Social and philosophical origins of Raskolnikov's rebellion based on the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky “Crime and Punishment. Cheat sheet: Social and philosophical origins of Raskolnikov's rebellion

The years of creating the novel “Crime and Punishment” (1865-1866) were very difficult for Dostoevsky: shortly before that, his wife, brother and close friend and collaborator A. Grigoriev died. The writer was suddenly surrounded not only complete loneliness, but also ten thousand in promissory note and five thousand “on my word of honor.” Dostoevsky was on the verge of despair. “Oh, my friend, I would gladly go back to hard labor for the same number of years, just to pay off my debts and feel free again,” he wrote in March 1865 to A.E. Wrangel.
Dostoevsky lived at that time in that part of St. Petersburg where petty officials, artisans and students usually settled. And therefore, it is no coincidence that it was here that the image of Rodion Raskolnikov appeared before him, crushed by poverty and painful questions of existence as a former student. The author visited him on the same street and in the same house where he lived. And literally from the first lines we are introduced to Raskolnikov’s home: “His closet was under the very roof of a tall five-story building and looked more like a closet than an apartment.” Later, in a confessional impulse, the hero will say: “Do you know, Sonya, that low ceilings and cramped rooms cramp the soul and mind!” This is not a random phrase in the novel.
But Raskolnikov was “pressed” not only by low ceilings, life pressed on him from all sides: he was so poor that he had to leave the university, so poor that another, “even an ordinary person would be ashamed to go out into the street in such rags during the day”, as he was he is dressed. Raskolnikov had long owed the landlady for the closet he occupied, and therefore every time he experienced “some kind of painful and cowardly feeling” when he passed by the landlady’s kitchen. He has already pawned a ring - a gift from his sister, next in line - a silver watch - last memory about my father. His mother sends him money from a meager pension so that he has the opportunity to complete his studies, for the same reason his sister is going to marry a vile man... “For some time he was in an irritable and tense state, similar to hypochondria,” the author reveals that what happens in the hero's soul.
But we need to make a reservation: Raskolnikov is in a state of mental depression not only because of his plight. The fact is that recently a certain thought began to hatch in his head, which no longer left him, tormented him, pursued him and took shape in an idea. As a result of painful reflections, the hero comes to the conclusion that “one tiny crime” can be made up for by “thousands of good deeds.” It would seem that here simple arithmetic, correct calculation. On the scales is placed, on the one hand, the death of a “stupid and evil old woman,” sucking the blood of the poor, profiting from their poverty, and on the other hand, thousands of lives saved “from rot and decay.” And such a crime seems to Raskolnikov not a crime at all, but a triumph of justice.
The hero hatched his idea for a long time and painfully. Not so much for himself, for his youth desecrated by poverty, he suffered in his soul, but for the plight of his mother and sister, for the drunken and dishonored girl on Konnogvardeisky Boulevard, for the martyrdom of Sonechka, for the tragedy of the Marmeladov family, for the general need, the hopeless and hopeless meaninglessness of life, which needed to be changed somehow. And how possible option, as a response to the absurd state of affairs, Raskolnikov’s theory is born, according to which, in the name of justice and progress, blood can be justified in conscience.
The hero himself explains his thought this way: “People, according to the law of nature, are generally divided into two categories: into the lowest (ordinary), that is, so to speak, into material that serves solely for the generation of their own kind, and actually into people, that is, having the gift or talent to say a new word in one’s midst.” And if, for example, a person from the second category, in order to fulfill his idea (perhaps “saving for all mankind”) needs to “step over even a corpse, through blood, then within himself, in his conscience, he can... give himself permission step over the blood." But Raskolnikov immediately makes a reservation: “From this, however, it does not at all follow that Newton has the right to kill anyone he wants, those he meets and those who cross him, or to steal every day at the market.” According to the author of the theory, only what interferes with the implementation of a great idea can be eliminated. And only in this case the crime cannot be regarded as a crime, since it is committed not for selfish purposes, not for profit, but for the good of humanity.
But, having divided people into two categories, it can be interesting to find out for yourself which category you yourself belong to. And so Raskolnikov decides to kill old pawnbrokers in order to use her money to do good to people, save loved ones, and finally arrange her destiny. But the real reason crime is not this. The hero has the courage to discard secondary excuses and get to the final truth: “I didn’t kill to help my mother - nonsense!” he says to Sonya. “I didn’t kill so that, having received the means and power, I could become a benefactor of humanity.” Nonsense! I just killed, I killed for myself, for myself alone... I needed to find out then, and find out quickly, whether I was a louse, like everyone else, or a man? Will I be able to cross or not! Do I dare to bend down and take it or not? Am I a trembling creature or do I have the right..."
Raskolnikov needs his experiment to test his ability to commit a crime, to find out what category of people he belongs to, but at the same time he realizes that the very formulation of the question suggests that he is just as “ordinary” as everyone else. , since it would never even occur to a “lord” or a “being of a higher order” to ask such a question.
Being a gentle and kind man, experiencing in his heart all the suffering of humanity, Raskolnikov felt even before the crime that he was not capable of killing, that he would not endure such a murder. He felt sick and terrified just from the thought that he would hit him on the head with an ax, sliding in sticky and warm blood... At times he was even ready to renounce his idea, it was so painful for him: “Even if not no doubt about all these calculations, be it all... clear as day, fair as arithmetic. God! After all, I still won’t make up my mind! I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it!... Lord! - he prayed, “show me my path, and I will renounce this damned... dream of mine!”
But the “dream” had already entered and lived too deeply in him to get rid of it so easily. It was no longer he who controlled her, but she led him along like a sleepwalker. And the crime was accomplished: the old woman was killed, her sister Lizaveta, quiet and unresponsive, whose death was completely not part of Raskolnikov’s plans, was killed innocently. But she became an involuntary witness, and therefore could destroy the hero’s calculations and intentions. If there were other witnesses here, they might share Lizaveta’s fate. For the sake of the idea, Raskolnikov was ready to make other sacrifices. This is eloquently evidenced by the scene in which the hero, “clutching an ax in his hand,” stood outside the door when Koch inopportunely appears in front of it...
Dostoevsky shows how one crime inevitably leads to another, requiring more and more blood to carry out a deed supposedly undertaken with a good intention.
The entire month from the murder to the confession passes for the hero in constant tension, in mental anguish that never stops for a minute. Raskolnikov experiences a state of endless isolation from people, it covers his heart with a “dead cold”, and this “terrible feeling” becomes a new attempt, retribution for the crime.
An attempt to live and act not in accordance with the heart and conscience, but according to a theory developed by reason, leads the hero to a tragic split. He plays the role of a “lord” and at the same time realizes that this role is not for him. He plots and commits murder when his whole person rebels against it. And therefore he had the right to later say to Sonya: “I killed myself, not the old woman! And then, all at once, he killed himself forever!”
The murder of a “consumptive, stupid and evil old woman” whose life seems not more valuable than life a lice or a cockroach, nevertheless reveals to the hero the truth that all people are connected among themselves by invisible threads, that every human being is an unconditional value and that one cannot forcibly eliminate any life without damage to one’s own heart, without unpredictable tragic consequences.
If with his idea of ​​solving “blood according to conscience” Raskolnikov takes a step towards moral catastrophe, then his human essence, his kind and sympathetic soul, which could not bear the terrible experiment, rejects his theory. The author leads the hero and the reader to the idea that no well-intentioned goals, no great idea, even if it is “saving for all mankind,” can justify any, even the most “tiny” crime. You can't make humanity happy through violence - that's the main thing moral lesson, which we take away from Dostoevsky’s novel.

The lesson can begin with the words of V. Shklovsky: “The main secret in the novel lies not in the crime, but in the motives of the crime.” Therefore, the main question of the lesson will not be the question of the crime itself, but why it was committed, what pushed the hero on this path.

Maybe Raskolnikov was essentially a criminal? To do this, we study Raskolnikov’s actions before the crime (he helps the Marmeladovs, gives his last money for the funeral; he has compassion for a drunk girl, gives money to bring her home; he worries about his mother and Dunya). Consequently, a humane, compassionate person decides to kill.

The reasons that prompted Raskolnikov to murder:

1.External: ideas floating in the air:
- the views of revolutionary democrats who criticize the injustice and cruelty of the world around them;
- the ideas of Bonapartism (in 1865, Napoleon III’s book “The History of Julius Caesar” about the purpose of the great personality was translated into Russian);
- heavy, stuffy atmosphere of the city in which people are suffocating, a cramped room that looks like a closet;
- the fate of disadvantaged people (the Marmeladovs, Dunya, the girl on the boulevard, the drowned woman);

2. Domestic:
- Raskolnikov’s state (he is humiliated, oppressed by poverty, suffers for others, he has a desire to act);
- the character of the hero is gloomy, withdrawn, lonely, painfully proud and sensitive.

Students should pay attention to:

• telling surname hero;
• the word “painful” that is often repeated in relation to it;
• the moral origins of Raskolnikov’s theory, which is generated by compassion, but strangely, “delusionally” understood by the hero (Napoleon - compassion);
• the fact that Raskolnikov’s theory is unclear and contradictory, so the hero rushes between himself and the theory.
  Observe the development of Raskolnikov's ideas depending on his condition.

Episode: conversation between R. Raskolnikov and Porfiry Petrovich.

Questions for discussion:

1. How to evaluate Raskolnikov’s reasoning regarding the “trembling creature” and “those who have the right”?
2.Are his ideas convincing?
3. How is the idea of ​​a new Messiah, the Savior of mankind transformed in theory?
4. Crime how to step over what?
5.What is the symbol of the old woman-pawnbroker? Lizaveta?
6.If a crime is an attempt to prove something, first of all, to oneself, then what is the meaning of this crime?
7. How is the “humane” essence of his theory immediately debunked at the moment of murder?

Conclusion. Dostoevsky wrote that the novel embodies ideas that are in the air. In 1890, Paul Lafargue wrote an article “Darwinism on the French stage about the play “The Struggle for Existence” by Alphonse Daudet. The play contains impressions of the Lebier-Barré trial. Young people, having killed an old milkmaid (one borrowed money from her), explained their action in court by the theory of the struggle for existence. Dostoevsky was able to feel these ideas long before they developed into a cynical embodiment.

Social and philosophical origins Raskolnikov's riot

Target: show what power “theory” can have over a person, how responsible a person is for this idea by which he is guided, lead to Dostoevsky’s conclusion about the terrible danger that the implementation of individual ideas and theories poses for humanity.

Lesson progress

I . Conversation, retelling of episodes, commenting on them.

What conclusions of Raskolnikov lead him to justify “blood according to conscience”?

In the last lesson, we came to the conclusion that Raskolnikov’s consciousness and will were enslaved by an idea. The murder of the old woman is intended as a vital test of theory in practice. The hero does not want anything for himself personally, but he cannot come to terms with social injustice. Good and evil fight in his soul.

And soon the idea that solves the crime overcomes the good feelings of the hero. Let us draw attention to the fact that all the hero’s final decisions have a strange property: “They had one strange property: the more final they became, the uglier, more absurd they immediately became in his eyes. Despite all the painful internal struggle his, he could never for one moment believe in the feasibility of his plans, all this time...”

Find and read the lines about how the “final” decision was made (Part 1, Chapter 5).

(“The last day, which came so unexpectedly and decided everything at once, had an almost mechanical effect on him: as if someone had taken him by the hand and pulled him along, irresistibly, blindly, with unnatural force, without objection. It was as if he had been hit by a piece of clothing into the wheel of the car, and he began to be pulled into it (Part 1, Chapter 6).)

We see that Raskolnikov commits a crime, like a man who has lost all control over himself. He became so comfortable with his theory that, despite his doubts, he succumbed to the temptation of its practical implementation. Dostoevsky asserts: not only feelings and passions, but also abstract theories can rule over the souls of people; they have the ability to ignite a person’s soul, enslave his consciousness and will.

Tell us how theoretically the hero thought of his practical step?

The steps from Raskolnikov’s closet to the old woman’s apartment were counted, the neighboring tenants were studied, a “test” was made during which the hero remembered the location of the rooms and spied where the old woman was hiding the money. The idea that murder is just is logically irrefutable.

Can we say that Raskolnikov acted coolly and collectedly during the crime?

(Dostoevsky constantly draws our attention to the spontaneity of the crime. When going on a crime, Raskolnikov cannot concentrate, he is distracted by extraneous considerations. His behavior at the door of the old money-lender’s apartment is also absurd (“he almost pulled her, along with the door, onto the stairs”) . Spontaneity in the murder itself (“... he took out an ax ..., waved it with both hands, barely feeling himself, ... almost mechanically dropped the butt on his head. A number of incidents emphasize the spontaneity of the actions, the confusion of the hero (the incident with the ax, which"). was not prepared in advance; the incident with the hat, which Raskolnikov forgot to change to a cap; the time was already ten minutes past seven). For a moment, the hero wanted to drop everything and leave. and notices a wallet on the old woman’s neck; he fiddles with the keys for a long time, forgetting about the observations at the “test.” At this moment, Lizaveta returns home - one of those defenseless creatures for whose sake the hero allowed “blood out of conscience.” By killing Lizaveta, Raskolnikov, contrary to calculations, turns not into a benefactor, but into an enemy weak people. So Dostoevsky, showing the discrepancy between theoretical solutions and practice, emphasizes that it is impossible to “calculate life” with theory; life is more complicated “arithmetically.”)

We see what dire consequences may have ideas similar to Raskolnikov’s for an individual (“the idea” led the hero to a split with those around him and with himself) and for society. Investigator Porfiry Petrovich will later tell Raskolnikov: “It’s also good that you just killed the old woman. But if you had come up with another theory, then, perhaps, the thing would have been made a hundred million times uglier!”

They brought a lot of troubles and bloodshed to the world different theories, brought to life by people who were not only obsessed with the idea, but also had real power over the destinies of people.

II. Consolidation.

Answer the following questions in writing:

Why does Raskolnikov, despite doubts, commit murder?

What does the hero’s behavior during the murder convince us of?

Homework.

1st row: Retelling episodes about Luzhin:

Part 1, Ch. 3 (what Raskolnikov learned about Luzhin from a letter to his mother); Part 2, Ch. 5 (1st meeting between Luzhin and Raskolnikov)

part 4, ch. 2-3 (Luzhin’s date with Dunya in St. Petersburg)

part 5, ch. 1, 3 (Luzhin after the break with Dunya, wake).

Row 2: Retelling of episodes related to Svidrigailov:

Part 1, Ch. 3 (Raskolnikov’s mother about Svidrigailov);

part 4, ch. 1, 2 (Luzhin about Svidrigailov, 1st meeting of Raskolnikov with Svidrigailov); What feelings do Raskolnikov’s meetings with Svidrigailov give rise to? (extract from the novel);

Row 3: Answer the question: what is the meaning of comparing Raskolnikov with Luzhin and Svidrigailov?

Individual message: “Images of business rulers of life. Petersburg is a city of small and large predators.”

Lesson supplement - cards for independent work

Card No. 1

While working on the second edition of the novel, the writer made the following note: “The main anatomy of the novel. After illness, etc. It is imperative to bring the matter to a close and eliminate uncertainty, that is, explain the whole murder one way or another and make its character and relationships clear.”

1. In the final version of the novel, did the writer eliminate the uncertainty associated with the explanation of the murder? Or is the opposite true?

2. What are the motives for Raskolnikov’s crime?

Card No. 2

“Many of Dostoevsky’s heroes made a choice. Those who have conquered confusion and dispersion within themselves fall under the unlimited power of the choice they make.

The idea that they freely and voluntarily came to, which they accepted with conscious desire, suddenly begins to develop in themselves some kind of dynamic vortexes, some kind of force that cannot be resisted.

Free man becomes a slave to his chosen idea. He's kind of obsessed with her. She owns him absolutely and disconnects him not only from the face of facts, from real life, but also from the world of other people.”

E. Yu. Kuzmina-Karavaeva. Dostoevsky and modernity. 1929.

1. Can this characteristic of Dostoevsky’s heroes also be applied to the depiction of Raskolnikov?

2. Which scenes especially?

3. Give your comment on one of these scenes.

Card No. 3

Can we say that already in the first part of the novel the refutation of Raskolnikov’s idea begins? What is it?

Card No. 4

“Raskolnikov, unlike Napoleon, thought to justify the blood he shed...” (V. Ya. Kirpotin)

1. What is the reason for and how logical is the appearance of Napoleon in the novel?

2. How and with what did Raskolnikov want to justify the blood he shed? Does the hero succeed?

Card No. 5

“If Raskolnikov’s tragedy is only a tragedy of conscience, then how can we understand that he, who killed twice, threatens to bring the ax down on a human head again... And even worse...” (V. Ya. Kirpotin)

1. On whose head does Raskolnikov threaten to “bring the ax down” after the crime has been committed? What causes this?

2. What else was Raskolnikov ready for?

3. Indeed, “how to understand” such a “tragedy of conscience” of Dostoevsky’s hero?

Card No. 6

E. Starikova explains the reason for Raskolnikov’s crime this way: “... throughout the entire novel: horror to finish off and meanness to reconcile. And there is no way out for man. And that’s why it’s a tragedy.”

1. Can you agree that the contradiction between the horror of murder and the meanness of reconciliation haunts Raskolnikov “throughout the entire novel”? Justify your answer.

2. Can murder indicate the impossibility of reconciliation with reality? Doesn't Dostoevsky, using the example of other heroes of the novel, prove a third way to solve this problem?

Information for teachers

The flaw, the crack, due to which, in my opinion, the entire structure falls apart ethically and aesthetically, is located in the 10th chapter of the fourth part. At the beginning of the scene of repentance, the murderer Raskolnikov discovers himself thanks to Sonya New Testament. She reads to him about the resurrection of Lazarus. Well, not bad so far. But then follows a phrase that has no equal in stupidity in all of world literature: “The cinder has long gone out in the crooked candlestick, dimly illuminating in this beggarly room a murderer and a harlot, strangely gathered together to read an eternal book.” “The murderer and the harlot and the “eternal book” - what a triangle! This is the key phrase of the novel and a typical Dostoevsky rhetorical twist. Why does it hurt my ears so much? Why is she so rude and tasteless?

I believe that neither great artist, neither a great moralist nor true Christian, neither a real philosopher, nor a poet, nor a sociologist would bring together, uniting in one burst of false eloquence, the murderer - with whom? - with the unfortunate prostitute, bowing their very different heads over the holy book. The Christian God, as understood by those who believe in the Christian God, forgave the harlot nineteen centuries ago. The killer should first of all be shown to a doctor. It is impossible to compare them. Raskolnikov’s cruel and senseless crime does not even remotely resemble the fate of a girl who, by selling her body, loses her honor. A murderer and a harlot reading the Holy Scriptures - what nonsense! There is no artistically justifiable connection here. There is only a casual connection, as in horror novels and sentimental novels. This is a low-grade literary trick, and not a masterpiece of high pathos and piety. Moreover, look at the lack of artistic proportionality. Raskolnikov's crime is described in all vile details, and the author gives a dozen different explanations for it. As for Sonya, we never see her plying her trade. This is a typical stamp. We must take the author's word for it. But a real artist will not allow anyone to take his word for it.

Why does Raskolnikov kill? The reason is extremely confusing.

If you believe what Dostoevsky rather optimistically wants to prove, Raskolnikov was a wonderful young man, devoted, on the one hand, to his family, on the other, to high ideals, capable of self-sacrifice, generous, diligent, but too suspicious and proud - so much so that he was ready to was completely withdrawn into himself, without the need for any kind of cordial relationship. This very kind, generous and proud young man is desperately poor.

Why does Raskolnikov kill the old pawnbroker and her sister? Obviously, to save his family from poverty, to save his sister, who is going to marry a rich man and wanting to help him finish university. But he also commits this murder in order to prove to himself that he is not an ordinary person, subject to some invented moral laws, but a person capable of creating his own law, withstanding the full weight of moral responsibility, pangs of conscience and in the name of a good cause ( help to his family, his own education, which will allow him to benefit humanity) choosing villainous means (murder) without harming peace of mind and a decent life.

He also kills because, according to Dostoevsky’s favorite idea, the spread of materialistic ideas morally devastates a person and can turn even a positive young man into a murderer, so that he will easily commit a crime if the circumstances are unfortunate. Pay attention to the fascist ideas that Raskolnikov develops in his “article, humanity consists of two parts, the crowd and the superman, the majority must obey established moral laws, but individuals who stand above the crowd must be given the freedom to establish their own laws. First, Raskolnikov states that Newton and other great scientists should have sacrificed hundreds of human lives if these human lives an obstacle to their discoveries. Later, for some reason, he forgets about these benefactors of the human race, focusing his attention on a completely different ideal. All his vain aspirations are focused on Napoleon, in whom he sees a strong personality, ruling the crowd, daring to pick up power, just waiting for the one who “dare”. Thus, the leap from an ambitious benefactor of humanity to an ambitious tyrant and power-hunger occurs imperceptibly. A Change Worth More Care psychological analysis What could Dostoevsky, who was always in a hurry, do?

Another favorite idea is that crime leads the criminal to mental hell, the inevitable fate of all evildoers. Lonely internal suffering, however, does not lead to redemption. Redemption comes only through suffering in public, brought to the court of society, through deliberate self-abasement and shame in front of others - only they can bring the sufferer forgiveness, redemption, new life and the like. This is the path that Raskolnikov must take, but whether he will return to crime is unknown. Remember his idea of ​​free will, of a crime committed in the name of the crime itself, of the right to create moral laws for oneself.

Did Dostoevsky manage to inspire confidence in all this? I doubt.

First of all, Raskolnikov is a neurasthenic, and a distorted perception of any philosophical idea cannot discredit it. Dostoevsky would rather have succeeded by making Raskolnikov a strong, balanced, serious young man, confused by materialistic ideas taken too literally. But Dostoevsky understood perfectly well that nothing would come of this, that even if such a balanced young man had been imbued with absurd ideas that Raskolnikov’s weak psyche could not resist, healthy human nature would have kept him from deliberate murder. For it is by no means an accident that all of Dostoevsky’s criminals (Smerdyakov in The Brothers Karamazov, Fedka in The Possessed, Rogozhin in The Idiot) are out of their minds.

Feeling the weakness of his position, Dostoevsky attracts all kinds of motives to push Raskolnikov to the abyss of criminal temptations, which, as we are obliged to believe, opened up before him through the efforts of German philosophy. Humiliating poverty, not only his own, but also that of his beloved sister and mother, his sister’s readiness for self-sacrifice, the baseness and wretchedness of the intended victim - such an abundance of associated reasons shows that Dostoevsky himself felt the precariousness of his positions. Kropotkin very accurately noted: “Behind the image of Raskolnikov, I feel Dostoevsky himself, who is trying to resolve the question: could he himself or a person like him be driven to commit a crime, like Raskolnikov, and what restraining motives could prevent him, Dostoevsky, from becoming a murderer . But the fact is that such people don’t kill.”

I agree that "...people like the investigator or Svidrigailov belong to the realm of romantic invention." I would go further and add Sonechka Marmeladova to them. Sonya traces her origins back to those romantic heroines who, through no fault of their own, had to live outside the boundaries established by society and on whom society shouldered all the burden of shame and suffering associated with their way of life. These heroines have never been translated into world literature since the good Abbot Prevost brought them out in 1731 in the image of Manon Lescaut, much more refined and therefore more touching. In Dostoevsky, the theme of fall, humiliation does not leave us from the very beginning, and in this sense, Raskolnikov’s sister Dunya, and the drunken girl who flashed on the boulevard, and the virtuous prostitute Sonya - they are all sisters from a single family of hand-wringing heroines.

Dostoevsky’s passionate conviction that physical suffering and humility correct human nature is rooted in his personal tragedy: he must have felt that the freedom-lover, rebel, individualist who lived in him had become fairly obscured during the years spent in Siberia, had lost his natural spontaneity, but stubbornly believed that he returned from there “corrected.”

Here God lies defeated -

He fell, and he fell low.

That's why we built it

Higher the pedestal.

Frank Herbert

The novel Crime and Punishment was written in 1866. The sixties of the nineteenth century were very turbulent not only politically, but also in the field of thinking: the centuries-old moral foundations of society were collapsing. The theory of Napoleonism was widely preached. Young people thought that everything was allowed to them. “In one life - thousands of lives saved from rot and decay. One death and a hundred lives in return - but it’s arithmetic!” Of course, in real life no one killed anyone, but only thought about it - as a joke. Dostoevsky took this theory to its zenith to see what happened. And this is what happened: an unhappy person who does not understand his mistake, a lonely person, suffering spiritually and physically. This is how Raskolnikov appears to us.

If we turn to Raskolnikov’s childhood memory (a dream), we see a kind, sensitive boy who is trying to save a dying horse. “Thank God it’s just a dream! But what is it? Is it possible that I’m starting to feel a fever: such an ugly dream!” - says Raskolnikov, waking up. He can no longer imagine himself like this, for him this boy is “a trembling creature, a louse.” But what changed Raskolnikov so much? There are many reasons, but they can be reduced to several, more general ones.

The first, we will probably call the time in which Raskolnikov lived. This time itself pushed for changes, protests, riots. Probably every young man then (and even now!) considered himself the savior of the world. Time is the root cause of Raskolnikov's actions.

The second reason is the city of St. Petersburg. Here is what Pushkin writes about him:

The city is lush, the city is poor,

Spirit of bondage, slender appearance,

The vault of heaven is pale green,

Boredom, cold and granite.

In Crime and Punishment, Petersburg is a vampire city. He drinks the vital juices from the people who come there. This happened with Raskolnikov. When he first came to study, he was still that nice boy from childhood. But time passes, and the proudly raised head falls lower and lower, the city begins to choke Raskolnikov, he wants to take a deep breath, but he cannot. It is interesting that throughout the entire novel, St. Petersburg only once appears before Raskolnikov with a piece of its beauty: “An inexplicable coldness blew over him from this magnificent panorama; This magnificent picture was full of a dumb and deaf spirit for him...” But majestic view St. Isaac's Cathedral and the Winter Palace are silent for Raskolnikov, for whom Petersburg is his closet - a “closet”, a closet - a “coffin”. It is Petersburg that is largely to blame for the novel. In it, Raskolnikov becomes lonely and unhappy, in it he hears the officers talking, and in it, finally, lives an old woman who is guilty of her wealth.

Digging into the main social reasons rebellion, it is worth taking on philosophical and psychological ones. Here the first thing to name, of course, is Raskolnikov’s character: proud, even vain, independent, impatient, self-confident, categorical... but you never know how many definitions you can come up with? Because of his character, Raskolnikov fell into a hole from which few can get out...

When Raskolnikov was just developing his theory, he, without even suspecting it, already considered himself a People with a capital M. Further - more. Being constantly alone, all he did was think. So, he deceived himself, convinced himself of something that was not there. It is interesting that at the beginning he justifies himself, like many young people, with the noble goal of helping others. But after committing the crime, Raskolnikov realizes that he killed not to help others, but for himself. “The old woman was only sick... I wanted to get over it as quickly as possible... I didn’t kill a person, but I killed principles. He killed the principles, but didn’t cross, he remained on this side,” “... I needed to find out then, and quickly find out, whether I was a louse, like everyone else, or a man?.. Am I a trembling creature or do I have the right... “It is also interesting that until the very end Raskolnikov considered himself the only right one. “Nothing, they won’t understand anything, Sonya, and they are not worthy to understand,” “... maybe I’m still a person, and not a louse, and I’m hasty in condemning myself. I’ll still fight.”

Raskolnikov's loved ones understood him better than he understood himself. “After all, he doesn’t love anyone; maybe he will never love! - says Razumikhin. “And a scoundrel, however, is this Raskolnikov! I carried a lot on myself. He can be a big scam over time, when nonsense comes out, but now he wants to live too much,” says Svidrigailov. “I consider you to be one of those whose guts you can cut out, and he will stand and look at his tormentors with a smile,” if only he finds faith or God. Well, find it and you will live,” says Porfiry Petrovich. “She [Sonya] also knew his vanity, arrogance, pride and lack of faith.”

Disbelief. It is with this word that Dostoevsky wants to justify Raskolnikov’s action. This is evidenced by Sonya, “character number two,” who truly believes and lives by it, and thanks to this, has risen much higher than Raskolnikov. The name of the main character speaks about this. This is evidenced by numerous hints and “unquoted” quotations from the Holy Scriptures, hidden Gospel images. After all, God means not just belief in something supernatural, but also the presence of minimal moral principles. And this is so necessary in an era of change and rebellion in order to keep a person afloat and not lead astray from the “true path”!

“If a creature has already become someone, it will die, but will not turn into its own opposite,” “there is no sharp line between people and gods: people become gods, and gods turn into people” - these lines were written much later, and this proves that no matter what time we live, the themes for novels remain the same: where is the border between fas and nefas (permissible and unlawful).

In preparing this work, materials from the site were used

F. M. Dostoevsky once said that the works of N. V. Gogol “crush the mind with the deepest, unbearable questions, and evoke the most restless thoughts in the Russian mind.” We can rightfully attribute these words to the works of Dostoevsky himself, which are permeated with restless and disturbing thoughts. “Crime and Punishment” is a novel about Russia, which is experiencing an era of deep social and moral upheaval. This is a novel about a hero who has contained all the suffering, pain and wounds of his time in his chest.

“Hero of our time” - Rodion Raskolnikov - a young man endowed by nature with intelligence and the ability to compassion, and therefore so keenly aware of the suffering and pain of others, painfully reacting to manifestations of injustice and human meanness. Wandering around St. Petersburg, Rodion sees terrible scenes of despair, humiliation, devastation and embitterment of people, the torment of those who, by reality, based on the power of money, are doomed to poverty, drunkenness and, ultimately, death. The hero of the novel is ready to become in a certain sense an avenger for the disadvantaged and humiliated.

From a letter from his mother, Rodion learns about Svidrigailov’s harassment of his sister and about Dunya’s decision to marry Luzhin, just to save him and his mother from poverty and shame. Raskolnikov is deeply outraged by the existing order of things, in which life is bought at the price of crime, moral ruin and which contradicts his dreams of perfection and harmony of the world. And he is not able to accept the sacrifices of his dearly beloved mother and sister. The salvation of people dear to him becomes another motive for the impending crime.

In addition, he himself, like his relatives, is crushed by poverty, but does not want to put up with it and intends to overcome poverty. First of all, not for one’s own sake, but for the sake of one’s loved ones and other disadvantaged people.

Raskolnikov’s sensitive and vulnerable soul is filled with living pain for the man; he is deeply wounded by horror and absurdity surrounding reality, that’s why rebellion is brewing in his soul, that’s why his idea is born. And therefore he suffers, rushes through the streets of St. Petersburg, leads some kind of feverish, “abnormal” life: “Long ago, all this current melancholy arose in him, grew, accumulated and recently matured and concentrated, taking the form of a terrible, wild and a fantastic question that tormented his heart and mind, irresistibly demanding a solution.” The idea had long been born in his brain that in the name of an idea, in the name of justice, in the name of progress, murder could be permitted and even justified, “blood according to conscience,” as the hero of the novel calls it. And a visit to a moneylender, with whom he, almost dying of hunger, was forced to pawn a ring - a gift from his sister - only sharpened this conviction. The old woman, profiting from someone else's misfortune, aroused insurmountable hatred and disgust in his soul. The conversation between the student and the officer about this “stupid, insignificant, evil... and harmful to everyone” pawnbroker, which he accidentally overheard in a tavern, finally confirmed him in the idea that, on the general scale, the life of this old woman is nothing compared to thousands of other lives. And her money “doomed to a monastery” can save many who are dying, dying of hunger and vice. “To kill such a harmful old woman is to resist evil and restore justice!” - Raskolnikov decides.

Personification social evil become for Rodion Luzhin - a successful, greedy and cynical businessman, corrupted by the power of money, embodying vulgarity and selfishness, and

The rich man Svidrigailov is a libertine who pursues defenseless victims (including Raskolnikov’s sister).

What pushes Raskolnikov to commit a crime is his desire to solve an ethical problem: is it possible to break the law and achieve happiness? It turns out not. After committing a crime, suffering, torment, and torment appear. Where can one think about universal happiness if one cannot achieve personal happiness? He says this to his sister: “...if only I had killed because I was hungry..., then now I would... be happy!”

The main and most significant thing in the work is the theory developed by the hero. Since the world that he sees around him is scary, ugly, and it is impossible and unnatural to accept it, to come to terms with its laws, and he does not believe in the possibility of curing the diseases of his “troubled” tragic time, the only way is to rise above this “anthill” . “Ordinary” people “live in obedience” and are “obliged to be obedient.” This is a uselessness that accepts any order of things. “Extraordinary” people - destroyers of this order - break the law. Rodion wants to rise above the customs and morality of the world around him, to prove that “he is not a trembling creature,” but “has the right.” To rise above the world for Rodion Raskolnikov means to become human, to gain true freedom, and only truly “extraordinary” people, the only ones worthy of being called people, are capable of this. Raskolnikov places the entire burden of rejection, the rebellion of a “proud man”, an extraordinary personality, on himself alone, on his personal energy and will. Either obedience and submission or rebellion - in his opinion, there is no third option.

Thus, Raskolnikov wants to transgress not only moral and social, but also physical laws that fetter human nature. But in addition to the main theory, the hero of the novel also built a second, more noble, softening the harshness of the first. He decided that with the money stolen from the pawnbroker he would help other people, save “hundreds of young lives” from death and depravity. But he is tormented by the question: is he capable of being a real person who has the right to break, is he personally capable of a rebellion-crime? Will he be able to overcome murder, even for the sake of a great good purpose?

These are in general outline the social and philosophical origins of the rebellion of the main character of the novel by F. M. Dostoevsky, who, according to the author, “recognizes and judges the world and man - this is the greatness and charm of his personality.” But the crime committed by the hero of the novel became the very experiment that immediately showed the inconsistency of his theory of crime, showed that “walking the same road” Rodion Raskolnikov would “never repeat the murder again.”