Crime and Punishment: The Metapolitics of Dostoevsky

St. Petersburg. Sometime in the 19th century. Dirty, grimy, confused, vibrant and pulsating with ideas. This description also fits the psyche of Rodya Raskolnikov as he makes his way through the hot, hungry and decaying streets of Russia’s intellectual heart. The very first time we’re introduced to him, an oppression and gloom is communicated to us – this young man we imagine striding through the slums is doomed. And more than us, he seems to be aware of it. The Zimmerman hat he wears becomes a cause of worry for him. After all, when you’re about to commit a murder, you don’t want something as insignificant as a hat to give you away.

Dostoevsky’s shockingly precise study of a killer’s diseased philosophy is steeped in a scathing critique of the plutocracy and smug conservatism of the elite, the powerful and shrewd despots who have manipulated the masses for centuries so unapologetically. The 19th century Europe suffers from this Western endemic of self-censure of originality, noble ideals and any moral ascent. The regimented ideology, homogenised perceptions and lifestyles and unquestioned acceptance of the supremacy of the System, all of which characterise stuffy political and cultural orthodoxy, are accused of driving true thinkers and sages to extremes of activity to counter the insularity of thought which stifles them so hypocritically. Dostoevsky launches a vilifying attack on the myopic and decaying pseudo-morality and socio-cultural ghetto of the times, accusing the superficial standards, set by an inane society, of pushing a true intellectual to the extent of crime to prove his aversion to the inertia which surrounds him. He blames the mass market beliefs embedded in the popular ethics of the time as a miniature version of the larger and more terrifying oppression of people occurring all over Europe and especially Russia as they struggled to liberate themselves from the constraints of ancient notions which had imprisoned them for so long. Education was slowly elucidating the masses; a point made succinctly in Raskolnikov’s being a student, one who has imbibed both the old dogmatic dictums and absorbs the new, feral wave of emancipation at the same time, freeing himself from the dictates of his era.

Like his other great works, The Idiot and The Possessed, Crime and Punishment is a robust and reactionary statement against the totalitarianism of the West and, in retrospect, a very slight but clever prognosis of the Russian Revolution, which was more strongly predicted in the other two books. This book seeks to focus on the fall of a single man, a metonym for the struggle of Russia’s emergent, young, working class fine minds. The pawnbroker, Alyona Ivanovna and her unwitting sister, Lizaveta, who is also killed by Raskolnikov, almost out of necessity than anything else since she walks in on his crime, are representatives of the petty and greedy class of blue collar society who sought simply to exploit those less fortunate than themselves for money. However, everyone accepts this behaviour as regular and normal. Raskolnikov’s motive for murder was complex but mostly he wished to express his vehement opposition to the existence of social vampires like them, whom nobody would miss or perhaps even remember the day after their deaths, so redundant and irrelevant were these wretched mercenaries. He considered himself almost releasing society from the hold of people like them, who, miserable and gluttonous, deserved to die such ignoble deaths, in his opinion. However, despite their inconsequence and ignominy, society deems it unfit for him to get rid of them – they’d rather be suppressed and violated than let go of their fake notions of goodness, none of which they themselves uphold in their own lives. Alyona Ivanovna and her meek, pitiful accomplice, Lizaveta, are responsible for the financial and spiritual massacre of so many people, their clients whereas Raskolnikov is only responsible for a single physical murder…which is worse? The slow, agonising slaughter of the spirit or the swift slaying of the butcher? Here Dostoevsky seems to be saying that poor or subjugated people, with their limited notions of human goodness and lack of ability to defend themselves from the onslaught of abuse, cling to the arcane, violent creeds designed to browbeat them; they adhere to the familiar doctrines which have been inherited through like hand-me-downs instead of breaking free and standing up for what is right. The murder is more a symbol for the feeble strikes against the old system which are hardly supported by the people in the interests of whom those strikes are made because they refuse to look beyond their narrow scope.

Both the dreams of Raskolnikov signify the pro-liberal stance of Dostoevsky, calling for revolution. The first one, in which the female ass is beaten to pulp by the cruel owner, depicts the situation of women in the 19th century through the modicum of Raskolnikov’s sister, Avdotya and later, girlfriend, Sonya. The ‘woman question’ is often alluded to in the book and in this case, Dunechka’s sacrifice for her brother by marrying a rich, thoroughly chauvinistic and devious businessman, Luzhin and Sonya’s sacrifice for her family by taking up prostitution – both examples of the hideous desecration of both the female spirit and the female body by individual men and the larger society – are encapsulated in the dream. The profligate Svidrigailov’s suicide at the end seems to forecast the advent of women’s emancipation, when the libertine propensities of men are no longer forgivable or tolerable even by themselves, as they drift towards a more progressive era.

In the second dream, the destruction of and havoc wreaked throughout the Western world are strikingly lucid prophecies of the overthrow of imperialism, the devastation of people and ideas and the militarization and cloning of them both. Long before Orwell’s Animal Farm, Dostoevsky spoke about the eventual assembly line mass production of thought and person, the denial of individuality and creativity and the collapse of society in the flames of a controlling regime. Anyone with the faintest knowledge of the last century’s Russian politics can testify to his accuracy.

The communist asphyxiation of Russia, which although it took root in the shape of a means to help the weak, morphed into an even more imposing and tyrannical structure of government and life, suffocating the proletariat and killing free expression, just like the 19th century aristocracy. In a sense, Raskolnikov connotes that in his bid to ‘liberate’ Alyona Ivanovna’s clients – he fights oppression with oppression, an educated man hacking an old woman to death – he adopts some of her brutality. The sophist mechanism of Marxism, which strove to liberate, ultimately succumbed to the corruption of power. Here also Dostoevsky strongly condemns left-conservatism and promotes liberal thought.

Raskolnikov argues that when Napoleon, who was responsible for carnage galore, was put up on a pedestal and glorified like a hero, despite the bloodbath he had caused all over the continent, why was he, who had gotten rid of only one woman who was as good as a criminal herself, being taken to task for his deed? His deep seated Napoleon complex haunts him repeatedly and his tortured despair and guilt leads him to spurts of charity, kindness and surprising goodwill, all of which shows his essence as an upright and good, moral man. It is his superior intellect and courage to question the norm, to defy the expectations of society which lead him to the heinous, but in his opinion, totally justifiable act of murder. He kills partly to convince himself of his own greatness – after all, if Napoleon could do it, why couldn’t he? – and partly to scandalise his milieu and awaken them to the grave injustices that they were inflicting upon themselves and upon each other. Once the crime has been committed, though, his conscience cannot stand the anguish of this knowledge, this awareness of having crossed all objective boundaries. On one level, he is offended at the mere thought of feeling sorry and is outraged that he should be expected to feel remorse; he is angry that he could not match up to Napoleon’s disaffection and righteousness when he killed, that he could not stick to his convictions. On the other hand, he is revolted and horrified by his own actions and many times contemplates giving himself over to the police. This duality of guilt – at oneself for being unable to abide by one’s beliefs and at the greater terror at what has been done by him – switches back and forth in the dystopia of Raskolnikov’s heart. Here, as well, is exposited the double standards of morality for those in power and those under it, a scathing review of the demagogue versus democracy.

In a sense, Razumikhin, the fierce, passionate and comic friend of Raskolnikov embodies the nascent generation of young thinkers just like Raskolnikov himself, thoroughly voluble and opinionated and willing to argue to death for his principles. But that is the very difference between them – Razumikhin might die to make a point but Raskolnikov would kill to do that. The martyr and the marauder…almost the same but not quite…a crafty observation of the overlapping of the two kinds of freedom fighters, one might say, the dichotomy of retaliation and which one is more effective in resisting force – words or weapons? Dostoevsky’s assessment is that it is all very well to talk, even with lofty intentions, but when one acts with those same lofty intentions in a manner seemingly contrary to the way of the world, are those lofty intentions undermined?

The Christian angle of redemption originating in endurance of pain is articulated by the pious Sonya, who urges Raskolnikov to his final road to penance. Despite her humiliation as a harlot, Sonya is an intensely religious and god fearing woman, pure and innocent despite her debauched physicality. Religion as a means to rescue oneself from perdition is emphasised very strongly by Dostoevsky, himself a devout Christian, and he reiterates its value by investing in Sonya messianic traits which enable her to save Raskolnikov in the end, through uncompromising love and constant prayer, both of which energise the recovery of the sick murderer and his salvation as he accepts his crime finally. His hero, Sonya, brings him to realise that society cannot punish him or excoriate him, only he himself could. The titular punishment, which begins and continues after the murder in the form of mental self-flagellation reaches a crescendo at the end, is carried to its conclusion by the holiness of Sonya and her love, and finally absolves Raskolnikov of his sins. In this sense, separation of religion and state are advised against because, finally, it is god by whom we are all governed and who decides our fates.

The mix of many characters that inundate the novel are all indicative of some symptom of the problems of humanity – the wily detective Porfiry who, re-establishing Sonya’s belief that only the criminal can truly declare a verdict unto himself doesn’t arrest him knowing he will, wracked with guilt, turn himself in; the Marmeladovs who live in abject woe and depravation; Lebezyatnikov who, although a pathetic little specimen of a poseur himself, elevates himself by saving Sonya from the money hungry Luzhin’s accusations; the bureaucracy which frames everyone within sight to uphold its own sense of duty and purpose and self-aggrandise and Nikolai Dememtiev who owns up to a murder he didn’t commit under severe religious pressure, again bringing to the fore the belief that it is god which inspires saviours.

Crime and Punishment is a searing dissection of the convoluted themes of sin, suffering, guilt and penitence, informed by the genius of perhaps the greatest modern novelist. It is so resplendent, so stark in its analysis that it almost splices open the mind, body and soul of a murderer. A seminal novel of timeless appeal, it is a book that didn’t just open my mind but wrenched it open with gripping gravity and honesty and awoke me from the languor of my existence to the other side of mankind.