Term Paper Part 1

Fyodor Dostoyevsky is a well-known Russian storywriter whose works were focused on and heavily influenced by the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmosphere of 19^th century Russia. Many of his novels held central themes and ideas which were usually directed towards the works of other Russian writers and their books. One of Dostoyevsky’s more notable books, Crime and Punishment focuses on the societal definition of good and whether the different structures in society should be broken in order to accomplish certain objectives. The main character in the novel, Raskolnikov, decides that it would be beneficial to murder a pawnbroker, based on insufficient social justifications, and his idea of ‘great people.’ Raskolnikov believes that ‘great people’ should be allowed to break down the rules of society if they have a goal or idea that is worth being spread. Throughout the book, Raskolnikov seems to act as though he is trying to help everybody around him, yet it is never clear that he is doing it only for the good of others. When considering the way Raskolnikov acts one can determine that his acts of generosity were out of a general need to feel in control over the suffering of others, even though his split personality contradicts itself against this statement.

The main support for the idea that he only does things to feel better about himself is the dream that Raskolnikov had about the horse that was beat to death, and the effect it had on him. The main component of the dream is the absolute dread that he felt over the fact that he was completely hopeless and helpless to save the horse and this hopelessness had a definite impact on him. He used this aversion to helplessness to justify his killing of the pawnbroker because the pawnbroker was known to be abusive of her sister, and her sister was in a position where she was entirely helpless. Raskolnikov thought that by killing the pawnbroker, he would be able to help someone else out by getting them out of the helpless position they were in, yet it is obvious that this was merely a secondary justification for the murder, the initial being his plan to rob her. The fact that he ended up murdering the pawnbrokers sister after murdering her shows that he was not really thinking about helping her as much as he was thinking about trying to get away from the murder with the stolen items, and without getting caught. Even though Raskolnikov felt terrible about murdering the pawnbroker’s sister, he clearly saw the necessity in murdering her as well in attaining his own goals, which were so much more important than his secondary goal of helping others. This general pattern where Raskolnikov uses the justification of helping others in order to accomplish his own will repeats itself throughout the book, justifying the idea that Raskolnikov only helps others when he can truly benefit, not out of the goodness of his heart.