Crime, Punishment, and a reason for Dostoevsky
Big thanks to Mattheus Wolff for the book
“It was dark in the corridor; they were standing near a light. For a minute they looked silently at each other. Razumikhin remembered that minute all his life. Raskolnikov’s burning and fixed look seemed to grow more intense every moment, penetrating his soul, his consciousness All at once Razumikhin gave a start. Something strange seemed to pass between them . . . as if the hint of some idea, something horrible, hideous, flitted by and was suddenly understood on both sides. Razumikhin turned pale as a corpse …”
I was recently asked why the Brothers Karamazov was my favorite book. I talked about the magnificent ideas contained in the pages from the Grand Inquisitor to the Elder Zossima. But having experienced some more of Dostoevsky’s work I don’t think that is it. Yes, the ideas conveyed are incredible consolidations of various spirits of the age, even unique ideas of Dostoevsky. Whether it’s Ivan’s philosophic skepticism, Zossima’s ethic of love, the Underground man’s disdain for reason, or Raskolnikov’s Napoleonic utilitarianism. But that is not the primary reason to read Dostoevsky.
Rather through the pages of drunkards, murderers, and scoundrels living it all out, a mirror forms. And you see yourself. You see human nature, unembellished, unvarnished, with all its broken might. Dostoevsky has this Scripture-like ability to just cut you and squeeze out thoughts and intentions of your heart. A window into your soul.
That mirror starts off fuzzy. Raskolnikov is a murderer after all. He shed innocent blood. But it doesn’t take long for a reflection to emerge. He committed to keeping a dark secret. Everyone keeps secrets - not the good ones. Burdens of pain and suffering, shameful things we’ve done, stories we swear to bring to our graves.
Raskolnikov, the murderer and chief subject of the book, is intelligent but a sloth. Constantly in a disturbed state of consciousness, irritable, hallucinating, feverish. He is so isolated. He spends days on end wasting away in his wretched apartment and does not even leave his bed. But then he has this socratic view of the good - only a special few have moral knowledge - justifying an unconstrained utilitarianism which enables some men to kill. So he kills a old nasty pawnshop owner with an axe and her innocent sister.
Despite all this complexity, we are varying spectrums of Raskolnikov. Mental angst on what to do with our lives. Job prospects are poor, so why even try? And even if there is an idea worth pursuing, little discipline or ethic exists to be spurred to action. On the other end, our agency is energized through effective altruism, really just util rebranded. Then we listen to some podcasts and get a rush of ecstasy from Napoleonic men. So we toil a little, try to work hard, maybe even start that thing or embark on that adventure but eventually the slothfulness and mental angst kick back in. One often seems to end where they started.
Just last week I went to prison
To see some boys down on death row
Brought some guitars and my buddies
To play some songs I thought they'd know,
I could feel myself tremblin'
When I shook one of their hands
I thought that he would be a monster
It turns out he's a whole lot like I am
Inevitably the question becomes is there power to change? At the very end of the novel, Raskolnikov powerfully answers yes, but because of an unlikely vessel - Sofya Semyonovna. Sofya, a young woman forced to sell herself into prostitution to make provisions for her family, meets Raskolnikov in a horrific state of events where her father is trampled by a horse and dies. While she initially appears unclean and guilt-ridden one learns she has otherworldly eyes of compassion. Raskolnikov confesses his terrible deed to her. But she does not flee from him. Somehow she sees his pain, and binds herself to his wretched life. She pleas with Raskolnikov to confess his guilt. Follows him to the police station, where he finally turns himself in. But then, follows him to Siberia, yes Siberia, where he must serve out his sentence. Her love knows no bounds.
Finally, one day in Siberia in the midst of labor, Sofya visits and Raskolnikov melts
How it happened he himself did not know, but suddenly it was as if something lifted him and flung him down at her feet. He wept and embraced her knees. For the first moment she was terribly frightened, and her whole face went numb. She jumped up and looked at him, trembling. But all at once, in that same moment, she understood everything. Infinite happiness lit up in her eyes; she understood, and for her there was no longer any doubt that he loved her, loved her infinitely, and that at last the moment had come … They wanted to speak but could not. Tears stood in their eyes. They were both pale and thin, but in those pale, sick faces there already shone the dawn of a renewed future, of a complete resurrection into a new life. They were resurrected by love; the heart of each held infinite sources of life for the heart of the other (pg.578)
In the end as fantastic and strange as Dostoevsky can be, sometimes the lessons he seems to be telling are beautifully simple. For those deep dark pains of life, when all hope is lost, the prospect of one’s future failing, and eventide fast falls - only divine love can bring you back. But surprisingly, divine love oftentimes comes not in the form of a priest-like presence, but in the hands of a poor grace-filled sinner.
Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ 13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified
Though eventide falls, it shall not last,
Love in the end, every care shall be cast
No sin too great, nor shame too seared,
Shall yet stain in place, when thy grace appears