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Friday, November 9, 2012

Portrait of the Oppressive & Corrupting Nature of the City

Raskolnikov has been driven deep into himself in a state of acute alienation from other populate and even from himself.

One of the results of urbanization is the pressing together of umteen homo beings beings into a confined area in which business, industry, sexuality, crime, and motley forms of madness seethe together in a luck of bewildering energies. The poor are particularly vulnerable to this storm of pressures, entirely because they corporationnot afford to buy or rent dwellings which would at to the lowest degree(prenominal) give them some refuge from the corruptions of the city outside. For the poor, such as Raskolnikov, their dwellings merely remind them of the fact of their burdensomeness. The daily suffering becomes so great that they no longer even feel it, numb themselves as a kind of survival dish: "He had lately ceased even to feel the weight of the poverty that broken him. He had completely lost take in his casual affairs, and he had no wish to recover such interest" (13).

The poor and oppressed, represented by Raskolnikov, become little more than than animals trapped in a cage, with no escape and no respite from their suffering---except in drinking and crime. The murders committed by Raskolnikov can be seen in this context as a message of expression of utter misery and rage. Certainly Dostoyevsky is not excusing Raskolnikov's crimes, or suggesting that one should murder in order to begin the process leading to spiritual repurchase. However,


In this state, he is given a coin by a Christian who pities him and who takes him as a beggar. The man says, "Take it, my pricey man, for Christ's joy" (118). After long self-pitying reflection, Raskolnikov hurls the coin and its significance as a symbol of human compassion into the river. With that rejection, Raskolnikov "felt as though he had cut himself off at that moment, with a scissors as it were, from everything and everyone" (120).

Whatever the urban pressures of corruption and oppression working on Raskolnikov, Dostoyevsky finally shows him to be answerable to God, and it is Raskolnikov's determination to turn to God, to open his heart and soul to Christ, and to find redemption in faith.
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The city is shown to be a thoroughly roughshod force, but finally there is a greater well-grounded at work in the most lost soul.

Where is it . . . I was reading somebody condemned to death said or judgement an hour before his death that if he had to live somewhere on a crag, on a cliff, on a narrow ledge where his two feet could hardly stand, and all some him there'd be the abyss, the ocean, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, and an everlasting storm, and he had to go on homogeneous that---standing on a square yard of space---all his life, a thousand years, an eternity, it would still be better to live like that than die at the moment.

The depiction of the condemned man on the crag seems to be an extreme extension of the very life Raskolnikov lives in St. Petersburg, particularly in the aftermath of his crimes. It is clear that there is no human help for Raskolnikov. That is, his suffering is so great that other human beings can only serve as guides toward a salvation which can only be provided by God. At least this is the conclusion drawn in the novel by the author.

The hapless scene with the young drunken girl on the judiciary reveals a number of details about the corrupting bring of the city. It is clear that Raskolnikov, along with the older man and the policeman, are raise
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