Raskolnikov's Confession

            So he’s finally done it, someone knows about the murder, about his ideals, about his worries of being a louse and not a man. He has finally confessed of his crimes, yet he does not feel any better, the fact that he knows that he is a louse and not a man, he is almost too self-aware to not be able to find out why he killed the woman. He wants to say money, but it was not money, he wants to say it was for Sonia, or his business, or anything else, but none of it seems to make sense to him. He ends up blaming “the devil” instead of himself, his only explanation of why he did it is to see if he could do it. After reading some of Notes from the Underground I can see many themes and ideas leaking through to this work. The idea of the finite, the end, the fact that some people cannot change and that idea of solidity is what he desires most. He wants to know if he is the man, or the louse in this case. Mixed into this whole introspective investigation with Sonia is his ideals towards the “napoleon” theory of thought where great men do not stop for anything when trying to reach their goal, they don’t even stop for people. Also the fact that Raskolnikov has basically started a war within all of Sonia’s family, destroyed any reputation of Luzhin in any respect, and basically turned everyone’s world around him, upside down. It seems almost as if Raskolnikov has resorted to testing his reach in this world in whatever ways he can by seeing just how much he can destroy and just how much he can control. It is almost as if he is trying to justify his suffering towards the murder without actually being punished for it. Even Sonia realizes the fact that Raskolnikov must be suffering a great deal from the guilt of his murder and the fact that no one knows about it. Yet she does agree with him after he argues his point about his ideas with napoleon and whatnot and she thinks that if he is a real man, and not a louse, he does not have to be punished for his crimes, seeing as they were justified for some overall purpose. Throughout this conversation there was one line that really stuck with me, and that was the line that God is the only one who decides who lives and who dies, which seems to strike Raskolnikov down, making him feel helpless as though he did not have the authority to do what he did. Overall, I feel the meaning of this book is extremely intensified by the ideals laid out in Notes from the Underground.