Sonya - main character novel by the great Russian classic Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. On the pages of the book, the love story of Sonya and Rodion Raskolnikov, the main character of the novel, unfolds.
“Sonya was small, about eighteen years old, thin, but quite pretty blonde, with wonderful blue eyes.”
Fate rewarded Sonya's youth with an alcoholic father, a sick, hysterical stepmother, and three half-brothers and sisters who needed to be fed. And young Marmeladova diligently helps all of them. Raskolnikov is amazed to see such self-sacrifice: “Oh yes
Sonya! What a well, however, they managed to dig! And they use it! That's why they use it! And we got used to it. We cried and got used to it. A scoundrel of a man gets used to everything!”
In order to feed herself and her family, Sonya goes to work as a girl in a brothel. This closes the door for her to marry any more or less decent young man. After this, many people refuse to communicate with her and consider Marmeladova an equal person. They create a scandal for Raskolnikov after he seats Sonya next to his sister, and they try to compromise him with this acquaintance.
“She was also in rags; Her outfit was a penny one, but decorated in a street style, according to the tastes and rules that had developed in her own special world, with a brightly and shamefully prominent purpose. Sonya stopped in the entryway at the very threshold, but did not cross the threshold and looked as if lost, not seeming to realize anything, forgetting about her silk dress, bought fourth-hand, indecent here, with a long and funny tail, and an enormous crinoline , blocking the entire door... about a funny round straw hat with a bright, fiery-colored feather...."
Alas, her loved ones are not able to fully appreciate Sonya’s feat; they really take advantage of the girl’s kindness. Official Marmeladov speaks frankly about his consumer attitude towards his daughter:
“After all, now she must observe cleanliness. This cleanliness costs money, it’s special, you know? Do you understand? Well, you can buy sweets there too, because you can’t, sir; starched skirts, a fancy shoe of sorts, so that you can show off your legs when you have to cross a puddle. Do you understand, do you understand, sir, what this purity means? Well, here I am, the blood father, and stole these thirty kopecks for my hangover! And I drink, sir! And I’ve already drunk it, sir!..”
Outside of her work, Sonya is a girl “with a modest and decent manner, with a clear, but seemingly somewhat intimidated face.” She is devout and reads the Bible. Raskolnikov’s words that there is no God strike her to the core. The rules of decency, the norms of society and the rules of the church for Sonya are, oddly enough, very great importance: “...after all, I... am dishonest... I am a great, great sinner!”- she says about herself, referring to her occupation of prostitution.
Despite the sad story of her life, Sonya Marmeladova retains her femininity, external and spiritual attractiveness:
“But her blue eyes were so clear, and when they came to life, the expression on her face became so kind and simple-minded that you involuntarily attracted people to her...”
The father still asks Sonya for forgiveness before his death. Sonya falls in love with Raskolnikov, follows him to Siberia, and settles next to the hard labor camp to take care of him. Rodion is amazed by her humble feeling: “She smiled at him warmly and joyfully, but, as usual, timidly extended her hand to him. She always extended her hand to him timidly, sometimes she didn’t even give it at all, as if she was afraid that he would push her away...”
Whenever possible, Marmeladova helps convicts and their families, writes letters for them and sends them to the post office. The convicts love her: “She didn’t curry favor with them... She didn’t give them money, she didn’t provide any special services... Their relatives who came to the city, on their instructions, left things for them and even money in Sonya’s hands... Everyone took off their hats, everyone bowed: “Mother, Sofya Semyonovna, you are our mother, tender, sick!” - these rude, branded convicts said to this small and thin creature. She smiled and bowed, and they all loved it when she smiled at them. They even loved her gait, turned to look after her as she walked, and praised her; They even praised her for being so small; they didn’t even know what to praise her for. They even went to her for treatment...”
Sonya's good deeds are rewarded handsomely. By the end of the novel, Raskolnikov’s love can no longer be restrained by his coldness and rudeness. It is endless and revives not only the hero himself, but also warms Sonya’s heart. For the sake of this love, they are ready to wait for the seven years remaining until the end of his term:
“Sonya! Poor, meek, with gentle eyes... Darlings!.. Why don’t they cry? Why don't they moan?.. They give everything... they look meekly and quietly... Sonya, Sonya! Quiet Sonya!..”
Dostoevsky wrote his novel Crime and Punishment after hard labor. It was at this time that Fyodor Mikhailovich’s beliefs took on a religious overtone. The denunciation of an unjust social system, the search for truth, the dream of happiness for all mankind were combined during this period in his character with disbelief that the world could be remade by force. The writer was convinced that evil cannot be avoided under any social structure. He believed that it came from human soul. Fyodor Mikhailovich raised the question of the need for moral improvement of all people. Therefore, he decided to turn to religion.
Sonya is the writer's ideal
Sonya Marmeladova and Rodion Raskolnikov are the two main characters of the work. They seem to be two counter flows. The ideological part of “Crime and Punishment” is made up of their worldviews. Sonechka Marmeladova is a writer. It is the bearer of faith, hope, empathy, love, understanding and tenderness. According to Dostoevsky, this is exactly what every person should be. This girl is the personification of truth. She believed that all people have an equal right to life. Sonechka Marmeladova was firmly convinced that through crime one cannot achieve happiness - neither someone else's nor one's own. Sin always remains sin. It doesn’t matter who committed it and in the name of what.
Two worlds - Marmeladova and Raskolnikov
Rodion Raskolnikov and Sonya Marmeladova exist in different worlds. Like two opposite poles, these heroes cannot live without each other. The idea of rebellion is embodied in Rodion, while Sonechka Marmeladova personifies humility. This is a deeply religious, highly moral girl. She believes that life has a deep inner meaning. Rodion’s ideas that everything that exists is meaningless are incomprehensible to her. Sonechka Marmeladova sees divine predestination in everything. She believes that nothing depends on a person. The truth of this heroine is God, humility, love. For her, the meaning of life is great power empathy and compassion for people.
Raskolnikov mercilessly and passionately judges the world. He cannot tolerate injustice. It is from here that his crime and mental torment stems in the work “Crime and Punishment.” Sonechka Marmeladova, like Rodion, also steps over herself, but she does it completely differently than Raskolnikov. The heroine sacrifices herself to other people rather than killing them. In this, the author embodied the idea that a person has no right to personal, selfish happiness. You need to learn patience. True happiness can only be achieved through suffering.
Why does Sonya take Rodion's crime to heart?
According to the thoughts of Fyodor Mikhailovich, a person needs to feel responsible not only for his actions, but also for any evil done in the world. That is why Sonya feels that the crime committed by Rodion is also her fault. She takes this hero’s action to heart and shares it hard fate. Raskolnikov decides to reveal his terrible secret to this heroine. Her love revives him. She resurrects Rodion to a new life.
High internal qualities of the heroine, attitude towards happiness
The image of Sonechka Marmeladova is the embodiment of the best human qualities: love, faith, sacrifice and chastity. Even being surrounded by vices, forced to sacrifice her own dignity, this girl maintains the purity of her soul. She does not lose faith that there is no happiness in comfort. Sonya says that “a person is not born to be happy.” It is bought through suffering, it must be earned. The fallen woman Sonya, who ruined her soul, turns out to be a “person of high spirit.” This heroine can be put in the same “category” with Rodion. However, she condemns Raskolnikov for his contempt for people. Sonya cannot accept his “rebellion”. But it seemed to the hero that his ax was raised in her name.
The clash between Sonya and Rodion
According to Fyodor Mikhailovich, this heroine embodies the Russian element, the national principle: humility and patience, and towards people. The clash between Sonya and Rodion, their opposing worldviews are a reflection of the writer’s internal contradictions that troubled his soul.
Sonya hopes for a miracle, for God. Rodion is convinced that there is no God, and there is no point in waiting for a miracle. This hero reveals to the girl the futility of her illusions. Raskolnikov says that her compassion is useless, and her sacrifices are ineffective. It is not because of her shameful profession that Sonechka Marmeladova is a sinner. The characterization of this heroine given by Raskolnikov during the clash does not stand up to criticism. He believes that her feat and sacrifices are in vain, but at the end of the work it is this heroine who revives him to life.
Sonya's ability to penetrate a person's soul
Driven by life into a hopeless situation, the girl tries to do something in the face of death. She, like Rodion, acts according to the law of free choice. However, unlike him, she did not lose faith in humanity, which Dostoevsky notes. Sonechka Marmeladova is a heroine who does not need examples to understand that people are kind by nature and deserve the brightest fate. It is she, and only she, who is able to sympathize with Rodion, since she is not embarrassed by either the ugliness of his social fate or his physical deformity. Sonya Marmeladova penetrates into the essence of the soul through its “scab”. She is in no hurry to judge anyone. The girl understands that behind external evil there are always incomprehensible or unknown reasons that led to the evil of Svidrigailov and Raskolnikov.
The heroine's attitude towards suicide
This girl stands outside the laws of the world that torments her. She's not interested in money. She, of her own free will, wanting to feed her family, went to the panel. And it was precisely because of her indestructible and strong will that she did not commit suicide. When the girl was faced with this question, she carefully thought about it and chose an answer. In her situation, suicide would be a selfish act. Thanks to him, she would be spared pain and shame. Suicide would get her out of the "fetid pit." However, the thought of family did not allow her to take this step. Marmeladova’s measure of determination and will is much higher than Raskolnikov expected. In order to refuse suicide, she needed more fortitude than in order to commit this act.
For this girl, debauchery was worse than death. However, humility excludes suicide. This reveals the full strength of character of this heroine.
Love Sonya
If you define this girl’s nature in one word, then this word is loving. Her love for her neighbor was active. Sonya knew how to respond to the pain of another person. This was especially evident in the episode of Rodion’s confession to murder. This quality makes her image “ideal”. The sentence in the novel is pronounced by the author from the standpoint of this ideal. Fyodor Dostoevsky, in the image of his heroine, presented an example of all-forgiving, all-encompassing love. She does not know envy, does not want anything in return. This love can even be called unspoken, because the girl never talks about it. However, this feeling overwhelms her. It comes out only in the form of actions, but never in the form of words. Silent love only becomes more beautiful from this. Even the desperate Marmeladov bows before her.
The crazy Katerina Ivanovna also prostrates herself in front of the girl. Even Svidrigailov, that eternal libertine, respects Sonya for her. Not to mention Rodion Raskolnikov. Her love healed and saved this hero.
The author of the work through reflection and moral quest came to the idea that any person who finds God looks at the world in a new way. He begins to rethink it. That is why in the epilogue, when the moral resurrection of Rodion is described, Fyodor Mikhailovich writes that “it begins new story"The love of Sonechka Marmeladova and Raskolnikov, described at the end of the work, is the brightest part of the novel.
The immortal meaning of the novel
Dostoevsky, having rightly condemned Rodion for his rebellion, leaves victory to Sonya. It is in her that he sees the highest truth. The author wants to show that suffering purifies, that it is better than violence. Most likely, in our time, Sonechka Marmeladova would be an outcast. The image of this heroine in the novel is too far from the norms of behavior accepted in society. And not every Rodion Raskolnikov will suffer and suffer today. However, as long as “the world stands,” the soul of a person and his conscience are always alive and will live. This is the immortal meaning of the novel by Dostoevsky, who is rightfully considered a great psychological writer.
Sonya Marmeladova is the heroine of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment. Poverty and extreme hopelessness Family status forcing this young girl to earn money from the panel.
The reader first learns about Sonya from a story addressed to Raskolnikov by the former titular adviser Marmeladov, her father. Alcoholic Semyon Zakharovich Marmeladov vegetates with his wife Katerina Ivanovna and three small children - his wife and children are starving, Marmeladov drinks. Sonya, his daughter from his first marriage, lives in a rented apartment “by yellow ticket" Marmeladov explains to Raskolnikov that she decided to make such a living, unable to withstand the constant reproaches of her consumptive stepmother, who called Sonya a parasite who “eats and drinks and uses warmth.” In fact, she is a meek and unrequited girl. She tries with all her might to help the seriously ill Katerina Ivanovna, her starving stepsisters and brother, and even her unlucky father. Marmeladov tells how he gained and lost his job, drank away the new uniform he bought with his daughter’s money, and then went to ask her “for a hangover.” Sonya did not reproach him for anything: “I took out thirty kopecks, with my own hands, the last, everything that was, I saw myself... She didn’t say anything, she just looked at me silently.”
The author gives the first description of Sofia Semyonovna later, in the confession scene of Marmeladov, crushed by a horse and living his last minutes: “Sonya was small, about eighteen years old, thin, but quite pretty blonde, with wonderful blue eyes.” Having learned about the incident, she runs to her father in her “work clothes”: “her outfit was a penny, but decorated in a street style, according to the taste and rules that have developed in her special world, with a brightly and shamefully outstanding purpose.” Marmeladov dies in her arms. But even after this, Sonya sends her younger sister Polenka to catch up with Raskolnikov, who donated his last money for the funeral, in order to find out his name and address. Later, she visits the “benefactor” and invites him to her father’s wake.
Another touch to the portrait of Sonya Marmeladova is her behavior during the incident at the wake. She is unfairly accused of theft, and Sonya does not even try to defend herself. Justice is soon restored, but the incident itself drives her into hysterics. The author explains this life position of her heroine: “Sonya, timid by nature, already knew that it was easier to destroy her than anyone else, and anyone could offend her with almost impunity. But still, until that very moment, it seemed to her that she could somehow avoid trouble - with caution, meekness, submission to everyone and everyone.”
After a scandal at a wake, Katerina Ivanovna and her children lose their shelter - they are kicked out of their rented apartment. Now all four are doomed to imminent death. Realizing this, Raskolnikov invites Sonya to tell her what she would do if she had the power to take the life of Luzhin, who slandered her, in advance. But Sofya Semyonovna does not want to answer this question - she chooses submission to fate: “But I can’t know God’s providence... And why are you asking what you can’t ask? Why such empty questions? How can it happen that this depends on my decision? And who made me the judge here: who should live and who should not live?”
The author needs the image of Sonya Marmeladova to create a moral counterbalance to the idea of Rodion Raskolnikov. Raskolnikov feels a kindred spirit in Sonya, because they are both outcasts. However, unlike the ideological killer, Sonya is “a daughter who was evil and consumptive to her stepmother, who betrayed herself to strangers and minors.” She has a clear moral guideline - the biblical wisdom of cleansing suffering. When Raskolnikov tells Marmeladova about his crime, she takes pity on him and, focusing on the biblical parable of the resurrection of Lazarus, convinces him to repent of his crime. Sonya intends to share with Raskolnikov the vicissitudes of hard labor: she considers herself guilty of violating the biblical commandments and is willing to “suffer” in order to cleanse herself.
It is noteworthy that the convicts who served their sentences with Raskolnikov feel a burning hatred for him and at the same time very much love Sonya, who visits him. Rodion Romanovich is told that “walking with an ax” is not a noble thing; they call him an atheist and even want to kill him. Sonya, following her once and for all established concepts, does not look down on anyone, she treats all people with respect - and the convicts reciprocate her feelings.
Sonya Marmeladova is one of the most important characters books. Without her life ideals, Rodion Raskolnikov’s path could only end in suicide. However, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky offers the reader not only the crime and punishment embodied in the main character. Sonya's life leads to repentance and purification. Thanks to this “continuation of the path,” the writer managed to create a holistic, logically complete world of his great novel.
" back
Table of contents
forward "
31. Raskolnikov’s theory and its debunking in F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment “ | » 33. Rodion Raskolnikov and Sonya Marmeladova in F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment
|
|
|
|
If Rodion Raskolnikov is the bearer of the protesting principle, the creator of a theory that justifies crime and the domination of a “strong personality,” then his antipode, the opposite pole of F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment” is Sonya Marmeladova, the daughter of a poor official, “humiliated and insulted” in the conditions of bourgeois society.
Sonya is a kind of limit of meekness and suffering. In the name of saving the children of her stepmother and her drunken father, who has sunk to the point of losing his human form, from starvation, she goes out onto the street and becomes a prostitute. This is painful humiliation, the apotheosis of suffering and self-sacrifice. The meek, religiously exalted Sonya sacrifices everything that is especially dear to her and goes through the most severe suffering in the name of the happiness of her neighbors. Sonya professes moral precepts, which, from Dostoevsky’s point of view, are closest to the people - the covenants of humility, forgiveness, sacrificial love. She does not judge Raskolnikov for his sin, but painfully sympathizes with him and calls on him to “suffer” and atone for his guilt before God and before people.
Sonechka Marmeladova is destined to share the depth of Raskolnikov’s mental torment; it is to her that the hero decides to tell his terrible, painful secret. In the person of Sonya, Raskolnikov meets a person who awakens in himself and whom he still pursues as a weak and helpless “trembling creature”: “He suddenly raised his head and looked intently at her; but he met her restless and painfully caring gaze; there was love here; his hatred disappeared like a ghost.” “Nature” requires the hero to share with Sonechka the suffering of his crime, and not the manifestation that causes it. Sonechka’s Christian-compassionate love calls Raskolnikov to this type of recognition.
Contrasting Raskolnikov's individualistic autocracy and rebellion with Sonya's humility and Christian forgiveness, Dostoevsky in his novel leaves victory not for the strong and intelligent Raskolnikov, but for the meek sufferer Sonya, seeing in her the highest truth. Raskolnikov is unable to endure the torment of his conscience, the violation of the moral law: the “crime” leads him to “punishment,” which he suffers not from judicial punishment, but from the consciousness of his guilt, the violation of the ethical basis of the existence of society. In Sonya's Christian humility, Raskolnikov sees the path to salvation and atonement for this guilt.
Only Sonechka Marmeladova can judge Raskolnikov according to her conscience, and her court is deeply different from the court of Porfiry Petrovich. This is a court of love, compassion and human sensitivity - those high society, which holds humanity even in the darkness of existence of humiliated and insulted people. The image of Sonechka is associated with Dostoevsky’s great idea that the world will be saved by fraternal unity between people in the name of Christ and that the basis of this unity should not be sought in society “ powerful of the world this,” but in the depths of people’s Russia.
Sonechka's fate completely refutes the myopic view of Raskolnikov the theorist on the life around him. Before him is by no means a “trembling creature” and far from a humble victim of circumstances, which is why the “dirt of the wretched situation” does not stick to Sonechka. In conditions that seem to completely exclude goodness and humanity, the heroine finds light and a way out that is worthy of a person’s moral being and has nothing to do with Raskolnikov’s individualistic rebellion. The hero is deeply mistaken, trying to identify his crime with Sonechka’s ascetic self-denial: “You also overstepped, you ruined your life.”
There is a qualitative difference between the desire for good by allowing evil towards others and voluntary, natural self-sacrifice in the name of compassionate love for others. “After all, it would be fairer,” exclaims Raskolnikov, “a thousand times fairer and wiser it would be to dive head first into the water and end it all at once!” - “What will happen to them?” - Sonya asked weakly, looking at him painfully, but at the same time, as if not at all surprised by his proposal... And only then did he fully understand what these poor little orphans and this pitiful, half-crazed Katerina Ivanovna meant to her... " Sonya’s selflessness is far from humility; it has a socially active character and is aimed at saving the perishing, and in the heroine’s Christian faith, it is not the ritual side that is in the foreground, but practical, effective care for others. In the person of Sonya, Dostoevsky portrays a popular, democratic version of the religious worldview, taking the Christian aphorism to heart: “Faith without deeds is dead.” In popular religiosity, Dostoevsky finds a fruitful seed for his idea of Christian socialism.
F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment” is socio-psychological. In it the author puts important social issues that worried people of that time. The originality of this novel by Dostoevsky lies in the fact that it shows psychology...
F. M. Dostoevsky is the greatest Russian writer, an unsurpassed realist artist, an anatomist of the human soul, a passionate champion of the ideas of humanism and justice. His novels are distinguished by their keen interest in the intellectual life of the characters, the revelation of complex...
“What am I guilty of before them?.. They themselves harass millions of people, and even consider them to be virtues” - with these words you can begin a lesson about Raskolnikov’s “doubles”. Raskolnikov’s theory, proving whether he is a “trembling creature” or has the right, assumed...
One of the ideas of F.M. Dostoevsky's “Crime and Punishment” is the idea that in everyone, even in the most downtrodden person, disgraced and criminal, one can find high and honest feelings. These feelings, which can be found in almost every character in F.M.'s novel...
Probably every writer has a work in which he most fully and voluminously expresses his views on the problems that interest him. For F.M. Dostoevsky, the great master of psychological description of man, such a work was the novel “Crime and Punishment”.
In this novel, the story of a poor student Rodion Raskolnikov, who came up with a terrible theory according to which some people, classified as higher beings, can kill others, “trembling creatures,” for a good purpose, is brought to trial. Raskolnikov, of course, counted himself among the first. Having created this theory, he decides to test it in practice and kills the old pawnbroker and her sister. But it turns out that he cannot continue to live with such a heavy burden on his shoulders.
Horrified by Raskolnikov's theory, but at the same time seeing how far his soul has moved away from human warmth and light, the author introduces the image of a savior in the person of Sonechka Marmeladova. Dostoevsky was a humanist writer and believed that goodness should be effective, and not just present as some abstract sign or symbol. Therefore, Sonya begins to play an active role in the novel precisely at the moment of repentance of the protagonist, and it is to her that the main merit in the cleansing and transformation of Raskolnikov belongs.
Before this, Sonya only occasionally appeared in sketches of the St. Petersburg street life, first as a thought, as Marmeladov’s story in a tavern about a family, about a daughter with a “yellow ticket”, then indirectly - as a figure in Raskolnikov’s fleeting vision from “their world” on the street: some girl, blonde, drunk, someone only seemed offended, then a girl in a crinoline, a mantle, and a straw hat with a fiery feather appeared, singing along with the organ grinder. All this is bit by bit the appearance of Sonya, this is how she will appear, straight from the street, at the bedside of her dying father. Only everything internal in her is a categorical refutation of the loud and beggarly attire.
Sonechka was forced to go on the “yellow ticket” by her life “among hungry children, ugly screams and reproaches,” with an unhappy drunken father and a “crazy with grief” stepmother. She “silently laid out” her first “earnings” - thirty rubles - in front of Katerina Ivanovna, and she “stood on her knees all evening, kissing her feet...”. Just as silently (“It’s not like this on earth, but there... people grieve for people, cry, and don’t reproach.”) Sonya gave her father the last thirty kopecks for a hangover. Shame touched her “only mechanically; real depravity has not yet penetrated a single drop into her heart.” This girl’s position in society, “unfortunately, is far from unique and not exceptional.” Before her, as Raskolnikov first believes, three roads are open: “throw into a ditch, end up in a madhouse, or... throw yourself into debauchery, stupefying the mind and petrifying the heart.” This is how the majority argues, only Lebezyatnikov - an adherent of the “new” life in the “communes” - looks at Sonya’s actions “as an energetic and personified protest against the structure of society” and deeply respects her for this.
Sonechka herself considers herself a “great sinner.” The thought of her “dishonorable and shameful position” had long ago tormented her soul to the point of “monstrous pain.” Timid by nature, Sonya knows that “it is easier to destroy her than anyone else,” that anyone can offend her “almost with impunity.” And therefore, through meekness and submission “before everyone and everyone,” he always tries to avoid “trouble.” Luzhin’s act, calling Sonya “a girl of notorious behavior” and vilely introducing her as a “thief,” makes the girl feel a painful feeling of helplessness - it becomes “too hard” for her. And yet, to Raskolnikov’s question: “Should Luzhin live and do abominations or should Katerina Ivanovna die?” - she replies: “But I can’t know God’s Providence... And who made me the judge here: who should live and who should not live?” Any person is not a “louse” for her.
Sonechka’s “insatiable compassion” for her neighbor and all-forgiving kindness are so great that she “will take off her last dress, sell it, go barefoot, and give it to you if you need it.” She “believes that there must be justice in everything... And even if you torture her, she will not do anything unfair.” Life force Faith in God gives Sonechka: “What would I be without God?” When Sonya “ardently and passionately” reads to Raskolnikov the chapters of the Gospel of John about the resurrection of Lazarus, she is overcome by a feeling of “great triumph” - as if she sees with her own eyes how “the dead man has come out.”
This inner spiritual core of hers, which helps preserve moral beauty, boundless faith in goodness and in God amazes Raskolnikov and makes him think for the first time about the moral side of his thoughts and actions. Rodion comes to Sonechka with a confession of committing murder in order to shift “at least part of his torment” onto her, and meets “her restless and painfully caring gaze”, sees only love. After all, Sonya only understands that he is “terribly, infinitely unhappy.” “There is no one more unhappy than you in the whole world now!” - she exclaims and throws herself on her knees in front of Raskolnikov, hugs and kisses him, promises never to leave him anywhere. At the same time, Sonechka does not feel “the slightest disgust, not the slightest disgust for him,” he does not feel “the slightest shudder in her hand.” Sonya only realizes that Raskolnikov is a blasphemer who does not understand anything (“You have departed from God, and God has given you over to the devil”), and invites him to “accept suffering and redeem himself with it,” “this very minute” to go to the crossroads and kiss the ground, bow to “the whole world” and say out loud: “I killed!” - “Then God will send you life again.”
At the same time, Sonya for Raskolnikov represents “an inexorable sentence, a decision without change” - “here it’s either her way or his.” Blessing him for future suffering, the girl puts a “common” cypress cross on Rodion’s chest, and when he begins to hesitate, she meets him with such a wild look that he cannot help but declare himself.
Sonechka visits Raskolnikov in prison, and then (using the money left to her by Svidrigailov) goes to Siberia for him. There she enjoys the love of all the prisoners, incomprehensible to Raskolnikov. The convicts bow to her, praise her and thank her for everything. For them she is “Mother, Sofya Semyonovna, mother... tender, sick!”, infinitely kind, understanding and compassionate. Sonya, who in her short life had already endured all imaginable and unimaginable suffering and humiliation, managed to maintain moral purity, clarity of mind and heart. It is not for nothing that Raskolnikov bows to Sonya, saying that he bows to all human suffering and grief.
The image of Sonechka absorbed all the world's injustice, the world's sorrow. She speaks in the novel on behalf of all the “humiliated and insulted.” Just such a girl, with such life story, with such an understanding of the world, Dostoevsky needed to save and purify the main character. After all, Raskolnikov is not an ordinary, run-of-the-mill criminal, but a person who is captured by an idea and who, due to his personal qualities, cannot abandon it without testing it in practice. Having decided to try, Raskolnikov mentally already divided all people into “trembling creatures” and “those with the right,” and therefore only a few, very few, could by that time influence his worldview. It was Sonya, who, according to the writer, embodied the Christian ideal of goodness, was able to withstand and win the confrontation with the anti-human idea of Rodion.
Sonya Marmeladova, a victim of the world of the Luzhins and Svidrigailovs and at the same time Raskolnikov’s new conscience, became the bearer of a new philosophy of confrontation and response to evil. This fragile girl, endowed with a sensitive, forgiving heart, is able to see other people's grief and empathize with other people's suffering. But it is wrong to see in Sonechka only humility in the face of the misfortunes of life; in her there is both activity and passion for rejection of vice, and strength, and active love for man.
Convinced of the religious brotherhood of the dispossessed and the possibility of resurrecting a person, she strives to save Raskolnikov and not only tells him of the need to atone for his guilt through popular repentance and suffering, but also encourages him to appear to people. It is her indestructible, active faith that becomes the source of the hero’s rebirth.
The author of “Crime and Punishment” assigns one of the main places in his novel to the image of Sonechka Marmeladova, since this image embodies both world sorrow and divine, unshakable faith in the power of good. Perhaps this image embodied the spiritual quest of F. M. Dostoevsky himself.