Dostoevsky’s Existentialism: Crime and Punishment

Plot Summary:

In Crime and Punishment, the main character, Raskolnikov, is a twenty-three-year-old former law student. He’s originally from a small religious community in Russia’s countryside, but now lives in Saint Petersburg. Raskolnikov, who has become an atheist, lives in poverty; he stays in a tiny apartment, and throughout the book his visitors continually make references to how disgusting and messy his place is.

As a means of improving his financial situation, Raskolnikov goes to a pawn shop to sell his watch. The pawnbroker he encounters is a nasty old-lady — she treats people poorly, especially her half-sister, who she beats. He does not wind up selling the watch, but the pawnbroker makes an impression on him.

As the story progresses, Raskolnikov’s mom writes him a letter that tells him the situation of his sister, Dunya; she is set to marry a wealthy man, not out of love, but for the money. Raskolnikov’s mom also mentions that she wants him to be great and that she has always had this expectation for him.

While wandering around Saint Petersburg, Raskolnikov overhears a conversation between a student and an officer; the student says he could kill an old woman and rob her without it disturbing his conscience. This conversation — in addition to other circumstances in Raskolnikov’s life, such as his families poverty — causes him to repetitively focus on whether or not he should kill the pawnbroker and take her money, and similarly, if doing so would disturb his conscience.

Raskolnikov’s decision making process primarily relies on utilitarianism — a worldview which judges decisions based on their outcome; the best decision promotes the most good. Raskolnikov concludes that by murdering the pawnbroker — who he believes provides a net-negative contribution to humanity — he will be able to alleviate his families poverty, continue his legal education, and prevent the suffering that the pawnbroker inflicts on others. In short, Raskolnikov thinks the world will be a better place if he kills the pawn broker. This decision is rational, according to Raskolnikov, no different than 2+2=4.

When Raskolnikov goes to kill the pawnbroker, the murder doesn’t go according to plan; he encounters her half-sister after he killed the pawnbroker with an axe, and to avoid getting caught, he kills her too. Despite getting away with the crime, Raskolnikov becomes delirious and paranoid. Not only is he afraid that he will eventually be caught, but unlike the student who told the officer he could kill an old woman and rob her without a single twinge of his conscience, Raskolnikov’s conscience has been disturbed; he has regrets, nightmares, and in general his thoughts are consumed by the crime. He even buries the money he stole in an attempt to dissociate himself from the crime.

As the story progresses, Raskolnikov goes back to the scene of the murder; when he exists the house, he sees a drunk he knows get struck by a carriage and die in his daughter Sonya’s arms. Raskolnikov performs a good deed by giving Sonya’s mom the last of his money. He eventually develops a strong relationship with Sonya — a prostitute whose life is almost as disastrous as Raskolnikov’s, yet, unlike him, her faith in Christianity provides her with the ability to live with grace and some dignity.

At Raskolnikov’s request, his friend Razumikhin takes him to the detective who is investigating the murders, Porify. As the two converse, Raskolnikov is convinced that Porify knows he’s the murderer. Porify brings up Raskolnikov’s article, On Crime (which is discussed in the next section); the paper makes Porify suspicious of Raskolnikov, leading Porify to tell Raskolnikov to come back for a meeting at his office.

After a series of events which include a stranger screaming “murderer” at him, another interview with Porify, days of nonstop anxiety, a confession to Sonya about the murder (which is overheard by a neighbor), and Porify telling Raskolnikov that he knows he’s the murderer and yet refuses to arrest him because he wants Raskolnikov to turn himself in — Raskolnikov confesses his crime to the police. But before he confesses his murder to the authorities, Sonya gives him a crucifix to carry around; the crucifix is symbolic of Sonya’s advice to Raskolnikov — that he ought to carry the burden of his cross and confess to his crime.

Philosophical Themes:

Utilitarianism:

All humans have an opinion — no matter how vague — on what qualifies as good and what is bad; where people derive these values from varies. For Raskolnikov, he dropped his religious views when he was young and replaced them with utilitarianism. Using this philosophy, he decides killing an old lady qualifies as good.

A main point of the book is that Raskolnikov’s utilitarian analysis was wrong. He came to a conclusion in the abstract world of ‘logic’ that murdering was the right thing to do. According to Raskolnikov, his moral decision making — supposedly a logical one — was no different than a mathematical analysis.

Ordinary vs. Extraordinary People:

In Raskolnikov’s essay On Crime, he writes that there are two groups of people: ordinary and extraordinary people. Porify summarizes Raskolnikov’s article when he says, “Ordinary men have to live in submission, have no right to transgress the law, because, don’t you see, they are ordinary. But extraordinary men have a right to commit any crime and to transgress the law in any way, just because they are extraordinary.” Similarly, Raskolnikov says that, “…men are in general divided by a law of nature into two categories, inferior (ordinary), that is, so to say, material that serves only to reproduce its kind, and men who have the gift or the talent to utter a new word.”

While talking to Porify, Raskolnikov says that, “… if the discoveries of Kepler and Newton could not have been made known except by sacrificing the lives of one, a dozen, a hundred, or more men, Newton would have had the right, would indeed have been in duty bound … to eliminate the dozen or the hundred men for the sake of making his discoveries known to the whole of humanity.” This is representative of the philosophy Raskolnikov uses to justify killing the pawnbroker: he implicitly believes he is an extraordinary man who can transgress traditional morality.

Christianity:

Raskolnikov’s panicked and delirious response to his crime shows that he is not an extraordinary man. Similarly, it shows that rationality failed him. A theme in the story is that Raskolnikov is bound to traditional morality, which in this case is Christianity. Similarly, Raskolnikov’s redemption begins when he replaces his hyper-rational thought process with the irrational Christianity. The most noble decisions Raskolnikov makes in the story— such as helping Sonya’s family, and confessing to his crime — are not made via a rational calculation.

Christian symbolism is common throughout Crime & Punishment. For example, Raskolnikov sins, suffers, and then regenerates — it is a story of his death and rebirth. Dostoevsky highlights this theme in the epilogue while discussing Raskolnikov’s life after prison. He writes: “He did not know that the new life would not be given to him for nothing, that he would have to pay dearly for it, that it would cost him great striving, great suffering…the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life.”

Sonya is representative of the benefits of living a Christian life. She is the most noble character in the book; she is loving, reliable, non-violent, and submissive. Although she suffers, she gracefully carries the burden of her cross.

Conclusion:

Humans cannot rely solely on rationality to make moral decisions; they need religious guiding principles. When Raskolnikov uses rationality as his guiding principle, his life turns to shambles; contrarily, when he implements Christianity into his life, he begins to improve. Similarly, another theme is that people cannot create their own moralities — humans are bound to a moral law. When a person thinks they are ‘extraordinary’ and transgress the moral law, they are likely to suffer.