Can I get some help with writing an essay for Crime and Punishment...

Can I get some help with writing an essay for Crime and Punishment. I'm trying to figure out a way to word how the murder relates to work as a whole (thematically).

lol he's holding the axe backwards

Everything is interconnected in C&P. It's set in pre-reform Russia. The young are influenced by the upswing of nihilism. Raskolnikov is a poor student, who makes an experiment out of himself. Also predicting Neecha and other "post-modern" philosophers. It shows the ethical, thus religious meaning of murder

That's how Alyona is killed

I need to know what specifically from the murder scene reveals about the theme

Everything I've just mentioned. Read the "pale murderer" chapter in Zarathustra. He killed not because he wanted to steal, but because he wanted blood to be shed. He ended up cursing himself till the very end of the book

That is the transgression. That's the crime in the title "Crime and Punishment." Basically he stepped over a line because he thought he was a napoleon.

>He killed not because he wanted to steal
He certainly did want to steal, he simply lied to himself about his higher motives.

The Russian word used for crime means "to overstep" so it is close to the English word "transgress." If I were to sum up what the book is about, I would say that it is about the anguish this transgression causes Raskolnikov. He is already separated from people in the beginning of the book, but murdering the old lady is when he really crossed the line.

I don't remember all the story details but I've actually read the book and once stayed up all night slapping together an essay; one of the last things that I did for HS. I seem to remember that I got a good grade.

I chose pic related as a cover for my little theme. Feel free to "plagarize" my choice of image.

Dunno about your central question but you should look up the following things to grow ideas:

-Dostoevsky's personal experience of being a young radical, going to gulag and finding religion, and the author's personal understanding of his younger hubris as it may or may not express itself in the character of Raskolnikov. Is Dostoevsky "self-inserting" to some degree, with Raskalnikov? Explore this in your essay, the teacher/prof will appreciate it if you do it in a straightforward way.

-the "great man" theory of history

-general historical circumstances of St. Petersburg at the time (I remember a hot summer in the fictional story, but this seems to add merely to the "heat" of the story being a story of murder).

-I seem to remember a great TV adaptation from about 15 years ago, very true to the novel (I knew because the novel was fresh in my head) where Emperorer Palpatine plays the Chief of Police guy who is toying with/circling round Raskolnikov. I had a positive impression of it as being a very faithful adaptation, down to details.

-If you go on to read other Dostoevsky, you may wish to read a literary critique "Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics", by Bakhtin. I've had this ever since my Dostoevsky phase at age 18 and I still haven't read it(!), someday maybe.

pic related.

Why did he hide the loot then?

Write it from a queer or feminist perspective. The ax is obviously a phallic symbol of patriarchy that threatens both men and women. :)

this would be considered a perfectly valid answer at my canadian university

It's also good to compare c&p to beyond good and evil if you've read it.

He had no interest in actually stealing, that was just the ostensible reason he performed the action. He told himself that he'd use the money to go on to do great things for the benefit of all humanity, but he ended up hiding the money and making no use out of it. He only really wanted to test his theory and the rest of the book after the murder is him coming to terms with his immoral and selfish action.

Why are you writing an essay for a book?

First you have to describe Raskolnikov's theory on morality. In short: Great men are few and far between. Great men are not bound by morality, they are allowed to overstep boundaries, and when they do so, it's because their end-goal is beneficial in some ways, they do it for the greater good. Great men are over the law and cannot be punished. Great men are forbidden by history. An example Raskolnikov himself has used is Napoleon: Responsible for the death of thousands, yet regarded as a national hero of France, as a great leader.

Raskolnikov tried to prove two things:

-His theory is right
-He is a Great man, who can avoid punishment

To do so, he had to find a way to overstep the boundaries for the sake of a greater good.

The crime: The murder of the pawnbroker
The justification: His first time overstepping the boundaries. His first deed that would send him on the way to greatness. He helped the world by getting rid of a selfish and unbearable pawnbroker who caused nothing but suffering.

The murder of the young woman was an act of necessity, still justified by his theory (the end justifies the means).


Why he (Raskolnikov) chose murder? Because he had no other way to make a statement (to himself) by overstepping the boundaries, while also "helping" society.

Why did Dostoyevski chose murder? Because it is a radical act and the best way to put the new ideas of nihilism into contrast with the "old values" of christianity and repentance through suffering. The act of murder comes with intense guilt (a form of punishment) which Raskolnikov can't escape. So Dostoyevski basically proved his character's form of nihilism wrong : He can not escape punishment. Murder as a subject is a "tool", Dostoyevski consciously chose the most radical act to prove a theory wrong. Basically, he was cherry-picking.


I won't help you by describing how Raskolnikov's theory was proved wrong. That's the point of the book. If you can't understand it, you should probably stick to mangas or some shit and beg for a D.

Good post

But he believed he did his part for society by murdering the pawnbroker. He described her as a wretched, evil person who preys on the poor and needy. That's why he chose to rob and kill her, and not some random folk.

"He only really wanted to test his theory and the rest of the book after the murder is him coming to terms with his immoral and selfish action."

And also with the fact that his theory was proved wrong, or at the very least, he's not one of the great people he described, as he can't get away unpunished. He tries to hide this, but it shows:

1. When he talks to the investigator whose name I forgot (Razumihin was present). He stands by his theory and argues for it, unable to accept he has failed according to his own beliefs.
2. When he confesses to Sonia, and yet again half-assedly argues in favor of his theory.
3. He evades capture because he believes he's a great person, above punishment
4. When he toys with the idea of giving himself up he's doubting his own theory, his belief of whether he's a great person or not

What does this have to do with whether or not he really wanted the money?

I'm arguing in your favor: He did not want the money.

I just added that he settled with "helping society" by murdering the pawnbroker, and that not making use of the money wasn't an error in his opinion, as he already did his part.

Also that he didn't only suffer from guilt because of his immoral actions but also from being mindfucked by the realization that he wasn't a great person like Napoleon.

>mindfucked by the realization that he wasn't a great person like Napoleon

In other words, that he wasn't the person he set out in his original theory which he expounded to the detective, the 'exceptional' kind.

Ah, I see, thank you. Yes, you're correct that much of his punishment comes from his disappointment in not being a Napoleon. I disagree with thinking he actually wanted to help society, though I do think that that is one of the reasons he had come up with to try and justify it to himself even though he never believed in it. Here's a relevant passage on pages 371-2 of my edition, translated by Garnett, where Raskolnikov explains to Sonya his motivation for the crime, which I think supports what I'm:

"I went into it [the murder, the theory] like a wise man, and that was just my destruction. And you mustn't suppose that I didn't know, for instance, that if I began to question myself whether I had the right to gain power—I certainly hadn't the right—or that if I asked myself whether a human being is a louse it proved that it wasn't so for me, though it might be for a man who would go straight to his goal without asking questions. . . . If I worried myself all those days, wondering whether Napoleon would have done it or not, I felt clearly of course that I wasn't Napoleon. I had to endure all the agony of that battle of ideas, Sonia, and I longed to throw it off: I wanted to murder without casuistry, to murder for my own sake, for myself alone! I didn't want to lie about it even to myself. It wasn't to help my mother I did the murder—that's nonsense—I didn't do the murder to gain wealth and power and to become a benefactor of mankind. Nonsense! I simply did it; I did the murder for myself, for myself alone, and whether I became a benefactor to others, or spent my life like a spider catching men in my web and sucking the life out of men, I couldn't have cared at that moment. . . . And it was not the money I wanted, Sonia, when I did it. It was not so much the money I wanted, but something else. . . . I know it all now. . . . Understand me! Perhaps I should never have committed a murder again. I wanted to find out something else; it was something else led me on. I wanted to find out then and quickly whether I was a louse like everybody else or a man. Whether I can step over barriers or not, whether I dare stoop to pick up or not, whether I am a trembling creature or whether I have the right [to kill]."

At any western university, sadly.

Exactly. The realization that he wasn't "exceptional" played a huge role in his suffering. It wasn't only guilt, his hurt pride played a huge role too.


Good find, I stand corrected. That's quite an important part to forget. I should've read my old notes at least.