Crime and Punishment

1. Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky Written in 1865-1866 St. Petersburg, Russia

2. The Life of Dostoevsky • Born one of six children in Moscow in 1821 • Fyodor was emotionally troubled and alienated friends with his moods • After quitting the military, he began writing about his own youth which was full of misery, isolation and insecurity. • First bestseller was Poor Folk- it was admired for its character study and romantic socialism

3. Troubled Times • Arrested in 1849 for his reckless socialistic articles and condemned to die by firing squad • Saved by the tsar, he was instead sentenced to 4 years of hard labor in Siberia. • This further contributed to his fears and alienation and he developed epilepsy. • In 1853 he experienced a religious conversion. • He began a socialist newspaper and once more received unfavorable criticism

4. Crime and Punishment • Poor and reduced to begging, Fyodor began writing C and P. • It was serialized in The Russian Messenger and appeared in English 4 years later. • Returned to St. Petersburg and became a literary idol. • Died in 1881 of a epileptic seizure.

5. About the Novel • Setting – the Russian city of St. Petersburg and a prison in Siberia • Third person omniscient • Psychological novel- Raskolnikov’s tortured psychological punishment

6. Russian Translations • Raskolnikov – “raskol” means “schism” or “split” in Russian • Luzha – “puddle” • Razum – “reason”, “intelligence” Russian word for crime is “prestuplenie” Directly translated means -“stepping over the line”

7. Themes • Alienation from Society – at first Raskolnikov is separated by his pride, and later by his guilt and its intense psychological and physical effects

8. Superman theme • An extraordinary person above moral laws • “steps beyond” and has no conscience • Nietzche – “In Beyond Good and Evil”, 2 types of morality: master-morality and slave-morality. • The higher type of man creates his own values and the meek and powerless are at their mercy.

9. Nihilism Portrait of Friedrich Nietczhe • Philosophical idea – developed in Russia 1850-1860 • Rejected family, societal bonds and emotional and aesthetic concerns • Favored strict “materialism”- no mind or soul outside of the physical • Nietzche’s nihilism – active vs. passive • Active nihilism seeks to destroy what it no longer believes in .

10. “There will be wars such as there have never been on earth before. Only from my time on will there be on earth politics on the grand scale”Nietzche