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Crime and Punishment - Part 3

#179: Oct. - Dec. 2021 (Fiction)
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Chris OConnor

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Crime and Punishment - Part 3

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Crime and Punishment - Part 3

Please use this thread to discuss Part 3 of Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
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Robert Tulip

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Re: Crime and Punishment - Part 3

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Part Three begins with Raskolnikov in his tiny garret in Saint Petersburg, where his mother and sister have arrived from the country, excited about her impending wedding and seeking his blessing. He aggressively and rudely orders his sister not to marry her fiancé, which is thoroughly shocking to both sister and mother. His friend Razumihin is also there; he explains R is suffering from mental illness, little knowing the cause is his guilt and embarrassment about the gruesome double murder. Here we are halfway through the book, and no one has expressed open suspicions that R is guilty of this notorious crime.

Razumihin takes the tearful ladies to their rather grotty lodgings, and then goes to his home where his housewarming party remains in full swing, to collect Dr Zossimov and bring him to help R.

All this care and concern for Raskolnikov is remarkable. Most people would be immensely grateful for such help, but R spurns it because he knows he is secretly unworthy, as a hidden murderer. The crime continues to reverberate through his life and conscience, causing confusion and suffering for those around him, especially his family.

Dostoyevsky depicts R’s sister Dounia (Avdotya Romanovna) in a remarkable case study in physical description: “Avdotya Romanovna was remarkably good-looking; she was tall, strikingly well-proportioned, strong and self-reliant--the latter quality was apparent in every gesture, though it did not in the least detract from the grace and softness of her movements. In face she resembled her brother, but she might be described as really beautiful. Her hair was dark brown, a little lighter than her brother’s; there was a proud light in her almost black eyes and yet at times a look of extraordinary kindness. She was pale, but it was a healthy pallor; her face was radiant with freshness and vigour. Her mouth was rather small; the full red lower lip projected a little as did her chin; it was the only irregularity in her beautiful face, but it gave it a peculiarly individual and almost haughty expression. Her face was always more serious and thoughtful than gay; but how well smiles, how well youthful, lighthearted, irresponsible, laughter suited her face!”

This stunning physical description seems to suggest impending tragedy.
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Re: Crime and Punishment - Part 3

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Raskolnikov’s mother has the ageless beauty that comes from serenity of spirit, sensitiveness and pure sincere warmth of heart. Mother and daughter share values of honesty, principle and the deepest convictions. Dostoyevsky presents this portrayal of maternal goodness to intensify the sheer cruelty of the betrayal of these family values by her son, a betrayal that remains hidden but is coming out in his extremely strange behaviour.

Razumihin had succeeded in bringing the doctor Zossimov to see Raskolnikov, and to see the two ladies. Dounia has totally smitten Razumihin, and she dazzles Zossimov with her beauty, which he studiously and professionally ignores, while pronouncing his diagnosis that R is suffering from moral influences and apparent monomania.

Chapter Two begins with Razumihin recriminating to himself about how he has blundered in winning Dounia’s heart, and wondering how he stacks up against her fiancé. An allusion is made to the police suspecting Raskolnikov of involvement in the murders. The family tragedy continues to intensify as the mother looks to Razumihin with nothing but gratitude, friendship and respect, when he feels he only deserves sneering condescension for his drunken slobbery.

R’s mother wants to know her son’s hopes and dreams, and why he is so irritable. If only she knew! Dostoyevsky now gives another of his deft character portraits from his friend Razumihin: he says Raskolnikov “is morose, gloomy, proud and haughty, and of late--and perhaps for a long time before--he has been suspicious and fanciful. He has a noble nature and a kind heart. He does not like showing his feelings and would rather do a cruel thing than open his heart freely. Sometimes, though, he is not at all morbid, but simply cold and inhumanly callous; it’s as though he were alternating between two characters. Sometimes he is fearfully reserved! He says he is so busy that everything is a hindrance, and yet he lies in bed doing nothing. He doesn’t jeer at things, not because he hasn’t the wit, but as though he hadn’t time to waste on such trifles. He never listens to what is said to him. He is never interested in what interests other people at any given moment. He thinks very highly of himself and perhaps he is right.”

I get the feeling that Dostoyevsky is somehow presenting Raskolnikov as a window on the Russian soul, distressing as it may be.
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Re: Crime and Punishment - Part 3

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Continuing this theme of Raskolnikov as allegory for Russia, his friend, his sister and his mother discuss his weird behaviour after he forcefully opposed his sister’s marriage plans. We learn he seems incapable of love, and that when he tried to marry his landlady’s daughter, his mother felt she almost died of grief. They say the girl was poor, ugly and crippled, and the mother rejoiced at her death. The implication seems to be that Russia displays a similar national perversity of working against its own interests.

On top of this autistic perversity, Raskolnikov is a nihilist, incapable of understanding the value of anything. Luzhin, Dounia’s fiancé who was so grossly insulted by R, writes to say he watched R give the 25 roubles that his mother had worked so hard to raise to the prostitute daughter of a dead drunkard wastrel out of some mad sense of compassion. Such insane behaviour puts R outside the pale of acceptable society, and demands that he be totally shunned and banned from any social gatherings. Luzhin makes this a condition of the marriage proceeding.
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Re: Crime and Punishment - Part 3

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Chapter Three
Returning to my discussion chapter by chapter, I am now up to Chapter Three of Part Three, where Doctor Zossimov seeks to diagnose the malady afflicting Raskolnikov. The reader understands the illness is a result of psychotic derangement caused by bad conscience about committing appalling murders, but Zossimov is oblivious about this, given R’s success in concealing his crime, and instead looks for other causes.

Dostoyevsky continues his mastery of playing cat and mouse with the characters. For example when the doctor tells R that his condition is perhaps his own fault and R agrees, we see the irony of the two sides of the conversation possessing different information about what it means. And then when R agrees that a return to university could cure him, this is followed by a withering look of mockery toward Zossimov that mystifies the doctor.

Then the doctor says it is “a familiar phenomenon that actions are sometimes performed in a masterly and most cunning way, while the direction of the actions is deranged and dependent on various morbid impressions--it’s like a dream.” The reader laughs with Dostoyevsky that this is such an exact diagnosis of R, despite being ignorant of the real horror involved. No wonder R finds this conversation such torture, as he continues to systematically conceal his guilt.
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Re: Crime and Punishment - Part 3

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Robert Tulip wrote: Sun Apr 03, 2022 1:41 pm Chapter Three
Returning to my discussion chapter by chapter, I am now up to Chapter Three of Part Three, where Doctor Zossimov seeks to diagnose the malady afflicting Raskolnikov. The reader understands the illness is a result of psychotic derangement caused by bad conscience about committing appalling murders, but Zossimov is oblivious about this, given R’s success in concealing his crime, and instead looks for other causes.

Dostoyevsky continues his mastery of playing cat and mouse with the characters. For example when the doctor tells R that his condition is perhaps his own fault and R agrees, we see the irony of the two sides of the conversation possessing different information about what it means. And then when R agrees that a return to university could cure him, this is followed by a withering look of mockery toward Zossimov that mystifies the doctor.
Yes, the difference between the expert opinion and the truth is almost humorous. It reminds me of the wonderful scene in "Fiddler on the Roof" when a person trying to buy a cow is confused with a suitor for the daughter (or do I have that backward?)
Then the doctor says it is “a familiar phenomenon that actions are sometimes performed in a masterly and most cunning way, while the direction of the actions is deranged and dependent on various morbid impressions--it’s like a dream.” The reader laughs with Dostoyevsky that this is such an exact diagnosis of R, despite being ignorant of the real horror involved. No wonder R finds this conversation such torture, as he continues to systematically conceal his guilt.
There are a whole series of interesting insights into "partial knowledge" in this section of the book. In some ways Dostoevsky is consistently going with a sense that intuition is capable of penetration where logic and education are misled by what they are trained to use for testing the matter carefully. The scene at the police station is another set piece of professional failure. If, however, all this is meant to suggest that Raskolnikov has superior intuition about his own situation and the nature of moral insight, then that point is lost on me. R's pride leads him to excellent insights about, say, the fiance of his sister, while at the same time leading him to utterly delude himself about his own relation to the world.
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Re: Crime and Punishment - Part 3

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In Chapter Four, we can continue to marvel at the deft masterstrokes that Dostoyevsky uses to build up his intimate portraits of his characters. Sonia is the prostitute daughter of the drunkard Marmeladov who died in a traffic accident. She turns up at his door unannounced to thank Raskolnikov for giving her family all the money his mother had saved for him. Of course she cannot know it was a futile gesture toward somehow expiating his guilt for the senseless murders. She invites R to the funeral, which he has paid for. R’s mother and sister and friend are already crowding his tiny bedsit, creating quite a difficult situation.

Here are some examples of the writer’s craft within this encounter:
“Raskolnikov’s pale face flushed, a shudder passed over him, his eyes glowed.” Each term in this sentence contributes to our understanding of Raskolnikov’s psychology. Such characterisation is part of a cumulative process that takes us ever deeper into his mind and his situation. It is this type of writing that makes Crime and Punishment such an existential novel. Each point – the flushing face, the bodily shudder, the glowing eyes – reflect the powerful emotions of guilt and anxiety that are consuming him. Exactly what it means to say his eyes glowed is slightly mysterious, evoking his barely concealed murderous passions. The shudder points to involuntary physical sensations created by the concealed embarrassment of his situation, and the fear that at any time such an unpredictable social encounter could produce an accidental revelation of his secret.

“Pulcheria Alexandrovna glanced at Sonia, and slightly screwed up her eyes.” Here the mother conceals her shock and disdain at the disgusting company kept by her son. Dostoyevsky knows this tiny facial gesture communicates essential information.
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Re: Crime and Punishment - Part 3

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I find myself wondering to what extend Dostoyevsky’s novel is so popular because Raskolnikov is a metaphor for the soul of Russia. His mother describes him and his sister Dounia in the following terms: “in soul, you are both melancholy, morose, hot-tempered, haughty and generous”. Is this a stereotype of the Russian character, even if the generosity is largely imaginary?
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Re: Crime and Punishment - Part 3

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Once again, I love Dostoyevky’s powers of description. Here is a great example, of the mystery man who follows the poor prostitute Sonia home from Raskolnikov’s. It is so interesting how each precisely-chosen adjective adds to our impression of his personality and background. I particularly noted the “cold and thoughtful look” in his blue eyes. It will be interesting how his identity is revealed.
He was a man about fifty, rather tall and thickly set, with broad high shoulders which made him look as though he stooped a little. He wore good and fashionable clothes, and looked like a gentleman of position. He carried a handsome cane, which he tapped on the pavement at each step; his gloves were spotless. He had a broad, rather pleasant face with high cheek-bones and a fresh colour, not often seen in Petersburg. His flaxen hair was still abundant, and only touched here and there with grey, and his thick square beard was even lighter than his hair. His eyes were blue and had a cold and thoughtful look; his lips were crimson. He was a remarkedly well-preserved man and looked much younger than his years.
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Re: Crime and Punishment - Part 3

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“The butterfly flies to the light” he thought, with a beating heart, and he turned white.
This metaphor for his situation occurs to Raskolnikov as he accompanies his friend Razumihin to meet Porfiry, the detective in charge of the murder investigation. He has been called in because he had unredeemed pledges with the murdered pawnbroker.
This presents a series of delicious opportunities for R to ruminate on how to handle the meeting without attracting suspicion, even though they apparently already regard him as mad. Razumihin says “Last year he cleared up a case of murder in which the police had hardly a clue. He is very, very anxious to make your acquaintance!” to which R enquires “On what grounds is he so anxious?”
The subtext is whether R is a murder suspect. He contrives to enter the detective’s flat laughing. Will it work?
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