Crime and Punishment is a great novel ...a masterpiece. I think that Dostoyevsky through his novel unraveled the different meanings of crime. He wanted to drive the readers or the people’s attention to their superficial way of defining the word or act of crime and criminals...dealing with the question of what is meant by a crime. In the novel the murderer stated that : “ I fail to understand why bombarding people by regular siege is more honorable”. Another quote by his sister (Dounia) asking “why you have shed blood!”…he (murderer) replied: “ which all men shed, he put in almost frantically, which flows in streams, which is split like champagne and for which men are crowned in the Capitol and are called afterwards benefactors of mankind. Look into it more carefully and understand it!”. I think that this also can be linked to the people’s superficial way of defining ISIS. There are more than one ISIS in this world…let alone the ISIS of thought. As Dostoyevsky said: look into it more carefully and understand it! Read the last quote from the last pages in the novel which is the murder’s dream when he was in prison. The murderer’s dream I guess is what Dostoyevsky foresaw to be the situation of our world today! “He dreamt that the whole world was condemned to a terrible new strange plague that had come to Europe from the depths of Asia. All were to be destroyed except a very few chosen. Some new sorts of microbes were attacking the bodies of men, but these microbes were endowed with intelligence and will. Men attacked by them became at once mad and furious. But never had men considered themselves so intellectual and so completely in possession of the truth as these sufferers, never had they considered their decisions, their scientific conclusions, their moral convictions so infallible. Whole villages, whole towns and peoples went mad from the infection. All were excited and did not understand one another. Each thought that he alone had the truth and was wretched looking at the others, beat himself on the breast, wept, and wrung his hands. They did not know how to judge and could not agree what to consider evil and what good; they did not know whom to blame, whom to justify. Men killed each other in a sort of senseless spite. They gathered together in armies against one another, but even on the march the armies would begin attacking each other, the ranks would be broken and the soldiers would fall on each other, stabbing and cutting, biting and devouring each other. The alarm bell was ringing all day long in the towns; men rushed together, but why they were summoned and who was summoning them no one knew. The most ordinary trades were abandoned, because every one proposed his own ideas, his own improvements, and they could not agree. The land too was abandoned. Men met in groups, agreed on something, swore to keep together, but at once began on something quite different from what they had proposed. They accused one another, fought and killed each other. There were conflagrations and famine. All men and all things were involved in destruction. The plague spread and moved further and further. Only a few men could be saved in the whole world. They were a pure chosen people, destined to found a new race and a new life, to renew and purify the earth, but no one had seen these men, no one had heard their words and their voices”.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 17:40:22 +0000