The origin of Crime and Punishment

Author: Joseph Frank

From 1865 to 1871, in just six years, Dostoevsky successively created immortal works such as "Crime and Punishment", "Gambler", "Idiot", "Eternal Husband", "Group of Demons", and the image of Raskolnikov, the protagonist of the most famous book "Crime and Punishment", has always been controversial. Dostoevsky authoritative researcher, Princeton University, Stanford University Emeritus Professor Joseph Frank in the book "Dostoevsky: The Age of Suffering, 1850-1859" pointed out that the origin of "Crime and Punishment" has a lot to do with Dostoevsky's early exile in Siberia, Dostoevsky believes that some prisoners will repent and atone for their sins after killing, while others always think that they have done the right thing, even if the moral qualities of criminals are very different. The same punishment was inflicted on them, and the image of "an educated young man with a sensitive conscience who killed people" was born.

Dostoevsky: The Age of Suffering, 1850-1859 by Joseph Frank translated by Dai Dahong, Guangxi Normal University Press

It is not difficult to establish a similar connection between Crime and Punishment and Dostoevsky's experiences in Siberia; however, there are many more hidden links that go unnoticed. As far as I know, no one notices the similarities between Raskolnikov's state of mind before and after the crime, and the situation that Dostoevsky describes that often happens to peasant murderers in real life. These peasants, domestic slaves, soldiers or workers, who usually lived in peace for most of their lives, but suddenly, at some point, "something seemed to erupt in his heart; he ceased to be patient and stabbed his enemies and oppressors to death with a knife". This kind of thing is "a crime[still] understandable"; however, the next thing is not so simple. The same mild-mannered man, who used to be at peace with people, now begins to kill people without asking, "for entertainment, for a rude word, for a whole number, or just 'Make way for me, don't stand in my way, I'm coming!'" It was as if he were drunk, in a state of madness. As soon as he crossed the insurmountable line, he seemed to begin to triumphantly believe that nothing was actually sacrosanct to him." However, as soon as the state of insanity has passed, these criminals will calm down and immediately return to their original docile nature.

Many of the situations that happened to Raskolnikov followed this pattern, but in other languages to better suit his identity as an educated intellectual. What plunged him into a state of "madness" was not so much murder itself as the idea of "crossing the insurmountable line", and it was this thought that made him "proudly believe that nothing is actually sacrosanct to him". Once the murder had been carried out—and he had killed two people instead of just one, as originally planned, Raskolnikov, who had been taciturn and shy, unexpectedly showed a certain provocative anger and hostility toward all those he thought were suspicious of him, even to those who came to his aid (such as his friend Razumišin) and those he had previously loved (such as his mother and sister). He seemed to have a new personality, unabashedly displaying an unabashed arrogance that surprised even himself; but, in the end, he found that it was impossible to continue like this. What happened to Raskolnikov was precisely mentally and psychologically similar to the changes in the mad prisoners; whether intentionally or unintentionally, the similarity was too obvious to ignore.

Another passage from Dostoevsky's memoirs, which is also overlooked by commentators, seems to me to best illustrate the origin of Crime and Punishment. In this passage, Dostoevsky laments the inherent injustice of the law: the same penalties are imposed on crimes whose motives may be completely different, and even if the moral qualities of the criminals are vastly different, they are punished in the same way. For example, someone who may not feel guilty or remorseful about any brutal murder, he "never reflects on the crimes he committed throughout his prison days." He even thinks he's doing the right thing." But other criminals react very differently — for example, "an educated man who has a sensitive conscience, an awareness, and feelings." Before he was punished in any way, the pain in his heart was enough to torture him to death. His self-blame for his crimes is far more ruthless than the harshest laws."

These elements are likely to be the germ of his novella about "a young man who kills people", a young man who will embody the type of personality he defines: "an educated man with a sensitive conscience" who punishes himself much harsher than the most severe laws. If this speculation is correct, then the origin of Crime and Punishment probably dates back to Dostoevsky's Siberian years, and can be considered to be some sort of consequence of those years of experience—but only in the sense that those years provided him with a truly unique criterion of empirical judgment that would enable him, to a certain extent, to assess the radicals' dangerous illusions of humanity in general, and of their own humanity in particular. Moreover, if the murderer of the novella finds that he cannot endure "inner pain" for a long time (Dostoevsky said it is a month), then he automatically gives up because he feels extremely lonely and aware of alienation from others, which the author himself once felt in the hard camp, because the peasant prisoner showed "irrepressible and irreconcilable hostility" to him and to all the people of his class without mercy.

It is often thought that Marmeradov's character is based on Alexander Ivanovich Isayev, the ex-husband of Dostoevsky's first wife. Dostoevsky was inextricably in love with Isayev's beautiful, very intelligent but long-suffering blonde wife, he was alive. Isayev was once a teacher and customs officer, but lost both positions because of his alcoholism; while his uncared-friendly wife and seven-year-old son were on the brink of begging, he drank and entertained with goons in semipalatinsk taverns. However, Dostoevsky respected Isayev's character and said in a letter to his brother Mikhail that "he was often treated unfairly by the locals". Unable to control himself, he "fell." However, he is quite cultivated and kind-hearted... Despite all these despicable things, the character of others is still noble." Remarkably, Dostoevsky managed to capture this discordant combination of qualities in his fictional characters.

Isayev's wife, Maria Dmitryevna, was not only attractive, but, as Dostoevsky's friend Baron Wrangel put it, "romantic by nature and passionate". Dostoevsky knew her when she was already suffering from tuberculosis, and after a long ordeal of illness, she died in April 1864. She was undoubtedly used as a prototype for Katerina Ivanovna Marmeradova, who described in powerful and moving strokes the torments, pains endured, and desperate courage of the character in misfortune. Maria Dmitryevna was furious at every turn, and Dostoevsky, who was generous with her violent temper, comforted her: "For a man of a strong character like you, it is impossible not to resist in the face of injustice; this is a noble quality of integrity." This is an essential characteristic of your personality. He portrayed Baron Wrangel as "a knight in red," and therefore Katerina Ivanovna, who was hot-tempered and aggressive and always protested in vain against social injustice, could well be considered a heartbreaking exaggeration of the image.

We can see that these are some of the ideas that extend from the Siberian years to Crime and Punishment. When Dostoevsky sat penniless and hungry in his hotel room in Wiesbaden frantically rushing to the manuscript, he must have been like Raskolnikov, who was about to be born in his pen, and the same anger burned in his chest for a cold world where poverty could only bring endless humiliation. (Joseph Frank)