"Crime and Punishment": reviews. "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky: summary, main characters

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky is one of the most significant creators of not only Russian literature, but also world, universal. The novels of the great writer are still being translated and published into more and more new languages. Dostoevsky's work is imbued with compassion and boundless love for ordinary people. The unique talent to show the deepest qualities of the human soul, which everyone so diligently hides from the whole world, is what attracts people in the works of the great writer.

Fyodor Dostoevsky: "Crime and Punishment" - year of writing and feedback from readers

Perhaps Dostoevsky's most controversial novel is Crime and Punishment. Written in 1866, it made an indelible impression on the venerable public of readers. As always, opinions were divided. Aloneflipping through the first pages superficially, they were indignant: "A hackneyed topic!" Those who began to read anything, just to emphasize their status and boast of the very fact of reading, and not understanding the author's thoughts, sincerely pitied the honest killer. Still others threw the novel, exclaiming: "What a torment - this book!"

These were the most common reviews. "Crime and Punishment", a work so valuable in the literary world, did not immediately find due recognition. However, it radically changed the whole way of social life of the nineteenth century. Now at secular receptions and fashionable evenings there was a regular topic of conversation. The awkward silence could be filled with a discussion of Raskolnikov. Those who had the misfortune to not immediately read the work quickly made up for lost time.

Misconception about Crime and Punishment

To understand what Dostoevsky's novel was supposed to convey to the reader, few could then. Most saw only the tip of the iceberg: the student killed, the student went mad. The version of madness was supported by many critics. In the described situation, they saw only absurd ideas about the life and death of the protagonist. However, this is not entirely true: you need to look deep into the soul, be able to catch subtle hints of the true state of affairs.

Problems raised by F. M. Dostoevsky

The main problem raised by the author is difficult to single out from all the others - "Crime and Punishment" turned out to be too multifaceted. The book contains problemsmorality, or rather, its absence; social problems that give rise to inequality between seemingly identical people. Not the last role is played by the theme of incorrectly set priorities: the writer shows what happens to a society obsessed with money.

Contrary to popular belief, the protagonist of Dostoevsky's novel "Crime and Punishment" does not personify the younger generation of that time. Many critics took this character with hostility, deciding that Raskolnikov expressed contempt for the trend popular at the end of the nineteenth century - nihilism. However, this theory is fundamentally wrong: in a poor student, Dostoevsky showed only a victim of circumstances, a person who broke down under the onslaught of social vices.

Summary of the novel "Crime and Punishment"

The described events take place in the 60s. 19th century, in gloomy Petersburg. Rodion Raskolnikov, a poor young man, a former student, is forced to huddle in the attic of an apartment building. Tired of poverty, he goes to an old pawnbroker to pawn the last value. Acquaintance with the drunkard Marmeladov and a letter from his mother, who describes their difficult life with her daughter, prompt Rodion to a terrible thought - about the murder of an old woman. He believes that the money he can take from the pawnbroker will make life easier, if not for him, then at least for his family.

The thought of violence is disgusting to the student, but he decides to commit a crime. Quotes from Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" will help to understand Raskolnikov's own theory: "In one life- thousands of lives saved from decay and decay. One death and a hundred lives in return - why, there is arithmetic here!" "Not only the great ones," the student believes, "but people who are a little out of the rut by their nature should be criminals, more or less, of course." Such thoughts prompt Rodion test himself by carrying out his plan. He kills the old woman with an ax, takes something valuable and disappears from the crime scene.

On the basis of a strong shock, Raskolnikov is overcome by illness. For the rest of the story, he is distrustful and alienated from people, which arouses suspicion. Rodion's acquaintance with Sonechka Marmeladova, a prostitute who is forced to work for the benefit of a poor family, leads to recognition. But, contrary to the killer's expectations, the deeply religious Sonya pities him and convinces him that the torment will end when he surrenders and is punished.

As a result, Raskolnikov, although convinced of his innocence, confesses to his deed. After him, Sonya rushes to hard labor. The first years Rodion is cold to her - he is also aloof, taciturn, suspicious. But over time, sincere repentance comes to him, and a new feeling begins to emerge in his soul - love for a devoted girl.

The main characters of the novel

It is impossible to form an unambiguous opinion about this or that character - everyone here is as real as the reader himself is real. Even from a small passage of text it is easy to understand that this is Fyodor Dostoevsky -"Crime and Punishment." The main characters are completely unique, the characters require a long and thoughtful analysis - and these are signs of real psychological realism.

Rodion Raskolnikov

Raskolnikov himself is still haunted by mixed reviews. "Crime and Punishment" is a very multifaceted, voluminous creation, and it is difficult to immediately understand even such an everyday life as the character's character. At the beginning of the first part, Rodion's appearance is described: a tall, slender young man with dark blond hair and dark expressive eyes. The hero is definitely handsome - the sharper he contrasts with the violence and poverty that the world of gray Petersburg is full of.

Rodion's character is very ambiguous. As events unfold, the reader learns more and more aspects of the hero's life. Much later than the murder, it turns out that Raskolnikov, like no one else, is capable of compassion: when he found the already familiar drunkard Marmeladov crushed by a carriage, he gave the last money to his family for the funeral. Such a contrast between morality and murder raises doubts in the reader: is this man as terrible as he seemed at first?

Assessing the actions of Rodion from a Christian point of view, the author claims: Raskolnikov is a sinner. However, his main offense is not suicide, not that he broke the law. The most terrible thing in Rodion is what his theory is: the division of people into those who are "righthas" and those whom he considers "a trembling creature." "Everyone is equal," says Dostoevsky, "and everyone has the same right to life."

Sonechka Marmeladova

Sonya Marmeladova deserves no less close attention. This is how Dostoevsky describes her: short, thin, but quite pretty eighteen-year-old blonde with beautiful blue eyes. The complete opposite of Raskolnikov: not very beautiful, inconspicuous, meek and modest, Sonechka, as her author called her, also broke the law. But even here there was no resemblance to Rodion: she was not sinful.

Such a paradox is explained simply: Sonya did not divide people into good and bad; she truly loved everyone. Working on the panel made it possible for her family to survive in terrible conditions of poverty, and the girl herself, forgetting about her own well-being, devoted her life to serving her relatives. Sacrifice atoned for the fact of the crime - and Sonechka remained innocent.

Critical reviews: "Crime and Punishment"

As mentioned above, not everyone was able to appreciate the brainchild of Dostoevsky. People far from the art of the word, in forming their own opinions, relied more on the reviews of influential critics; they, in turn, saw something different in the work. Unfortunately, many, understanding the meaning of the novel, were mistaken - and their mistakes led to deliberately false opinions.

Sofor example, A. Suvorin, a rather influential person, who, with an analysis of Crime and Punishment, spoke in the well-known print publication Russkiy Vestnik, stated: the whole essence of the work is interpreted by the “painful direction of all literary activity” of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Rodion, according to the critic, is not at all the embodiment of some direction or way of thinking, assimilated by the multitude, but is only a completely sick person. He even called Raskolnikov a nervous, crazy kind.

Such categoricalness found its supporters: P. Strakhov, a person close to Dostoevsky, declared: the primary strength of the writer is not in certain categories of people, but "in the depiction of situations, in the ability to deeply grasp individual movements and upheavals of the human soul." Like Suvorin, P. Strakhov did not pay attention to the tragic fate of the heroes, but considered the work as the deepest perversion of the understanding of morality.

Dostoevsky a realist?

D. I. Pisarev was able to see the realist writer in Dostoevsky most accurately, having written valuable reviews about it. "Crime and Punishment" was carefully considered in the article "Struggle for Life": in it the critic raised the question of the moral development of the society that surrounded the criminal. A very important idea about the novel was formulated precisely by this author: the share of freedom that was at the disposal of Raskolnikov was completely insignificant. Pisarev sees the true causes of the crime as poverty, the contradictions of Russian life, the moral decline of those around him. Raskolnikov's people.

The true value of love

"Crime and Punishment" is a book of real Russian life. A characteristic feature of the art of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky is his ability to infinitely love not only "positively beautiful" people, but also fallen, broken, sinful ones. It is the motives of philanthropy that are reflected in the famous novel "Crime and Punishment". The content, chapter by chapter, paragraph, line, includes the author's bitter tears shed over the fate of the Russian people, over the fate of Russia itself. He desperately calls the reader to compassion, because without him in this dirty, cruel world, life - as well as death - no, never was, and never will be.