Crime and Punishment and Trifles

The social and literary milieus of Dostoevsky's novel and Glaspell's story seem so radically different that attempting to compare them may seem a fool's errand. Whereas Crime and Punishment is set in the urban squalor of the late-tsarist, pre-Revolutionary Russian intelligentsia, Glaspell sets her story in America's Heartland in a part of rural Nebraska where the good people of the town may be only dimly aware of the women's suffrage movement. And in the featureless farmhouse where the action of Trifles and "Jury" unfolds, all the people know their place and would doubtless regard the casual jauntiness of what Lord refers to as America's "Good Years" with a jaundiced eye and positively recoil in horror at the sight of a would-be intellectual. Equally, it is easy to conceive that Raskolnikov would regard the gathering of Nebraskans with a good deal of contempt.

Yet Dostoevsky and Glaspell present stories that are both about premeditated murder and the official investigat

. . .
order (Dostoevsky 54). The alienation carries over into Raskolnikov's motive for murder, which becomes clear from the conversation between a student and an officer in which the student postulates that killing the old woman for her money, which is destined for a single charity, and instead devoting it "to the service of humanity and the common good" (69). That rationalization is amplified in Raskolnikov's mind because he has little else to occupy him. He resists doing work that he considers beneath him and is little engaged by the work he does do. Porfiry points that out when he tells Raskolnikov that he has read his crime article: "Good gracious [says Porfiry], you could get money from them for that article! How strange you are, though: you live in such isolation that you don't even know about the things that affect you directly" (267). The alienation enables Raskolnikov to seriously assert that "the 'extraordinary' man has the right . . . to allow his conscience to step over . . . certain obstacles" (268). The narrative action that follows the murder, including Porfiry's investigation of the crime, deals with the consequences of attempting to evade the demands of conscience. Raskolnikov evades conscience even when he begins to
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Crime Punishment, Punishment Raskolnikov, Sheriff Hale's, Communist Manifesto, Trifles Hale, Trifles Jury, Jury Peers, John Wright, Dostoevsky Glaspell, Wright Hale, crime punishment, jury peers, social experience, trifles short story, play trifles short, glaspell's story, jury trifles, short story, punishment raskolnikov, whereas crime punishment, whereas crime, crime punishment raskolnikov, glaspell 27, glaspell's play trifles, 27 peters,
Approximate Word count = 2128
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

More Essays on Crime and Punishment and Trifles