I read this book over a span on 1 week….. It is a very interesting insight into the mind of a criminal.
The protagonist of the story, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov (Rodya), has committed a murder. He does not know the reason why he commits it. He just does it in a state of delirium and keeps justifying it.
He is a student of law himself and having committed such a crime, keeps thinking about it, wondering how he can get away from the police and continue with a normal life. He becomes hostile to the people he loves and abandons them out of sheer stress and the psychological impact caused by what he has done. He meets several interesting people throughout the book and goes through many different scenarios and spends hours together, thinking about them. Meanwhile, the detective who is tracking down the case of the murder of Alyona Ivanovna, the old miserable pawnbroker and her simpleton sister Lizaveta Ivanovna, does keep giving hints to Raskolnikov about him being the murderer.
He also meets Sofya Semyonovna Marmedilov, his only confidante who asks him to “go to the crossroads, bow down to the people, kiss the earth, for you have sinned against it too, and say aloud to the world, ‘I am a murderer’ ” What is most ironical is that Raskolnikov couldn’t explain the reason for him committing the murder till the end. Eventually, he goes to the police station and says “It was I who killed the old pawnbroker woman and her sister Lizaveta with an axe and robbed them.”
I think this statement he made needed a lot of courage on his behalf to declare openly. Of course, he was made to pay for this crime by being put behind bars in Siberia for nine years.
The last paragraph of the book is really amazing. It says,
“He did not know that the new life would not be given to him for nothing, that he would have to pay dearly for it, that it would cost him great striving, great suffering.
But that is the beginning of a new story – the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world to another, of his initiation into a new unknown life. That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended.”
I learnt three things from this book –
1) A criminal may not be all that horrible after all.
2) NEVER commit a crime
3) Simple language is really awesome!
He is a student of law himself and having committed such a crime, keeps thinking about it, wondering how he can get away from the police and continue with a normal life. He becomes hostile to the people he loves and abandons them out of sheer stress and the psychological impact caused by what he has done. He meets several interesting people throughout the book and goes through many different scenarios and spends hours together, thinking about them. Meanwhile, the detective who is tracking down the case of the murder of Alyona Ivanovna, the old miserable pawnbroker and her simpleton sister Lizaveta Ivanovna, does keep giving hints to Raskolnikov about him being the murderer.
He also meets Sofya Semyonovna Marmedilov, his only confidante who asks him to “go to the crossroads, bow down to the people, kiss the earth, for you have sinned against it too, and say aloud to the world, ‘I am a murderer’ ” What is most ironical is that Raskolnikov couldn’t explain the reason for him committing the murder till the end. Eventually, he goes to the police station and says “It was I who killed the old pawnbroker woman and her sister Lizaveta with an axe and robbed them.”
I think this statement he made needed a lot of courage on his behalf to declare openly. Of course, he was made to pay for this crime by being put behind bars in Siberia for nine years.
The last paragraph of the book is really amazing. It says,
“He did not know that the new life would not be given to him for nothing, that he would have to pay dearly for it, that it would cost him great striving, great suffering.
But that is the beginning of a new story – the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world to another, of his initiation into a new unknown life. That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended.”
I learnt three things from this book –
1) A criminal may not be all that horrible after all.
2) NEVER commit a crime
3) Simple language is really awesome!
hat crime were you planning to commit? Planning to bring down the lady who makes the herbal tea?
ReplyDeletehahahaha.... YEAH!! im still considering it :P
ReplyDelete