I enjoyed this piece, especially your emphasis on Raskolnikov’s desire to test whether he was one of the “extraordinary” people. I agree that many contemporary readings flatten the novel into a story about poverty and oppression alone.
At the same time, I wonder if something important gets lost when the discussion becomes primarily a dispute about political interpretations.
What has always struck me about Dostoevsky is that his concern was never simply with bad ideas. It was with human suffering and the possibility of redemption. That concern runs through House of the Dead as much as Crime and Punishment.
I also wonder whether the “extraordinary man” theory is even more ironic than your essay suggests. Raskolnikov thinks he is testing whether he is one of the rare people who can stand above ordinary morality. But by the end of the novel, Dostoevsky seems to move in almost the opposite direction. The problem is not that Raskolnikov thinks he is extraordinary. In a sense, every human soul is extraordinary. The mistake is believing that this uniqueness exempts him from moral responsibility rather than deepening it.
Raskolnikov wants to be Napoleon. Instead, he discovers that he is simply himself, responsible for what he has done, unable to escape guilt through theory, and in need of redemption. That strikes me as one of the deepest ironies in the novel.
In some ways, I think Dostoevsky’s critique of ideology grows out of this larger concern. He worried about political theories not simply because they were politically mistaken, but because they could cause us to lose sight of the suffering and dignity of actual human beings.
That’s why the novel still feels so alive to me. The politics are there, but they are ultimately in service of a larger question: what happens to a human soul, and what might redeem it?
Honestly, if people misread it as that, it makes me wonder if they even read the book. Like I understand it’s a tough read, especially for your average person, but he says multiple times throughout, that it was to see if he was extraordinary, and that if he can get away with it, it will prove that.
It’s strange, lol. As Harold Bloom said, Dostoevsky was incredibly tendentious. To completely misconstrue the message he wants to get across therefore is… well, as I said, strange.
Bloom was just extremely skeptical of Christianity’s claims in general, and that was a bias he never escaped. He even wrote ‘literary appreciation’ of the King James Bible which was filled with distaste about the God it presents. 🤣
> The modern university and the contemporary literary establishment often treat Crime and Punishment as a novel about poverty, oppression, and inequality.
Is this actually true? I feel like an example here would bolster the case.
It's been some decades since I've read Crime and Punishment, and it was in high school, not university, but our reading in class at the time was much closer to yours than to any socio-economic reading. Quickly googling around, it would seem that the standard reading is somewhat closer to yours (although not as specific). The themes from SparkNotes (https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/crime/themes/) include nihilism, the idea of an ends-justify-the-means "Superman" (not in the Nietzsche sense), psychology and alienation.
Similarly, ChatGPT (hardly a bastion of conservative thought) summarizes the themes of Crime and Punishment as "human beings cannot escape the moral consequences of their actions through intellect alone."
I don't regard either of these sources as particularly authoritative, but they do belie the idea that the "standard" reading of Crime and Punishment has been warped into some kind of proto-socialist one. I'm genuinely interested to know where you're seeing that reading!
This is the usual Libes bullshit. While any good contemporary reader would accept the fact that the framework of poverty, etc. is a formative experience for R's pathology, no one in colleges (except perhaps in Libes' own head) is teaching what she says. It's how she gets clicks, not reality.
i’m not sure you understand what’s going on in universities these days. There genuinely is a “standard view” where certain dimensions ofoppression have to be given centrality. This may not apply to every literary circle and it may not even be common in the popular readership (if they still exist for D), but it certainly fits within the politicalideology of many academic departments. She is speaking from her experience in that particular context.
I am not saying you’re wrong. I am just saying there are hundreds of universities and most courses have online syllabi and coursework. So just link me some examples so it’s clear specifically what we’re talking about.
Thank you, great article. I just read Crime and Punishment for the first time and finished it last month. This 56 year old man is still catching up on classics.
I have a blog about Russian literature and I’ve never seen or met in real life a person who actually thinks that Raskolnikov commits a crime only because he is poor and “the society fails him”. I think people are not stupid.
> comparisons between Raskolnikov and Luigi Mangione: both men were justified, these readers will claim, in sacrificing a single individual for the greater good of society.
You gave an article that does not correspond to what you say. From the article: “Luigi Mangione must have seen himself as one of Raskolnikov’s “extraordinary people.” => the authors clearly know the motivations behind Raskolnikov’s murder, they write that these can be viewed as ideological.
It’s either you didn’t check the source or you expected others to believe you.
The parallel with Mangione is absolutely valid and true. The article proves it.
> Crime and Punishment leaves us, therefore, not with a political but with a deeply spiritual and human message
This is not entirely true, Dostoevsky addresses the radical youth, so it is a political message. You write it yourself several times.
Dostoevsky is saying that every life has a meaning => basic human rights => it’s a pretty liberal idea. Human rights are part of political discussions. The interconnection between politics and philosophy (or just Political Philosophy) makes the novel more complicated and nuanced rather than just saying “it’s not a political novel”.
> The pawnbroker’s life might be useless to Raskolnikov in the abstract, but in reality, she is an individual human being with a living soul.
Why is there no mention of Lizaveta? Her killing is even more important than the pawnbroker’s one. Lizaveta is the key element in the story, which is why she’s “Lizaveta”. Dostoevsky chooses this name deliberately, it means “God is my oath” = her killing is how Raskolnikov breaks off his connection to God = Dostoevsky tells us that one “justified” killing always leads to innocent people hurt.
And this is Lizaveta’s Gospel that helps Raskolnikov (she gave it to Sonya before her death, and that’s the Gospel they were reading together). This is not purely Sonia’s love that resurrected him, it was also Lizaveta.
> Dostoyevsky masterfully predicted the eventual catastrophe of the Soviet Union
No, he doesn’t. At most, Dostoevsky may help explain why a communist utopia would be difficult or impossible to achieve in the way Soviet leaders envisioned it. But that is very different from saying that he predicted the collapse of the USSR.
If communist ideology itself were the primary reason for the Soviet Union’s collapse, it is difficult to explain why a large majority of Soviet citizens still wanted to preserve the Union in 1991. This was clearly demonstrated by the All-Union referendum of March 17, 1991, in which 76.4% of voters supported maintaining the USSR as a federation of equal republics. People generally did not reject the idea of the Soviet Union or socialism outright; rather, many supported a reformed and renewed Union.
Therefore, the collapse of the USSR cannot be reduced simply to the failure of communist ideology or to the kind of “mathematical consciousness” Dostoevsky criticized. The breakup was the result of a complex combination of political struggles, economic difficulties, national movements, and decisions made by political elites. The referendum suggests that, shortly before the dissolution, most citizens still preferred preserving the Union rather than dismantling it.
Off topic, but I'm not sure that's a fair characterization of the 1991 referendum. Communist ideology wasn't on the ballot, only political union.
It was also a bit like holding a referendum in China over whether Taiwan should be independent. That's why so many SSR's - who had large majorities favouring independence - boycotted it.
Well, the leftists are correct then. Mangione is the modern Raskolnikov with his splitted, megalomaniac personality. Just the way Dostoevsky intended to depict this eternal character.
Nice essay. I saw Raskolnikov as a person consumed by nihilism. As a poet and writer myself, I am often concerned with the confusion in commercialized society over "quantitative" and "qualitative". Hence, the "mathematical" dimension of commercialization is pretty evident in much of what comprises American society. I'm not going to make a value judgement on that. Dostoyevsky in Demons registers serious concerns over ideology. As do I.
Here's one credo: "I shop, therefore I am." LOL
Dostoevsky's ideas were also formed by the rising resistance to Reason as an all-encompassing factor in society. Nietzsche wrote about this, as did Freud. If a book or anything has sold in vast quantities, is it "better" than one that did not sell well but is also a tour de force examination of social ills? Quantity versus quality. I liked the fact that, after Richard Hoggart, in describing working class preferences in book reading, coined a title of a pulp mystery: Death Cab For Cutie. Then, many years later, a San Francisco indie band used it for its name. Most of today's fiction is often of the Death Cab For Cutie variety. Commercially viable, but may not culturally worthwhile.
i am doing something else. but as if morality was maintained in the luigi mangione case - the cause of morality in the case would be / the state is not an equal or impartial party too be sought as the justice in a circumstance where standing patrols violated the cause of a trial with proper order - if it is the law in question and not ; authoritarianism-law & enforcement by exchange, because of morality, then a state and a judge has no cause too make probable cause intrepid and its a violation of the united states constitution. in the cause of murder & the word / morality is never an issue ; or the state is corrupted with homicide and perjury. no other status can be maintained, by any level of force.
I'd read a basic translation of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment many years ago and, admittedly, I was too young for it.
In my humble opinion, with only a basic understanding of Russian history and mindset—my former wife was Russian—having recently reread the Garnet translation, I am now of the opinion that university literati, in their never-ending push to manage thought, rather than teach independent thinking, have once again misread (or intentionally misdiagnosed) Raskolnikov's psychology. (Much like they have "re-interpreted" 1984 and still attempt to bastardize Fahrenheit 451—let's just forget Heinlein!). They still refuse to accept that Dostoyevsky's intentions might be more complex as his thoughts evolve continuously throughout the narrative.
Raskolnikov's crime is NOT born of his inability to pay the rent. (Yes, I have heard that from teachers.) Poverty may have been a catalyst, but I read a disturbance in his thinking long before he picked up the ax. And I point to a single incident (in my reading—not being a Russian linguist). I was less moved, emotionally, by the attack on the old woman—we saw it coming for a long time—than I was with the grotesque beating death of the sad horse, earlier. The owner calls for more weight added to the animal's struggles, crippling him further. Then the whippings. Said owner justifying his abuse by repeating "He is mine! I own him!" (paraphrasing) (maybe a writer's statement on the cruelty of power?). And the mob cheering him on (a comment on the dangers of mob mentality?) until the beast lies dead. At this point, I needed to set the book down and think about it.
The killing of the horse went on for pages, growing ever more horrific as it continued. The old woman was dead with a few strokes— (turn the page). And everything that followed, stemmed from his internal fracturing, as if the incident finally snapped his fragile reality.
As a student of crime fiction for many decades, with a smattering of psychology, I can agree that Dostoyevsky's intent had been more Philosophical than political...and equally a lesson on sociopathy. Raskolnikov's life environment contributing to his mental, and moral, decline, that may have begun in childhood. (Close enough to the present-day definition of sociopath.)
Opinion submitted humbly. I thank you for another insightful analysis.
A great study in the writer's changing influences. I did not know of Dostoyevsky's love for Balzac. It explains much.
Good piece, although I synthesize what happens differently. Of course, 7 years of a sentence seeming like days brings up how Jacob feels serving for Rachel, and love as something spiritual is an integral part of the novel. Great writers always write about the human condition, and at its heart, the choices associated with the human soul. As you point out clearly, that has happened here.
But Rasholnikov does not commit the murder for some philosophical premise or theory. Or really any of the reasons he seems to give, or anyone thinks plausible. The act is not an affirmation of anything, any theory, etc. Rather, it is a denial of Raskolnikov's respect for common humanity, a denial of his soul, and a claim that he replaces these two with being an Übermensch. Yet, he knows better. At first, just because of the investigation and Porfiry, but he begins to see his real crime everywhere, namely that he thinks he is better than other people - (false) pride. It is the deepest sin, as it excuses all the others, since the rules don't apply to people like Napoleon and me.
The poverty, etc matter to the specifics of the crime - murdering and robbing a pawnbrowker. Were he a successful lawyer and perverting, lying, and cheating to satisfy his "inner Napoleon" the tale is much the same, but the outward manifestation, the crime, is considerably different.
I'm curious about your thoughts on the allegory to Christianity in this novel. Also, I never really thought it was an economically motivated crime for the murder of the pawnbroker. Is that the prevailing thought in literary circles?
I enjoyed this piece, especially your emphasis on Raskolnikov’s desire to test whether he was one of the “extraordinary” people. I agree that many contemporary readings flatten the novel into a story about poverty and oppression alone.
At the same time, I wonder if something important gets lost when the discussion becomes primarily a dispute about political interpretations.
What has always struck me about Dostoevsky is that his concern was never simply with bad ideas. It was with human suffering and the possibility of redemption. That concern runs through House of the Dead as much as Crime and Punishment.
I also wonder whether the “extraordinary man” theory is even more ironic than your essay suggests. Raskolnikov thinks he is testing whether he is one of the rare people who can stand above ordinary morality. But by the end of the novel, Dostoevsky seems to move in almost the opposite direction. The problem is not that Raskolnikov thinks he is extraordinary. In a sense, every human soul is extraordinary. The mistake is believing that this uniqueness exempts him from moral responsibility rather than deepening it.
Raskolnikov wants to be Napoleon. Instead, he discovers that he is simply himself, responsible for what he has done, unable to escape guilt through theory, and in need of redemption. That strikes me as one of the deepest ironies in the novel.
In some ways, I think Dostoevsky’s critique of ideology grows out of this larger concern. He worried about political theories not simply because they were politically mistaken, but because they could cause us to lose sight of the suffering and dignity of actual human beings.
That’s why the novel still feels so alive to me. The politics are there, but they are ultimately in service of a larger question: what happens to a human soul, and what might redeem it?
Honestly, if people misread it as that, it makes me wonder if they even read the book. Like I understand it’s a tough read, especially for your average person, but he says multiple times throughout, that it was to see if he was extraordinary, and that if he can get away with it, it will prove that.
It’s strange, lol. As Harold Bloom said, Dostoevsky was incredibly tendentious. To completely misconstrue the message he wants to get across therefore is… well, as I said, strange.
Agreed. Bloom wasn’t a fan of Dostoevsky’s ideas, so he viewed them with skepticism. But there’s no denying that Fyodor was preachy.
Bloom was just extremely skeptical of Christianity’s claims in general, and that was a bias he never escaped. He even wrote ‘literary appreciation’ of the King James Bible which was filled with distaste about the God it presents. 🤣
> The modern university and the contemporary literary establishment often treat Crime and Punishment as a novel about poverty, oppression, and inequality.
Is this actually true? I feel like an example here would bolster the case.
It's been some decades since I've read Crime and Punishment, and it was in high school, not university, but our reading in class at the time was much closer to yours than to any socio-economic reading. Quickly googling around, it would seem that the standard reading is somewhat closer to yours (although not as specific). The themes from SparkNotes (https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/crime/themes/) include nihilism, the idea of an ends-justify-the-means "Superman" (not in the Nietzsche sense), psychology and alienation.
Similarly, ChatGPT (hardly a bastion of conservative thought) summarizes the themes of Crime and Punishment as "human beings cannot escape the moral consequences of their actions through intellect alone."
I don't regard either of these sources as particularly authoritative, but they do belie the idea that the "standard" reading of Crime and Punishment has been warped into some kind of proto-socialist one. I'm genuinely interested to know where you're seeing that reading!
This is the usual Libes bullshit. While any good contemporary reader would accept the fact that the framework of poverty, etc. is a formative experience for R's pathology, no one in colleges (except perhaps in Libes' own head) is teaching what she says. It's how she gets clicks, not reality.
i’m not sure you understand what’s going on in universities these days. There genuinely is a “standard view” where certain dimensions ofoppression have to be given centrality. This may not apply to every literary circle and it may not even be common in the popular readership (if they still exist for D), but it certainly fits within the politicalideology of many academic departments. She is speaking from her experience in that particular context.
I am not saying you’re wrong. I am just saying there are hundreds of universities and most courses have online syllabi and coursework. So just link me some examples so it’s clear specifically what we’re talking about.
Thank you, great article. I just read Crime and Punishment for the first time and finished it last month. This 56 year old man is still catching up on classics.
I have a blog about Russian literature and I’ve never seen or met in real life a person who actually thinks that Raskolnikov commits a crime only because he is poor and “the society fails him”. I think people are not stupid.
> comparisons between Raskolnikov and Luigi Mangione: both men were justified, these readers will claim, in sacrificing a single individual for the greater good of society.
You gave an article that does not correspond to what you say. From the article: “Luigi Mangione must have seen himself as one of Raskolnikov’s “extraordinary people.” => the authors clearly know the motivations behind Raskolnikov’s murder, they write that these can be viewed as ideological.
It’s either you didn’t check the source or you expected others to believe you.
The parallel with Mangione is absolutely valid and true. The article proves it.
> Crime and Punishment leaves us, therefore, not with a political but with a deeply spiritual and human message
This is not entirely true, Dostoevsky addresses the radical youth, so it is a political message. You write it yourself several times.
Dostoevsky is saying that every life has a meaning => basic human rights => it’s a pretty liberal idea. Human rights are part of political discussions. The interconnection between politics and philosophy (or just Political Philosophy) makes the novel more complicated and nuanced rather than just saying “it’s not a political novel”.
> The pawnbroker’s life might be useless to Raskolnikov in the abstract, but in reality, she is an individual human being with a living soul.
Why is there no mention of Lizaveta? Her killing is even more important than the pawnbroker’s one. Lizaveta is the key element in the story, which is why she’s “Lizaveta”. Dostoevsky chooses this name deliberately, it means “God is my oath” = her killing is how Raskolnikov breaks off his connection to God = Dostoevsky tells us that one “justified” killing always leads to innocent people hurt.
And this is Lizaveta’s Gospel that helps Raskolnikov (she gave it to Sonya before her death, and that’s the Gospel they were reading together). This is not purely Sonia’s love that resurrected him, it was also Lizaveta.
> Dostoyevsky masterfully predicted the eventual catastrophe of the Soviet Union
No, he doesn’t. At most, Dostoevsky may help explain why a communist utopia would be difficult or impossible to achieve in the way Soviet leaders envisioned it. But that is very different from saying that he predicted the collapse of the USSR.
If communist ideology itself were the primary reason for the Soviet Union’s collapse, it is difficult to explain why a large majority of Soviet citizens still wanted to preserve the Union in 1991. This was clearly demonstrated by the All-Union referendum of March 17, 1991, in which 76.4% of voters supported maintaining the USSR as a federation of equal republics. People generally did not reject the idea of the Soviet Union or socialism outright; rather, many supported a reformed and renewed Union.
Therefore, the collapse of the USSR cannot be reduced simply to the failure of communist ideology or to the kind of “mathematical consciousness” Dostoevsky criticized. The breakup was the result of a complex combination of political struggles, economic difficulties, national movements, and decisions made by political elites. The referendum suggests that, shortly before the dissolution, most citizens still preferred preserving the Union rather than dismantling it.
Off topic, but I'm not sure that's a fair characterization of the 1991 referendum. Communist ideology wasn't on the ballot, only political union.
It was also a bit like holding a referendum in China over whether Taiwan should be independent. That's why so many SSR's - who had large majorities favouring independence - boycotted it.
Your interpretation was the standard take on C & P when I read it in a Humanities course in 1987. At least in the Eng department where I studied.
Fascinating! I can't wait to read Dostoevsky. For now, I'm still enjoying Anna Karenina (obediently following your top ten recommendation).
Well, the leftists are correct then. Mangione is the modern Raskolnikov with his splitted, megalomaniac personality. Just the way Dostoevsky intended to depict this eternal character.
Nice essay. I saw Raskolnikov as a person consumed by nihilism. As a poet and writer myself, I am often concerned with the confusion in commercialized society over "quantitative" and "qualitative". Hence, the "mathematical" dimension of commercialization is pretty evident in much of what comprises American society. I'm not going to make a value judgement on that. Dostoyevsky in Demons registers serious concerns over ideology. As do I.
Here's one credo: "I shop, therefore I am." LOL
Dostoevsky's ideas were also formed by the rising resistance to Reason as an all-encompassing factor in society. Nietzsche wrote about this, as did Freud. If a book or anything has sold in vast quantities, is it "better" than one that did not sell well but is also a tour de force examination of social ills? Quantity versus quality. I liked the fact that, after Richard Hoggart, in describing working class preferences in book reading, coined a title of a pulp mystery: Death Cab For Cutie. Then, many years later, a San Francisco indie band used it for its name. Most of today's fiction is often of the Death Cab For Cutie variety. Commercially viable, but may not culturally worthwhile.
i am doing something else. but as if morality was maintained in the luigi mangione case - the cause of morality in the case would be / the state is not an equal or impartial party too be sought as the justice in a circumstance where standing patrols violated the cause of a trial with proper order - if it is the law in question and not ; authoritarianism-law & enforcement by exchange, because of morality, then a state and a judge has no cause too make probable cause intrepid and its a violation of the united states constitution. in the cause of murder & the word / morality is never an issue ; or the state is corrupted with homicide and perjury. no other status can be maintained, by any level of force.
I'd read a basic translation of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment many years ago and, admittedly, I was too young for it.
In my humble opinion, with only a basic understanding of Russian history and mindset—my former wife was Russian—having recently reread the Garnet translation, I am now of the opinion that university literati, in their never-ending push to manage thought, rather than teach independent thinking, have once again misread (or intentionally misdiagnosed) Raskolnikov's psychology. (Much like they have "re-interpreted" 1984 and still attempt to bastardize Fahrenheit 451—let's just forget Heinlein!). They still refuse to accept that Dostoyevsky's intentions might be more complex as his thoughts evolve continuously throughout the narrative.
Raskolnikov's crime is NOT born of his inability to pay the rent. (Yes, I have heard that from teachers.) Poverty may have been a catalyst, but I read a disturbance in his thinking long before he picked up the ax. And I point to a single incident (in my reading—not being a Russian linguist). I was less moved, emotionally, by the attack on the old woman—we saw it coming for a long time—than I was with the grotesque beating death of the sad horse, earlier. The owner calls for more weight added to the animal's struggles, crippling him further. Then the whippings. Said owner justifying his abuse by repeating "He is mine! I own him!" (paraphrasing) (maybe a writer's statement on the cruelty of power?). And the mob cheering him on (a comment on the dangers of mob mentality?) until the beast lies dead. At this point, I needed to set the book down and think about it.
The killing of the horse went on for pages, growing ever more horrific as it continued. The old woman was dead with a few strokes— (turn the page). And everything that followed, stemmed from his internal fracturing, as if the incident finally snapped his fragile reality.
As a student of crime fiction for many decades, with a smattering of psychology, I can agree that Dostoyevsky's intent had been more Philosophical than political...and equally a lesson on sociopathy. Raskolnikov's life environment contributing to his mental, and moral, decline, that may have begun in childhood. (Close enough to the present-day definition of sociopath.)
Opinion submitted humbly. I thank you for another insightful analysis.
A great study in the writer's changing influences. I did not know of Dostoyevsky's love for Balzac. It explains much.
—GJB
Good piece, although I synthesize what happens differently. Of course, 7 years of a sentence seeming like days brings up how Jacob feels serving for Rachel, and love as something spiritual is an integral part of the novel. Great writers always write about the human condition, and at its heart, the choices associated with the human soul. As you point out clearly, that has happened here.
But Rasholnikov does not commit the murder for some philosophical premise or theory. Or really any of the reasons he seems to give, or anyone thinks plausible. The act is not an affirmation of anything, any theory, etc. Rather, it is a denial of Raskolnikov's respect for common humanity, a denial of his soul, and a claim that he replaces these two with being an Übermensch. Yet, he knows better. At first, just because of the investigation and Porfiry, but he begins to see his real crime everywhere, namely that he thinks he is better than other people - (false) pride. It is the deepest sin, as it excuses all the others, since the rules don't apply to people like Napoleon and me.
The poverty, etc matter to the specifics of the crime - murdering and robbing a pawnbrowker. Were he a successful lawyer and perverting, lying, and cheating to satisfy his "inner Napoleon" the tale is much the same, but the outward manifestation, the crime, is considerably different.
This is like when someone told me that The Stranger is a seething indictment of the inherent unfairness of the justice system.
Your reading is spot-on. Thank you!
I'm curious about your thoughts on the allegory to Christianity in this novel. Also, I never really thought it was an economically motivated crime for the murder of the pawnbroker. Is that the prevailing thought in literary circles?
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