My Reaction to Alexia's Post

Personally, I don’t find Raskolnikov’s calm demeanor to be disturbing, in fact, I find it to be a bit of a relief in relation to the rest of the novel. I think that his calm demeanor has to do with the fact that he finally found something to do, another task similar to the murder of the old lady in terms of keeping him busy. This time, it is helping out the family abandoned by their father, Marmeladov, whom Raskolnikov gives money openly and agrees to help them get out of their current state. Another task that is keeping Raskolnikov and away from insanity is the conflict with his sisters new fiancé, which he has also taken a quest to make sure that he never marries his sister, thus keeping Raskolnikov a little bit more busy in the meantime.  I feel like this new calmness is almost justified given the fact that his insanity seemed to stem from the fact that he had nothing to do other than to suffer in his guilt and think about the crime he has committed. But once he has something to take his mind off of the crime he is able to return to relative normality. Yet I feel like this current calm is just temporary and I feel he is going to do something that is only going to make things worse, much worse. Personally, I prefer when Raskolnikov is the egotistical guy who goes around and helps those lower than him as opposed to the paranoid nearly schizophrenic murderer.