FREE ESSAY ON CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

In the novel Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky portrays the main character, Raskolnikov, in
a complex and unique fashion. He could have been portrayed as the good guy, bad guy, or
just your average man on the street, but Raskolnikov is displayed with more than one
persona. "It would have been much easier for Raskolnikov to explain his weekness, but it
was more pleasant for him to consider himself a strong man" (Chizhevsky 164).
Raskolnikov's dream reveals that his personality is complex and double sided. His range
of actions and emotions are more of a Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde type character. On the
outside, he appears to be in control of his raging homicidal tendencies, but he is full
of turmoil on the inside. Raskolnikov's dream presents these different personas
Dostoevsky has given him. His dream also gives the reader a good, inside look into
Raskolnikov's interior conflicts (Chizhevky 191). 
In the beginning of his dream, Raskolnikov is out in the street. He seems to be wandering
around aimlessly, with no recollection of what he is supposed to be doing or why he is
there. Meanwhile, everyone else in the dream is carrying on like nothing is wrong. Before
delving into the significance of this scene, the reader must note how important control
is to him. He is an extremely proud man, and needs to be in control of himself and
everything around him at all times (Magill 222). In his view, everything in his life
should revolve around him. The beginning of the dream represents the loss of this control
in his life. It seems that no matter what he says or does, the world will continue to
spin, and the people on it continue to go about their everyday business. He can almost be
compared to the young teenage girl that he finds wandering in the street due to the fact
that any actions that this young girl takes makes no difference on the outside world
(Chizhevsky 201). It is as though he has been psychologically raped by the murders he has
committed, but at this point he is still unaware that he is no longer in control of his
situation. No matter how he wants to feel or act, he cannot help his instinctual habits
and desires (Mikhailovski 121). For instance, his health starts to fail him and he has
this compulsive desire to reveal himself to the authorities and public by turning himself
in. His actions show his lack of control over whether or not he gives himself away. It is
hard to tell whether Raskolnikov consciously realizes this or not. Through his own
self-absorbed ways he tries to come up with every possible excuse as to why he is feeling
the intense emotional conflict going on inside of him (Mikhailovski 135). He blames his
irritation on bad company, hunger, the lack of sleep, etc. "Raskolnikov's anxiety has to
grow not only by the day, but by the hour. And this basically drives him to insanity"
(Hapgood 4798). He does the best he can to fool himself into believing he has not lost
control. However, for the reasons mentioned above, it is said that Raskolnikov never had
control in the first place.
In the next part of his dream, Raskolnikov sees the man that had called him a murderer
earlier in the book. The man beckons to him as though he knows Raskolnikov. This part of
the dream is an indirect interpretation of Raskolnikov's fear of exposure (Hapgood 4493)
"Raskolnikov is way too much of a critic to be a good actor. He thinks that other can see
into him as he sees into them" (Hapgood 4801). As he follows the man, he is unsure if the
man is beckoning to him or not. This compares to his real-life fear of not knowing if
people are aware that he is the murderer. Many times throughout the book, Raskolnikov
grows weak, because he thinks that he has been found out. However, the way he feels in
his dream is very different, because he follows the man in the long coat even though he
believes that the man knows he is a murderer, instead of fearing him as he would in real
life (Mikhailovski 143). To a certain level, he wants to be found out, in his dream and
in real-life. Even though it is a heinous crime he has committed, his own self-absorption
blocks any sort of guilt we would assume a murderer should feel. It is a common known
fact that most victims or victims' family members want the perpetrator to feel some sort
of guilt or remorse, but Raskolnikov feels nothing for the victims. His self-absorption
gives him this sort of pride for having expunged, what he considers, the scum of the
Earth (Magill 222). Basically, his major conflict is not about remorse for what he has
done. It is between his instinctive desire to confess and his stronger instinct of
self-protection. I find it rather hard to interpret the scene in his dream where he tries
to kill the old pawnbroker. This is a very significant scene, because it illuminates
Raskolnikov's fear of inferiority. At first he feels sorry for her, because he thinks she
is afraid. This alone symbolizes Raskolnikov's feelings of superiority. The fact that he
tries to kill her again signifies that he does not have any remorse for what he did, and
that he would probably do it again if he could do it over. It is as though he is showing
that he is better than her, and she deserves to die (Mikhailovski 145). The old woman's
laughter is another representation of Raskolnikov's subconscious trying to justify
killing her. She laughs at him as though she is mocking him for being so incompetent. As
said before, her laughter challenges his superiority. In Raskolnikov's mind, it is more
reason to kill her (Hapgood 4801). 
In the final scene of his dream, Raslolnikov is surrounded by people and becomes
terrified. This is said to signify the foreshadowing of the inevitable. He is going to be
found out, and there is really nothing he can do or say that is going to stop his final
fall. "The conditions of his surroundings have come beyond the strength of our impatient
and irritable hero" (Magill 165). There is also a deeper meaning that I also found to be
true, though I think it could be debated. Those people could possibly represent his
subconscious looking at him from a third person perspective. They stare at him in silence
and expectation and they seem to be staring at him accusingly (Mikhailovski 147). It is
at this point he has lost the control that he has been struggling to keep the entire
novel. It could be that he, even for the slightest moment, he realizes the immorality of
the act he has committed. It is here that he wants to get away. He wants to hide from
himself. He wants to run away from his guilt and the reality of what he has done. It is
at this point that he wakes up. That is how he gets away from himself. He wakes up and
begins what he has been doing up to that point. He tries to put his fears in the back of
his mind and forget the dream ever happened even though, "Raskolnikov's struggle with
society is hard and hopeless because his own faith and strength is broken" (Mikhailovski
94).
Although Raskolnikov's dream lasts for only about a page and a half of the book, it
reveals all of his interior conflicts. Through this dream he battles with his fears of
guilt, exposure, and the immorality of the crime he committed. The reader gets a good
inside look into how murder has deteriorated his mental state. This dream also dives deep
into his subconscious. Because of this, he is forced to deal with aspects of himself he
does not want to deal with. I really would like to know, if the dream had not ended so
abruptly, where would it have gone? Would he have faced himself, or would he run away
again? Sadly, we will never know.