Who are you trembling creature or have the right. "Am I a trembling creature or have I the right?"

09.04.2019

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F.M.Dostoevsky - the greatest Russian writer, unsurpassed realist painter, anatomist human soul, a passionate champion of the ideas of humanism and justice. His novels are distinguished by a keen interest in the intellectual life of the heroes, the disclosure of a complex and contradictory human consciousness.

The main works of Dostoevsky appeared in print in the last third of XIX century, when the crisis of the old moral and ethical principles became apparent, when the gap between the rapidly changing life and the traditional norms of life became obvious. Exactly at last third XIX century in society began to talk about the "revaluation of all values", about changing the norms of traditional Christian morality and ethics. And at the beginning of the twentieth century, this became practically the main issue among the creative intelligentsia. Dostoevsky was one of the first to see the danger of the coming reappraisal and the accompanying "dehumanization of man." He was the first to show the "devilry" that was originally concealed in such attempts. This is what all his major works are devoted to and, of course, one of central novels- "Crime and Punishment".

F.M.Dostoevsky published this novel in 1866. This is a work dedicated to the history of how long and hard the rushing human soul went through suffering and mistakes to comprehend the truth. Raskolnikov is the spiritual and compositional center of the novel. External action only reveals it internal strife... He must go through a more painful split in order to understand himself and the moral law, indissolubly connected with human essence. The hero solves the riddle of his own personality and at the same time the riddle of human nature.

Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov - the main character Novel - in the recent past, a student who left the university for ideological reasons. Despite his attractive appearance, "he was so badly dressed that another, even a familiar person, would have been ashamed to go out in such rags during the day on the street." Raskolnikov lives in extreme poverty, renting a coffin-like closet in one of the St. Petersburg houses. However, he pays little attention to the circumstances of life, as he is carried away by his own theory and the search for evidence of its validity.

Disappointed in the social ways of changing the life around him, he decides that the impact on life is possible with the help of violence, and for this a person who intends to do something for the common good should not be bound by any norms and prohibitions. Trying to help the disadvantaged, Rodion comes to the realization of his own powerlessness in the face of world evil. In despair, he decides to "violate" the moral law - to kill out of love for humanity, to do evil for the sake of good.

Raskolnikov seeks power not out of vanity, but to help people who are dying in poverty and powerlessness. However, next to this idea there is another - "Napoleonic", which gradually comes to the fore, pushing the first one. Raskolnikov divides humanity into "... two categories: into the lower (ordinary), that is, so to speak, into material that serves solely for the birth of their own kind, and actually into people, that is, those who have the gift or talent to say a new word in their midst." The second category, the minority, was born to rule and command, the first - "to live in obedience and be obedient."

The main thing for him is freedom and power, which he can use as he pleases - for good or for evil. He confesses to Sonya that he killed because he wanted to find out: "Do I have the right to have power?" He wants to understand: “Am I a louse, like everyone else, or a human? Will I be able to overstep or will I not be able to? Am I a trembling creature or do I have the right? " It is a self-test of a strong personality trying his own strength. Both ideas possess the hero's soul, reveal his consciousness.

Disconnected from everyone and shutting himself up in his corner, Raskolnikov nurtures the idea of murder. The world and people cease to be true reality for him. However, the "ugly dream" that he has cherished for a month disgusts him. Raskolnikov does not believe that he can commit murder, and despises himself for being abstract and incapable of practical action. He goes to the old woman-pawnbroker for a trial - a place to examine and try on. He thinks about violence, and his soul writhes under the burden of world suffering, protesting against cruelty.

The inconsistency of Raskolnikov's theory begins to be revealed already during the commission of a crime. Life cannot fit into a logical scheme, and Raskolnikov's well-calculated scenario is disrupted: at the most inopportune moment Lizaveta appears, and he has to kill her (and also, probably, her unborn child).

After the murder of the old woman and her sister Lizaveta, Raskolnikov experiences a deep emotional shock. Crime puts him “on the other side of good and evil”, separates him from humanity, surrounds him with an icy desert. A gloomy "feeling of painful, endless solitude and alienation suddenly consciously manifested itself in his soul." Raskolnikov has a fever, he is close to insanity and even wants to commit suicide. Rodion tries to pray, and laughs at himself. Laughter gives way to despair. Dostoevsky emphasizes the motive of the hero's alienation from people: they seem disgusting to him and cause "... endless, almost physical disgust." Even with those closest to him, he cannot speak, feeling the insurmountable border "lying" between them.

The path of crime for Raskolnikov (and according to Dostoevsky, for none of the people) is unacceptable (it is not for nothing that Dostoevsky compares Raskolnikov's crime with death, and his further resurrection takes place in the name of Christ). That human that was in Raskolnikov (he kept a sick fellow student for almost a year at his own expense, saved two children from the fire, helped, giving the last money for the funeral, to Marmeladov's widow), contributes to the early resurrection of the hero (Porfiry Petrovich's words that Raskolnikov "Did not fool myself for long"). Sonia Marmeladova resurrects Rodion to a new life. Raskolnikov's theory is contrasted with the Christian idea of atonement for one's own and others' sins by suffering (images of Sonya, Dunya, Mikolka). It was when the world of Christian spiritual values was opened for Raskolnikov (through love for Sonya) that he was finally resurrected to life.

Tired of "theory" and "dialectics", Raskolnikov begins to realize the value ordinary life: “No matter how you live - just live! What a truth! Lord, what a truth! A scoundrel man! And a scoundrel is the one who calls him a scoundrel for this. " He, who wanted to live as an "extraordinary person" worthy of a true life, is ready to put up with a simple and primitive existence. His pride is crushed: no, he is not Napoleon, with whom he constantly correlates himself, he is just an “aesthetic louse”. Instead of Toulon and Egypt, he has a "skinny ugly receptionist", but even that is enough for him to fall into despair. Raskolnikov laments that he should have known about himself in advance, about his weakness, before going to "bloody". He is unable to bear the gravity of the crime and confesses it to Sonechka. Then he goes to the police station and confesses.

By his crime, Raskolnikov struck himself out of the category of people, became an outcast, an outcast. “I didn’t kill the old woman, I killed myself,” he confesses to Sonya Marmeladova. This isolation from people prevents Raskolnikov from living. The hero's idea of the right of the strong to commit a crime turned out to be absurd. Life defeated theory. No wonder Goethe said in Faust: “Theory, my friend, sulfur. But the tree of life is eternally green. "

According to Dostoevsky, no lofty goal can justify the useless means leading to its achievement. An individualistic rebellion against the order of the surrounding life is doomed to failure. Only compassion, Christian compassion and union with others can make life better and happier.

I feel a bit uncomfortable talking about Dostoevsky. In my lectures, I usually look at literature from the only angle that interests me, that is, as a phenomenon of world art and a manifestation of personal talent. From this point of view, Dostoevsky is not a great writer, but rather mediocre, with outbursts of unsurpassed humor, which, alas, alternate with long wastelands of literary platitudes.<...>
Influence western literature in French and Russian translations, sentimental and Gothic novels by Richardson (1689-1761), Anna Radcliffe (1764-1823), Dickens (1812-1870), Rousseau (1712-1778) and Eugene Sue (1804-1857) combined in the works of Dostoevsky with religious exaltation turning into melodramatic sentimentality.<...>
Dostoevsky was never able to shake off the influence of sentimental novels and Western detectives. It is to sentimentalism that the conflict that he loved so much goes back to: putting the hero in a humiliating position and extracting maximum compassion from him. When, after returning from Siberia, Dostoevsky's ideas began to mature: salvation through sin and repentance, the ethical superiority of suffering and humility, non-resistance to evil, defense of free will not philosophically, but morally, and, finally, the main dogma opposing the egoistic anti-Christian Europe to fraternal Christian Russia, - when all these ideas (thoroughly analyzed in hundreds of textbooks) poured into his novels, a strong Western influence still remained, and I want to say that Dostoevsky, who hated the West so much, was the most European of Russian writers. It is interesting to trace the literary pedigree of his heroes. His favorite, the hero of Old Russian folklore Ivanushka the Fool, whom the brothers consider a stupid idiot, is actually devilishly quirky. A completely shameless, unpoetic and unattractive type, personifying the secret triumph of deceit over strength and power, Ivanushka the fool, the son of his people, who have experienced so many misfortunes that it would be more than enough for a dozen other peoples, oddly enough - the prototype of Prince Myshkin, the protagonist of the novel Dostoevsky's "The Idiot"<...>
Dostoevsky's bad taste, his endless digging in the souls of people with pre-Freudian complexes, the rapture of the trampled human dignity- all this is not easy to admire. It disgusts me how his heroes “come to Christ through sin,” or, in the words of Bunin, this manner of Dostoevsky “stick Christ where it is necessary and not necessary”. Just as music leaves me indifferent, to my regret, I am indifferent to Dostoevsky the prophet. The best that he wrote, I think "Double". This story, presented very skillfully, in the opinion of the critic Mirsky, - with many almost Joyce-like details, densely saturated with phonetic and rhythmic expressiveness - tells the story of an official who lost his mind, imagining that his colleague had appropriated his identity. This story is a perfect masterpiece, but admirers of Dostoevsky the prophet are unlikely to agree with me, since it was written in 1840, long before the so-called great novels, besides, the imitation of Gogol is sometimes so striking that at times the book seems almost a parody.<...>
It is doubtful whether it is possible to speak seriously about the "realism" or "human experience" of the writer, who created a whole gallery of neurotics and the mentally ill. - Lectures on Russian literature. M: Independent newspaper 1999.S. 170-171, 176-178, 183.

I killed myself, not the old woman ...

F. M. Dostoevsky

FM Dostoevsky is the greatest Russian writer, an unsurpassed realist artist, an anatomist of the human soul, a passionate champion of the ideas of humanism and justice. His novels are distinguished by a keen interest in the intellectual life of the heroes, the disclosure of a complex and contradictory human consciousness.

The main works of Dostoevsky appeared in print in the last third of the 19th century, when a crisis of old moral and ethical principles emerged, when the gap between a rapidly changing life and traditional norms of life became obvious. It was in the last third of the 19th century that people started talking about "re-evaluating all values", about changing the norms of traditional Christian morality and ethics. And at the beginning of the twentieth century, this became practically the main issue among the creative intelligentsia. Dostoevsky was one of the first to see the danger of the coming reappraisal and the accompanying "dehumanization of man." He was the first to show the "devilry" that was originally concealed in such attempts. This is what all his major works are devoted to and, of course, one of the central novels - "Crime and Punishment".

Raskolnikov is the spiritual and compositional center of the novel. External action only reveals his internal struggle. He must go through a more painful split in order to understand himself and the moral law, indissolubly connected with human essence. The hero solves the riddle of his own personality and at the same time the riddle of human nature.

Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov - the main character of the novel - in the recent past, a student who left the university for ideological reasons. Despite his attractive appearance, "he was so badly dressed that another, even a familiar person, would have been ashamed to go out in such rags during the day on the street." Raskolnikov lives in extreme poverty, renting a coffin-like closet in one of the St. Petersburg houses. However, he pays little attention to the circumstances of life, as he is carried away by his own theory and the search for evidence of its validity.

Raskolnikov seeks power not out of vanity, but to help people who are dying in poverty and powerlessness. However, next to this idea there is another - "Napoleonic", which gradually comes to the fore, pushing back the first. Raskolnikov divides humanity into "... two categories: into the lower (ordinary), that is, so to speak, into material that serves solely for the birth of their own kind, and actually into people, that is, those who have the gift or talent to say a new word in their midst ". The second category, the minority, was born to rule and command, the first - "to live in obedience and be obedient."

The main thing for him is freedom and power, which he can use as he pleases -for good or evil. He confesses to Sonya that he killed because he wanted to find out: "Do I have the right to have power?" He wants to understand: "Am I a louse, like everyone else, or a human? Will I be able to overstep or not? Am I a trembling creature or have I the right?" It is a self-test of a strong personality trying his own strength. Both ideas possess the hero's soul, reveal his consciousness.

Disconnected from everyone and shutting himself up in his corner, Raskolnikov nurtures the idea of murder. The world around him and people cease to be a true reality for him. However, the "hideous dream" that he has cherished for a month is disgusting to him. Raskolnikov does not believe that he can commit murder, and despises himself for being abstract and incapable of practical action. He goes to the old woman-pawnbroker for a trial - a place to examine and try on. He thinks about violence, and his soul writhes under the burden of world suffering, protesting against cruelty.

After the murder of the old woman and her sister Lizaveta, Raskolnikov experiences a deep emotional shock. Crime puts him "on the other side of good and evil", separates him from humanity, surrounds him with an icy desert. A gloomy "feeling of painful, endless solitude and alienation suddenly consciously manifested itself in his soul." Raskolnikov has a fever, he is close to insanity and even wants to commit suicide. Rodion tries to pray, and laughs at himself. Laughter gives way to despair. Dostoevsky emphasizes the motive of the hero's alienation from people: they seem disgusting to him and cause "... endless, almost physical disgust." Even with those closest to him, he cannot speak, feeling the insurmountable border "lying" between them.

The path of crime for Raskolnikov (and according to Dostoevsky, for none of the people) is unacceptable (it is not for nothing that Dostoevsky compares Raskolnikov's crime with death, and his further resurrection takes place in the name of Christ). That human that was in Raskolnikov (he kept a sick fellow student for almost a year at his own expense, saved two children from the fire, helped, giving the last money for the funeral, to Marmeladov's widow), contributes to the early resurrection of the hero (Porfiry Petrovich's words that Raskolnikov "did not fool myself for long"). Sonia Marmeladova resurrects Rodion to a new life. Raskolnikov's theory is contrasted with the Christian idea of atonement for one's own and others' sins by suffering (images of Sonya, Dunya, Mikolka). It was when the world of Christian spiritual values was opened for Raskolnikov (through love for Sonya) that he was finally resurrected to life.

Tired of "theory" and "dialectics", Raskolnikov begins to realize the value of ordinary life: "No matter how you live - just live! What a truth! God, what a truth! A scoundrel is a man! And a scoundrel is the one who calls him a scoundrel". He, who wanted to live as an "extraordinary person" worthy of a true life, is ready to put up with a simple and primitive existence. His pride is crushed: no, he is not Napoleon, with whom he constantly correlates himself, he is just an "aesthetic louse". Instead of Toulon and Egypt, he has a "skinny ugly receptionist", but even that is enough for him to fall into despair. Raskolnikov laments that he should have known about himself in advance, about his weakness, before going to "get blood". He is unable to bear the gravity of the crime and confesses it to Sonechka. Then he goes to the police station and confesses.

The hero's idea of the right of the strong to commit a crime turned out to be absurd. Life defeated theory. No wonder Goethe said in Faust: "The theory, my friend, is sulfur. But the tree of life is eternally green."

It was not for nothing that this question, wild at the present time, worried the famous literary character, and with him a large part of the intelligent public at the end of the vigorous, rational and self-confident nineteenth century. After all, stupid, boring rationalism, coupled with impenetrable self-confidence, as psychiatrists well know, is a sure sign mental illness... And vice versa, to a reasonable person, today, as in the distant past, a skeptical attitude towards one's abilities is characteristic. " All I know is that I know nothing", - says Socrates, and St. John Climacus recommends “ chuckle at one's own wisdom».

Today, almost a century and a half later, Raskolnikov's reasoning really sounds like one hundred percent nonsense: “I just hinted that an“ extraordinary ”person has the right ... that is, not an official right, but he himself has the right to allow his conscience to step over ... through other obstacles ... "It is obvious, however, that his contemporaries perceived him differently: otherwise the author of" Crime and Punishment "would not have deserved his fame. And the dispute between Porfiry Petrovich and Raskolnikov in the context of the novel looks more likely not as a conversation between a healthy person and a madman, but as a dispute on an equal footing. Dostoevsky is even forced to return to this dispute and involve other participants in it, other artistic means: “I had to find out then, and quickly find out whether I am a louse, like everyone else, or a human? Will I be able to step over or will I not be able to! Do I dare to bend over and take it or not? Am I a trembling creature or have the right ... - Kill? Do you have the right to kill?- Sonya threw up her hands. "

It is not surprising that Raskolnikov has nothing to answer her. The madness of the nineteenth century, as if in a textbook case history, progressed from symptom to symptom, with universal connivance, until it erupted into a violent explosion in the twentieth. And only today, somewhat subdued by the blood shed in the search for and assertion of "human rights", people gradually began to come to their senses, to understand the legacy that the "progressives", "liberals" and "enlighteners" left them ...

Human rights mean at least two different directions ethical, legal and political thought. The first direction formulates mainly negative theses: freedom from coercion or persecution of one kind or another, non-interference of the state in certain spheres of human life. The second puts forward positive demands, such as the right to work, to social security, to education, medical care, etc., declaring, on the contrary, active state participation in Everyday life of people. They are sometimes referred to as the first and second generation of human rights. The first, respectively earlier, is based on political philosophy individualism of the 17th - 18th centuries; the second - on later socialist theories.

At first glance, human rights in this formulation, whether of the first or second generation, look quite reasonable and attractive: they seem to have absolutely nothing in common with the bloody fantasies of the schismatics. But this is only at first glance. Even the American Declaration of Independence was based on the position, to put it mildly, very dubious from the point of view of common sense and Christian worldview: “ We consider it self-evident that all people are created equal and equally endowed by the Creator with inalienable rights ...»Isn't a person taking on too much by declaring the Creator as his counterparty in the legal procedure? And if, nevertheless, this would happen, then for what reason the Creator, who has endowed his creation with certain rights, cannot take them away with the same ease? ...

However, the founders of the American Republic, for all our critical attitude towards them, cannot nevertheless be accused of idiocy. They proceeded from the once popular concept of the so-called "natural law", which spread in the West along with medieval scholasticism and was subsequently discredited, as in practical life, and in theory. It was not for nothing that the condition of the equality of people formed the basis of the Declaration of Independence, and a few years later, along with a fairly specific freedom and a completely fantastic brotherhood, it turned out to be among basic principles French Revolution... However, tell me, how often have you seen, in addition to identical twins, two equal people?

You, of course, will hasten to convince you that it comes only about the equality of people before the law, in contrast, they say, to the old feudal order, when for the same violation from an aristocrat there was so much, and from a commoner so much. But do not rush to fall for beliefs. Better notice the obvious vicious circle: "human rights" are formulated on the basis of the very equality of people, which is then deduced from them as a legal norm ...

One way or another, by the time of Raskolnikov, human rights are attracting a steady interest, and their attractiveness, of course, is in inverse proportion to attainability. This is especially true for second generation rights. And since the equality of people - factual and not legal - has long been self-evident nonsense, the thought of differentiation naturally arises: to different people, so to speak, different rights.

So it is not surprising that the long saga of human rights today, in the 21st century, has led us along the dialectical curve to the third generation of these same rights - to the "group rights" of all kinds of minorities, national, sexual and others. In the USSR, during the stagnation period, restrictions and preferences for certain nations were practiced when hiring, in universities, etc., and everyone gritted their teeth about such injustice, looking with longing and hope towards the progressive West. But in the progressive West, especially in the American cradle of democracy, the same (and much worse) restrictions and preferences have long evoked almost no emotion. I remember that in 1985, when everything was new to me in the United States, I started listening to Bruce Williams' radio show - open air consultations on labor and commercial matters - and a hapless businessman of Anglo-Saxon origin called the studio with a complaint about the city council, where he could not get the contract in any way. The businessman asked if he needed to change his last name to Gonzales or Suarez in this regard ... Truly, jokes know no bounds.

So what are human rights? How do children say: are they "good" or "bad"? Do they lead to well-being and justice, or to abuse, ax and dynamite? For the answer, you can turn to another Russian author, whose hero participated in the discussion about "respect for the peasant":

... There is a man and a man -

If he does not drink the harvest,

I respect the man then!

The same should be answered exactly to us: there are rights and rights. If they act as a working tool of social and economic relations, if - as Margaret Thatcher notes in her new book - do not try to develop them in a vacuum, in isolation from the living tradition of a given society, and thereby undermine the national interests and sovereignty of the country, then we respect, protect and care for these rights.

But our “human rights defenders” do not need such rights. It is appropriate to liken them to a bearded man with a submachine gun that came out of the forest against a frightened old woman:

- Granny, where are the Germans?

- Germans?? The Germans, iris, have been driven out twenty years ago.

- Yah? And I’m letting all the trains go downhill ...

The bearded man, at least, managed to rethink his mission. Where are the "human rights defenders"! At the same time, despite all their madness, they quite reasonably conduct their struggle on the internal front: “ a person has the right ... that is, not an official right, but he himself has the right to allow his conscience to step over ... In other words, for schismatics of the past and present, law works as an inhibitor of conscience. Or maybe as a killer.

If "human rights" become a supranational force, a kind of idol or demiurge that challenges the Creator and replaces a sober Christian view of man and society - then forgive me, we have no place for such rights. And it won't.

In the novel "Crime and Punishment" everything is subordinated to the disclosure and comprehension of a deep moral idea... No question deserves a definite answer. In his confession, the protagonist exclaims in his hearts: "Am I trembling creature or do I have the right?" Can a person encroach on the life of another, for the sake of victory over world evil and in the name of universal happiness? The answer seems obvious. But for some reason, even today, after a century and a half since the release of the brilliant work, the question does not lose its relevance.

Motive for the crime

One day, a poor student plans to kill an old woman borrower. In the district about this woman there is a bad reputation, as if she is a "bloodsucker", and because of her monstrous greed, people are quiet, unhappy, but harmless.

Rodion Raskolnikov needs money not to satisfy base, selfish desires. With the help of them, he will be able to graduate from the university, help his mother and sister, get out of the debt hole. Then he will certainly fight all his life against injustice and human suffering. The percentage is just a "useless louse." Her death is a small loss. To complete judgment on her is a step that must be overcome. Only with the help of this crime will Raskolnikov gain strength and cease to be an unhappy creature compelled to "Am I trembling creature, or do I have the right?" Dostoevsky put into these words the torment of the human soul over the eternal question of whether all means are suitable for achieving a good goal.

Confession

It will take only two weeks from the moment of the crime, and Raskolnikov confesses to his atrocity To the question "Am I trembling creature or do I have the right?" then he will not have an answer yet. He was never able to carry out his immoral plan, despite the high goal and good intentions. Sonya will help him to comprehend his terrible act, but repentance will come much later, in hard labor.

On the day of his meeting with Sonya, he is terribly disturbed by the upcoming conversation, since he already feels that his soul has split into two parts. He committed a murder, but he cannot use the money obtained as a result of this atrocity. Nobody made him a judge and did not give him the right to decide who lives and who dies. But he thinks it makes no sense to go with a confession to the investigator. There they will not understand him, but they will only laugh: he robbed him, but did not take the money.

In the meantime, the bailiff of investigative affairs knew the name of the offender. The only piece of evidence was the article that Raskolnikov wrote shortly before the events described. This article would have had no weight in court. But something in her indicated that the killer would sooner or later confess everything himself.

Raskolnikov's article

It all starts with this composition. In it, Raskolnikov tried to prove the existence of "higher people" and their right to crime. Strong personalities move the world, others are just material in the hands of the strongest. All people in his article Raskolnikov divides into two types: lower and higher. People of the second kind are by nature destroyers. But they destroy the present in the name of the future. And if strong man it is necessary to step over a corpse or blood, then permission for this act, he gives himself, alone. Such a person has the right to everything.

Raskolnikov undoubtedly considers himself to be in the second world. But here he has a completely logical need to prove to himself this involvement. He asks himself the following question: "Am I a trembling creature, or do I have the right?" Where did this confidence come from that he was allowed to break the law if he had not previously committed it? Thus, the murder of an old woman is not only a way to get out of poverty, but also to confirm to oneself the right to a crime, and thereby participation in strong people, to those who are allowed to do everything.

Investigator and Criminal: Psychological Duel

Porfiry Petrovich called Raskolnikov's article absurd and fantastic. But the sincerity of its author did not leave the investigator indifferent.

He has no evidence, but the way the crime was committed speaks of the ardor and instability of the killer. The criminal is not guided solely by the greed for profit, which can be seen by an experienced investigator already at the first stage of the investigation. The style in which the robbery was committed indicates that the author is able to take the first step, but stop there. His motives are dreams that have little to do with reality (commits murder, but does not close the door; hides money, but returns to the crime scene). As if he wants to prove something to himself, as if he asks himself: "Am I trembling creature or do I have the right?" The author of the utopian article is also thinking about rights. And he is sure that he is smart and strong personalities everything is permissible. Porfiry Petrovich understands that the author of the article and the killer of the usurer are one person. True, theoretical reasoning turned out to be inapplicable in practice. The creator of the theory did not take into account the existence of other values - virtue, love, self-sacrifice.

Lizaveta - an accidental victim

Raskolnikov gave himself the right to kill. According to his theory, without sacrifice, it is impossible to change the world in better side... Destroying a useless person will not do any harm to others. And with the death of Alena Ivanovna, her debtors only sighed calmly. But student Raskolnikov has a cold heart only on paper. Killing an old woman who profited from usury, "drank the blood" of the unfortunate, is not an easy task, the ambitious Rodion Romanovich is confident in his righteousness, and therefore, he is not afraid. However, what about the unrequited and meek Lizaveta, who appears so at the wrong time in the old woman's apartment? Raskolnikov did not plan to kill her. "Am I a trembling creature, or do I have the right?" - a dilemma that he is unable to solve also because the victim is a quiet innocent creature.

Svidrigailov

Raskolnikov and Svidrigailova literary critics are called spiritual counterparts. They are united by crime. Both of them, in their own assessment, are "eligible." Their fates are similar. But if a poor student, going on a crime, asks the question “Am I trembling or have the right?”, The meaning of which has a deep connotation and is associated with continuous torment of conscience, then Svidrigailov commits atrocities without any remorse. He lives on, he perceives the murder very cold-bloodedly. For him, crime is a means by which he can live as he wants. In his soul there is no place for good thoughts and the fight against injustice. There is nothing in it at all. And it is from his own spiritual emptiness that he dies.

The death of Svidrigailov finds a response in the soul of the protagonist of the novel. After her, he realizes his death and realizes that on the unfortunate day he finished not with the old woman-pawnbroker, but with his own soul.

Sonechka Marmeladova

With the help of this image, Dostoevsky expresses an opinion opposite to Raskolnikov's theory. Sofya Marmeladova is the personification of hope and love. For her, all people are equal. And the main belief of this character is that it is impossible to achieve happiness through crime.

Raskolnikov and Marmeladova live in different worlds... He is guided by the idea of spiritual rebellion, it is by Christian humility. Through compassion and sympathy, she protects her soul and remains a pure and sincere person, despite the moral and moral filth that surrounds her. Confessing to Sonya in the murder, Raskolnikov, confused, gives the reasons that prompted him to commit the crime. Among them is the unwillingness to see the suffering of the mother and sister, and the desire to get an education and break out into people. "Am I a trembling creature or do I have a right?" - he asks the question, which has now become rhetorical, because thanks to Sonya he understands that he is no better and no worse than others. Fate has prescribed its own path to everyone, and nothing depends on a person. Only from God.

Laurels of the little Corsican

Raskolnikov wants to understand who he is, asking the question "Am I a trembling creature or do I have the right?" Tormented in search of truth, he puts forward a monstrous idea. Napoleon became his idol. And it is no coincidence. This man was a cult figure of the 19th century. In creating his cruel philosophy, Rodion Romanovich constantly looks back at Bonaparte, who was a violator of moral norms and public order. Napoleon sacrificed everything for the sake of satisfying the lust for power, disposed of hundreds human lives... And he did it in cold blood, calmly, indifferently.

Having once divided people into two categories, the hero of the novel is concerned about which of them he belongs to. Napoleon was making history. He saw clearly his purpose, and the death of innocent people did not bother him. Raskolnikov never dreamed of becoming a great commander. He wanted to see happy mother, sister and all the disadvantaged and unhappy who surrounded him. For this, he believed, it was enough to kill one worthless person, "a useless louse."

The Marmeladov family lived in inhuman conditions at the expense of their daughter, who was forced to sell herself. Raskolnikov donated all his money to them. But he could not use the stolen ones.

Raskolnikovs in world history

"Am I a trembling creature, or do I have the right?" - a quote that, on closer inspection, is associated with the most terrible slogans in the history of mankind. The division of people into "trembling creatures" and "having the right" is reminiscent of the theory of a higher race, created by the German Nazis. Raskolnikov is often associated with the theory of the "superman" by Friedrich Nietzsche. This consonance is not accidental.

While in hard labor, Dostoevsky more than once met such aggressive young dreamers. They were depressed This spirit of discontent hovered in the air until the beginning of the next century. Nietzsche created the theory that was expected. Many wanted to become strong and change the world. And there was nothing criminal about it. If not for terror and violence, without which no political and social transformation took place.

In his novel, Dostoevsky strove to convey to his readers that evil cannot benefit anyone, and above all those who committed it. The famous question of Raskolnikov remains open only for those who do not share the philosophical and moral position a writer.