Pride and Guilt in Crime and Punishment
Pride and Guilt in Crime and Punishment
Although a person may repress his conscious, the guilt is merely displaced to another part of the mind, and eventually, this repressed matter must return. In the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, he displays the idea that a character's guilt often portrays them self in dreams by presenting their purely devilish self or their worst fears. Not only does the character himself assume in dreams a totally vicious nature, but the beings he encounters do also. In the cases of Raskolnikov, the mere fact of the devil's reveals that the character has failed to elude guilt, a human universal, despite what he thinks or says consciously. ...
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the dreams, of Raskolnikov.
It is important when discussing a dream in a novel to distinguish between the literary and psychological implications of the dream. The dream is obviously the functional product of the author's imagination, and hence, must serve a definite purpose in the work. If examined legitimately, however, as a dream of an actual, non-fictional person, the dream bears psychological importance and reveals something about the dreamer's unconscious. In interpreting the dreams in Dostoevsky's novels we can employ Freudian theories to delve into the character's psyche, but only in light of the fact that Dostoevsky, as author, created these dreams for a purpose, both literary and psychological. These dreams are not actual products of the unconscious, but, on the other hand, deliberate, conscious attempts to fill out a certain character's psychology.
In Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov murders to declare personal sovereignty over his life and to assert his ...
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assuming the authority and strength of an extraordinary man with this one extreme but necessary murder, Raskolnikov believes he too can seize the power of a Napoleon, and prove himself as a godlike superman emerging large over his fellow men.
But Raskolnikov is horribly wrong, and his dream after the fact proves it:
He stood over her. "She is afraid!" he thought, and stealthily withdrawing the axe from its loop he struch her on the crown of the head, once and again. But it was strange: she did not even stir under the blows; it was as if she were made of wood. He grew afraid, and stooped nearer to look at her, but she bent her head even lower. He crouched down to the ...
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"Pride and Guilt in Crime and Punishment." Essayworld.com. April 20, 2011. Accessed April 19, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Pride-and-Guilt-in-Crime-Punishment/98257.
"Pride and Guilt in Crime and Punishment." Essayworld.com. April 20, 2011. Accessed April 19, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Pride-and-Guilt-in-Crime-Punishment/98257.
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