Crime And Punishment Ap Psychology

    This is how Raskolnikov is able to commit his crime: his intellectual side ignores his conscience and is able to commit the crime in a rational and orderly way. It is his dual character that serves as his punishment. One side of him is able to commit the murders, so the other must bear the punishment. He is tortured by the cruelty in mankind, and yet he himself is able to repeat it.

Throughout the story we are shown that he is not above the emotions and guilt that are the basic human reactions to an action as extreme as murder. His downfall comes because of this very fact, as he mentally and physically deteriorates under the stress of his culpability. His arrogance is proven to be the unfounded and foolhardy ideas of one who is truly a deeply insecure and unstable person (though Raskolnikov never truly realizes this).

As Raskolnikov’s shame takes over him, his mental health gradually deteriorates, despite his previous belief that he held enough intellectual and emotional

First, let me introduce you to the main character himself otherwise known as the murderer in this story. Raskolnikov is the main protagonist of the novel, making the story in his point of view. He is very alienated from society due to his

After Raskolnikov had committed the murder, he began to go through a long period of trials and upheaval. By using the story of Lazarus, Dostoevsky begins to explain further the death and rebirth of Raskolnikov’s psychological wellbeing and the importance of the acceptance of guilt. By incorporating the story of Lazarus, Dostoevsky allows readers to see a direct reflection of Raskolnikov’s own mind. Just as Lazarus lay slowly dying of illness, Raskolnikov’s guilt was inducing a slow and withering death of his psychological wellbeing. Lazarus’s death symbolizes Raskolnikov’s falling off the edge of insanity, showing forth the death of his mind. The story of Lazarus also symbolizes Sonya as Raskolnikov’s saviour. Just as Raskolnikov slips into his emotional death, Sonya reaches in to pull him out, as if she was bringing him back alive much like how Jesus Christ brought Lazarus back. She accomplishes this by providing Raskolnikov with the spiritual steadiness he that he had lost during the committing of his murders. Sonya affects Raskolnikov through her basic character, just as Christ actively portrayed his beliefs through the manner in which he lived his

In order to understand Raskolnikov’s guilt, it is important to understand the religious influences at work in the time period and place he lived in. In St. Petersburg where Raskolnikov lives, there are strong Christian influences from the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Church condemns killing people with few exceptions. Although is not a devout believer, these influences are still at work in the book. It is clear that Raskolnikov is struggling to fight God away because, as he says that “once God’s will gets mixed up in it, nothing will be done” (389). He acknowledges that the guilt he has is God’s doing, and he struggles internally to get rid of it. The idea that he is not able to feel good about the murder that he knows improved society. He states that “what bothers [him] is this permission according to conscience” (253). Even though he wants to establish his own moral code, it is impossible for him to do so because of the influence of religion.

As a prolonged attempt to preserve his fragile ego, Raskolnikov’s experience with guilt reveals his weak self-esteem. Thus, although Raskolnikov fails his own test of strength, his double murder opens his eyes to the emotional vulnerability he did not expect to see in himself, instilling an ever-present sense of guilt that characterizes the remainder of the novel.

Therefore Amoia notes that, "as the implications of the deed unfold in his conscience, Raskolnikov attempts to jusitfy his actions as a 'rational' crime" (53). Though he understands that he will be able to escape the physical punishement for the crime, he has yet to comprehend the burden that comes with such an unethical action. Even when Porfiry suggests that the criminal who murdered the pawnbroker may run away but, "psychologically he won't escape" (287), Raskolnikov becomes infuriated and accuses Porfiry of trying to scare him. However, Raskolnikov fails to understand the meaning behind Porfiry's words perhaps because he still chooses not to rely on his conscience and confess to the crime.While the superiority complex sets him apart from the society in the beginning, his piercing conscience distances him from people later on in the novel. He refuses to speak to Razumuikhin or to his family. It only before he goes to jail, that he decides to see his mother. Even when he does so, he is relieved that Dunya is not in the room. He later admits to Dunya that he doesn't, "even remember why [I] even went" to meet his mother. His conscience does not allow him to face his loved ones and eventually, he tries to isolate himself from society. While Raskolnikov tries to alienate himself from his own conscience, he is alienating himself from humanity in general.

However, Dostoevsky does not hold Raskolnikov completely accountable for the emotional and social defects that lead up to his crime, ultimately outlining his beliefs on how man should be punished. Dostoevsky makes apparent the idea that Raskolnikov at times acts out of his own control, seemingly under the influence of a higher power. Before his murder, he pleads to be stopped by God or any influence, but “in spite of his dread, he was driven into crime, like a mere tool of Fate” (Lavrin 31). He is used by Dostoevsky to make an example and represent all of man at times. During the murder, Dostoevsky describes the event as though Raskolnikov were possessed, “He seemed not to use his own strength in this. But as soon as he had once again brought

From declaring he wanted to become a Napoleon to wishing for financial independence to murdering for his own sake, he rattles off various motives, showing his obsessive rationalization (394-397). By presenting his conflicting intentions, Dostoevsky exhibits the chaos within Raskolnikov’s mind.

During this interactive oral, it was pointed out that the dreams in this novel are very influential to a character’s state of mind and actions. We discussed the graphic dream in which Raskolnikov, as a child, watches a mare as it is beaten to death. This dream is interpreted by Raskolnikov as a cue to murder the old woman. The mare seems to be a parallel to the

The main character of the story is Raskolnikov, who is described in the novel as “exceptionally handsome, above the average in height, slim, well-built, with beautiful dark eyes and dark brown hair… He was so badly dressed that even a man accustomed to shabbiness would have been ashamed to be seen in the street in such rags.” Raskolnikov alternates between two

Even when Raskolnikov was asleep he received painful messages of others who were suffering, just as he was. In one particular instance, before the double-murder, Raskolnikov is brought back to the poverty he suffered throughout his childhood. He once again feels a great empathy toward the suffered, but this time

In his novel, Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky argues that people must accept the sins of their past and understand the sequential consequences they must endure in order to feel and live freely again. He explores the relationship between the protagonist, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov -- a well known, poverty-stricken drunkard -- the sins that he has committed, and how he deals with them.

In the novel Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the murder of Alyona Ivanovna leaves many characters scratching their heads. While authorities come up with several suspects, they are unable to connect the suspects to the crime without reasonable uncertainty. When discussing the murder, Razumikhin says “In this one case alone, one might open up a whole new approach. From the psychological information alone it would be possible to show how to get on to the right track. “We’ve got the facts,” they say. But facts aren’t everything; at least half the battle consists in how one makes use of them” (164). For Razumikhin, the “whole new approach” is using the psychology of the murderer to understand the facts and recreate the narrative.