Literary Thoughts: Raskolnikov

Literary Thoughts:
Raskolnikov

http://www.againwiththecomics.com/2007/08/batman-by-dostoyevsky.html

I recently finished reading Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky and felt the need to expunge some word vomit. I have waited to read Crime and Punishment for truly the hippest of hipster reasons, that of course being that it is Dostoevsky’s most widely read book.  I instead wanted to read those less known works first, out of intellectual vanity. 

However Crime and Punishment did not disappoint at all. In fact I find myself sympathizing with Raskolnikov more than any of Dostoevsky’s character besides perhaps Ivan Karamazov. Many denounce this troubled soul as a villain, and use his story as a cautionary tale of the dangers of unrestrained progressive ideals. To some extent this is warranted.

Raskolnikov in my eyes is a man, neither hero nor villain. Dostoevsky does this well with his characters, all of whom are brutally flawed and often tragically beautiful. This, to me, best reflects life. There are no storybook princes or heroines, even the greatest men and women had intense character flaws; history has just done its best to gloss over them.  

  

Again I say I sympathize with the young scholar. He is morose and sullen and a bit of an ass, but truly in his heart there is great compassion. I know how it feels to wander the night in a feverish state without rest for hours on end. No matter how far you walk you can never get away from yourself. And so Raskolnikov finds that the only comfort he will find will be in confronting his crime. He takes responsibility for his actions, he does not shirk from the consequences, and indeed his honesty is startling in his confession.

He does not compromise his ideals (however misguided they may be) and still believes, even in Siberia that his murdering of the pawnbroker for the greater good was justified. There is a part of me that does not disagree with him, he realizes the consequences of his actions and in a way stays consistent with his original idea. 

Part of his essay “On Crime,” points out that society as a whole acts as the arbitrator for those “who are above it.” In this regard Raskolnikov faces the fact that he cannot live with himself and maintain his sanity within society and accepts the full consequences of his actions. In doing so he is admitting that he is not one that wants rise above society’s laws, this is not to say he cannot. His moral compass is shaped by his own reason and experience. He does not allow the cookie cutter mold of what he is told to make a deep impression, instead he constantly questions and reshapes his own values. In this way Raskolnikov is morally superior. 

The true reason for his change of heart is the character Svidrigailov. Svidrigailov shows the twisted and evil side of Raskolnikov’s idea: that those who are capable of overcoming and avoiding crime are morally allowed to be unrestricted. Dostoevsky loves to do this in his stories, The Brothers Karamazov has the twisted reflection of Ivan’s “everything is permitted philosophy” in Smerdyakov patricide; while The Possessed has the mirrored yet opposite ideologies of the elder Verkhovensky and his son. 

Svidrigailov lives his life committing atrocious crimes only for his own self-interested passion, and he is very good at getting away with them. In many ways he exemplifies Raskolnikov idea of the superior man, based on his intelligence and ability. Where he does not fit into Raskolnikov’s idea is that unlike the Napoleon’s, he is not serving mankind. 

When we contrast Svidrigailov with the character of Sonya, who prostitutes herself out for her family, essentially committing a grievous social crime, we see that she also is not acting for mankind. She is doing so out of love for her young step-siblings who would starve without her. She does it for her family and for God, and becomes a martyr in Raskolnikov’s eyes.

The contrast of these two characters that unknowingly live through Raskolnikov’s ideological crisis is what brings him to his knees. He sees that in some sense the idea is absolutely just (Sonya) and in another sense evil (Svidrigailov) this realization is absurd and inconsolable in his heart.  It is also what allows him to realize that his actions were not done, truly for humanity and the greater good, but for his own pride. 

And that suffering leads to his confession. Though he never relinquishes his pride, he allows Sonya’s love to finally give him peace. 

In my eyes Raskolnikov is a tragic hero. He brings about much of his own suffering, but has the courage to admit it; he willingly suffers for his mistakes and in doing so allows love into his heart.  

Everyone has a Rock

Everyone has a Rock

            I have been told that I was a bit of a smart ass as a child. Too clever for my own good, thought about stuff too much, a bit of a weirdo, off; you know the kid. I asked questions that adults didn’t like. When I was 9, I remember asking several people “What is the meaning of life?” I don’t remember what prompted this type of inquiry, but I remember the utter failure in the responses I received. Some would just give me the “weird kid” eye and halfheartedly remark about me being a smart ass. Others would give me a traditional Judeo-Christian response; this answer seemed good natured and right, but I had known that Santa wasn’t real since four and it always smelled a bit like a fairy tale. Now my religious inadequacies aside no answer even came close to satisfying.

            My sister is four years older than me and we would always get into petty arguments over who knew more. She was ahead in school and so I had to rely on crafty trick questions to win such arguments. One such question was:

            “Well, what is the meaning of life then?”

            Every time this would stammer her, with responses like “No one can answer that,” or “to do Good and go to heaven.”  

            And I would always smirk and reply: “Trick question; there is no meaning.”

            What started as a curiosity and clever answer to a hard question, has stuck with me for fifteen years, at times driving me to sickness and psychosis.  I am an avid reader of those who struggle with this question. Religious texts, existentialist literature, atheist ideologies and philosophy, I gobble them up, hoping for a better answer.

            There is one book in particular that has helped (this may not be the best verb for how it has affected me) me immensely in my life. Albert Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus.

            I am not going to say that I recommend this book to the casual reader. It is neither fun to read nor easy. The primary base of the text addresses the issue of the absurd and its implications and reads (albeit more eloquently) as a philosophy text. Famously the text begins with the challenge that:

“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.”

            This hooked me. Camus struggles with the idea of the absurd in its relation to suicide. The absurd as he understands it is “the actor divorced from his setting.” In essence he concludes that man/woman’s rationality and reason can never fully make sense of the random chaos of the universe. There are only two options left after such an observation:

A)    Take a leap of faith- whether it is religious or philosophical. That is to say come to a conclusion that directly contradicts your reason.

B)     Conclude that life is meaningless.  

Like me, Camus has a fundamental handicap in the faith department. For him, faith goes against rationality and is akin to lying to oneself (at least for him, he makes no claim to others). There is a painful honesty in this, and leads him to confront the only other conclusion available- meaninglessness.

Much of Camus philosophy is an embittered battle against the nihilism he struggles with. Camus has to face his original question, if there is no point, why not off yourself? He rejects this notion and in doing so attempts to refute nihilism. He asserts that, truly the only way to live is to stare the absurd in the face. To never let the inherent contradiction of the human condition escape your attention. Suicide is much like a leap of faith; it removes the question instead of answering it. By facing the absurd one can live life with the fullest freedom and laugh when the entire world weeps. He maintains that this is a constant struggle and that it should be embraced as such.

So despite the meaninglessness of life, we raise our middle fingers to the universe and that we live with such purpose, we live our lives so hard, we live in constant contradiction to the world, that we are truly free.

Alright I know I am boring you with philosophy again. So let’s get to the good part. Camus embeds a story among all his philosophy to best convey its purpose: The Myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus is ancient Greek hero considered the wisest of mortals who escapes death and scorns the gods. His mortality catches up with him and he is condemned to the terrible fate of pointless labor for eternity.

“He is, as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth. Nothing is told us about Sisyphus in the underworld. Myths are made for the imagination to breathe life into them. As for this myth, one sees merely the whole effort of a body straining to raise the huge stone, to roll it, and push it up a slope a hundred times over; one sees the face screwed up, the cheek tight against the stone, the shoulder bracing the clay-covered mass, the foot wedging it, the fresh start with arms outstretched, the wholly human security of two earth-clotted hands. At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments toward that lower world whence he will have to push it up again toward the summit. He goes back down to the plain.

It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.”

For me, this says much. Life is often hard and there is no standard measurement for acceptable misery. What this truly means to me is that the world is what I make of it and that even if my experience contains suffering, I can shape my reaction and indeed my outlook on it. You can be strengthened by your circumstance. Indeed the most beautiful people are often the most scarred (insert cliché alarm).

When I get really sick with UC, I have to read The Myth of Sisyphus. Because when throwing up blood and rolling around with the burning hot knife of pancreatic acid cramps, I can decide that I am stronger than my rock. It has facilitated my finding of creativity, determination and compassion while bedridden for months at a time. It has helped me to make fuel from shit, to drive me into an impassioned frenzy rather than a stagnant pit. And it has convinced me more than once that giving up is horseshit. So….

“I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

You should read the Story- http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/00/pwillen1/lit/msysip.htm