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4.5
ITS RELEVANCEHow can a story written in 1860's Russia about a student who slays an old spinster with an axe be relevant today? Can we not easily dismiss the story itself and especially the ending as being just a facile and vacuous fantasy of a hopeless ninteenth century romantic? It depends a little on whether one is more interested in questions well asked or in getting simple answers.What is Man? What motivates him? What is the basis of right action? These are central motivating questions in Crime and Punishment. One hypothesis is that a person can define his own life and live entirely on those terms. The alternative hypothesis is that this strategy isolates by successively cutting off one relationship after another until nothing is left, not even sanity. Dostoevsky suggests in this novel that action can only be viewed in a social context, not a purely individualistic one. And that action is rightly motivated by care and personal connection instead of by theory, fear, or desparation.In Dostoevsky's view of the world relationships are horizontal, familial, almost communal. It's a point of view he shares with several of his contemporary countrymen. In this view of the world, relationships are not part of life; they are not essential to life; they are life. They define it. Outside of relationships there is no life.This idea is, perhaps, more deeply embedded in the Russian psyche than that of any other group of Europeans because in the vast and unforgiving land that is Russia such a viewpoint is necessary for survival. Life as an individual is a meaningless idea because it will likely not outlast an open bottle of good champagne in a thirsty crowd.Individualism has been ensconced in most of western philosophy, political thought, and law for more than two millenia. It has revolved around the idea of the solitary individual as an isolatable entity. Not just isolatable for the purposes of analysis but actually as an entity that lives beyond society, without connection to other social beings. The trajectory of Anglophone society since WWII has been toward the increasingly individualistic. Society grows more efficient every day at transforming its individuals from social beings into Skinner's girl in the closet or Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov.The kind of isolation suffered by Raskolnikov is endemic to today's sprawling suburban deserts, crumbling small towns, and dysfunctional urban areas. And the dysfunction caused by this isolation makes possible the explanation of a collection notorious antisocial acts from bombings to handgun massacres. At first blush we might imagine Raskolnikov's more immediate motivation to be different; but it is fear and hatred that drive him. So again, Raskolnikov's motivations are profoundly similar to the fear, hatred and isolation that drive today's seemingly random acts of violence and far too many of its political machinations.THE STORYIn ninteenth century St. Petersburg, there lives a young university student named Raskolnikov who has run out of money, He has been separated from his family for three years. His impulsive sensibility to help others has left him in penury and unable to persue his studies, His miserable material condition, his idleness, and his and isolation begin to take a toll on him.Just as things reach a critical point he learns that his sister has become engaged to a rich politician who, he discerns, wishes to marry her for despicable psychological reasons. He determines that although his sister would live in a wealthy household, her husband's attitude would make her miserable for every minute they both might live. He imagines she is throwing away her life and happiness so he might complete his studies. And he cannot endure the thought of it.He must rescue her. To do so requires capital. He has few choices. But for some time he has been considering a plan. There is a wretched old shrewish woman, a pawnbroker, a foreigner, who lives with her niece. She is mean and spiteful. All the people who live in the neighborhood believe so. Raskolnikov wonders whether he should kill her and make off with her small fortune.In studying history he has learned that all great men get to be so through bold and unconventional action - usually involvong the spilling of blood. New systems of government are always built upon dead bodies. New enterprises launched on the backs of the oppressed. If a man must kill one person to save a hundred, he reasons, would he not do it? And, he imagines, this old woman is not a person. And, anyway she is old and might expire any day.Raskolnikov rehearses. He has bad dreams. In a fit of fever and pique he does the deed, goes home and collapses on his couch. The book really begins as he wakes up out of a three day fit of delerium. The central conflict quickly becomes when and how Raskolnikov will come to grips with his actions.But before this can happen, the fortunes of half a dozen central characters must be resolved in ways that frame Raskolnikov's actions and attitudes. His sister must be successfully separated from her manipulative fiance, his friend must be rewarded for the goodness of his very being. The sad fate of the orphaned Marmeladov family must be resolved, and so on.Dostoevsky is quite masterful in drawing us into the thoughts, attitudes, and psychological states of Raskolnikov. It was interesting to read this novel immediately after reading Conrad's Heart of Darkness, The commentator for that book was convinced that Conrad must have been profoundly influenced by this one; it's an inescapable conclusion. Both authors are very interested in psychology as a motive force in storytelling. Both care much about presenting a coherent and cohesive psychological portrait of their characters. Dostoevsky is more open about it, creating a prosecutor named Porfiry who plays a psychological game of cat and mouse with Raskolnikov, carefully explaining to him the psycology of each move.Throughout the book Dostoevsky implicitly asks "What motivates us? Is it fear? Is it love? Is it superstition? Desire? Hatred? Duty? The desire to win, to have the upper hand? The will to power? Want of money?" and by extension, "What ought to motivate us?" And each character shows us a little bit about what his creator believes the consequence of his own motivation might be. Whether we find Dostoevsky's conclusions convincing or not, the questions are well asked and his point of view well illustrated. We stand to learn much from his point of view.
