Realism in the “Crime and Punishment” of Dostoyevsky
Submitted by Submitted to
Talha Hussain Dr. Razia Majeed
1801-Bh-U-20 Asst. Professor
IDC-1103-OL3 Dept. of Urdu
Department of Philosophy and IDS
Government College University, Lahore
Dedicated to Dr. Razia Majeed,
Who made me able to analyze "Crime and Punishment" in the context of realism.
Realism in the “Crime and Punishment” of Dostoyevsky
“Crime and Punishment” is one of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's most famous novels.
First published in 1866, it is the story of Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, an
impoverished St. Petersburg ex-student who plots to kill an elderly money-lender,
Alena, and profit from her wealth. The murder however does not go as planned and
Raskolnikov must suffer the disastrous moral and psychic consequences of his
actions. As is common with Dostoyevsky's work, the author brilliantly explores the
psychology of his characters, specifically Raskolnikov and what drives him to kill.
"Crime and Punishment" is a literary masterpiece and quite simply one of the
greatest novels ever written.
What is Literary Realism?
Literary realism is a literary movement that represents reality by portraying
mundane, everyday experiences as they are in real life. It depicts familiar people,
places, and stories, primarily about the middle and lower classes of society.
Literary realism seeks to tell a story as truthfully as possible instead of dramatizing
or romanticizing it.
There are some kinds of literary realism that are given below:
Magical realism
A type of realism that blurs the lines between fantasy and reality.
Magical realism portrays the world truthfully plus adds magical elements that
are not found in our reality but are still considered normal in the world the
story takes place. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
(1967) is a magical realism novel about a man who invents a town according
to his own perception.
Social realism
A type of realism that focuses on the lives and living conditions of the
working class and the poor. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (1862) is a social
novel about class and politics in France in the early 1800s.
Kitchen sink realism
An offshoot of social realism that focuses on the lives of young
working-class British men who spend their free time drinking in pubs. Room
at the Top by John Braine (1957) is a kitchen sink realist novel about a young
man with big ambitions who struggles to realize his dreams in post-war
Britain.
Socialist Realism
A type of realism created by Joseph Stalin and adopted by
Communists. Socialist realism glorifies the struggles of the
proletariat. Cement by Fyodor Gladkov (1925) is a socialist-realist novel
about the struggles of reconstructing the Soviet Union after the Russian
Revolution.
Naturalism
An extreme form of realism influenced by Charles Darwin’s theory of
evolution, Naturalism, founded by Émile Zola, explores the belief that
science can explain all social and environmental phenomena. A Rose for
Emily by William Faulkner (1930), a short story about a recluse with a
mental illness whose fate is already determined, is an example of naturalism.
Psychological Realism
A type of realism that’s character-driven, focusing on what motivates
them to make certain decisions and why. Psychological realism sometimes
uses characters to express commentary on social or political issues. Crime
and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1866) is a psychological realist
novel about a man who hatches a plan to kill a man and take his money to get
out of poverty—but feels immense guilt and paranoia after he does it.
Realism in “Crime and Punishment”
The main literary movements with their outstanding characteristics are
romanticism, classicism, and realism. These literary schools received their
beginning in different epochs of literary development. Realism started developing
as a literary style in response to the society’s unspoken demands of that period.
Many narrators-realists from the entire globe enriched the world literature with the
literary works telling the truth about life in the countries. There is a row of talented
writers-realists such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Emile Zola, Ivan Turgenev, Leo
Tolstoy, and others. All of them had courage to share their observations and
thoughts about the world they lived in highlighting merits and demerits of the
contemporary surroundings and society.
Realism is a peculiar literary movement and style where narrators strive to
depict the actual life historically right, in vast variety of its contradictions and
complexities. The authors-realists consider literature as a textbook of life that is the
reason they are eager to comprehend the depth and meaning of life. They are more
preoccupied with a desire to understand a human being’s nature in different aspects
such as physiological, social, economic etc. The authors of Realism become
thoughtful and careful observers of the surrounding world, social conditions and
contemporaries. They scrutinize details of daily life, analyze and comprehend
people’s behavior penetrating inside human mind. Emile de Vogue, a French writer
of the XIX century, considers realism as the development of art of observation
rather than of imagination, which portrays everyday existence as it is in its
integrality and complexity with minor intervention from the author. The new
literary movement seeks for the tools to imitate nature. Searching new ways of
reflecting the actual life, the realists frequently used social conflicts, interpersonal
relations and disgusting, dark sides of the human nature.
The essay will focus on realistic tendency referring to Dostoyevsky’s Crime
and Punishment. Having given a definition and description of Realism, one will
specifies its certain peculiar distinguishing characteristics and their presence by
example of Crime and Punishment. Realism involves depiction of the character in
interaction with the surrounding community and world. It is attentive to details of
the interior environment. Realistic effect can be achieved by giving portraits and
landscapes for reflecting the age, the epoch of the described events. Furthermore,
the realists attract various characters typical to the epoch they write about. They
demonstrate characters’ portrayals and events in dynamic. Moreover, they refer to
historically concrete society and timing. There is always a conflict between a
personality and a society in the spotlight in the realistic narrative stories. The
abovementioned features are favorable to gain the realistic effect. Accuracy,
truthfulness and credibility become dominant factors of Realism. A person is
demonstrated in interplay with the surroundings and in certain environment under
certain circumstances. One can supervise and evaluate to which extent the society
may affect a person. The readers witness complex conflicts and dramatic collisions
that the characters face in the narrations. The protagonists and circumstances
interact with each other since the character is not only affected with the
circumstances but also feels amendments and transformation.
Dostoyevsky refers to all above-stated tools of realistic narration for writing
Crime and Punishment. The work is known as a drama of sin, guilt and redemption
that transmutes the horrible story of an old woman’s murder by a desperate young
man into the profoundest and most compelling philosophical and psychological
novel. Realism of Dostoyevsky starts developing in the period when the capitalistic
relations progress. Characters, ideas, thoughts, and idols of his novels date back to
the Russian social realm. An inclusive social environment of semi-educated, urban
post-reformed Russia becomes the basis of the author’s novels, and Crime and
Punishment is not an exception. Raskolnikov, Sonya Marmeladova, Razumikhin,
Svidrigaylov, Luzhin, Lizaveta and other are the characters born by the Russian
cruel reality of that time with a dramatic contrast of the society and its vividly
sharp division on the poor and the rich. Despite one may state Dostoyevsky is more
occupied with the internal world of the poor, the insulted and humiliated, the
author is more concerned with puzzling out the characters’ sufferings, moral
tortures, and emotional turmoil. Given the portraits of the characters’ line,
Dostoyevsky introduces society with its class discrepancies and contradictions
typical for the second half of the nineteenth century. The characters serve for
developing the plot; moreover, their presence is intended for conveying epoch
signs that confirms a realistic tendency in the novel.
The story of Raskolnikov’s crime and his internal moral struggle is spread
over the pages of the novel in the background of St. Petersburg’s life. One may
notice the images of drunken ex-clerk Marmeladov, his wife Katerina Ivanovna,
who suffers from tuberculosis, Raskolnikov’s mother and sister Dunya, who have
had the experience of being humiliated and have gone through difficulties of the
poverty, humiliation, scorn and negativity. The reader keeps a watch on the
students, police officials, numerous pubs, and street fellows. Dostoyevsky creates
various pictures of the psychological stresses of a poor person who is constantly in
financial difficulties. Raskolnikov, Sonya, Katerina Ivanovna, and Marmeladov
demonstrate the life of a person that is always at the edge of survival and struggle
for existence. Such a battle impoverishes them physically and morally to the great
extent and makes their lives unbearable and measurable.
Dostoyevsky’s characters live in St. Petersburg of the 60-ies in concrete
streets which remain recognizable for the contemporaries of that time as well as for
the readers nowadays. The main trade district of St. Petersburg called “Sennaya” is
surrounded with dreary streets and alleys where petty officers, traders,
moneylenders, and craftsmen reside. The narration portrays the life of boulevards,
snack bars, and taverns. Dark even mournful pictures of St. Petersburg transmit
further depressive mood of almost entire narration. The novel is full of multiple
concrete signs of that time. Its contemporaries could perceive many pages of the
book as almost physiological accurate description of 1865 year’s summer in St.
Petersburg. The readers could feel that unbearable heat and dusty sultry air, see a
plenty of taverns and cheap beerhouses in Sennaya district, shabby cab drivers,
drunken men, and German flat owners.
One may contemplate the habitual trivial life that even coincided with the
topics of St. Petersburg newspapers in 1865. In the novel, Raskolnikov is looking
through the periodicals referred to that time. In his speech, Lebezyatnikov reminds
about the book published in St. Petersburg in 1866 that was one of the newest
editions. Dostoyevsky has an idea to reflect and depict inimitable signs of the
current existing reality. Precise descriptions of St. Petersburg and variety of signs
typical for that time knitted inside the narrative allow immersing oneself into the
atmosphere of that time. Moreover, it serves as the demonstration of the
inextricable connection between the social and moral problems and the society of
the nineteenth century. The writer testifies that such a city sight with its traditions
and lifestyle can generate not only poverty and lawlessness but also fantastic
nightmarish illusions and awful ideas in human mind.
Dostoyevsky puts simple, distinctive and expressive facts of St. Petersburg’s
daily life. The author takes the readers to the city’s streets in order for them to
wander “along the embankment of the Ekaterininsky Canal” or Neva River, pass
the Yusupov Garden or the Summer Garden, and hurry up to Vasilevsky Island or
Sennaya Street. Dostoyevsky creates topographically accurate pictures of the city
realities where his characters live and suffer going through the pangs of remorse,
moral transformation and spiritual rebirth. The image of St. Petersburg is
organically integrated inside the characters’ destinies. Dostoyevsky considers the
life of St. Petersburg as the most fantastic and penetrative personification of all
contradictions existing in the Russian social life in the nineteenth century. Scenes
with St. Petersburg also serve for achieving realism in the descriptive parts of the
novel. Realistic effect is intensified due to authentic pictures of the Russian capital
of the XIX century.
The author brings characters interconnected with each other to different
extent though they are easily recognizable and understandable for the reader.
Raskolnikov and other characters exist in this world. There are many features in
Raskolnikov typical for an intellectual and intelligent youth of the second half of
the nineteenth century. He is a student forced to work along with his studies for his
living as well as for his family. Raskolnikov is contrasted by other narrative
options: his friend Razumikhin’s path of independent and common sense,
Svidridaylov’s dissipation and further suicide, Luzhin’s pragmatism, Sonya’s self-
sacrifice. Characters such as Sonya Marmeladova and Dunya Raskolnikova
represent a type of young women who constantly suffer from shortage of money,
become an object for humiliation and sexual abuses but in a different way, manage
to resist. Svidrigaylov and Luzhin belong to a wealthy class of society though with
mean moral values. Dostoyevsky strives to distinguish his characters by age from
different social classes.
All the characters of the novel agonize over the idea about sense of life,
about one’s mission. The author joins to the novel’s characters and seeks a reply to
this question together with them. Raskolnikov, Marmeladov, Sonechka, and
Svidrigailov experience their life puzzles, they make personal theories for choosing
this or that way out to justify their behavior and deeds. The novelist combines the
characters in certain groups of the society. Raskolnikov, Sonechka, Marmeladov,
Katerina Ivanovna, and other represent the lowest underclass whereas
Svidrigaylov, Luzhin, and Lebezyatnikov represent a class of wealthy people. The
characters accumulate the common features for various groups of the society
typical for that time and assist in reflecting an actual objective reality that is the
main aim of Realism.
Simultaneously with creation of various typical personalities, Dostoyevsky
builds up plot lines that contain conflicts between the characters and the society.
Coming back to Raskolnikov’s destiny in the novel, one may state that the
protagonist becomes an outrage in the society voluntarily not only due to his
poverty but also to disgusting and unreasonable committed crime. With a
committed crime, he hopes to find a solution and implementation of his theory and
instead, he finds himself in a trap of mental anguish. Raskolnikov works out a
theory of crime concluded in the idea that humanity is divided into two sections:
the great people who are allowed to commit their sets of crimes for a higher
purpose. The second category is represented by the common people, those who had
to submit to positive law and to the restrains of the social convention and morality.
Raskolnikov is naive to assume that he is capable to evaluate all details of
the crime, and that helps him to avoid punishment. He mistakenly thinks that the
crime will not change him and will not alter his attitude to the environment. His
confidence in his rightness makes him commit murder to clean the world from the
horrible pawnbroker and simultaneously grant him the desirable freedom and
power. Instead of his theory implementation, he terribly suffers from physical,
moral and mental torments. He is willing to accept a verdict from the society that
provoked him for overstepping the laws of humanity fearing to announce his one.
He is a victim and a judge joined in one person. Raskolnikov has a feeling to being
dissociated from to the society after committed murder. However, after he
identifies that his suffering is natural to lots of humanity, he reunites the society.
One may notice the conflict between a personality and the community and the
torturous internal conflict inside the human being. A story of Marmeladov is
typical for that time, and it demonstrates a conflict between a person and the
society. He blames the society for his alcoholism and squalid existence. Laws of
this society make him unemployed, desperate, homeless, and miserable. Together
with his job, Marmeladov loses his dignity, a feeling of security and social
necessity. Lacking strength of mind and being a weak-willed person, he obediently
bends to circumstances. He states: “poverty is no vice… drunkenness is also no
virtue…but destitution is a vice. In poverty you may still preserve the nobility of
your inborn feelings, but in destitution no one ever does”. Numerous life stories
help Dostoyevsky in reflecting the confrontation between people and society from
different angles. Dostoyevsky succeeds in manipulating the reader’s feelings and
consciousness causing compassion from the reading audience to the fallen
characters despite their mental instability or the dreadful nature of the crime.
To make the novel sound realistic and close to the reader, Dostoyevsky
actively uses endless continuing dialogues between the characters. The dialogue is
organically interlaced in the Crime and Punishment narration. One may hear the
voices of Raskonikov, Marmeladov, Sonechka, Svidrigaylov, Luzhin, and Porfiry
Petrovich sharing their thoughts and doubts that reflect one’s confused and
disturbed mind, pangs of remorse or conscience of guilt. Linguistically and tonally,
the dialogues reflect the human soul and serve for apprehending each character and
conceiving the consciousness. The reader comes to know about the characters,
their internal struggle and feelings through the dialogues. For example, listening to
Marmeladov’s drunken outpourings, one gets to know about Sonechka’s and
Katering Ivanovna’s life stories. Dialogues participate in the development and
discovering the novel’s plot. Dostoyevsky prefers to use dynamic form of
narration; he makes the reader travel from one place to another, following the
characters. One may see Raskolnikov’s stuffy room, a police station, outdoors, a
tavern, or Svidrigaylov’s apartment. It helps in expanding the framework of the
novel. Some scenes are shown in presence of the numerous casual bystanders and
strangers. The readers may almost feel the atmosphere of a big city, hear its noise,
movements, and voices. The bareness of many contradictions becomes trivial and
does not cause any sympathy never before had he seen or heard such unnatural
noises, such howling, screaming, snarling, tears, blows and curses, people coming
up, knocking, slamming doors, running.
In the course of writing the essay, one could come to know about a literary
movement of Realism. It is considered a truthful description and authentic
reflection of the actual environment. One highlighted the main distinct features the
realists refer to achieve the goal of the realistic narration and demonstrated their
practical usage in the novel Crime and Punishment. Therefore, Dostoyevsky
provides the readers with well-constructed set of portrayals of the complicated
“psychological and mental state of the criminal’s mind, by taking us through his
actions, interactions with other people, his inner monologues and rants during his
frantic walks” along St. Petersburg’s streets. Consequently, one may conclude that
Dostoyevsky masterfully constructs the plot lines and achieves the realistic effect
involving the pictures of the old St. Petersburg, creating typical images, and
interlacing various conflicts and characters inside the canvas of the novel. His
active use of dialogues creates polyphony multiple voices that energize the novel
and keep a reader in tense. Availability of the features specific for Realism may
allow one to consider Crime and Punishment a novel of Realism.
