Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky

TITLE OF THE LITERARY WORK: Crime and Punishment WRITER: Fyodor Dostoevsky GENRE: Murder, Suspense, Psychological Thriller LITERARY FORM: Novel

Frodoy Dostoevsky (born November 11 1821, Moscow, Russia—died February 9 1881, St. Petersburg Dostoyevsky is usually regarded as one of the finest novelists who ever lived. Literary modernism, Existentialism, and various schools of psychology, theology, and literary criticism have been profoundly shaped by his ideas.

Dostoyevsky is best known for his novella Notes from the Underground and for four long novels, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Possessed (also and more accurately known as The Demons and The Devils), and The Brothers Karamazov. He specialized in the analysis of pathological states of mind that lead to insanity, murder, and suicide and in the exploration of the emotions of humiliation, self-destruction, tyrannical domination, and murderous rage.

Crime and Punishment The book was writing when the people of Russia are still confuse on whether they are still under the reign European Empire. The capital of Russia who was founded by the Italian and western European architects. For the European perspective the capital of Russia will serve as their window to Europe but in the Russian’s eye the capital was terrifying because of its fast urbanization the city was covered with poverty and crime which is the main gist of the Novel.

[SUMMARY / PLOT] Raskolnikov, an impoverished student, conceives of himself as being an extraordinary young man and then formulates a theory whereby the extraordinary men of the world have a right to commit any crime if they have something of worth to offer humanity. To prove his theory, he murders an old, despicable pawnbroker and her half-sister who happened to come upon him suddenly.

[SETTING] Crime and Punishment takes place on the Capital of Russia, St. Petersburg. Dostoevsky focuses on the Dark side of the city that time. Through Raskolnikovs’s perspective the city is describe as a city who is covered with poverty, crawling drunkards everywhere, disease, and crime.

[POINT OF VIEW] Third Person (Omniscient) Even though Dostoevsky focuses mostly on Raskolnikovs’s perspective. The narrator goes to where he wants and the narrator also give his thoughts and opinion from time to time.

[CONFLICT] The internal conflict is in Raskolnikov's mind and revolves around his horrible murder and gets almost parinoid with thinking about who suspects him of the murder.  The conflict resolves with Raskolnikov confessing and reflects how it affects a criminals (Raskolnikov's) mind.

[EXCERPTS] "Why am I to be pitied, you say? Yes! There's nothing to pity me for! I ought to be crucified, crucified on a cross, not pitied! Crucify me, oh judge, crucify me but pity me?“ This is the part when Marmeladov was at the bar very drunk at was criticize by the people around him because of his story but he told them that he didn’t want pity because he choose to do this him self.

Raskolnikov was positively going now for a "rehearsal" of his project, and at every step his excitement grew more and more violent. This is where I started to realize that Raskolnikov decision on committing a crime is final. He was even excited in doing so. "Mercy on us, can he have drunk it all? There were twelve silver roubles left in the chest!" and in a fury she seized him by the hair and dragged him into the room. This is a dialogue of Katerina and her husband when he came home spending all their money in alcohol . The once meek wife turned into violence due to the mix emotion about her husband’s doing.

"Surely it isn't beginning already "Surely it isn't beginning already! Surely it isn't my punishment coming upon me? It is!“ This is just after the murder, when Raskolnikov is obsessing over possible evidence of his crime. The use of “coming upon me” is like a realization that punishment is coming for him. For that's Katerina Ivanovna's character, and when children cry, even from hunger, she falls to beating them at once. It is a clear representation of the rampant poverty in the setting of the novel because paragraphs before this line, Katerina Ivanovna was describe as compassionate and loving mother but because of poverty and hunger she resorts to voilence.

[THEMES] Poverty is definitely a condition from which we need to escape. Conscience and guilt can eats a man’s soul. Crime is not a way to escape reality of life.

Why Crime and Punishment considered as Literature? First is Crime and Punishment is not limited on a single perspective, it show different situation. The work shows complexity of thoughts that makes us rethink about our relationship with society. The character shows psychological growth represented by appropriate experience that cause the growth. The characters shows clarity of motivation with their actions and decisions. The use of language gives ambiguity (in a healthy way) to stir the minds and emotions of the readers. This also keeps the work timeless.