(WARNING SPOILERS) For my close reading project I chose to read the book Crime and Punishment by Feodor Dostoevesky. Crime and Punishment is about a poor man named Raskolnikov (I call him Ras for short) who is in debt to the pawn shop lady Alena Ivanovna. He sees that there are many other people who are in debt to alena and it's ruining there lives too. He decides to kill her thinking it's for the better, he gets caught in the act by alena's sister, Lizaveta, and he has to kill her too. He then goes insane and gets a terrible fever. If I told the rest it'd be too much. You're just gonna have to read it on your own.
Crime and Punishment is about many things. Alcoholism, the evil within one, what someone would do to save themselves from poverty, and immediate-gratification. Let's start with Alcoholism. Ras' best friend Marmelodov was an alcoholic. A few months after Ras killed the two women Marmelodov gets so drunk that he wonders into the road and gets run over by a horse carriage. I imagine that Feodor Dostoevesky wanted to express that alcoholism is something that is okay, but shouldn't be taken for granted. Which comes to my next point, immediate-gratification, Marmelodov kept wanting more drinks, because he thought he deserved it for doing his job every day. He ended up dying from his addiction.
The evil within one and what someone would do to save themselves from poverty are both very similar, so I will talk about both as one. Ras couldn't deal with how poor he was, and he broke. He took an axe from a neighbors house went to Alena's house and killed her and Lizaveta in almost an instance, without any second thoughts. He ended up taking the money back he gave to Alena. Ras wouldn't give in. He kept hiding. Someone who didn't even do it gave in and Ras watched it happen feeling nothing.
Overall, this book is beautiful and so great. It takes a while to read, but it's worth it. Please read this book. It changed my life. I hope you can see why this book is so good if you read it.
No comments:
Post a Comment