Fyodor Dostoevsky became a classic of Russian and world literature due to his ability to feel the subtle psychology of broken people, to create them in his works so that they seem frighteningly real. In the novel Crime and Punishment, the author tells readers about the tragic events in the streets of St. Petersburg when a student Rodion Raskolnikov commits a double murder, led by the cruel idea of superiority.
According to Faro, this idea is based on the belief that “the man who stands above (morals) is exceptional and can even be authorized to commit a perfect crime” (274). The principal innovation in the work is that the criminal is not overtaken by the punishing hand of the law, but he condemns himself to the torment of his conscience. This work aims to provide a detailed analysis of the epilogue, based on the author’s style, means of language, and the main idea of the novel.
The epilogue of the novel explains how Raskolnikov confesses to the murder. He even remembers the dialogue between the people who ran into the apartment after him (Dostoevsky 375). The accuracy with which Rodion describes the preparations for the crime, its commission, and what happened later shows how deeply these memories are buried in him. The fact that the killer is trying to exaggerate his guilt not only suggests that he is no longer afraid of justice but is also very anxious to be given capital punishment. He understands that the real torture is the months that have passed after the crime at large.
Raskolnikov serves a sentence in a Siberian prison, where to Sonia Marmeladova, a former prostitute, follows him. She was the first person Rascolnicov told about the committed murder, and the girl felt sorry for him, seeing him suffer (Dostoevsky 218). Dostoevsky describes how Rodion fell on his knees beside her, “wept and threw his arms round her knees” (377). The author shows the character alive and feeling at this moment: Rodion allows himself to be vulnerable, to show his weaknesses only when Sonia is around. The fact that he is drawn to her by some force reveals the spontaneity of his impulse, his sincerity. The gesture itself symbolizes admiration, adoration, and repentance.
In the episode about the testimony and condemnation of Raskolnikov, the tone of the narrative is doomed, filled with hopelessness. The syntactic structure of sentences is very dry. Diction of the narrative at the beginning of the epilogue is very abstract; the author lists the actual facts: the location of the character, his fate after the confession, and the transfer of his testimony. The style of presentation of the events here is very businesslike, which contrasts with the detailed and emotional description at the end of the epilogue.
In the scene with Sonya, the phrases are filled with clarifying structures, epithets; parceling conveys the excitement of the characters. The reader feels Rodion’s hope, his affection for the woman who went through everything with him and the inspiration of the previously rejected ideas from the New Testament. The author uses a simile to show the harmonic parallelism of Rodion’s history with the biblical resurrection of Lazarus. Dostoevsky draws the characters’ faces “bright with the dawn of a new future” (377). This metaphor is full of imagery; it shows that even a fallen man who thought he was dead inside can be resurrected, if his soul is pure.
Fyodor Dostoevsky shows in his novel that physical punishment is incomparable with the torment that an honest person can experience, driven mad by guilt and crushed by the weight of an unconfessed sin. The core meaning of the epilogue is that the commission of a crime can cripple a person’s soul, but the hope for a new beginning stems from repentance, faith, and the desire to atone. Only by forgiving himself, Rodion finds peace of mind and opens to new, bright feelings. The author leads the reader not to the religious ideas, but to the thought that, on the other side of pain and despair, the risen is awaited by love and hope.
Works Cited
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment. Penguin Classics, 2014.
Faro, Giorgio. “A Criminal’s Confession: Comparing Rival Ethics in Crime and Punishment (F. Dostoevsky).” Church, Communication and Culture, vol. 2, no. 3, 2017, pp. 272-283.