Dostoevsky & Women
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Special emphasis in Crime and Punishment is placed upon the conscience. The story revolved around a poor young student, Raskolnikov who plots the murder of an old woman pawnbroker so that he can use the money to help his poor mother and sister. When he attempts to kill her he is come upon by surprise and must murder the old woman’s sister as well. When analyzing his reasons for killing after the murders, Raskolnikov blames his motives on an attempt to help his poor family However, he says he will be able to raise himself up in society and eventually become a benefactor to mankind with the ill-gotten gains. In this manner, he believes that breaking the law was a brazen act on the level of a Napoleon. However, Raskolnikov is plagued by his conscience and eventually all his reasons for committing the murder erode from under him. Eventually, Raskolnikov will confess to the killings to inspector Porfiry Petrovich and be sentenced to Siberia. Within the course of the novel, women play crucial roles, especially Sonya who will come to show Raskolnikov that he must confess and repent for his crimes. This analysis will illustrate the function of the women characters in the novel, primarily those of Sonya, Lizaveta, Dunya and Marfa.The main female character in Crime and Punishment, especially with respect to her function in the novel is the near saint-like Sonya. Forced into a life of prostitution by her alcoholic father, Sony
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perform a partial revenge against their male violators. If for Dostoevsky child rape ending in murder was the worst crime, then the resistance to rape by a young woman, leading to the self-conscious transformation of the rapist, would constitute a transformed male consciousness. More importantly it would acknowledge female power in an alternative form to Sonya’s. If Svidrigaylov is Raskolnikov’s double, Svidrigaylov’s conversion from pathological sexuality to a momentary dialogic relation with Dunya is the feminist parallel to Raskolnikov’s religious conversion through Sonya.
(Pelikan Straus, 1994: 35)
Thus, Dunya represents a feminist ideal while Sonya represents a religious one. Dunya shoots at Svidrigaylov and in so doing strikes a blow for feminism as opposed to brutal masculine dominance. However, Dunya plays a more vital role than this because, when her actions of feminist conversion occur they are coupled with Sonya’s religious conversions and only in the face of both can the condition of women be improved, “It is only through Dunya’s effect on Svidrigaylov that Raskolnikov’s confession and self-transformation can be achieved. Only through the connections between religious and feminist ideologies of conversion t
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Marfa Petrovna, Svidrigaylov Raskolnikov, Sonya Forced, Crime Punishment, Svidrigaylov Dunya, Svidrigaylov Raskolnikovs, Pelikan Straus, Alena Lizaveta, Dunya Sonya, God Anderson, crime punishment, responsible actions, dostoevsky 1995, pelikan straus, sonya lizaveta, anderson 1986, press ny, pelikan straus 1994, straus 1994, thirty thousand, represents feminist, anderson 1986 61,
Approximate Word count = 1892
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)
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