Good man, bad man
Character Analysis
Book: Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1866
Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigaylov was not intended to appear in Crime and Punishment when Dostoevsky first began writing it, as is evident from his absence in the earlier drafts of the novel. What is also evident from these notes is that Dostoevsky had planned that in the end, Raskolnikov “goes to shoot himself”. That ending, however, is not fated for Raskolnikov in the final version of the text. It is Svidrigaylov’s ending.
If what was first meant as Raskolnikov’s end is ultimately given to Svidrigaylov, at the cost of giving Raskolnikov suffering — the Christian “gift” of salvation — it’s possible, if not desirable, to read him as the baser alter-ego of the “schismatic” Raskolnikov, whose other half, the conscientious one, can be seen in Sonya, the saintly-prostitute. In fact, the only two people that Raskolnikov connects with and is impacted by in the novel, albeit in very different ways, are Svidrigaylov and Sonya.
Svidrigaylov, from the first, maintains that he sees something “very like” himself in Raskolnikov. Raskolnikov, for his part, wouldn’t deign to acknowledge anything akin to a “kindred” relationship between himself and Svidirgaylov, because his conscience (how much ever he aspires to break free from it) presented Arkady Ivanovich to him as an “extraordinarily corrupt and depraved, undoubtedly cunning, deceitful, and… malicious” person, for he was not depraved for the sake of a principle, like himself, but simply for the sake of his own indulgence — for life to go on uninterrupted, and to keep himself occupied. What he failed to countenance in his judgement, however, was that Svidrigaylov was the very person, the Napolean he aspired to be, minus his lofty, revolutionary fervour. No wonder then, for all his indignation towards Svidrigaylov, he finds himself unable to “get past him”.
He is the gross manifestation of his ‘Napoleonic ideal’, anticipating Nietzsche’s ubermensch, that he must confront to be able to find an exit after his ‘crime’. He was a “riddle”, a “struggle” to him, in large part a projection of the torment within his own mind, but he was also one who “seemed to offer a way out”. The path of suffering that Sonya urges Raskolnikov on to is helped by Svidrigaylov’s financial aid and confidence that he bestows on Sonya. It was either Siberia or a bullet through the head for Raskolnikov, as he gives her to understand, and being his stronger, and stronger-willed other half, Svidrigaylov bites the dust of his own accord, while Raskolnikov suffers because he “only knew how to kill”, and not how to transform it into the monumental deed that he envisioned would give a start to his ambitious career.
The power that Svidrigaylov exercised over Raskolnikov — an interview with him was enough to “check the regular flow of his thoughts” — was due to the fact that there was a “metaphysical similitude” between them. Svidrigaylov’s complete emancipation from morality and the distinction between good and evil presented to him a rather un-heroic, but realistic picture of his theory Concerning Crime put into practice: his Napoleonic vision is not only deflated, but also distorted, as he sees in Svidrigaylov’s unchecked salaciousness, the consequences of his own theory which were repulsive to his conscience, even though he could intellectually rationalise them.
Dostoesvsky believes that it is important to experience both the “pros and contras” for “life’s calling and consciousness”. (Beebe) Svidrigaylov, then, by serving as a foil to Raskolnikov, completes the experience of a proposition that places man above morality. Svidrigaylov is disquieting to Raskolnikov because in him he sees a possible version of himself — like Frankenstein saw in his Monster — of his contempt for law, religion and morality taken to the extreme.
Svidrigaylov’s “debauchery” is the result of boredom and ennui that has crossed the psychological realm, and is now metaphysical in nature. Even in his spirit, he sees eternity as a stifling “bath-house”, a dark and obscure space full of spiders. Having thus freed himself of the desire of salvation or of accepting the “honourable” role of the gentleman who must pass his life in boredom, he becomes truly unrestrained. His debauchery and sensual indulgence is his occupation, as he explains to Raskolnikov, and at the very least, gives him a consistent cause for living. He is a relativist, and he doesn’t condemn anything because he “doesn’t do anything himself”.
Svidrigaylov’s final act of shooting himself is his greatest expression of freedom and self-will. Self-destruction indeed is the inevitable outcome of absolute freedom, and it is this freedom that his alter-ego, Raskolnikov, cannot enjoy. Raskolnikov is not free. He suffers because he is entangled. He does not repent, but he suffers because he cannot cease thinking of the murder(s) that he committed, that of Lizaveta especially, which was on his conscience, unlike the old pawn-broker. Svidrigaylov is one of the “special” people from Raskolnikov’s hypothesis because he does not let his misgivings stain his conscience. Indeed, he does not consider them misgivings at all. His ‘debauchery’ finds reason in the explanation that he has every right to claim for himself what he can extract from life. He declares rather freely, that it was “women” he came to St. Petersburg for. He does things because they’re in his power, whereas Raskolnikov’s intention behind the old woman’s murder was primarily to find out whether he can dare, whether, so to say, he can be a Svidrigailov.
Svidrigaylov highlights the conflict and divide within Raskolnikov’s mind — his dribbling between contempt for people and love for them (K.Mochulsky), vanity and extreme self-doubt and most importantly, the course of action after he has committed the murder: at a revealing instance in the novel, Raskolnikov calls himself a “louse” for he knew beforehand he will ask himself why he murdered, after he has murdered. He clearly isn’t a Napoleon, because he opens himself to such questions, something Svidrigaylov wouldn’t, because morality has ceased to exist for him. Transgressive indulgence for him is a way to live his life, without which he will have to “shoot himself”, as he indeed has to, when one moment of “pity” for Dunya finally presents to him the end of his “test of freedom in evil”.
Svidrigaylov is introduced in the text indirectly, like Sonya, and in a manner that they appear as ideas more than characters when they’re introduced. After his arrival before him, at the end of a dream, and in a manner which could almost appear to be a disorienting extension of his dream, it becomes “clearly and alarmingly evident to him [Raskolnikov] that he must come to terms with this man as soon as possible, and settle with him finally, as far as he could.” He feels this desperate urge to go to Svidrigaylov for answers, because Svidrigaylov holds a “crooked mirror” to himself, and “Svidrigaylov’s ideas caricature his ideas”. (Chulkov) It is important to emphasise that the mirror is crooked, and not perfect, because unlike Raskolnikov who is able to go to Siberia and endure, upholding Dostovoesky’s theme of Christian faith, Svidrigailov’s complete absence of it drives him to suicide and for him there is no salvation. In making him perish, Dostoevsky lets the meaner, baser half of Raskolnikov’s duality die. This lets him attain both his ends — of presenting the outcomes of Raskolnikov’s decisions at once: whether he shoots himself, or decides to surrender.
Svidrigaylov plays Raskolnikov’s double in many more, physically manifest ways. He, like Raskolnikov, has fragmentary dreams and his thoughts run into pages on end, and like his double Svidrigaylov is unmotivated in his benevolence — he puts the Marmeladov children into care and leaves a fortune of fifteen thousand roubles to his young betrothed — Raskolnikov gives away the last of what he has to Katerina Ivanovna and gives generously to beggars on the street. Even their language appears to be quite similar when they converse at some instances.
Svidrigaylov is the personification of “the strong individual’s doubt in himself” (K.Mochulsky) He exposes not only Raskolnikov’s weaknesses but also his hypocrisy, rubbishing his holier-than-thou attitude towards him. When Raskolnikov tries to reprimand Svidrigaylov’s behaviour (he listened at the door as Sonya and him conversed in her room), Svidrigaylov chides him for passing a judgement on him after he himself has broken open an old lady’s head with an axe.
Svidrigaylov can laugh at him and chide him, look piercingly into the eyes of his alter-ego and tell him that “every man needs air, air, air!… more than anything!” leaving him entirely disquieted, and, he can read him like a book as for him Raskolnikov is “very transparent”. Philip Rahv in his essay on Crime and Punishment even ventures to argue that Svidrigaylov is a kind of Vautrin-figure to Raskolnikov, and therefore, much more than only his alter-ego.
Following Dostovoesky’s belief in the necessity of experiencing both “the pro and the contra”, Svidrigaylov appears to be contained in Raskolnikov and Raskolnikov appears to be contained in Svidrigaylov, very like each other’s alter-egos.
Works Cited
Beebe, Maurice. “The Three Motives of Raskolnikov.” Norton Critical Editions: Crime and Punishment. W.W. Norton . 599.
Chulkov, Georgy. “Dostoevsky’s Technique of Writing.” Norton Critical Editions: Crime and Punishment. n.d. 496.
K.Mochulsky. “The Five Acts of Crime and Punishment.” Punishment, Norton Critical Editions: Crime and. WW Norton, n.d. 509.
