DeVaughn Norwood 3.28.

11 AP Lit and Comp

Nihilism and The Idea of Superman Dostoyevskys Crime and Punishment

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky was a classic Russian Modernist author. Dostoyevskys earliest works were influenced by the Russian revolutionist Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogul. His works share common features: pity and interest in the irrational side of man, a St. Petersburg setting. The whole of his works note the various stages of a spiritual quest and struggle, the significance of which transcends geographical and national boundaries, yet the idea of God as the guarantee for a higher meaning of existence and the problem of evil heavily troubled him. He constantly sought resolution by means of psychology because his intensely religious temperament was always in conflict with his skeptical intellect, according to a biographical sketch of Dostoyevsky. Through writing, he wished to unearth mans greatest secret when in certain critical and morbid states of mans psyche; however, in the end, he was forced to accept a religious affirmation of life. In Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky employed the use of nihilism, which was a philosophical idea in the Soviet Union at that time, and the egoistic nature of man and his desire to be the best and only the best. This philosophy developed around 1850 in the Soviet Union, theorizes that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless,according to an online dictionary. It is the doctrine or belief that conditions in the social organization are so bad as to make destruction desirable for its own sake independent of of

any constructive program or possibility. Nihilism vaguely resembles Existentialism, which states, according to Gordon E. Bigelow, Out of the despair which came the collapse of their [German] nation, existentialists which even under the inextinguishable ability to found unexpected strength in the single indomitable human spirit, severe torture, could still maintain the spirit of resistance, say NO.

Utalitarianism, too, is linked to nihilism. Followers of the theory cruelly, coldly, and without any prior thought murdered, tortured, and enslaved thousands of people, the most recognized nihilist being Friedrich Nietzsche, a German philosopher who is renowned for having constantly and incessantly challenged the foundation of Christianity, God being a Supreme Being, and traditional morality. In correlation with nihilism, the idea of the Superman, a person who is extraordinary and thus above the moral rules that govern the rest of humanity. At the outset of the novel, we meet the main character, one Rodya Romanovitch Raskolnikov, walking towards a bridge, slowly, as though in hesitation. (3) The narrator describes Raskolnikov as an-ex student who has given up teaching lessons, and, thus, is relatively poor. He ambulates down the road, feeling frightened (3) and it is revealed that he is terribly indebted to his landlady. Yet, in a swift change of mood, Raskolnikov decides not to care, the anxieties of his position...ceased to weigh upon him. This is the first clue that Raskolnikov is a bit of a nihilist. Throughout the first part of the novel, Raskolnikov attempts to slip pass his landladys room, which was on the direct hallway leading outside, in order to evade harassing reminders of his increasingly late rent. In Part Two, however, he doesnt seem to care one bit and no longer attempts to bypass the landlady; hell get the money when he gets it. He has begun to lose any care for his responsibilities, difficulties, and insufficiencies.

Another example of Raskolnikovs lack of care for his difficult situations occurs after Raskolnikov kills the old pawnbroker, Alyona Ivanovna, and her sister. After the murders, Raskolnikov begins to slip into a state of insanity, becoming very ill, bed-ridden, and terribly impulse-driven and unattentive to important detail. However, after he left from the police station due to a summons , he almost instantaneously shoves all matters of the murders into the very recesses of his mind and focuses his attention on the engagement of his sister, Donya, and Donyas fiance, Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin. Raskolnikov is outraged at the proposal and refuses to give his blessing on the marriage. Raskolnikov declares the engagement absurd, saying that Luzhin only wants to marry a poor girl like Donya so that she will be greatly indebted to him monetarily, mentally, and emotionally. The engagement is fixed and wrong. He then tries to play Matchmaker with Razumikhin and Donya. He has hidden the loot that he stole from Alyona after killing her and hid away the rest of the grimy details from his conscience. Raskolnikov became entirely unattentive, careless, and often laughed and got drunk with friends and family. Not only did he forget about the old pawnbroker, but he attempted to justify the murder on utalitarian grounds, declaring a louse has been removed from humanity and, thus, gives him a leg up in the upper echelons of the untold class system in St. Petersburg. Throughout the majority of the rest of the novel, Raskolnikov is completely unsentimental, caring nothing for the emotions of others and the repercussions that others suffer because of his lack of care and respect. So, the growing nihilistic personality that envelops Raskolnikov has given him a sense of gaudy and excessive pride. His elevated estimation of self drives him to alienate himself from the rest of society. The murders are, in part, due to his belief that he surpasses traditional law in an attempt to establish his self-professed superiority. The idea that Raskolnikov sees himself as

above the law and superior to common people signifies that his conscience is almost dead and indestructable. Dostoyevskys struggles in life, his inadequacies, were linked in relation to Raskolnikovs story. Raskolnikov, believing that he was above the law and independant, distances himself from society. Dostoyevsky had at first belived that the possibility of God as the Supreme Being was tiresome, brutal, and seemingly unimportant; he didnt care. At the end of the novel, Raskolnikov, finally convicted and serving a seven year sentence in a prison camp, became a devout Christian and felt insurmountable remorse for his crimes and lack of care. He fell in love with Sonya. Dostoyevsky, too, was forced to accept Gods supremacy and fell in love with his longtime female friend when on his deathbed. The use of nihilism and the Idea of Superman are not new concepts for Dostoyevskys novels; no, he had, too, practiced and believed such theories.