Crime and Punishment

Suffering can sometimes feel like punishment, as if all the hurt and pain we’ve experienced or are experiencing, is a product of some transgression we’ve committed. It’s easy to blame ourselves for a sick twist of events by attributing it to our own sin or blunders. In Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky unveils a world stricken in moral depravity and poverty, revealing the most putrid aspects of society and human nature. Characters like Svidrigailov, Raskonlikov,and Luzhin embody what some might consider perfect candidates for suffering; they deserve every wound they receive. The main focus for me in this book strayed from my original question, “Does suffering bring out the truest aspects of nature, or distort it?” because I was so wrapped up in labeling characters as either “good” or “bad”. After I finished, I realized that I was closer to my original question than I thought. In the case of Crime and Punishment, I don’t think it’s fair to judge their morality or system of ethics based on their actions given their circumstances. Usually I would take a deontological approach in weighing these characters, but I think it best to utilize situational ethics strictly because of the circumstances in which they live. Sonia, a prostitute, sells herself to pay for her family’s bare necessities for survival. Her suffering in this book was not warranted by a misdeed, but rather a selfless sacrificial giving. For Sonia, her childlike nature remained unmarred, while her actions suggested that she was immoral. The immense suffering she went through did not change who she was, rather, it propelled her to new heights of selflessness. Raskonlikov , a most complex character, up until his crime, does not necessarily go through extreme suffering. His pride and arrogance destroy him, and after he murders the pawnbroker and Lizoveta, suffers mentally and physically. This suffering is created by his own hand, and distorts the potential he holds in himself. Svidrigailov suffers one of the worst blows,-unreturned love- and though it’d be easy to say he deserved his end (suicide) and his pain, did he experience enough suffering in his life to pardon his sins? Not knowing what exactly he went through before I was introduced to him in the novel, I only base my assumptions off of the grotesque nature he was in when I found him. If I am to judge him based on his corrupt nature as it is, I believe that that is a quiet suffering in itself, the weight of sin being one of the hardest burdens to bear. Raskonlikov's "suffering' ultimately redeems him, like Sonia had prayed, even though it took him destroying everything he possesed in order to find it. So for the characters in Crime and Punishment, Oediopus, the hurt can be helper. The punch in the face can be the only thing that redeems our ugliness.