7/23/2019 CP 4&5 Commentary

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How can a novel written years ago have any relevance to our own times? (society, culture,

practices) Discuss with reference to your own reading of Crime and Punishment.

Novels are ideologically immortal. he author!s mind is shaped "y various ideas and notions

of the day, which often "lossom into the prevalence that they e#hi"it today, in societies, cultures,governments and economies. $ften, the author!s opinions and predictions a"out those inchoate ideas

serve as premonitions, warnings of the descent our society can undergo if some of these ideas catchhold. %n e#ample of such an author is &yodor Dostoyevs'y, who, in the process of writing Crime

and Punishment, painted a grim future for an overwhelmingly rationalist world.

Dostoyevs'y had a fairly "alanced up"ringing, in one sense it contained "oth theintellectual elements of the ussian higher classes and the religiosity of the village peasant fol'. His

grandfather was the first to "rea' a family tradition of priesthood, and settle down in a village withhis family. his com"ination of aristocratic lineage and rural conte#t shaped his mindset in an

interesting manner* from early on, he was e#posed to the rampant rationalism that had caught hold

in ussia!s elite circles, as well as the spiritualism of the ussian $rthodo#y that reigned over thevillagers.

Dostoyevs'y im"i"es the rationalism into one of the protagonist!s shadow characters, Pyotr

Petrovich +uhin. $ne of the chief antagonists of the story, +uhin ma'es a marriage proposal toas'olni'ov!s sister, Dounia. -n marrying a person of lower social status, +uhin hopes to receive a

lifetime of devotion and gratitude for supposedly uplifting a woman to a "etter life. his utilitarianviewpoint is loo'ed upon with the deepest revulsion "y as'olni'ov, his family and aumi'hin.

+uhin is a sym"ol of all that a loss of values has to offer for the world. Haughty andpretentious, he loo's down upon as'olni'ov and the company he 'eeps with condescension. His

complete a"andonment of the sacred is shown when he tries to malign the integrity of onya

emyonovna to defame as'olni'ov in vengeance. onya emyonovna is a sym"ol of the sacred,the virtuous, the no"le. /y trying to defile such purity, +uhin shows his nihilist approach to life.

Dostoyevs'y paints him as one of the most repulsive characters in the "oo', and, "y e#tension, hisideology as e0ually repugnant.

his grim portrayal of rationalism holds paramount significance to modern life. 1ith post2

colonial influence at its pea', even the former centers of spiritual fertility, such as -ndia and the$rient, have degraded into consumerist mar'ets. Capitalism, the ruling ideology "ehind the

ma3ority of societies today, holds at its heart the very same ideas as +uhin* individuals runningafter selfish desire will collectively "enefit all of humanity. %t the top of people!s motives are self2

fulfillment. eligion has "een marginalied, and the human population has lost touch with its

spiritual side. his re3ection of the sacred has "rought serious repercussions. Nature, which wasonce held sacred, is now "eing defiled every second for man'ind!s purposes. Now, as we fail to

o"tain resources to sustain the fulfillment of our everlasting desires, we are realiing our folly.Dostoyevs'y!s gloomy predictions of an a"solutely rationalist society have come true perhaps if we

loo' "ac' to him, we may find the antidote.