Crime and Punishment

1
Crime and Punishment

• Fyodor Dostoevsky
• Written in 1865-1866
• St. Petersburg, Russia

2
The Life of Dostoevsky

• Born one of six children in Moscow in 1821
• Fyodor was emotionally troubled and alienated
  friends with his moods
• After quitting the military, he began writing
  about his own youth which was full of misery,
  isolation and insecurity.
• First bestseller was Poor Folk- it was admired
  for its character study and romantic socialism

3
Troubled Times

• Arrested in 1849 for his reckless socialistic
  articles and condemned to die by firing squad
• Saved by the tsar, he was instead sentenced to 4
  years of hard labor in Siberia.
• This further contributed to his fears and
  alienation and he developed epilepsy.
• In 1853 he experienced a religious conversion.
• He began a socialist newspaper and once more
  received unfavorable criticism

4
Crime and Punishment

• Poor and reduced to begging, Fyodor began writing
  C and P.
• It was serialized in The Russian Messenger and
  appeared in English 4 years later.
• Returned to St. Petersburg and became a literary
  idol.
• Died in 1881 of a epileptic seizure.

5
About the Novel

• Setting the Russian city of St. Petersburg and
  a prison in Siberia
• Third person omniscient
• Psychological novel- Raskolnikovs tortured
  psychological punishment

6
Russian Translations

• Raskolnikov raskol means schism or split
  in Russian
• Luzha puddle
• Razum reason, intelligence
• Russian word for crime is prestuplenie
• Directly translated means -stepping over the
  line

7
Themes

• Alienation from Society at first Raskolnikov is
  separated by his pride, and later by his guilt
  and its intense psychological and physical effects

8
Superman theme

• An extraordinary person above moral laws
• steps beyond and has no conscience
• Nietzche In Beyond Good and Evil, 2 types of
  morality master-morality and slave-morality.
• The higher type of man creates his own values and
  the meek and powerless are at their mercy.

9
Nihilism
                                                
             Portrait of Friedrich Nietczhe

• Philosophical idea developed in Russia
  1850-1860
• Rejected family, societal bonds and emotional and
  aesthetic concerns
• Favored strict materialism- no mind or soul
  outside of the physical
• Nietzches nihilism active vs. passive
• Active nihilism seeks to destroy what it no
  longer believes in .

10
There will be wars such as there have never been
on earth before. Only from my time on will there
be on earth politics on the grand scaleNietzche