Heroism in Crime And Punishment Essay

Crime and Punishment

When you think of the word superman, what comes to mind? Is it a hero with a cape and superpowers? Well according to Raskolnikov his idea of a superman does not include a cape and is not very heroic. Raskolnikov came up with a theory that there are ordinary people and there are extraordinary people. In the novel Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Raskolnikov believes that he is not an ordinary person, but a superman. Throughout Crime and Punishment this theory of a superior man is put to the test with Raskolnikov believing that he is a superman, but eventually being proven wrong.

Raskolnikovs theory of an extraordinary man is defined into two types of people: ordinary and extraordinary. He believes ordinary people, on one hand, just take up most of the population, meaning they are inferior. The extraordinary people on the other hand, like himself, are superior humans who have the right to break the law under certain circumstances in order to benefit humanity:

The only difference is that I don't contend that extraordinary people are always bound to commit breaches of morals, as you call it. In fact, I doubt whether such an argument could be published. I simply hinted that an extraordinary man has the rightthat is not an official right, but an inner right to decide in his own conscience to overstepcertain obstacles, and only in case it is essential for the practical fulfillment of his idea (sometimes, perhaps, of benefit to the whole of humanity). (260)

He also believes that an extraordinary man has the right to commit murder if the act will result in benefits to the less fortunate. The idea of a superior man came into the mind of Raskolnikov when making a living was impossible without violating the law. The alternative was either a person dies because he wants his reputation to remain flawless, or he breaks the law. He wrote an article about his theory and sent it to the Periodical Review; his article was called On Crime. In this article he wrote all about how there were the two kinds of people and how the superman was not bound by the law: There is, if you recollect, a suggestion that there are certain persons who canthat is, not precisely are able to, but have a perfect right to commit breaches of mortality and crimes, and that the law is not for them (259). Through this article we can see that Raskolnikov did not fit into the superior man category.

Raskolnikov is not a superior man; in many ways though, he believed he was. He thought of himself as a superior man, so in order to prove this to himself he planned to murder a pawnbroker named Alyona Ivanovna. He thinks that the pawnbroker is nothing but bloodsucker who cashes in on the misery of the poor, and that it would be no crime to kill her and use her money to help others:

Crime? What crime?" he cried in sudden fury. "That I killed a vile noxious insect, an old pawnbroker woman, of use to no one! . . . Killing her was atonement for forty sins. She was sucking the life out of poor people. Was that a crime? (513).

Raskolnikov finally makes up his mind that he will go through with the murder, and finds out that her sister Lizaveta will be out, so the pawnbroker will be alone the next night. He is confident that he will be able to pull off the crime. The next night he goes to the pawnbrokers, and murders her with an axe: "He pulled the axe quite out, swung it with both arms, scarcely conscious of himself, and almost without effort, almost mechanically, brought the blunt side down on her head" (80). According to Moral Relativism in Crime and Punishment: By emphasizing the depersonalization Raskolnikov experiences during the murder, the fact that he was "scarcely aware of himself" and acted "almost mechanically" the sympathetic reader might conclude that some unknown force of nature, and not the person Raskolnikov, is to blame for the death of the usurer and her sister (Moral Relativism). Raskolnikov believes that he has the right to kill the pawnbroker, so as he is committing the deed he becomes detached and feels as though he is doing it automatically. Once he has murdered her, he then fills his pockets with valuables, but unexpectedly Lizaveta returns while he is still inside. He thinks there is no other alternative but to kill her too. Only a few moments later someone rings the doorbell and tries to enter, but the door is locked. They soon leave and Raskolnikov sneaks out. After committing the crime of murdering Lizaveta and Alyona Ivanova, Raskolnikov isolates himself because he feels guilty:

What was taking place in him was totally unfamiliar, new, sudden, never before experienced. Not that he understood it, but he sensed clearly, with all the power of sensation, that it was no longer possible for him to address these people in the police station, not only with heartfelt effusions, as he had just done, but in any way at all, and had they been his own brothers and sisters, and not police lieutenants, there would still have been no point in this addressing them, in whatever circumstances of life. (106)

Since he sees himself as a superman, murdering the pawnbroker led him to believe it was right and he gained his superiority through that. But he was not able to cover up his emotions of guilt. According to Dan E. Stigall:

[The] fact [of his guilt] does not penetrate Raskolnikovs soul and conscious mind, but conceals itself in his subconscious as a potential force of his conscience. His intellect feels no repentance until the very end; even after being sentenced compulsory labor Raskolnikov is still under the spell of the idea which justified the murder. Yet his whole being, his moral structure, is shaken by the moral aspect of murder. (Stigall)

Many other situations throughout the novel proved this, such as when he was at the police station and the fresh paint smell led him to faint because it reminded him of the murders: "I fainted then because it was so close and the smell of paint (193). According to Raskolnikovs theory, he thought the reason he committed the crime was because he thought he was superior. After committing the crime, he became ill, either the crime committed makes one become ill, or illness makes one commit the crime.

In Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Raskolnikov thought he was helping society by his right to get rid of unneeded people. But he felt guilty from murdering Lizaveta and Alyona Ivanovna. Even at the point when Raskolnikov gave up and confessed he did not become a superior man. Raskolnikov did not overcome his feelings of guilt, which proves he is not a superior man.