The Great Conversation | Reading the Great Books of the Western World

Well it’s true that The Brothers Karamazov did not exactly put me in the mood to dive headfirst into another Dostoevsky novel any time soon—or, rather, my motive was dwindling. Not to mention the fact that I have spent the last few months (has it really been that long?) reading anything but the heavy, laborious Great Conversation (including John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars and Richard Gold’s How and Why to Build a Wine Cellar). Nonetheless, I decided that the best jumpstart to restarting the plan was to assign a novel to my senior English students that I myself had not previously read. Enter Crime and Punishment. Taking a break from teaching anything Thomas Hardy, I decided to give Dostoevsky another shot—and decided to give myself a strict timeline so that I did not fall into the several month long Karamazov trap. Nonetheless, the experiment has been worthwhile. Earlier this week, I bore witness to an hour long debate between nine students regarding the motive behind Raskolnikov’s crime.

The first argument suggested that Raskolnikov murdered Alyona and Lizaveta Ivanovna for financial gain. While this argument is fairly easy to initially reject (surely it could not be that simple!), it is fairly difficult to entirely refute. The genesis for the crime stems from a conversation overheard at a local bar where Raskolnikov hears and ultimately agrees that Alyona, an elderly pawn broker, is a louse upon society and that humankind would be better off without her. In addition, her money could be used to help the poor and displaced rather than go to a secluded monastery. One month later, Raskolnikov kills. The students linking his crime to a need for money point out that he is, himself, in poverty and that poverty, as a whole, breeds violence—this came about with much citing of Richard Wright’s Native Son. The flaw in this argument, however, stems from Raskolnikov’s actions directly after the murder. If the motivation had been money, then why did he leave 15,000 roubles in the dresser drawer? Well, he was flustered, and not in the right state of mind one may say. Fair enough, but then why, as one student pointed out, did he spend the entire month of “crime contemplation” dwelling on the act of murder itself and not on the stealing?

This problem made headway for the argument that money was not the true motivation for Raskolnikov’s actions. The other group of students ardently argued that Raskolnikov’s true motive was the desire to commit murder, pure and simple, and that he had convinced himself he was doing it for money if only to cover up his subconscious desire to kill—to commit the perfect crime (cue Leopold and Loeb). Given the unfolding of the novel, this reason does appear to have more credence, but it itself is also without firm grounding. Take, for instance, the “extraordinary man” theory Raskolnikov writes about in his “On Crime” article and expounds in the presence of Porfiry. According to this theory, there exist certain extraordinary individuals (side-by-side with the hundreds of millions of ordinary individuals) to whom the laws, morals, and rules of society do not apply. For these extraordinary individuals (Napoleon, Kepler, and Newton to name a few), it is often necessary “to step over certain obstacles.” The very wording of this euphemism reduces the ordinary individuals to mere “obstacles” when they get in the way (or seemingly get in the way) of these extraordinary ones. Raskolnikov maintains that it is only necessary to step over these “obstacles” (or brutally murder with an axe) when they stand in the way of some great advancement of humankind brought about by the extraordinary individual. The novel suggests that Raskolnikov views himself, or at least initially viewed himself, as one of these extraordinary individuals and that this led to his murder of Alyona and Lizaveta. If this is the case, however, it suggests an entirely different motivation to his crime—the betterment of humankind.

One must remember that the original crime involved just the murder of Alyona and that Lizaveta’s murder was a panicky reaction to an unforeseen event. With this knowledge, it is clear that Raskolnikov saw Alyona as a cancerous, parasitical sore upon society whose removal would be a benefit. Given his utilitarian mindset, this, added to the fact of her stockpile of wealth, justifies her death. All of this falls perfectly into a motivation for the crime, but it still does not suggest on what grounds Raskolnikov based his own extraordinariness. According to his theory, the extraordinary person is a “fulfiller of mankind”—someone whose overstepping of the obstacles brings with it a “new word” and offers up something great to humankind, something worthy of his “genius.” Raskolnikov does suggest that this murder was his first step, and then the novel suggests that he quickly realizes he is not in the extraordinary category, but it does leave the puzzling question of what plan this murder featured in as the first step. What was to be his mark of genius? Where did he foresee his extraordinary nature taking him? Granted, we still have 200 pages to go in the novel, and that means, if nothing else, more intriguing arguments between the students.  Although, if not, I can at least hope that the conversation will be elevated above that of one student who suggested the novel would be improved if Svidrigailov were a “half merman warrior/swordsman.” I suppose it is that time of year for high school seniors.

{ 0 comments }