Subservience: Dostoevsky’s Response to Suffering In a commentary on Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground, scholar Lev Shestov noted the novella’s exposure of: “Dostoevsky’s acceptance of a universe of cruelty, pain, and suffering that no ultimate moral perspective can justify,” this view falls short of the full truth of Dostoevsky’s world view however (Shestov 113). Dostoevsky never “accepted” the perspective that cruelty and pain serve as dictates of nature’s underlying principles. Certainly…
The novel, Crime and Punishment, written by Fyodor Dostoevsky interprets the story of the main character committing a crime, and the phases he went through to plead guilty. The main character, Rodya Raskolnikov, goes through a financial crisis after being fired from his teaching job. He had to find a way to gain money and his solution was to kill Alyona, a pawnbroker, and steal some of her money. After thinking about his idea for a while, Raskolnikov decided to commit the crime and went to…
Dostoevsky: Language, Faith and Fiction, longer than it deserved - because unlike the author, Rowan Williams who categorically states his Dostoevskian wisdom is limited; yet, still writes the book, I 'll go further, and say that I compute fully with Fyodor Dostoevsky 's novel analogies, essays, and notes. In comparison, Williams claims he is altogether complex and I claim he actually simplifies language, faith and fiction to the point of a singular core - call it: 'oneness. ' To metamorphism…
Russia society was still developing, Mikhail Lermontov jotted down the characters cowardness making readers able to analyze and comprehend the characters qualities and lack of self-sufficiency in the novel. Lermontov uses a tone that portrays an insatiable need for self-indulgence to show the Byronic values of Russian society at that time. Lermontov teaches the readers about the nature of human beings by showing the characters lack of unpleasant opportunities that…
The works of Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky can be described as exercises in “soul-searching.” Both have a habit of exhibiting sympathy for their characters, providing little vignettes of life and lifelike figures and displaying the inner beauty and humanity in them. They advocate love for and brotherhood with one’s fellow man. This is a distinct contrast to the attitudes of many other Russians during the period in which the authors wrote, specifically the “logical” intelligentsia, many of…
In my family the roots of mental illness run deep through every generation. Few are left untouched by either social phobia, bipolar disorder, or schizoaffective disorder. With my diagnosis of social phobia at age nine I discovered I was no exception. However, my family also has a long tradition of strong mothers capable of helping their children shoulder the burdens of their disabilities. In her years of advocating on my behalf my mother has consistently and on numerous occasions demonstrated…
In a passage excerpted from the novel Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Raskolnikov fixes his attention on a girl who is staggeringly drunk. While Raskolnikov is watching her, he notices a large man, who is also paying special attention to the drunk girl; however, the stranger is clearly intent on taking advantage of the girl. Raskolnikov notifies a police officer of the circumstance in order to protect the girl, and in an instant, he decides that he does not care about what happens to…
some because they believe they are helping the world in some way or another. People commit these kinds of acts because they don’t think clearly; causing them to justify their violent actions as caring ones. In Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, the characters, Rodion Ramonovitch Raskolnikov, Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigailov, and Katerina Ivanova Marmeladov, suffer from a psychological imbalance which in return is expressed to the public as acts of uncivil violence as seen through brutal…
1. Why does Raskolnikov reject his mother and sister? (One paragraph) In part four of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment, Rodion Raskolnikov rejects his relationship with his mother Pulcheria Alexandrovna and his sister Avdotya Romanovna for a very unusual, yet understandable reason. Rodion Raskolnikov has had to deal with the psychological troubles of murdering two people since the end of part one of the novel. As parts two through four progressed, he realized that he did…
In Section 7, Dostoevsky expands his attack against scientific rationalism, utilitarianism, specifically starting from against their assumptions of humans' acting solely for their profits. Historically speaking, according to what Richard Pevear stated in the book's Foreword, Dostoevsky feared the "Giftlessness" embodied by Nikolai Chernyshevsky back to the nineteenth century. As one of the beliefs rooted in "Giftlessness", Chernyshevsky considers that men are basically good and always search…