Crime and punishment of Raskolnikov's mistake. "Crime and Punishment" F.M.

The very construction of the plot of “Crime and Punishment” is also “fantastic”. If in an ordinary detective story the whole interest of the story lies in solving the mystery of the crime, then “Crime and Punishment” is a kind of “anti-detective”, where the criminal is known to the readers from the very beginning. Almost all the heroes of the novel, including the investigator Porfiry Petrovich himself, also penetrate into his secret one after another. However, at the same time, all the initiates, seeing the unbearability of Raskolnikov’s moral torment, are sympathetic to him and are waiting for him to repent and turn himself in. The reader's attention is thus transferred from the external outline of the plot to the mental state of the criminal and to the ideas that led him to the crime.

The novel's artistic time also defies conventional measurement. On the one hand, it is unusually eventful, and on the other, sometimes it ceases to be felt at all, “fades out in the minds” of the heroes. It's hard to believe that everything complex action The novel fits within two weeks. The rhythm of time either slows down or speeds up furiously. In the course of one day, as many events often take place in the hero’s mental life as would be enough for a real person to last a lifetime. (For example, on the second day after recovering from a fever, Raskolnikov in the morning talks with his sister and mother who came to see him, persuading them to break up with Luzhin. He immediately introduces them to Sonya, who suddenly came to him. Next, he goes with Razumikhin to meet Porfiry, who calls him to a detailed story about his theory and invites him to tomorrow for a decisive explanation, which means life or death for the hero. Upon returning home, he meets with a tradesman, “a man from underground,” who throws in his face: “Murderer!” , and experiences all the horror of exposure. After this, the hero sees a nightmare about his murder and, waking up, sees Svidrigailov, with whom he unexpectedly enters into a long philosophical conversation. Then he, along with the arriving Razumikhin, goes to his relatives and provokes their final break with Luzhin. But at the same time, he himself can no longer bear their closeness and suddenly leaves them, telling Razumikhin on his way out that he is leaving forever. Directly from his family, he goes for the first time to Sonya, makes her talk about herself, then asks her to read about the resurrection of Lazarus and prepares her for the crime to be revealed to her. All these events fit within one day).

At the same time, the novel's action is often interrupted by long internal monologues and detailed descriptions of the characters' state of mind. At one moment, a whirlwind of thoughts and ideas rushes through the hero’s inflamed brain, and the next moment he falls into unconsciousness, as happens to him after committing a murder. In a fever, “sometimes it seemed to him that he had been lying there for a month, another time - that the same day was still going on” (6; 92). Even when the delirium ends and Raskolnikov apparently recovers, he does not fully come to his senses and throughout all subsequent chapters continues to be in a feverish, semi-delirious state. Such failures into “timelessness,” along with the intensification of novel time, predetermine its “catastrophic nature” and its alien nature to the real.

The whole reality of the novel is also fantastic, which Dostoevsky deliberately brings closer to a dream. Reality often seems to the heroes to be the fulfillment of a painful dream, and a dream “revitalizes” ideas and feelings that were “not embodied” in reality. As if in a dream, Raskolnikov commits a crime. Then, at the end of the third part, already in an ominous nightmare, he dreams that he is condemned to commit his murder forever. The sudden arrival of Svidrigailov seems to him to be a continuation of this dream, especially since he utters his most cherished and secret thoughts in a conversation. All this makes Raskolnikov even doubt the reality of his interlocutor.

Every detail in the novel, every meeting or turn of events, with complete realistic verisimilitude, often casts mystical shadows or acquires the meaning of fatal immutability. Unexpected accidents (like the phrase Raskolnikov accidentally overheard in the square that the next day Lizaveta would not be at home) involve him in a crime, “as if he had gotten a piece of clothing into the wheel of a car and was being pulled into it.” (6; 58). All the details of the murder are significant and symbolic, which does not in the least contradict the realistic salience with which they are forever imprinted in the reader’s mind. Consider just one scene with an ax, for which Raskolnikov prepared a special loop under his coat, under his left arm, to make it easier to immediately grab it - as a result of which the blade had to fit under the coat directly to his heart. However, when the hero, just before the murder, realizes about his master’s ax, he is not there, which threatens to destroy his entire carefully thought-out plan. “Suddenly he shuddered. From the janitor's closet, which was two steps away from him, from under the bench to the right, something flashed into his eyes... He rushed headlong towards the ax (it was an ax) and pulled it out from under the bench... “Not reason, so devil,” he thought, smiling strangely. This incident encouraged him extremely.” (6; 59-60). (Later, Raskolnikov will claim to Sonya that “the devil killed the old woman,” and not he). Raskolnikov delivers the fatal blow to the old woman with the butt of the ax so that the blade is facing himself - this is as if a sign that Raskolnikov is simultaneously inflicting an irreparable blow to himself and will soon find himself a victim of his own murder . Raskolnikov kills Lizaveta with the tip, as if deflecting the blow from himself, and indeed, from Lizaveta, the saving thread for Raskolnikov further stretches to Sonya Marmeladova, whose cross was on the innocently murdered woman. Then, it is from the Gospel of Lizaveta that Sonya Raskolnikova will read about the resurrection of Lazarus. Another example of a symbolic detail: When passersby hand Raskolnikov two kopecks like a beggar, having taken pity on his ragged appearance and the rough blow of the whip he received, he contemptuously throws the coin into the water: “It seemed to him that he seemed to have cut himself off from everyone and everything with scissors.” at this minute” (6; 90).. Raskolnikov kills Lizaveta with the tip, as if deflecting the blow from himself, and indeed, from Lizaveta, the saving thread for Raskolnikov further stretches to Sonya Marmeladova, whose cross was on the innocently murdered woman. Then, it is from the Gospel of Lizaveta that Sonya Raskolnikova will read about the resurrection of Lazarus. Another example of a symbolic detail: When passersby hand Raskolnikov two kopecks like a beggar, having taken pity on his ragged appearance and the rough blow of the whip he received, he contemptuously throws the coin into the water: “It seemed to him that he seemed to have cut himself off from everyone and everything with scissors.” at this minute” (6; 90).

Dostoevsky’s characters themselves are also fantastic - in the same sense in which in “Crime and Punishment” Svidrigailov finds the Madonna’s face “fantastic”: “After all, the Sistine Madonna has a fantastic face, the face of a mournful holy fool, didn’t that catch your eye?” (6; 369). Such a paradoxical combination of the incompatible (heavenly beauty and painful anguish) is typical of Dostoevsky’s thinking. All the characters in Crime and Punishment are built on such an oxymoronic combination of opposites: a noble murderer, a chaste harlot, an aristocrat, a drunkard official preaching the Gospel. They all impress with the “fantastic nature of their situation” (6; 358). In such natures, high ideals with vicious passions, strength and powerlessness, generosity and selfishness, self-abasement and pride are intricately intertwined. “A man is broad, too broad, I would narrow it down... What seems shameful to the mind, is entirely beauty to the heart,” these words from “The Brothers Karamazov” best characterize the new understanding of the human soul brought by Dostoevsky to world culture.

Dostoevsky's heroes are distinguished by an unusually eccentric and painful character and are in constant nervous excitement. At the same time, due to their amazing psychological similarity, they quickly guess each other’s thoughts, feelings and even ideas. This creates the phenomenon in Dostoevsky’s novels duality, endless in its varieties and variations. The instability and complexity of Dostoevsky's characters is also aggravated by the fact that the heroes are always depicted outside of a certain social status- as those who “fell out” of their class (like Raskolnikov, Marmeladov, Katerina Ivanovna, and even the rich man Svidrigailov, who spends time in the most dubious street companies of St. Petersburg). Dostoevsky’s heroes also do not have daily employment: not one of them works to earn their own food (Except for Sonya Marmeladova, however, the ugly way in which she gets money, constantly thinking about suicide, can hardly be called natural. Let us note, however, that in fact “on panel” Sonya is not shown anywhere in the novel). On the contrary, throughout the entire novel they remain in a kind of “balanced” state, conducting long and passionate conversations with each other, in which they sort things out or argue about the “last” ideological questions: about the existence of God, about permissiveness and the limits of human freedom, about possibilities for a radical reorganization of the world. The central characters in Dostoevsky's novels are always ideological heroes, captured by a certain philosophical problem or an idea, in the solution or implementation of which their whole life is concentrated. All of them are best characterized by the phrase said about Ivan Karamazov: “... his soul is stormy. His mind is in captivity. It contains a great and unresolved thought. He is one of those who do not need millions, but need to resolve the thought” (14; 76). The entire novel strives to resolve this “great” thought, and everyone else helps the main character in achieving this goal. Therefore, all mature novels of Dostoevsky - philosophical according to its main conflict.

MM. Bakhtin in his famous work “Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics” understands each character as the embodiment of a special, independent idea, and he sees all the specifics of the philosophical construction of the novel in polyphony- “polyphony”. The entire novel is built, in his opinion, as an endless, fundamentally incomplete dialogue of equal voices, each equally convincingly arguing their position. The author's voice turns out to be only one of them, and the reader will retain the freedom to disagree with him.

But at the same time, Dostoevsky’s novels can also be called psychological. The question of Dostoevsky’s psychologism is unusually complex, especially since the writer himself did not want to apply this concept to himself: “They call me a psychologist: it’s not true, I’m only a realist in the highest sense, that is, I depict all the depths of the human soul” (27; 65). This phrase, so often quoted and so contradictory at first glance, requires special interpretation. Why research of “all depths” in human soul does not apply to the phenomena of psychologism? The fact is that with this phrase Dostoevsky tried to contrast himself with the realist writers of his time and indicate that he depicts a layer of human consciousness that is fundamentally different from them. The most accurate way to determine which one is Christian anthropology, according to which the human being is threefold and consists of body, soul and spirit. TO bodily The (“somatic” in theological terminology) level includes instincts that make humans related to the animal world: self-preservation, procreation, etc. On spiritual The (“psychic”) level contains the actual human “I” in all its life manifestations: the world of feelings, emotions and passions, endless in its diversity: all kinds of love experiences, the aesthetic principle (perception of beauty), mentality with all its individual differences, pride , anger, etc. At the last one, spiritual The (“pneumatic”) level contains the intellect, the concept of good and evil (categories of morality) and the freedom of choice between them - what makes a person “the image and likeness of God” and what unites him with the world of spirits. This is where existential problems confront a person - “here the devil fights with God, and the battlefield is the hearts of people” (14; 100). This third layer is the most hidden, because in everyday life a person lives primarily in the spiritual world, because the vanity and diversity of bright momentary impressions obscures from him the final questions of existence. On spiritual level a person concentrates only on extreme situations: in the face of death or in moments of final determination for oneself the purpose and meaning of one’s existence. It is this level of consciousness (“all the depths of the human soul”) that makes Dostoevsky the subject of close and fearless analysis, considering other levels only in their relation to the last. In this regard, he is indeed “not a psychologist”, but a “realist in the highest sense” (or, in theological language, a “pneumatician”).

Hence it follows fundamental difference images of the world and man in Dostoevsky and Tolstoy and Turgenev, which focus on the spiritual, “mental” side of life in all its richness and completeness. We will find in their works an inexhaustible ocean of feelings, a variety of complex characters and a colorful description of life in all its manifestations. But for all the uniqueness of individual feelings, the “eternal questions” face the same ones. At the spiritual level, the fundamental difference in characters disappears and becomes unimportant. At crisis moments in life, the psychology of very different people is unified and almost coincides. The same struggle between God and the devil is played out in all hearts, only at different stages. This explains the monotony of Dostoevsky’s characters and the “duplicity” so widespread in his novels.

The originality of Dostoevsky’s psychologism also determines the specificity of his plot constructions. To activate the spiritual layer of consciousness in the heroes, Dostoevsky needs to knock them out of their usual rut in life, bring them into a state of crisis. Therefore, the dynamics of the plot lead them from catastrophe to catastrophe, depriving them of solid ground under their feet, undermining their existential stability and forcing them to desperately “storm” insoluble, “cursed” questions again and again. Thus, the entire compositional structure of “Crime and Punishment” can be described as a chain of catastrophes: Raskolnikov’s crime, which brought him to the threshold of life and death, then Marmeladov’s catastrophe; the madness and death of Katerina Ivanovna that soon followed, and finally the suicide of Svidrigailov. The prehistory to the novel's action also tells about Sonya's catastrophe, and in the epilogue - Raskolnikov's mother. Of all these heroes, only Sonya and Raskolnikov manage to survive and escape. The intervals between catastrophes are occupied by Raskolnikov’s most intense dialogues with other characters, of which two conversations with Sonya, two with Svidrigailov and three with Porfiry Petrovich stand out. The second, most terrible “conversation” for Raskolnikov with the investigator, when he drives Raskolnikov almost to the point of insanity in the hope that he will give himself away - is compositional center novel, and conversations with Sonya and Svidrigailov, framing it, are located one before and after.

Concerned about making the plot entertaining, Dostoevsky also resorts to the technique of silence. When Raskolnikov goes to the old woman for a “test,” the reader is not privy to his plan and can only guess what “matter” he is discussing with himself. The specific plan of the hero is revealed only 50 pages from the beginning of the novel, immediately before the crime itself. We become aware of the existence of Raskolnikov’s complete theory and even an article outlining it only on the two hundredth page of the novel - from Raskolnikov’s conversation with Porfiry. In the same way, only at the very end of the novel do we learn the history of Dunya’s relationship with Svidrigailov - immediately before the denouement of this relationship. Such reticence is designed for the effect of the first reading, which was and remains typical for all fiction novels and to which Dostoevsky himself attached great importance, trying to expand the circle of his readers and captivate them first of all with the plot, and then with the philosophical problems of the dialogues.

Clearly limited number characters, the concentration of action in time, the rapid development of the plot, replete with tense dialogues, unexpected confessions and public scandals - all this allows us to talk about the pronounced dramatic features of Dostoevsky’s prose, which was noted by the poet and symbolist philosopher Vyach. Ivanov, who wrote about Dostoevsky’s novels as “tragedy novels.”

The image of St. Petersburg in the novel.

The heroes in Dostoevsky's novels are depicted virtually outside the context of everyday life. Life is depicted by Dostoevsky rather as “anti-life” (life with a negative sign), in its violation or “inhumanity”. In “Crime and Punishment” he is associated primarily with the image of St. Petersburg. “This magnificent capital, decorated with numerous monuments,” “the city of clerks and all kinds of seminarians,” is most clearly characterized in the novel by Svidrigailov: “This is a city of half-crazy people...<...>Rarely where can you find so many dark, harsh and strange influences on the human soul as in St. Petersburg. What are climate influences alone worth? Meanwhile, this is the administrative center of all of Russia, and its character should be reflected in everything” (6; 357). Raskolnikov clearly feels a similar ominous spiritual influence of St. Petersburg: “An inexplicable cold always blew over him from this magnificent panorama; This magnificent picture was full of a dumb and deaf spirit for him” (6; 90). The “dead”, “deliberate”, “most fantastic” city is endowed with gloomy mystical power, oppressing the individual and depriving him of the feeling of his rootedness in being. This is a special spiritual space where everything acquires symbolic and psychological meaning. The main impressions of Dostoevsky’s St. Petersburg are the unbearable stuffiness, which becomes an “atmosphere of crime”; darkness, dirt and slush, from which aversion to life and contempt for oneself and others develops, as well as dampness and abundance of water in all forms (remember the terrible thunderstorm and flood on the night of Svidrigailov’s suicide), giving rise to a feeling of fluidity, fragility and relativity of all phenomena of reality. Those who came to St. Petersburg from the provinces quickly degenerated, succumbing to its “civilizing”, corrupting and vulgarizing influence, like Raskolnikov, Mikolka, Marmeladov, Katerina Ivanovna.

For Dostoevsky, there is, first of all, not the Petersburg of baroque and classicism, palaces and gardens, but the Petersburg of Sennaya Square with its noise and merchants, dirty alleys and apartment buildings, taverns and “houses of pleasure,” dark closets and staircases. This space is filled with an innumerable number of people, merging into a faceless and insensitive crowd, swearing, laughing and mercilessly trampling all those weakened in the cruel “struggle for life.” St. Petersburg creates a contrast between the extreme crowding of people and their extreme disunity and alienation from each other, which gives rise to hostility and mocking curiosity in the souls of people towards each other. The entire novel is filled with endless street scenes and scandals: the blow of a whip, a fight, suicide (Raskolnikov once sees a woman with a yellow, “wasted” face throwing herself into a canal), a drunkard run over by horses - everything becomes food for ridicule or gossip. The crowd pursues the heroes not only on the streets: the Marmeladovs live in walk-through rooms, and at any scandalous family scene, “insolent laughing heads with cigarettes and pipes, in yarmulkes, stretched out from different doors” and “laughed amusingly.” The same crowd appears like a nightmare in Raskolnikov’s dream, invisible and therefore especially terrible, watching and laughing evilly at the feverish efforts of the maddened hero to complete his ill-fated crime.

It was here that the main character should have developed an idea of ​​​​people as annoying and evil insects, eating each other, like spiders locked in a tight jar. Raskolnikov begins to caustically hate his “neighbors”: “One new irresistible feeling took possession of him more and more every minute: it was some kind of endless, almost physical disgust for everything he encountered and surrounded him, stubborn, angry, hateful. Everyone he met was disgusting to him, their faces, their gait, their movements were disgusting” (6; 87).

The hero involuntarily has a desire to get away from everyone, retire to himself and arrange himself in such a way as to rise and achieve complete dominance over this entire human “anthill”. To do this, you can kill one of these “disgusting and harmful lice,” and for this only “forty sins will be forgiven.” Then the hero goes into his closet, reminiscent of a “chest”, “closet” or “coffin”, into his spiritual “underground” and there he nurtures his inhuman theory. This closet is also an integral part of St. Petersburg, a special spiritual space, signifying the deadness of the hero’s habitat, predetermining the murderousness and inhumanity of the theory he is pondering. “Then, like a spider, I huddled in my corner... Do you know, Sonya, that low ceilings and cramped rooms cramp the soul and mind! Oh, how I hated that kennel! But still I didn’t want to leave it. I didn’t mean to on purpose!” (6; 320). Sonya's room was also ugly, like a barn, where one corner was too sharp and black, and the other was ugly blunt, which symbolizes the disfigurement of her life. The image of the “dead room” receives its final philosophical conclusion in the ominous vision of Svidrigailov, to whom all eternal life was imagined as being in a smoky “room, like a village bathhouse” with spiders “in all corners.” This is the complete absence of “air”, as well as the complete destruction of time and space. The fact that Raskolnikov does not have enough air to live is said in passing by both Porfiry and Svidrigailov, but in St. Petersburg there is air (in in this case, this is a symbol of living, immediate life) not at all, as Pulcheria Alexandrovna notes: “It’s terribly stuffy... and where is there air to breathe here? Here and on streets, like in rooms without windows. Lord, what a city!” (6; 185) .

The idea of ​​the novel. The image of Raskolnikov.

Dostoevsky himself in a letter to the editor of “Russian Messenger” M.N. Katkov described his plan for the novel this way:

“The action is modern, this year. A young man, expelled from the university students, a philistine by birth and living in extreme poverty, through frivolity, due to unsteadiness in concepts, succumbing to some strange “unfinished” ideas that were floating in the air, he decided to get out of his bad situation at once. He decided to kill one old woman, a titular councilor who gave money for interest. The old woman is stupid, deaf, sick, greedy, takes Jewish interest, is evil and eats up someone else's life, torturing her younger sister as her worker. “She’s no good for anything,” “what does she live for?”, “Is she useful to anyone?” etc. These questions are confusing young man. He decides to kill her, rob her; in order to make her mother, who lives in the district, happy, to free her sister, who lives as a companion with some landowners, from the voluptuous claims of the head of this landowner family... to complete the course, go abroad and then be honest, firm, unswerving in fulfilling a “humane duty to humanity”, which, of course, “will make amends for the crime”, if only this act against an old woman who is deaf, stupid, evil and sick can be called a crime...

Despite the fact that such crimes are terribly difficult to commit, he, completely by chance, manages to complete his undertaking quickly and successfully.

There is not and cannot be any suspicion against him. This is where the entire psychological process of the crime unfolds. Unsolvable questions arise before the killer, unsuspected and unexpected feelings torment his heart. God's truth, earthly law takes its toll, and he ends up being forced to denounce himself. Forced to die in hard labor, but to join the people again; the feeling of isolation and disconnection from humanity, which he felt immediately after committing the crime, tormented him... The criminal himself decides to accept torment in order to atone for his deed.... Several cases that happened in Lately, convinced me that my plot was not eccentric at all. Namely, that the murderer is a young man with developed and even good inclinations... In a word, I am convinced that my plot partly justifies modernity.” (28 II; 137).

We see that the author closely links Raskolnikov’s idea with his contemporary historical era, when “everything went from the basics” and “an extraordinary instability of concepts” reigns in an educated society “cut off from the soil.” Thus, the problems of the novel are revealed to us as social, and the novel itself should be defined as philosophical-social-psychological. Main character The novel was conceived precisely as a “new” person, succumbing to the “unfinished” ideas floating in the St. Petersburg air, following which he reaches the point of denying the world around him.

Dostoevsky saw the reasons for the spiritual crisis of his era in the onset of the “period of human solitude,” which he writes about in detail in “The Brothers Karamazov”:

“...For everyone now strives to separate his face the most, wants to experience the fullness of life in himself, and yet all his efforts result, instead of the fullness of being, only complete suicide, because instead of the fullness of the definition of his being, they fall into complete solitude.. ... everyone retires into his own hole, everyone moves away from others, hides and hides what he has and ends up pushing himself away from people and pushing people away from himself... But it will certainly happen that the time will come for this terrible solitude, and they will all understand at once how unnaturally they have separated from each other. (14; 275-276).

Raskolnikov's seclusion in the coffin room turns out to be a sign of the times in the light of this quote. The extraordinary ability to discern the spiritual root cause behind any modern phenomenon (wars, sensational court cases, public protest or scandal) was generally a distinctive feature of Dostoevsky’s talent. In “Crime and Punishment,” the author puts similar generalizations into the mouth of Porfiry Petrovich: “Here it comes fantastic, gloomy, matter modern, in our time there is a case when the human heart became clouded; when the phrase that blood “refreshes” is quoted; when all life is preached in comfort. Here are bookish dreams, sir, here is a theoretically irritated heart” (6; 348).

Raskolnikov was conceived, on the one hand, as a typical representative of the generation of commoners of the 60s, who especially easily became fanatics of an idea. He is a half-educated student who, thanks to his education, can already think independently, but does not yet have clear guidelines in the spiritual world. Having experienced the loneliness and humiliation of a miserable existence, he knows life only from its negative side, and therefore does not value anything in it. Living in St. Petersburg, he does not know Russia; faith and moral ideals are alien to him ordinary people. It is precisely such a person who is defenseless against the “negative” ideas floating in the air, since he has nothing to oppose them. What was said in “The Possessed” about Shatov is quite applicable to Raskolnikov: “He was one of those ideal Russian creatures who are suddenly struck by some strong idea and immediately immediately crushes them with itself, sometimes even forever. They are never able to cope with it, but they believe passionately, and then their whole life then passes as if in the last writhing under a stone that fell on them and half completely crushed them” (10; 27). The “underground”, “closet” origin of the idea predetermines its abstractness, abstraction from life and inhumanity (which qualities were inherent in all totalitarian theories in the 19th and 20th centuries). It is no coincidence that Dostoevsky gives Raskolnikov the following characteristic: “he was already a skeptic, he was young, abstract and, therefore, cruel.” Such a person turns into the bearer of an idea, its slave, who has already lost his freedom of choice (remember that Raskolnikov commits a crime as if against his will: going to murder, he feels like a condemned man who is being taken to death).

However, Raskolnikov is not a simple nihilist. He does not make any plans for the social reorganization of society and mocks the socialists: “Hardworking and commercial people; They are engaged in “general happiness”... no, life is given to me once, and it will never be again: I don’t want to wait for “general happiness”” (6; 211). It is not for nothing that the socialist Lebezyatnikov is so caricatured in the novel. Raskolnikov treats his comrades with some kind of aristocratic contempt and does not want to have anything to do with them. Raskolnikov perceived nihilistic ideas more deeply and thoroughly than his socialist contemporaries and at once reached them “to the last pillars.” His idea reveals the deep essence of nihilism, which consists in the denial of God and admiration for the self-affirming human “I”. (Socialism in Dostoevsky’s understanding is also an attempt by humanity to “settle on earth without God”, according to its earthly mind, but it is very naive and distant. This is a common, popular type of nihilism, while the “highest” nihilism is individualistic). Thus, Raskolnikov’s idea also has a religious basis - it is no coincidence that Raskolnikov compares himself with Mohammed - the “prophet” from Pushkin’s “Imitations of the Koran”. Fight against God, the foundation of a new morality - this was Raskolnikov’s last goal, for the sake of which he decided to “dare” and take it. “If there is no God, then everything is permitted” - this is the final formulation of this “highest nihilism”, which he will receive in “The Brothers Karamazov”. This, according to Dostoevsky, is the Russian national version of nihilism, for “Russian nature” is characterized by religiosity, the inability to live without a “higher idea,” passion and the desire to reach the “last line” in everything, both good and evil. This author’s idea is carried out in the novel by Svidrigailov, explaining to Duna the crime of her brother: “Now everything has become clouded, that is, however, it was never in any particular order. Russian people are generally broad people... broad, like their land, and extremely prone to the fantastic, to the disorderly; but the trouble is to be broad without special genius.” (6; 378).

Porfiry Petrovich characterizes Raskolnikov as “a dejected man, but proud, imperious and impatient, especially impatient.” (6; 344). Together, he sees in his nature extraordinary strength and directness: “Your article is absurd and fantastic, but such sincerity flashes in it, there is youthful and incorruptible pride in it, in it there is the courage of despair” (6; 345). “I regard you as one.” one of those whose guts you could even cut out, and he will stand and look at the tormentors with a smile - if only he finds faith or God” (6; 351). The very name of the hero evokes in us an association with schismatics - fanatics of the faith who voluntarily secluded themselves from society for its sake. Moreover, in this “ speaking surname”contains a hint of a certain “schism,” inconsistency and duality in the character of the character - between feelings and mind, between a responsive nature and an abstract theorizing mind. So, according to Razumikhin, Rodion is “gloomy, gloomy, arrogant and proud;<...>suspicious and hypochondriac. Generous and kind. He doesn’t like to express his feelings and would rather commit cruelty than express his heart in words. Sometimes<...>he’s simply cold and insensitive to the point of inhumanity, really, as if two opposing characters alternately alternate in him<...>He values ​​himself terribly highly and, it seems, not without some right to do so” (6; 165).

This characterization clearly shows romantic motives coming from Lermontov and Byron: immense pride, a feeling of hopeless universal loneliness and “world sorrow” (“Truly great people, it seems to me, should feel great sadness in the world,” Raskolnikov suddenly blurts out to Porfiry - 6; 203). This is evidenced by Raskolnikov’s admiration for the personality of Napoleon, who was with Byron ideal hero and the unattainable idol of Russian romanticism. Raskolnikov’s character actually shows a certain arrogance, stemming from a sense of his exclusivity, which makes some people instinctively hate him (just as the crowd always hates such proud hermits who are only proud of this hatred - let us remember the hatred of Raskolnikov by Luzhin, the bailiffs, the tradesman or fellow convicts), and others - to treat him with an unconscious recognition of his superiority (like Razumikhin, Sonya or Zametov). Even Porfiry Petrovich is imbued with respect for him: “I, in any case, consider you to be the most noble person” (6; 344). “It’s not about time, it’s about you. Become the sun, everyone will see you. The sun first of all needs to be the sun” (6; 352).

Raskolnikov's theory.

Raskolnikov's crime is much deeper than an ordinary violation of the law. “You know what I’ll tell you,” he confesses to Sonya, if only I had killed because I was hungry... then I would now... be happy! Know this!” Raskolnikov was killed by the very principle by which human actions can be defined and from time immemorial have been defined as criminal. With the loss of these principles, the undermining of public morality and the collapse of the entire society in general is inevitable.

The very idea of ​​​​dividing all people into two categories: geniuses, capable of telling the world a “new word” and “material”, suitable only for the products of posterity, as well as the conclusion drawn from this about the right of chosen people to sacrifice the lives of others for the sake of their highest interests is an idea , to put it mildly, not new. It has been proclaimed by individualists in all centuries. Machiavelli also used it as the basis for his theory of government. But Raskolnikov layers this idea with the trends of the times: the ideals of progress and public good that were fashionable for the 19th century. Therefore, the crime receives several motivations at once, hiding one under the other. For external, “objective” reasons, Raskolnikov kills in order to save himself, his mother and sister from terrible poverty. But such motivation is quickly dismissed by him. Its imaginary nature is revealed when Raskolnikov, horrified by the crime committed, wants to throw all the loot into the canal, not even interested in its quantity and price. On the other hand, Raskolnikov is trying to justify his crime by considerations of the highest good that he will bring to the world when, thanks to his first “brave” step, he becomes established as a person and accomplishes everything destined for him. It is this version of the theory that Raskolnikov sets out in his article, and then in his first visit to Porfiry: a new word of genius moves all of humanity forward and justifies any means, but “ only in that case, if the fulfillment of his idea (sometimes saving, perhaps for all humanity) requires it” (6; 199). “One death and a thousand lives in return” “after all, this is arithmetic.” Wouldn't Newton or Kepler have the right to sacrifice a hundred lives to give the world their discoveries? Next, Raskolnikov turns to Solon, Lycurgus, Mohammed and Napoleon - rulers, leaders, generals, whose very type of activity is inevitably associated with violence and the shedding of blood. He calls them veiledly “legislators and establishers of humanity,” whose new word lay in their social transformations and who were all criminals because “by giving a new law, they thereby violated the ancient one, sacredly revered by society and handed down from the fathers” (6; 200). From this follows the conclusion that every genius who speaks a new word is a destroyer by nature, for “he destroys the present in the name of the better” (6; 200).

However, the “small mistake” of this theory lies, first of all, in the fact that all kinds of “great people” are placed on the same level according to a very vague criterion of their “greatness,” while the discoveries of a scientist bring into the world something completely different from the deeds of a saint, and the talent of an artist is completely different from the talent of a politician or commander. However, Pushkin’s question of whether “genius and villainy are compatible” does not seem to exist at all for Raskolnikov. Generals and rulers, by virtue of the very nature of their activities, play with people’s lives, like chess, and even the most outstanding and attractive of them can hardly be called benefactors of all humanity. Moreover, most of them shed human blood, not at all possessing the genius of Lycurgus and Napoleon, but simply by virtue of the power they received. It is ambition and pride that are their primary motivation, or at least a necessary condition for their achievement of power. So, the identification of genius with crime, which captivated Raskolnikov, is incorrect even theoretically, not to mention the fact that Raskolnikov himself does not yet have any “new word” other than his theory itself. The “goodness” of the latter for humanity is perfectly demonstrated by the hero’s last dream in the epilogue, where this idea - as if it had taken possession of all minds and replaced the previous moral law on Earth - is shown in all its destructive power. Its effect turns out to be similar to a pestilence and leads the world to the Apocalypse.

Raskolnikov himself realizes that in vain he assured himself of the supreme expediency and justification of his “experiment” and “for a whole month he disturbed the all-good providence, calling as witnesses that I was not undertaking it for my own, they say, flesh and lust, but I have in mind a magnificent and pleasant goal, ha ha!” (6; 211). He confesses to Sonya the last reason for his murder: “I wanted, Sonya, to kill without casuistry, to kill for myself, myself alone! I didn’t want to lie to myself about this! I didn’t kill to help my mother - nonsense! I did not kill so that, having received funds and power, I could become a benefactor of humanity. Nonsense! I just killed; I killed for myself, for myself alone: ​​and then whether I would have become someone’s benefactor or spent my whole life, like a spider, catching everyone in a web and sucking the living juices out of everyone, at that moment I should have had it all the same!<...>I needed to find out then whether I was a louse like everyone else, or a human being?”<...>is it a trembling creature or right I have...” (6; 322). So, it was a psychological experiment on oneself, a test of one’s own genius. It is no coincidence that Napoleon is put forward by him as the most important “authority” - no longer a benefactor of mankind, but a tyrant who made the whole of Europe the arena of brilliant parades of his glory and covered it with the corpses of the victims of his ambition. Endless self-affirmation, permissiveness, daring violation of all boundaries and norms - this is the trait that captivated Raskolnikov in Napoleon and formed the core of his idea: “Freedom and power, and most importantly, power! Over all the trembling creatures and over the entire anthill!” (6; 253).

The meaning of the novel's title and the fate of the main character.

The title of the novel “Crime and Punishment” is intended to emphasize one of Dostoevsky’s most important ideas: the moral, internal necessity of punishment for the criminal. It is interesting that in the generally accepted German translation the novel is called “Schuld und Sühne” - “guilt and retribution”, which emphasized its philosophical and religious meaning, although a literal legal translation would be “Verbrechen und Strafe”. The Russian name, with rare ambiguity, incorporates both meanings. The word “crime” already semantically speaks of “stepping over”, “stepping over” a certain border or “line”, and Dostoevsky consciously activates this primary meaning. Throughout the novel, Raskolnikov says that the essence of his crime was to step over through morality: “The old woman, perhaps, is a mistake, that’s not the point! The old woman was only sick... I step over I wanted to quickly... I didn’t kill a person, I killed a principle! I killed the principle, but step over“I didn’t step over, I stayed on this side...” (6; 211).

The motif of “crossing over” can be traced in the fates of almost all the heroes of the novel, who, for various reasons, find themselves at the border, on the threshold of life and death, and cross the “line” of either chastity and honor, or duty, or morality. Marmeladov says to himself that he lost his place, “because trait mine has arrived” (6; 16). Indulging in his vice, he “stepped over” his relatives: Katerina Ivanovna, children and Sonya. Sonya, in opinion. Raskolnikova also stepped over... herself: “You also stepped over... you were able to step over. You killed yourself. You ruined your life... yours” (6; 252). Svidrigailov turns overstepping all moral standards into refined pleasure and play in order to somehow warm up his satiated feelings. So, he speaks about debauchery: “I agree that this is a disease, like everything that goes beyond the limit, but here you will certainly have to go overboard. <...>but what to do? If it weren’t for this, I probably would have had to shoot myself.” (6; 362). Dunya is yet to make a similar choice. Raskolnikov venomously remarks to her: “Bah! yes, and you... with intentions... Well, that’s commendable; you'd better... and you'll reach the point where you can't you will step over you will be unhappy, but if you step over it, maybe you will be even more unhappy...” (6; 174). (And vice versa, it is said about Raskolnikov’s mother that she “could agree to a lot... but she was always like that trait... for which no circumstances could force her step over” - 6; 158). But all these “transgressions” are completely different in nature, and some of them lead to the death of the hero, others to terrible spiritual emptiness and suicide, while others can be saved by atonement for guilt with heavy punishment.

Punishment is an equally complex concept in the novel. Its etymology is “mandate”, “advice”, “lesson”. This “lesson” is given to Raskolnikov by life itself and lies in the terrible moral torment that the criminal endures after the murder. This includes disgust and horror at the crime committed, and the constant fear of being exposed (so much so that the criminal would even be glad if he were already in prison), and the extreme spiritual emptiness that resulted from “crossing boundaries.” The killer violated the very foundation of the spiritual world, and thereby “as if he cut himself off from everyone with scissors” (6; 90). “A gloomy feeling of painful, endless solitude and alienation suddenly consciously manifested itself in his soul” (6; 81). Not remorse - there were none, but the mystical consciousness of his irrevocable break with humanity oppresses the hero. This gap most clearly affects Raskolnikov’s relationships with the people closest to him: his mother and sister, to whom, because of his terrible secret, he cannot respond with love. When meeting after a long separation, he does not raise his arms to hug them. He looks at them “as if from a thousand miles away” (6; 178), and soon becomes completely indifferent to their fate. Having provoked Dunya’s break with Luzhin, Raskolnikov unexpectedly and cruelly abandons his loved ones and himself - in a foreign city, where they no longer know anyone: “Leave me alone! Leave me alone!...<...>I’ve probably decided this... Whatever happens to me, whether I die or not, I want to be alone. Forget me completely. It is better...<...>Otherwise, I will hate you, I feel... Goodbye!” (6; 239).

His torment is terrible. “It was as if a fog suddenly fell in front of him and imprisoned him in hopeless and difficult solitude” (6; 335). “... the more secluded the place was, the more strongly he was aware of someone’s close and alarming presence, not that scary, but somehow very annoying, so he quickly returned to the city and mixed with the crowd...” (6; 337). With his consciousness, he clearly understood that there was no real evidence against him and that he was in no danger: the terrible experiment seemed to be a complete success, but consciousness itself at times faded, complete apathy set in, interrupted by nightmares.

For a correct understanding of the hero’s state of mind, motive is very important illnesses, who accompanies Raskolnikov throughout the novel. After the crime, Raskolnikov returns almost in a daze and spends the entire next day as if in delirium. Then he collapses in a fever and lies unconscious for four days. After being groomed by Razumikhin, he gets back to his feet, but his feverish, weakened state continues without completely disappearing. It is not clear to those around him that the cause of his illness is spiritual, and they are trying to somehow explain it, attributing all the oddities in Raskolnikov’s behavior to illness. Doctor Zosimov determines that the disease must have been preparing for him for many months even before the onset of the crisis: “In three or four days, if this goes on, it will be completely the same as before, that is, as it was a month ago, or two... or perhaps and three? After all, it started and was prepared from afar?... huh? Do you now admit that perhaps you yourself were to blame?” (6; 171). Only Porfiry mockingly points out to Raskolnikov: “Illness, they say, delirium, dreams, I imagined, I don’t remember,” all this is so, but why, father, in illness and in delirium all such dreams are imagined, and not others, there could have been others, sir?” (6; 268).

Raskolnikov understands his condition better than anyone. His entire article was devoted to the argument that the commission of a crime is always accompanied by an eclipse of the mind and a decline of will, which “seizes a person, like a disease, develops gradually and reaches its highest moment shortly before the commission of the crime.<...>The question is, does illness give rise to the crime itself, or does the crime itself, somehow by its special nature, always be accompanied by something like an illness? - he did not yet feel able to resolve it” (6; 59). The author is trying to show in the course of the plot: Raskolnikov’s theory itself was a disease that he contracted in St. Petersburg, like consumption. The onset of the disease coincides with the moment of the initial plan of murder, which was only the transition of the disease into an open form. Raskolnikov experienced painful states of depression and darkness even before the crime, when the idea of ​​“transcending” had already taken root in his soul and took possession of all his thoughts. As soon as he allowed himself to bleed according to conscience, he had already committed murder in his soul, and the punishment immediately followed. (This gave the philosopher Lev Shestov a reason to joke that Raskolnikov did not kill the old woman at all, Dostoevsky himself said it to him, while the student, an abstract theorist, committed the murder only in his imagination). Further, the disease continues to deplete and exhaust him, threatening to be fatal. “It’s because I’m very sick,” he finally decided gloomily, “I’ve tormented and tormented myself and I don’t know what I’m doing...<...>I’ll get better and... I won’t torment myself... How come I won’t get better at all?” (6; 87).

Thus, both crime and punishment begin before the murder. The real, official punishment begins in the epilogue and turns out to be healing and rebirth for the main character.

Raskolnikov did not take his nature into account. He thought to achieve a state of complete lightness and freedom through crime, but found himself shackled by remorse - hateful evidence for him of his belonging to the lowest category of people, whom nature itself is not allowed to “transcend.” But at the same time, the hero does not repent and remains convinced of his theory. He is disappointed not in her, but in himself. “He must go through a painful split, “drag everything pro and contra,” in order to achieve self-awareness. He is a mystery to himself; does not know his measure and his limits; looked into the depths of his “I”, and in front of the bottomless abyss his head began to spin. He tests himself, makes an experiment, asks: who am I? What I can? What am I entitled to? How great is my strength?

Dostoevsky not only reveals in “Crime and Punishment” the negative spiritual energy of Byron’s individualism: this was already done by Pushkin in “Gypsies” and “Eugene Onegin”. Dostoevsky goes further and subjects the very image of the demonic hero-god-fighter to cruel and evil de-romanticization. It turns out that if you remove his brilliant romantic halo from the demonic romantic hero, then in the place of Napoleon and Cain you will find a completely ordinary killer. It is the “ugliness” of his crime that kills Raskolnikov. “Napoleon, the pyramids, Waterloo - and the skinny nasty receptionist, the old pawnbroker, with the red clothes under the bed - well, what is it like for Porfiry Petrovich to digest! under the bed to the “old lady”!<...>Eh, I’m an aesthetic louse, and nothing more” (6; 211). “Fear of aesthetics is the first sign of powerlessness” (6; 400). Raskolnikov’s “false Byron” pose is subjected to cruel ridicule by Porfiry Petrovich: “He killed, but considers himself an honest man, despises people, walks like a pale angel” (6; 348). Svidrigailov finally denounces Raskolnikov’s attempt to maintain a noble pose and combine crime with high ideals: (“Schiller is embarrassed by you every minute!”).

According to the correct generalization by I.L. Almi, “Raskolnikov little by little comes to understand the possibilities that lie before him

One is the desired one - to internally overcome what has been done, to unite with people “above the crime.”

The other is polar to her - to get away from everyone, to live in the “yard of space”.

The latter - having become convinced of the unattainability of the first two, “end” at any cost - suicide or confession.”

At first, Raskolnikov strives with all his might to take the first path, wanting to prove to himself that “his life did not die along with the old woman” (6; 147). This opportunity seems available to him, however, only in rare moments of spiritual elation: in the police office, with the realization that he was invited there without connection with the crime committed, when Raskolnikov is suddenly attacked by terrible talkativeness and frankness, then on the first evening after recovering from a severe fever, when Raskolnikov goes out into the street for the first time after five days, painfully perks up, talks to passers-by and superbly defeats Zametov “psychologically”, and most importantly, when he manages to help the distressed Marmeladov family, sincerely sacrificing all his meager means and thereby earning Polenka’s childhood kiss and a living thanks to Sonya. He, however, only manages to deceive himself for a short time. Then Raskolnikov is thrown back first to the second and then to the third outcome by a force he does not understand. Otherwise, “hopeless years were anticipated<...>cold, deadening melancholy, some kind of eternity was anticipated at the “yard of space” (6; 327).

Raskolnikov alone would not have gotten out of this impasse. Salvation could only come to him from the outside, from other people who still connected him with the world and God.

System of characters in the novel.

Having killed “the most useless creature,” Raskolnikov feels not only that he is cut off from all other people, but also that he is connected with many mysterious connections with people previously completely unknown to him, on whom, for various reasons, his fate now depends: this is the Marmeladov family, and Sonya , and Svidrigailov, and Porfiry Petrovich.

Raskolnikov turns out to be the connecting link between two families: his own and the Marmeladovs. Along the first line it develops love triangle from Dunya, Svidrigailov and Luzhin, and on the second - a family triangle: Sonya, Marmeladov and Katerina Ivanovna. Raskolnikov himself, in addition, finds himself face to face in a duel with Porfiry. According to this scheme, K. Mochulsky describes the character system: “The principle of composition is three-part: one main intrigue and two side ones. In the main one there is one external event (murder) and a long chain of internal events; in the side events there is a heap of external events, stormy, spectacular, dramatic: Marmeladova is being crushed by horses, Katerina Ivanovna, half-mad, sings in the street and is covered in blood. Luzhin accuses Sonya of theft, Dunya shoots Svidrigailov. The main intrigue is tragic, the side intrigues are melodramatic” (ibid., p. 366).

I. Annensky builds a character system differently, ideological principle. In each of the characters, he sees one of the turns, moments of two ideas, the bearers of which these characters are: the ideas of humility and resigned acceptance of suffering (Mikolka, Lizaveta, Sonya, Dunya, Marmeladov, Porfiry, Marfa Petrovna Svidrigailova) or the idea of ​​rebellion, demands from life all kinds of benefits (Raskolnikov, Svidrigailov, Dunya, Katerina Ivanovna, Razumikhin).

Having felt, after the murder, the impossibility of further communicating with his relatives, his “neighbors,” Raskolnikov, as if by a magnet, is drawn to the “distant” ones - the Marmeladov family, who seem to have concentrated in themselves all the possible suffering and humiliation of the whole world. This is one of Dostoevsky’s most powerful embodiments of the theme of “the humiliated and insulted,” which originates from “Poor People.” However, from the experience of hopeless grief and complete helplessness before fate, everyone in this family brought out their own ideological position. Marmeladov himself represents a new solution to the theme “ little man”, showing how far Dostoevsky has already gone from Gogol’s traditions. Even in the inescapable shame of his fall, Marmeladov is conceptualized not simply as a failed personality, destroyed and lost in a huge city, but as a “poor in spirit” in the gospel sense - a deep and tragically contradictory character, capable of selfless repentance and therefore able to be forgiven and even gain your humility Kingdom of God. Katerina Ivanovna, on the contrary, comes to the point of protest, rebellion against God, who so cruelly broke her destiny, but an insane and desperate rebellion, leading her to frenzied madness and terrible death. (“What? A priest?.. No need... Where do you have an extra ruble?.. I have no sins!.. God must forgive anyway... He himself knows how I suffered!.. But he won’t forgive, It’s not necessary!..” - 6; 333). Dostoevsky, however, does not dare to judge her for this, in view of the limitlessness and blatant injustice of the suffering she endured. In contrast, Sonya, like her father, professes Christian humility, but combined with the idea of ​​sacrificial love.

To Raskolnikov, this family seems to be the living embodiment of his own thoughts about the powerlessness of good and the meaninglessness of suffering. Both before and after the murder, he constantly thinks about the fate of the Marmeladovs, compares it with his own, and every time he is convinced of the correctness of his decision (he must either “dare to bend down and take it,” “or give up life altogether!”). At the same time, by helping and benevolent to the Marmeladovs, Raskolnikov is saved for some time from his oppressive mental anxiety.

From the bosom of this family appears the hero’s “guardian angel” - Sonya, the ideological antipode of Raskolnikov. Her “solution” is itself sacrifice, in that she stepped over her purity, sacrificing all of herself to save her family. “In this she opposes Raskolnikov, who all the time, from the very beginning of the novel (when he only learned about Sonya’s existence from her father’s confession), measures his crime by her “crime,” trying to justify himself. He constantly strives to prove that since Sonya’s “solution” is not a genuine solution, it means that he, Raskolnikov, is right.” . It is in front of Sonya that he wants to confess to the murder from the very beginning” - she is the only one, in his opinion, who can understand and justify him. He brings her to the realization of the inevitable catastrophe for her and her family (“The same thing will probably happen with Polechka”) in order to pose a fatal question to her, the answer to which should justify his action: “Should Luzhin live and do abominations or die for Katerina?” Ivanovna?” (6; 313). But Sonya’s reaction disarms him: “But I can’t know God’s providence... And who made me the judge here: who should live and who should not live?” (6; 313). And the roles of the heroes suddenly change. Raskolnikov initially thought to achieve complete spiritual submission from Sonya, to make her his like-minded person. He behaves arrogantly, arrogantly and coldly towards her, and at the same time frightens her with the mystery of his behavior. So, he kisses her foot with the words: “It is I who bowed to all human suffering. This gesture looks too far-fetched and theatrical, and it reveals the “literary” nature of the hero’s thinking. But then he realizes that he cannot withstand the weight of mortal sin that he carries, that he “killed himself,” and comes to Sonya for forgiveness(even though he tries to convince himself: “I’m not coming to ask for forgiveness”) and merciful love. Raskolnikov despises himself for the fact that he needs Sonya, and therefore depends on her, this offends his pride, and therefore at times he experiences a feeling of “caustic hatred” for her. But at the same time he feels that his destiny lies in her, especially when he learns about her former friendship with Lizaveta, who was killed by him, who even became her godsister. And when, at the moment of confessing to the murder, Sonya moves away from Raskolnikov with the same helpless childish gesture with which Lizaveta pulled away from his ax, the “defender of all the humiliated and insulted” finally sees through the falsity of all his claims to the “sanction of truth.”. It is in front of Sonya that he wants to confess to the murder from the very beginning” - she is the only one, in his opinion, who can understand and justify him. He brings her to the realization of the inevitable catastrophe for her and her family (“The same thing will probably happen with Polechka”) in order to pose a fatal question to her, the answer to which should justify his action: “Should Luzhin live and do abominations or die for Katerina?” Ivanovna?” (6; 313). But Sonya’s reaction disarms him: “But I can’t know God’s providence... And who made me the judge here: who should live and who should not live?” (6; 313). And the roles of the heroes suddenly change. Raskolnikov initially thought to achieve complete spiritual submission from Sonya, to make her his like-minded person. He behaves arrogantly, arrogantly and coldly towards her, and at the same time frightens her with the mystery of his behavior. So, he kisses her foot with the words: “It is I who bowed to all human suffering. This gesture looks too far-fetched and theatrical, and it reveals the “literary” nature of the hero’s thinking. But then he realizes that he cannot withstand the weight of mortal sin that he carries, that he “killed himself,” and comes to Sonya for (although he tries to convince himself: “I’m not coming to ask for forgiveness”) and merciful love. Raskolnikov despises himself for the fact that he needs Sonya, and therefore depends on her, this offends his pride, and therefore at times he experiences a feeling of “caustic hatred” for her. But at the same time he feels that his destiny lies in her, especially when he learns about her former friendship with Lizaveta, who was killed by him, who even became her godsister. And when, at the moment of confessing to the murder, Sonya moves away from Raskolnikov with the same helpless childish gesture with which Lizaveta pulled away from his ax, the “defender of all the humiliated and insulted” finally sees through the falsity of all his claims to the “sanction of truth.”

And so “the murderer and the harlot come together to read the eternal book,” reading from the Gospel of Lizaveta about the resurrection of Lazarus. This is the positive philosophy of Dostoevsky and at the same time a symbolic prototype of the fate of both Raskolnikov and Sonya. The beginning of the Gospel fragment echoes the interpretation of Raskolnikov’s murderous theory as a disease that threatens death: “There was is ill a certain Lazarus, from Bethany...” (in the Gospel, Christ, when reporting the illness of Lazarus, also says: “This illness does not lead to death, but to the glory of God.” - John XI; 4). The four days Lazarus spent in the coffin correspond to the four days that Raskolnikov spent in his “closet-coffin” after the murder, unconscious from fever. However, Raskolnikov, although he had previously told Porfiry that he literally believed in the resurrection of Lazarus, was still far from trusting the “good news” he had heard.

“Sonya’s lot,” only with “the expectation of excess comfort,” Raskolnikov’s sister Dunya also thinks of choosing, marrying the rich, but despised Luzhin. She also understands this act as sacrificing herself for the sake of the happiness of her mother and brother. Raskolnikov proudly pushes away this victim and upsets his sister's marriage to Luzhin. But, having committed murder supposedly to save his family, Raskolnikov in fact almost destroys her, unwittingly betraying his sister into the hands of Svidrigailov, who, having taken possession of Raskolnikov’s secret, acquires terrible power over Dunya. And when meeting Svidrigailov, Raskolnikov sees with horror his actual solidarity with him in a predatory lifestyle at the expense of “the weak of this world,” right up to their humiliation and destruction.

If Sonya acts as Raskolnikov’s “good angel,” then Svidrigailov is undoubtedly a demon (in the traditions of Mephistopheles, he even tempts the hero with money: “... go somewhere as soon as possible to America!<...>Is there no money? I’ll give you money for the road…” - 6; 373). Svidrigailov has everything that Raskolnikov would like to acquire with his “first step.” Thanks to money, an extraordinary mind and rich life experience, he achieved the freedom and independence from people that Raskolnikov dreamed of. To do this, he also went through murder, “stepping over” his wife Marfa Petrovna, and this is not the first death on his conscience. Because of him, the footman Filka and the deaf-mute orphan girl he raped committed suicide. However, Svidrigailov committed his crimes much “cleaner” and safer than Raskolnikov, and, unlike the latter, demonstrates an enviable peace of mind, health and balance. This is precisely why he attracts Raskolnikov to himself, embodying the second possible variant his fate, the opposite of repentance: “get used to it” and remain calmly living with a crime in his soul. Svidrigailov is the first to notice the internal similarity between himself and Raskolnikov: “There is some common point between us,” “we are of the same breed.” They are twins in the sense that they know and predict each other’s innermost thoughts, they follow the same path, but Svidrigailov is bolder, more practical and more depraved than Raskolnikov, which Dostoevsky associates in particular with his “lordly” origin.

In Svidrigailov one can note the hedonistic traits of Pechorin. Like the latter, Svidrigailov lives only to “pluck flowers of pleasure” and then “throw them into a roadside ditch.” The result for the heroes is the same - complete devastation: just as Pechorin goes to Persia to die, so Svidrigailov is going to America. But Svidrigailov goes a little further than Pechorin: he transcends the sense of honor in order to prolong pleasures and at least somehow diversify them, and thereby represents a reduced, cynically vulgarized version of Byronic demonism. Let's imagine Pechorin, who rigged the cards during a bet, out of curiosity to see how Vulich would shoot himself, and before us will be the sharper Svidrigailov. But instead of romantic “endless sadness,” the latter experiences “boundless boredom.”

He laughs at Raskolnikov and reveals his moral contradiction: he overstepped, “allowed blood in his conscience,” but still cannot completely renounce the “lofty and beautiful.” (“The Schiller in you is embarrassed every minute... If you are convinced that you can’t eavesdrop at the doors, and you can peel old women with anything you like, for your pleasure, then go somewhere as soon as possible to America! I understand what questions you have now in along the way: moral, or what? Questions of a citizen and a person? And you are on the sidelines; why do you need them now? Hehe! Because you are still a citizen and a person? And if so, then there was no need to meddle: there is no point get down to business” - 6; 373).

He himself is more consistent: the line between good and evil, which Raskolnikov had crossed and immediately felt knocked down, Svidrigailov long ago and completely erased for himself. Therefore, he is invulnerable to the torment of conscience and is incapable of repentance. He experiences equal pleasure from both good and evil deeds. He is an esthete, “terribly loves” Schiller, subtly judges the beauty of Raphael’s Madonna, and at the same time receives almost animal pleasure in torturing his victims. The point here is not only about ordinary voluptuousness, but about the intoxication of sin and “transgression.” And he had fun as best he could: he was a sharper, was in prison, sold himself for 30 thousand to his late wife,” then killed her. raped a helpless girl. Out of boredom, he might fly in a hot air balloon or go to America. Ghosts appear to him, scraps of other worlds, but how vulgar! The fact is that when everything is allowed, everything is indifferent. All that remains is world boredom and vulgarity. The world's nonsense, life and otherworldly existence converge for him in one symbol - eternal imprisonment in a small room, like a village bathhouse, where “there are spiders in all corners.” This is what absolute freedom leads to - metaphysical emptiness. Infinity and boundless freedom turn into an extreme narrowing of living space. Figuratively speaking, Svidrigailov feels himself forever imprisoned in the same coffin-closet from which Raskolnikov dreamed of emerging through crime into the vast expanses.

However, he is not a banal novel villain: he is also capable of deep and strong feelings, as evidenced by his romantic passion for Dunya - Svidrigailov’s last, desperate attempt to return to life. Seeing that this is impossible, after a wild struggle he overpowers himself and lets the victim go, not wanting to harm anyone anymore. He has already made his last decision - to “go to America” if he is refused. Oddly enough, the terrible Svidrigailov did more good deeds than anyone else in the novel: he buries Katerina Ivanovna, arranges for Marmeladov’s children, gives a dowry to the poor girl, whom he had previously decided to woo as a cruel joke, gives Sonya money for the trip to Siberia and goes to nowhere, because redemption is still impossible for him.

As a result, Svidrigailov “against the opposite”, using the example of his fate, warns Raskolnikov, showing that the demonic path leads to boredom and despair of non-existence. Sonya silently offers him another choice - to return to the One who said: “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me, even if he dies, will live.”

The role of Porfiry Petrovich in the fate of Raskolnikov.

Porfiry is also a very complex character, unique even in the works of Dostoevsky himself. On the one hand, he is the only representative of legality and official justice in the novel. Already his name (“porphyry” is a royal robe, a sign of imperial power, “Peter” is the name of the first Russian Emperor) indicates that he speaks in the novel on behalf of the state and expresses the ideology of the society that Raskolnikov opposed. On the other hand, at the end of the novel he turns out to be the author’s reasoner, logically explaining to Raskolnikov the need to repent and turn himself in. Thirdly, there is reason to consider him Raskolnikov’s double, but in a different way than Svidrigailov. Porfiry managed to understand unusually deeply the character and psychology of Raskolnikov, so that at times it may even seem to us that he himself at one time went through the same thoughts and impulses: “All these sensations are familiar to me, and I read your article as if I were familiar” (6; 345). Moreover, the investigator and the defendant are colleagues, because Raskolnikov studied at the Faculty of Law and writes a completely professional article about the psychology of a criminal, interesting even for Porfiry. Porfiry's insight into Raskolnikov's soul is insightful to the point of implausibility. Without having one in my hands real fact, the investigator restores the entire history and picture of the murder to the smallest detail, which allows him to completely take possession of Raskolnikov and, despite the lack of evidence, brilliantly solve the crime.

Porfiry is a relatively young man, about 35 years old, but he feels much older than Raskolnikov, and teaches him how to live from the position of a sophisticated and omniscient person. In his appearance, the author emphasizes some kind of uncertainty: he himself is short, “plump and even with a paunch,” and there is something feminine in his whole figure, which immediately has an unpleasant effect on the reader. And yet, the gaze of his watery eyes with whitish eyelashes “somehow strangely did not harmonize with the whole figure... and gave it something much more serious than could be expected from it at first glance” (6; 192). In such duality, at first there is something sinister and even demonic (especially because of Porfiry’s love for “pranks” and his promise to Raskolnikov “to deceive him too,” as well as because of his mocking, deliberately vulgar tone with giggles and “erses”: “If you please -s,” “This is a fact, sir,” “out of humanity, sir”), in which a veiled mockery of the interlocutor peeks out from under the ostentatious self-deprecation. And indeed, at first Porfiry “chases and catches [Raskolnikov] like a hare,” using a paradoxical technique: he completely reveals all his cards to the killer and “sincerely” initiates him into his tactics of conducting the case, wanting to drag Raskolnikov, tormented by suspicions, into a confessional atmosphere and provoke him to further confessions. At this moment, he looks like a spider, coolly catching its victim in neatly placed nets (“It will fly straight into my mouth, I’ll swallow it, sir, and this is very pleasant, sir, he-he-he!” - 6; 262 ).

But the sudden arrival of Mikolka to confess shocks him no less than Raskolnikov (“- Yes, and you are trembling, Porfiry Petrovich. - And I am trembling, sir; I didn’t expect it, sir!”), and the cunning investigator seems to understand that he has violated the law of God mercy, that his cruelty exceeded even Raskolnikov’s guilt (it is no coincidence that the tradesman, who heard the whole scene from behind the partition and, undoubtedly, became even more firmly convinced that Raskolnikov is a “murderer,” comes, shocked, to ask Raskolnikov’s forgiveness “for the slander and anger"). A few days later, Porfiry himself comes to Raskolnikov and addresses him in a completely different tone, without irony and deceit, actually repenting to him, although he says approximately the same thing as last time.

So suddenly the investigator turns to us with a completely different side, and turns out to be the author’s reasoner, summing up everything Raskolnikov has experienced and tortured and justifying the only possible way out for him: “Surrender yourself to life directly, without reasoning; don’t worry, he’ll carry you straight to the shore and put you on your feet... all you need now is air, air, air!” (6; 351). And then Porfiry develops in front of Raskolnikov the idea of ​​“atonement for guilt through suffering,” the bearer of which is presented in the novel by Mikolka: “You... have long needed to change the air. Well, suffering is also a good thing. Get hurt. Mikolka may be right that he wants suffering” (6; 351). And from the drafts for the novel we know that this is the central thought of the writer himself. The following important lines speak about this:

IDEA OF THE NOVEL.

ORTHODOX VIEW, WHAT IS ORTHODOXY

There is no happiness in comfort; happiness is bought through suffering. This is the law of our planet, but this direct consciousness, felt by the everyday process, is such a great joy, for which you can pay for years of suffering. Man is not born for happiness. A person deserves his happiness and always through suffering (7; 154-155).

In other words, Porfiry expresses in words everything that Sonya can only make her feel in her love. Porfiry’s logic, Sonya’s love and the horror of Svidrigailov’s terrible end together push Raskolnikov to take a decisive step - turning himself in. This is not yet a rejection of the theory (even when going to denounce himself, Raskolnikov exclaims: “Never, never have I been stronger and more convinced than now!” - 6; 400), but this is a necessary condition for the subsequent resurrection: Raskolnikov begins to atone for his guilt suffering and begins his reunification with people.

Epilogue and its role in the novel.

In assessing the epilogue, the opinions of researchers are usually divided: some think it is strained, monologically stopping the polyphony of voices in the novel, distorting the original intent of Raskolnikov’s character. It seems to us that it logically follows from the entire philosophical concept of the novel.

At first, Raskolnikov, even in hard labor, remains true to himself, treats all the people around him with unconscious contempt, which deserves universal hatred, but then the life in which he trusted “takes its toll.” One day he ends up in a prison hospital, and this illness merges in the reader’s perception with his general painful state throughout the novel. But only here his final recovery is symbolically depicted. The idea leaves his mind after an apocalyptic vision, where it is shown in the full development of its destructive power - in the form of a pestilence that destroys almost all of humanity. But Dostoevsky does not force Raskolnikov to directly dissuade himself and abandon his theory, which would look frankly far-fetched. It’s just that at some point the hero stops living with just the “Euclidean” mind, performing the same all-corrupting self-analytical work, and gives himself over to “living life”, direct heartfelt feelings. Let us also note that this became possible for him only outside St. Petersburg, which in the epilogue is contrasted with the first description of nature in the entire novel - the vast expanses of the steppe with the yurts of nomads, where “it was as if time itself had stopped, as if the centuries of Abraham and his herds had not yet passed” ( 6; 421). This landscape evokes an association with biblical times, when humanity was just beginning to explore the Earth and learn God’s laws, slowly, over centuries, groping for the way back to God after the Fall. It symbolically marks the beginning of a new, difficult and yet unknown life the hero is a return to the origins of existence, to the Earth, to the sources of “living life” and the subsequent rebirth. And the first living feeling that resurrected him was love for Sonya. Until now, throughout the novel, he had only used her love as the only thread connecting him with people, but he responded to her with nothing but coldness, cruelly tormenting her and mercilessly shifting part of his melancholy onto her fragile shoulders. Now, after recovering from his illness, he was unconsciously drawn to her and “threw himself at her feet.” This is no longer a demonstrative gesture, like kissing a foot on a first date, but a symbolic sign of humility in the love of a “proud man.” Now “the heart of one contained endless sources of happiness for the other.” The Gospel has not yet been read by Raskolnikov. But we remember that the writer himself experienced a spiritual turning point during hard labor, and therefore we can naturally assume that he believes in the reality of the future coming to the Truth and the resurrection of his hero.

Test questions for "Crime and Punishment":

1. What place does the novel “Crime and Punishment” occupy in Dostoevsky’s work?

2. What are the basic principles of Dostoevsky’s portrayal of heroes?

3. How does St. Petersburg appear to us in Crime and Punishment? What is the difference between the image of St. Petersburg in Dostoevsky and the St. Petersburg of Pushkin, Gogol, Nekrasov?

4. What provoked the emergence and final formation of Raskolnikov’s theory? outline the essence of the theory itself.

5. What were Raskolnikov’s motivations for his crime?

6. How did Raskolnikov’s state of mind change before and after committing the crime? What was the crime itself? Tell us about the meaning of the novel's title.

7. Who and on what grounds can be considered Raskolnikov’s doubles?

8. What is the role of dreams in the novel?

9. What are the specifics of the female characters in the novel?

10. What role did the Marmeladov family, Sonya, Porfiry, Svidrigailov play in Raskolnikov’s fate?

11. What is the significance of the novel’s epilogue?

Bibliography.

1. Annensky I. Book of Reflections. Articles different years. // Favorites. M., 1987.

2. Belov S.V. F. M. Dostoevsky's novel "Crime and Punishment". A comment. M., 1985.

3. Berdyaev N.A. Dostoevsky's worldview. // About Russian classics M., 1993.

4. Kozhinov V. “Crime and Punishment” by F.M. Dostoevsky. // Three masterpieces of Russian classics. M., 1971.

5. Mochulsky K.V. Dostoevsky. Life and creativity // Gogol. Soloviev. Dostoevsky. M., 1995.

Final essay

in the direction of "Victory and defeat"

It is impossible for a person to go through life's journey without mistakes. In the piggy bank folk wisdom There are many sayings, proverbs and sayings that reflect the problem of experience and mistakes in our lives. Everyone knows the existing phrase: “Only those who do nothing make no mistakes.” A person, trying to achieve certain successes, makes many mistakes along the way. And these mistakes are very different. Some mistakes cause a person to become depressed. Others force you to start all over again. And in the third situation, a person sets new goals for himself, taking into account the bitter previous experience, and moves on. The journey of life is an eternal search for your place in life. Any difficulties and failures are our own mistakes. Every person has the right to make mistakes.

World literature, including Russian, has always been interested in this topic. In Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace,” the author’s favorite characters go through a difficult life path. And each of them has their own path of spiritual quest. But they are all united by the desire for happiness. On the path to happiness, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, Pierre Bezukhov, Natasha Rostova make many mistakes. Enchanted by Lisa, Prince Andrei did not marry for love. Pierre, having seriously failed to understand his life situation, married Helen Kuragina, a soulless and cold beauty. Soon after marriage, he realized that he had been deceived. And Natasha Rostova, having become the bride and future wife of Prince Andrei, in his absence became interested in the frivolous Anatoly Kuragin. Kuragin's sensual gaze overshadowed the restraint and chastity of Prince Andrei. The heroine behaves completely differently when communicating with Kuragin: Natasha’s shyness, bashfulness and timidity are gone. It seemed to her that this was love. Natasha, young and inexperienced in matters of the heart, nevertheless realized that she had betrayed her loved one. She took her irreparable mistake very hard. Surrounded by the attention of her family and friends, the girl managed to get out of this mental crisis. Happiness is a great sensual and moral strength. And L.N. Tolstoy shows that Natasha became truly happy when she married Pierre.

The hero of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment,” Rodion Raskolnikov, having committed a bloody crime and confessed to what he had done, does not fully realize the tragedy of what he committed. He did not admit that his theory was wrong. Raskolnikov regrets that he could not transgress, that he would not be able to classify himself as one of the chosen ones. The hero suffers, suffers, is tormented. And only in Siberia, in hard labor, Raskolnikov, tormented and exhausted, not only repents of what he has done, but takes the most difficult path - the path of repentance. And, reading the pages of the novel, we understand that the writer draws our attention to the fact that a person who has admitted his mistakes is able to change. Such a person needs help and compassion. Sonya Marmeladova is precisely F. M. Dostoevsky’s person who is capable of supporting Raskolnikov and helping him.

What conclusion did my reasoning on this problem lead me to? I would like to note that personal experience teaches each of us life. Sad or virtuous, this experience is one's own, lived. And the lessons life has taught us are a real school; it is what shapes character and develops personality.

A person makes many mistakes throughout his life, sometimes without noticing it. But by reflecting, we turn them into experience, albeit sometimes bitter. Yes, the tuition fees are too high, but you cannot bargain with life, it does not accept everyday petty-bourgeois calculations. We all make mistakes, and this is natural and inevitable. We must understand that human nature is not ideal, but experience is indeed the most best teacher and helps fix it.

Many writers have also thought about this topic. For example, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky in his novel “Crime and Punishment” touched upon the problem of experience and mistakes. The main character of the work, Rodion Raskolnikov, having killed the old pawnbroker and her pregnant sister, is much more aware that he has committed the most big mistake all my life. He understands how wrong his beliefs and his theory were. Rodion confesses to what he has done, realizing at the same time that he is an ordinary person, and not an arbiter of destinies or a louse. At the same time, he gains invaluable life experience, the price for which turned out to be so high. The author does not directly state whether Raskolnikov repented, but the astute reader sees the Bible in the possession of a prisoner sentenced to hard labor. This means that the hero turned to God and abandoned theories that could cause harm in practice.

Another example can be given. Also, Nastya, the main character of K. G. Paustovsky’s story “Telegram,” made an irreparable mistake. The girl left her elderly mother completely alone. Katerina Ivanovna was very lonely and sick. For three years the daughter did not visit the poor old woman. Of course, Nastya loved her mother very much, but work did not let her go. Therefore, Ekaterina Petrovna tried not to disturb Nastya again, sending her letters very rarely. But her vitality was leaving her and age took its toll. I don’t even know what caused this more: old age or longing for my only daughter? Then the elderly woman wrote a letter to her, feeling that she would not survive the winter. But the daughter was too busy. When Nastya received a letter from a neighbor that Katerina Petrovna was dying, she realized that she had no one else in this life. And at that very moment he goes to the station. But having arrived in the village, Nastya realizes that it is already too late. Katerina Petrovna never saw her only one before her death. loved one. Nastya did not have the relevant experience. She had apparently never lost anyone close to her before this time. Where does she come from, young and full of strength, to know that her mother’s life is so fleeting. All she has left is longing for the person she loves most and an endless feeling of guilt in front of him. All of these complex emotions formed the basis of her life experiences. She will not make such a mistake again and will save her family, giving her due to work, but not forgetting about her family - the only one real value person.

Sometimes a person needs to go through many trials, make many mistakes in order to gain experience that will allow him to cleanse himself and become better, smarter and kinder. It is no coincidence that mature people give preference not to a career, but family values, not appearances, but essence, not ambitions, but dreams, and, moreover, the dreams of close and dear people.

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Arguments for the final essay 2017 on the work “Crime and Punishment”

Final essay 2017: arguments based on the work “Crime and Punishment” for all directions

Honor and dishonor.

Heroes:

Literary example: Raskolnikov decides to commit a crime for the sake of his loved ones, driven by a thirst for revenge for all the disadvantaged and poor people of that time. He is led by great idea-to help all the humiliated, disadvantaged and abused by modern society. However, this desire is not realized in an entirely noble way. No solution was found to the problem of immorality and lawlessness. Raskolnikov became part of this world with its violations and dirt. HONOR: Sonya saved Raskolnikov from spiritual decline. This is the most important thing for the author. You can get lost and confused. But getting on the right path is a matter of honor.

Victory and defeat.

Heroes: Rodion Raskolnikov, Sonya Marmeladova

Literary example: In the novel, Dostoevsky leaves victory not for the strong and proud Raskolnikov, but for Sonya, seeing in her the highest truth: suffering purifies. Sonya professes moral ideals that, from the writer’s point of view, are closest to the broad masses of the people: the ideals of humility, forgiveness, and obedience. “Crime and Punishment” contains a deep truth about the unbearability of life in a capitalist society, where the Luzhins and Svidrigailovs win with their hypocrisy, meanness, selfishness, as well as a truth that evokes not a feeling of hopelessness, but an irreconcilable hatred of the world of hypocrisy.

Mistakes and experience.

Heroes: Rodion Raskolnikov

Literary example: Raskolnikov's theory is anti-human in its essence. The hero reflects not so much on the possibility of murder as such, but on the relativity of moral laws; but does not take into account the fact that the “ordinary” is not capable of becoming a “superman”. Thus, Rodion Raskolnikov becomes a victim of his own theory. The idea of ​​permissiveness leads to the destruction of the human personality or the creation of monsters. The fallacy of the theory is exposed, which is the essence of the conflict in Dostoevsky’s novel.

Mind and feelings.

Heroes: Rodion Raskolnikov

Literary example: Either an action is performed by a person driven by a feeling, or an action is performed under the influence of the character’s mind. The actions committed by Raskolnikov are usually generous and noble, while under the influence of reason the hero commits a crime (Raskolnikov was influenced by a rational idea and wanted to test it in practice). Raskolnikov instinctively left the money on the Marmeladovs’ windowsill, but then regretted it. The contrast between feelings and rational spheres is very important for the author, who understood personality as a combination of good and evil.

Raskolnikov's tragic mistake lies in the contradiction between the hero's subjective humanistic motives and the objective anti-humanistic form of their manifestation.

11. What is the uniqueness of F.M.’s psychologism? Dostoevsky in the novel “Crime and Punishment”?

Psychologism F.M. Dostoevsky differs from the psychologism of I.S. Turgenev or L.N. Tolstoy. Revealing inner world heroes, F.M. Dostoevsky shows the clash of contradictory impulses, the struggle between consciousness and subconsciousness, desire and its implementation. His characters don’t just think, they suffer painfully, analyze their actions, and reflect.

F. M. Dostoevsky
Crime and Punishment

Poor district of St. Petersburg in the 60s. XIX century, adjacent to Sennaya Square and the Catherine Canal. Summer evening. Former student Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov leaves his closet in the attic and takes the last valuable thing as a pawn to the old pawnbroker Alena Ivanovna, whom she is preparing to kill. On way back he enters one of the cheap drinking establishments, where he accidentally meets the official Marmeladov, who has drunk himself and lost his job. He tells how consumption, poverty and her husband’s drunkenness pushed his wife, Katerina Ivanovna, to a cruel act - to send his daughter from her first marriage, Sonya, to work at the panel to earn money.

The next morning, Raskolnikov receives a letter from his mother from the provinces describing the troubles he has suffered. younger sister Dunya in the house of the depraved landowner Svidrigailov. He learns about the imminent arrival of his mother and sister in St. Petersburg in connection with Dunya's upcoming marriage. The groom is a calculating businessman Luzhin, who wants to build a marriage not on love, but on the poverty and dependence of the bride. The mother hopes that Luzhin will financially help her son complete his course at the university. Reflecting on the sacrifices that Sonya and Dunya make for the sake of their loved ones, Raskolnikov strengthens his intention to kill the pawnbroker - a worthless evil “louse”. After all, thanks to her money, “hundreds, thousands” of girls and boys will be spared from undeserved suffering. However, disgust for bloody violence rises again in the hero’s soul after a dream he saw, a memory of his childhood: the boy’s heart breaks with pity for the nag being beaten to death.

And yet, Raskolnikov kills with an ax not only the “ugly old woman,” but also her kind, meek sister Lizaveta, who unexpectedly returned to the apartment. Miraculously leaving unnoticed, he hides the stolen goods in a random place, without even assessing its value.

Soon Raskolnikov discovers with horror the alienation between himself and other people. Sick from his experience, he is, however, unable to reject the burdensome concerns of his university friend Razumikhin. From the latter’s conversation with the doctor, Raskolnikov learns that the painter Mikolka, a simple village guy, has been arrested on suspicion of murdering the old woman. Reacting painfully to conversations about crime, he himself also arouses suspicion among others.

Luzhin, who came for a visit, is shocked by the squalor of the hero’s closet; their conversation develops into a quarrel and ends in a breakup. Raskolnikov is especially offended by the closeness of practical conclusions from Luzhin’s “reasonable egoism” (which seems vulgar to him) and his own “theory”: “people can be cut…”

Wandering around St. Petersburg, a sick young man suffers from his alienation from the world and is ready to confess to a crime to the authorities when he sees a man crushed by a carriage. This is Marmeladov. Out of compassion, Raskolnikov spends his last money on the dying man: he is carried into the house, the doctor is called. Rodion meets Katerina Ivanovna and Sonya, who is saying goodbye to her father in an inappropriately bright outfit of a prostitute. Thanks to a good deed, the hero briefly felt a sense of community with people. However, having met his mother and sister who had arrived at his apartment, he suddenly realizes that he is “dead” to their love and rudely drives them away. He is lonely again, but he has hope of getting closer to Sonya, who, like him, “transgressed” the absolute commandment.

Razumikhin, who almost at first sight fell in love with the beautiful Dunya, takes care of Raskolnikov’s relatives. Meanwhile, the offended Luzhin confronts his bride with a choice: either he or his brother.

In order to find out about the fate of the things pawned by the murdered woman, and in fact to dispel the suspicions of some acquaintances, Rodion himself asks for a meeting with Porfiry Petrovich, the investigator in the case of the murder of the old pawnbroker. The latter recalls Raskolnikov’s recently published article “On Crime,” inviting the author to explain his “theory” about “two classes of people.” It turns out that the “ordinary” (“lower”) majority is just material for the reproduction of their own kind; it is they who need a strict moral law and must be obedient. These are “trembling creatures.” “People themselves” (“higher ones”) have a different nature, possessing the gift of a “new word”, they destroy the present in the name of the better, even if it is necessary to “step over” the moral norms previously established for the “lower” majority, for example, by shedding someone else’s blood. These “criminals” then become “new legislators.” Thus, not recognizing the biblical commandments (“thou shalt not kill,” “thou shalt not steal,” etc.), Raskolnikov “allows” “those who have the right” - “blood according to conscience.” The intelligent and insightful Porfiry discerns in the hero an ideological murderer who claims to be the new Napoleon. However, the investigator has no evidence against Rodion - and he releases the young man in the hope that his good nature will overcome the delusions of his mind and will itself lead him to confess to his crime.

Indeed, the hero is increasingly convinced that he has made a mistake in himself: “the real ruler […] destroys Toulon, commits massacres in Paris, forgets the army in Egypt, wastes half a million people in the Moscow campaign,” and he, Raskolnikov, suffers because of “vulgarity "and the "meanness" of a single murder. It is clear that he is a “trembling creature”: even after killing, he “did not step over” the moral law. The very motives of the crime are twofold in the hero’s consciousness: this is both a test of oneself for the “highest level”, and an act of “justice”, according to revolutionary socialist teachings, transferring the property of “predators” to their victims.

Svidrigailov, who came after Dunya to St. Petersburg, apparently guilty of the recent death of his wife, meets Raskolnikov and notes that they are “birds of a feather,” although the latter has not completely conquered the “Schiller” within himself. Despite all the disgust for the offender, Rodion’s sister is attracted by his apparent ability to enjoy life, despite the crimes he has committed.

During lunch in the cheap rooms where Luzhin, out of economy, settled Dunya and his mother, a decisive explanation takes place. Luzhin is accused of slandering Raskolnikov and Sonya, to whom he allegedly gave for base services the money selflessly collected by his poor mother for his studies. The relatives are convinced of the purity and nobility of the young man and sympathize with Sonya’s fate. Expelled in disgrace, Luzhin is looking for a way to discredit Raskolnikov in the eyes of his sister and mother.

The latter, meanwhile, again feeling a painful alienation from his loved ones, comes to Sonya. From her, who “transgressed” the commandment “thou shalt not commit adultery,” he seeks salvation from unbearable loneliness. But Sonya herself is not alone. She sacrificed herself for the sake of others (hungry brothers and sisters), and not others for herself, like her interlocutor. Love and compassion for loved ones, faith in the mercy of God never left her. She reads the gospel lines to Rodion about Christ’s resurrection of Lazarus, hoping for a miracle in her life. The hero fails to captivate the girl with the “Napoleonic” plan for power over “the entire anthill.”

Tormented by both fear and the desire to be exposed, Raskolnikov again comes to Porfiry, as if worried about his mortgage. A seemingly abstract conversation about the psychology of criminals eventually leads the young man to a nervous breakdown, and he almost gives himself away to the investigator. What saves him is his unexpected confession of murdering the pawnbroker Mikolka.

In the passage room of the Marmeladovs, a wake was held for her husband and father, during which Katerina Ivanovna, in a fit of morbid pride, insults the owner of the apartment. She tells her and the children to move out immediately. Suddenly Luzhin, who lives in the same house, enters and accuses Sonya of stealing a hundred-ruble banknote. The girl’s “guilt” is proven: money is found in her apron pocket. Now in the eyes of others she is also a thief. But unexpectedly there is a witness that Luzhin himself quietly slipped Sonya a piece of paper. The slanderer is put to shame, and Raskolnikov explains to those present the reasons for his action: having humiliated his brother and Sonya in the eyes of Dunya, he hoped to regain the favor of the bride.

Rodion and Sonya go to her apartment, where the hero confesses to the girl about the murder of the old woman and Lizaveta. She pities him for the moral torment to which he has doomed himself, and offers to atone for his guilt with voluntary confession and hard labor. Raskolnikov only laments that he turned out to be a “trembling creature”, with a conscience and a need for human love. “I’ll still fight,” he disagrees with Sonya.

Meanwhile, Katerina Ivanovna and her children find themselves on the street. She begins to bleed from the throat and dies, refusing the services of a priest. Svidrigailov, who is present here, undertakes to pay for the funeral and provide for the children and Sonya.

At his home, Raskolnikov finds Porfiry, who convinces the young man to turn himself in: a “theory” that denies absoluteness moral law, rejects from single source life - God, the creator of humanity, united by nature, - and thereby dooms his captive to death. “Now you […] need air, air, air!” Porfiry does not believe in the guilt of Mikolka, who “accepted suffering” out of an primordial popular need: to atone for the sin of not conforming to the ideal - Christ.

But Raskolnikov still hopes to “transcend” morality. Before him is the example of Svidrigailov. Their meeting in the tavern reveals to the hero a sad truth: the life of this “insignificant villain” is empty and painful for himself.

Dunya's reciprocity is the only hope for Svidrigailov to return to the source of being. Having become convinced of her irrevocable dislike for himself during a heated conversation in his apartment, he shoots himself a few hours later.
Meanwhile, Raskolnikov, driven by the lack of “air,” says goodbye to his family and Sonya before confessing. He is still convinced of the “theory” and is full of self-contempt. However, at Sonya’s insistence, in front of the people, he repentantly kisses the land before which he “sinned.” At the police office, he learns about Svidrigailov’s suicide and makes an official confession.
Raskolnikov finds himself in Siberia, in a convict prison. The mother died of grief, Dunya married Razumikhin. Sonya settled near Raskolnikov and visits the hero, patiently enduring his gloom and indifference. The nightmare of alienation continues here: the common convicts hate him as an “atheist.” On the contrary, Sonya is treated with tenderness and love. Once in the prison hospital, Rodion sees a dream reminiscent of pictures from the Apocalypse: mysterious “trichinas”, moving into people, give rise to a fanatical conviction in everyone’s own rightness and intolerance to the “truths” of others. “People killed each other in […] senseless rage” until the entire human race was exterminated, except for a few “pure and chosen.” It is finally revealed to him that the pride of the mind leads to discord and destruction, and the humility of the heart leads to unity in love and to the fullness of life. “Endless love” for Sonya awakens in him. On the threshold of "resurrection in new life"Raskolnikov picks up the Gospel.