The Modern Allure of Crime and Punishment

His mind clouded by irrational thought, the protagonist of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment reaches out to touch the shattered skull of his victim. Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov’s fascination with the gruesome details of his crime is far from alien to the sensibilities of the modern reader. Contemporary society’s mass media play on humankind’s natural interest in violence while desensitizing their audiences to the graphic reality of crime. The broad-based interest in violent crime, however, is overshadowed by the novel’s convincing communication of human emotion. Raskolnikov’s experiences appeal to the reader’s humanity, creating a sympathy that endures throughout the novel and captivates the modern reader.

Crime and Punishment draws the modern reader into emotional harmony with Raskolnikov even before he commits his crime. The exposition of the novel, leading up to the murder of the moneylender, depicts Raskolnikov’s repeated attempts to legitimize his future actions as well as his genuine selflessness. He rationalizes his plan by declaring that, weighed against the common good, Alėna Ivanovna’s life is worth "no more than the life of a louse or a cockroach—less, indeed, because she is actively harmful." Such a weak justification barely satisfies his feverish mind, and he makes continued attempts to exonerate himself mentally. Eventually, he desperately questions whether it is possible that he will "take an axe and strike her on the head, smash open her skull," but it is clear by this time that he will, in fact, go through with the murder. His hopeless rationalization of the act creates in the modern reader both interest in his motives—murder legitimized through good deeds—and sympathy for Raskolnikov himself. That sympathy is fostered by Raskolnikov’s otherwise philanthropic nature. His selfless treatment of the Marmeladovs, exhibited throughout the story, helps paint Raskolnikov as a generally good person whose strange thoughts on crime, compounded with a slight mental imbalance, make him a killer. Raskolnikov’s generosity, despite his own poverty, is grasped as a testament to his innate goodness. Despite all this, the reader’s sympathy for Raskolnikov is shaken by the gruesome double murder.

Dostoevsky’s greatest challenge is to maintain the audience’s sympathy for Raskolnikov in the immediate aftermath of the murders. Raskolnikov’s murder of the innocent Lizaveta makes sympathy more difficult to sustain. Raskolnikov transgresses society’s precepts, and only the reader’s shaken sympathy prevents a complete condemnation of the murderer. This moral judgment is postponed by pity for Raskolnikov’s illness—both physical and mental. In his "bitter, feverish" state, Raskolnikov seems, truly, to deserve the reader’s pity. Splitting his time between unconsciousness and delirium, Rodion Romanovich is truly incapable of feeling guilt for his sins. The reader must therefore take that emotional burden on himself, creating another substantial link between the reader and Raskolnikov.

As he recovers from his illness, though, Raskolnikov shows more and more manifestations of guilt that prove to be beyond his rational control. He faints at the police station; he admits outright to Zametov that he is the killer. He even returns to the scene of the crime. All these actions suggest that Raskolnikov, at some subconscious level, feels a need for atonement. The audience can only watch with ever-increasing sympathy as the murderer spirals uncontrollably toward self-destruction. His delirium reappears, but manifested now as paranoid self-doubt, and he becomes the apparent victim of Porfiry Petrovich. The emotional entanglement of Raskolnikov with the reader achieved, the audience is essentially Raskolnikov’s ally for the remainder of the novel, making his imminent confession a dreadful event.

Raskolnikov’s confession, of course, is necessary, and the audience’s sympathy is rewarded by the redemption Raskolnikov experiences in Siberia. As he continues toward his confession, the hopelessness of his situation is manifest. The prospect of confession seems especially frightening considering the certainty of deportation to Siberia. Still, the tension that has built within Raskolnikov and between Raskolnikov and the world around him demands mitigation. The reader is torn between favoring either the unknown (confession) or the uncomfortable (continuing in the present manner). Raskolnikov, of course, confesses and is exiled to Siberia. There he experiences an epiphany through the unconditional love of Sofia Marmeladov, and he begins a "new life" filled with "great and heroic struggles yet to come." This, of course, is the emotional high point of Crime and Punishment. The audience, wearied by its moral, sympathetic struggle with Raskolnikov realizes that he has been saved. The book closes with the promise of Raskolnikov’s "gradual redemption." Raskolnikov’s renewal, which seemed all but impossible throughout the novel, is initiated, and the audience leaves sharing in Raskolnikov’s joy for his new life.

It is through emotional manipulation that Dostoevsky makes Crime and Punishment a timeless novel. Every reader responds differently to the story, of course, but as a whole, the audience is tied sympathetically to Raskolnikov. The violence of Raskolnikov’s crime is but a passing moment; the rest of the novel is the story of his struggle for atonement, a struggle shared by the audience. Dostoevsky’s ability to link the reader to the protagonist at an emotional level without depending on shared setting or background is one of Crime and Punishment’s most alluring attributes for the modern reader.