled, caught my attention. Maybe Dostoevsky is underscoring an importance of humility in accepting one's situation as it is; without illusions of how it may once had been, like Katerina, or how it is not, like Raskolnikov. Sofia seems to best exemplify this humility, a humbleness before god.
David wrote: "Maybe Dostoevsky is underscoring an importance of humility in accepting one's situation as it is; without illusions of how it may once had been, like Katerina, or how it is not, like Raskolnikov. .."I like how you framed this. Their lack of humility contributes to their downfall: Katerina is reduced to babbling before she dies; Raskolinkov commits murder and then tries to come up with justifications after the fact.
Lebeziatnikov came across to me as an amiable idealist buffoon too fond of his principles to be much good to anyone. A man who values his principle so much that he has forgotten the reason he has them.He envisions this wonderful world where everyone is valued and no one is destitute, yet he won't give alms, and though he likes Sonya a lot lets her sink into destitution and prostitution without any assistance from him because to give her a single kopeck would violate his principles. Think about that. Yet he comes to her rescue when Luzin makes his accusation. I am left wondering if he would have done so if doing so would have violated another of his principles?
Lebeziatnikov's head is in the clouds. D. doesn't think much of the modern intellectual socialist, perhaps?
Reading that funeral dinner scene reminded me of when R. left the Marmeladov home for the first time and after thinking about poor Sonya decides everyone is scum so the hell with them all. Is this carnival funeral scene justification in his mind of the scummy nature of people and to hell with them all?
Oh, yeah, I forgot. Lebeziatnikov does assist Sonya in one way. He gives her books to read. Wonder what those books are? He won't give her a kopeck, Sonya hasn't enough to eat, her step-siblings don't, but he gives her books to read because that's what's important to him.
D. certainly packs a lot in a day. So much happens each day that each one feels like 3 or 4. Is this only the fifth day? Feels like a month. I'd confess just to get some rest.
Cphe wrote: "Svidrigailov,Okay, I understand that he is supposed to be wicked, amoral etc, etc but he seems to me to be the more "humane" of any other character. There is "good and bad" in everyone and his ch..."
What do you think of Svidrigailov's eavesdropping on R's confession? The eavesdropping itself doesn't necessarily mean that he will do anything malevolent with the information gained thereby.... but don't you suspect he will? Or no?
Xan Shadowflutter wrote: "Lebeziatnikov came across to me as an amiable idealist buffoon too fond of his principles to be much good to anyone. A man who values his principle so much that he has forgotten the reason he has t..."Ideas are more important than people for Lebeziatnikov. Raskolnikov tends in that direction as well, but Lebeziatnikov is more of a caricature of that tendency than R is.
I have to wonder though... aren't things like crime and morality and punishment and redemption ideas too? Certainly one doesn't always have to decide between principles and people?
Not always, and maybe not often, but sometimes one does. Principles are important, but applying them absolutely can lead to tyranny and inhumanity even if on a small scale. And what about ethical dilemmas? Perhaps one way to look at it is principle is based on reason but the exception is based on compassion, and we must have both.
About lies leading to truth: When I first read that I thought it very odd because people mostly lie to cover up the truth. But then there is R's confession to Sonya followed by his motives. He runs through one lie after another, each one getting closer to the truth. At the end he is close if not there, and, oh, how his reasons have changed. No Napoleon, just a sad, suffering man.D. is an undisciplined writer and his writing has a lot of rough edges, but when he is writing about what motivates him to write he is razor sharp.
Cphe wrote: "Katerina promotes her superiority because she can’t reconcile with her present inferiority. I’ve met a few people over the years who have exhibited the same trait."Remember the difference between beggary and poverty?
Katerina dies horribly. Her husband is easier going and therefore easier to feel for, but he's really the worse of the two, isn't he? He drinks, she gets stuck with the problems, and then he dies.
Katerina turns to beggary and then dies too but knowing her children are destitute, that she's failed them, and that they too are now beggars. It's a social system that consumes its offspring. Quite brutal. The more scenes I see like this the more I understand R's rage.
Thomas wrote: "Xan Shadowflutter wrote: "Lebeziatnikov came across to me as an amiable idealist buffoon too fond of his principles to be much good to anyone. A man who values his principle so much that he has for..."I think D's point about Lebez.. is a little sharper than that he's an abstract intellectual. D says quite explicitly that L. is basically stupid, but thinks that by embracing the most progressive views he can somehow appear superior to those around him.
I KNOW this phenomenon is not one restricted to Dostoevskian times, unlike, say, tuberculosis and garrets the size of closets.
Perhaps Katerina Ivanovna's ruin started when she ran off with a handsome, dashing, and dissolute officer.
Raskolnikov’s meeting with Sonya somehow reminded me of the meeting between 006 and 007 in Goldeneye. After 006 told 007 about his grand plan, like that of an extraordinary man, 007 retorted, “You are nothing but a thief”; Sonya in effect told Raskolnikov that he had become nothing more than a murderer despite his grand ideas of freedom and power.
Yes, I agree with Tamara that the inability to cope is exacerbated with a sense of a "fall" of status. Such a one is not prepared emotionally for such dire conditions and feels exceptionally wronged. Sonya exemplifies one who deals the best emotionally with an awful situation and is in stark contrast to R and Katerina.
Empathy for others may help save one from the brink of insanity. A regard for others as opposed to only the self (e.g. fall from class focus/ sense of entitlement) may be an essential factor in the inability to best cope.
Xan's mention of reason versus compassion in dealing with situations comports with a theory of the dichotomy between the left/ right brain, right being compassion (in general) and left being reason (science/ in general). See "Master and His Emissary" by Iain McGilchrist.
I suspect Svidrigailov newly acquired information will be employed to place a "hold" on R....to suit Svidrigailov's purposes..but that this may result in unintended results.
A few posts above reminded me of Henry James' general critique of C & P...perhaps based upon his perceiving it as falling within his categorization of being a "fluid pudding" and a "loose and baggy monster". It is said that he could not finish it, faulting, in part, its incoherence and that R was not objective. I think C & P has much emotional / psychological context; the dichotomy as to reason versus humanity exists but as applied to R in C & P, it seems R was deficit in both ...a misapplication of logic/ reason as well as low sense of humanity. There is a a certain focus on feelings and emotions running rampant and ill or undirected.
Sue wrote: "Henry James' general critique of C & P...perhaps based upon his perceiving it as falling within his categorization of being a "fluid pudding" and a "loose and baggy monster"."Interesting. I am agreeing with him--I enjoyed this book immensely 7 years ago, but it's leaving a different impression with me this time around.
I think we can definitely tell that D. had 2 different threads in his head (The Drunkards and R.'s storyline), and they are not coming together. R.'s character is incredibly inconsistent, from a borderline psychopath in the main storyline to a patient and empathetic saint to M.'s family. Exhibit A: R. tries to persuade Katerina Ivanovna to go home by saying that it's beneath her to be on the streets, being the future director of an institute for noble girls--this is an amazing degree of sensitivity and empathy that is so at odds with R. everywhere else.
This is a clunky book for sure.
PS. Katerina Ivanovna says, in my P&V translation, "The nag is spent" before she dies--a throwback to R.'s mare nightmare (pun not intended). It feels heavy-handed, and I'm not sure what D. is getting at here.
I think the incoherence of some of the conversations is part of D's realism, maybe in reaction to Tolstoy, maybe as a follower of Gogol? I don't know, but I agree it makes the novel hard to follow, and if, like me, you listen to the audio, and then want to go over sections reading, there are pages and pages of stuff you don't want to re-read.I should say that The Idiot is like this, only much better.
And I still like it better than Dickens.
Yes, it is most curious how R's empathy/ sense of humanity is so uneven as to different situations. I wonder if the intense and chaotic emotions evidenced in this novel result at least in part from Dostoyesky's experience as a convicted dissident who initially received a death sentence but in fact served years of exile/ labor.
Sue wrote: "I think C & P has much emotional / psychological context; the dichotomy as to reason versus humanity exists but as applied to R in C & P, it seems R was deficit in both ...a misapplication of logic/ reason as well as low sense of humanity.."Maybe because I read BK before C&P, I actually find Raskolnikov psychologically more coherent, more relatable, than the Karamazovs, but philosophically speaking, C&P is not as thought provoking as BK. It is almost as if Dostoevsky is working things out through his writings.
Nemo wrote: "It is almost as if Dostoevsky is working things out through his writings. ..."Absolutely. At times it's raw, unrefined thoughts.
Nemo, I agree with your statement regarding Raskolnikov and the Karamzovs. In general, I recall thinking that indeed "Brothers Karamzov" was more of a baggy monster (when I read it some years ago) than I am finding "Crime and Punishment"....and I must add that I am enjoying this reading! (as I did BK, but indeed..C & P does hold together more to me)
Nemo and Xan, I definitely think part of the compelling and gritty/raw aspect of Dostoyesky is that he is in fact working things out through his work. An honesty of emotion even if not straight forward.
The funeral meal is almost a type scene in Dostoevsky. (I seem to remember at least two of these family squabble dinners in the Brothers K.) Katerina Ivanovna is proud despite all of the circumstances that work against her. How does this contrast with Sonya's meekness? In the context of the novel, is one to be preferred over the other?
Why does Luzhin frame Sonya? Is there any relation or common thread between the crime that Luzhin commits -- framing an innocent Sonya -- and Raskolnikov's crime? Lebeziatnikov exposes Luzhin in dramatic fashion. Perhaps we can look forward to Raskolnkiov being exposed in a similar way, presumably by Porfiry? ( I very much enjoyed Luzhin's downfall; I'm not as sure that I will enjoy R's to the same degree, if that is what is going to happen.)
Why does Raskolnikov confess to Sonya? He says that he has to.
"Need I tell her who killed Lizaveta?" The question was strange because he suddenly felt at the same time that it was impossible not only not to tell her, but even to put the moment off, however briefly. He did not yet know why it was impossible; he only felt it, and the tormenting awareness of his powerlessness before necessity almost crushed him.
When the moment comes to tell her, the narrator says it felt to Raskolnikov "terribly like the one when he had stood behind the old woman, having already freed the axe from its loop, and realized that 'there was not another moment to lose.' "
Why, for Raskolnikov, is the act of confession similar to the act of murder? Does Raskolnikov adequately explain his reasons for the murder?
Sonya is in almost every part of Part 5, either as a main character or as a crucial dramatic impetus. In a lot of ways it seems like everything in this part revolves around her. What do you think about the way she reacts to Raskolnikov's confession?