CC BY
47PHILOLOGICAL SCIENCES
A CONCEPTUAL PERSPECTIVE ON "CRIME" AND "PUNISHMENT" BASED ON TEXTS FROM
DOSTOEVSKY AND THE QUR'AN
Volkov S.
ORCID ID: 0000-0002-9682-4797 PhD in Education,
Associate Professor of the Department of the Oriental Languages Higher Institute of Languages of Tunis, University of Carthage
Tunis, Tunisia Hmida E.
Master's student of the Department of the Oriental Languages Higher Institute of Languages of Tunis, University of Carthage
Tunis, Tunisia
Abstract
The present paper synthesizes linguistic (semantic) and conceptual techniques of the analysis of the concepts of crime and punishment in the literary text by F. Dostoyevsky and The Holy Qur'an. This applies in intercultural communication, as it is in academic discourse, where individual, national cultural and religious aspects of awareness are engaged in speech behaviour characteristics and speech itself. Concept becomes a unit for expressing the meaning of the utterance. Here it is shown that the semantic content of the concept is revealed by the participant of dialogue in the context and has a cultural determinacy depending on the status of this participant.
Keywords: cognitive interview, concept, crime, dialogue, Dostoyevsky, Islamic perspective, punishment
Introduction. Semantically, "crime" means an act or activities/omissions that are illegal, socially dangerous and supposed to be subject to criminal liability; "punishment," in turn, is retaliatory action against an offender that foresees forms of influence on him/her. Crime and punishment as two ideas of social being incorporate religious motives into their lexical meaning, in addition to purely legal ones.
According to the moral theology dictionary, "the term crime [delict] indicates any willful act by which the right of another is violated in a manner considered by positive law as punishable by law" [7, p. 344]. The dictionary refers also to the Canon Law in which crime is defined as an external and morally imputable violation of the law to which at least an indeterminate canonical sanction is attached [2]. Criminal liability is, essentially, punishment, which, "despite the fact that for safeguarding the social order in the Church", "is admitted for a violation if the particular gravity of the transgression or the scandal to which it gave rise may demand it" [7, p. 344], e.g., for murder. This entails capital punishment. In the dictionary already quoted, we read: "The Christian religion developed in a world in which capital punishment was a juridical institution. Lactantius was one of the few Christian writers of the early centuries who opposed capital punishment as contrary to the commandment "Thou shalt not kill." The Church never approved this extreme view but condemned this error, which was espoused by the Waldenses, Anabaptists, Quakers, etc. Calvinists and other Protestants went to the other extreme, for they taught that capital punishment should be incorporated into the laws of every State and that its suppression is against God's commandment as proclaimed in the Scriptures (Gen. 6:9; Rom. 14:4)" [7, p. 1008].
This is the Christian understanding of the two things. Can it be deemed universally human? Actually,
the meaning of both words (crime and punishment) is edging with a cultural context that is formed in the historical development in the national public consciousness. In this connection, these words can already be understood as concepts. Concept as defined by Yu. Ste-panov is "a basic cell of culture in the mental world of a person" [10, p. 43].
The paper's subject is related to the conceptual representation of crime and punishment in Fyodor Dos-toyevsky's novel "Crime and Punishment" and the Qur'an. The importance of presenting the Islamic view of the problem is explained by the fact that Dostoev-sky's novel is part of the literature curriculum in the University of Carthage, Higher Institute of Languages of Tunis, i.e., in a Muslim audience and, hence, apprehension of the writer's ideas, overlapping biblical ones, with the Islamic vision of those same ideas becomes critical in intercultural dialogue.
In this perspective, the discussion on "Crime and Punishment" appears to be challenging. There are particular issues of research into the concepts of crime and punishment, for instance, in the existential, moral, emotional [4] and Christian [9] senses, in the specification of language expression [5; 8]. Without reference to Dostoyevsky, R.Peters studied crime and punishment in the Islamic understanding [6].
The methodological aspect. The study of Fyodor Dostoevsky's novelism is not conceivable without reference to Mikhail Bakhtin's research. His idea of dialogue as a semantic-based positions interaction [1, p. 76] is fundamental to the interpretation of all kinds of theoretical doctrines built in connection with the analysis of various aspects of the Russian writer's work as an object of cultural and linguistic heritage. The range of such theories is wide: they cover linguistic, literary, philosophical and culturological issues. The novel "Crime and Punishment" can be viewed from each of
these facets. For present purposes, it attracts from the point of view of the conceptual approach to the two categories "crime" and "punishment" and comprehension of them in the Qur'anic picture of the world. A problemsolving methodology has emerged in uncovering the "dialogicality" of the two words for concepts, conventionally speaking, in the "interview" with the novel's protagonist Rodion Raskolnikov, that is, through contrasting discourse device intended to establish a relationship between Raskolnikov's theory and divine command theory, or the interpretation of the concepts in different contexts: (1) that of individual conscience and (2) that of religion deal with pain and suffering (not excepting Islamic belief in the day of judgement and resurrection) or ethics in law enforcement, common humanity.
Case-study: concepts of crime and punishment.
An attempt to reroute the meanings of "crime" and "punishment" can be presented in a hypothetical interview, or dialogue with a person who has committed a murder and been punished for it. On the one hand, such dialogue can be called cognitive, destined to recognize the philosophical idea manipulation of the protagonist in the literary work; on the other, it aims to move into the mainstream of religious dialogue, which in its essence identifies the opposition of the soul to God. By asking a "hypothetical interlocutor" (Raskolnikov), such questions and answers may be converted into the cognitive interview as follows:
- Who are you to decide a person's fate, much less to commit a murder?
- I am a Man-God.
- What did the old woman do to deserve death? And who are you to judge her?
- The old woman was a usurer, and I have the right to judge other people because I am "the Lord's punishment."
- You made a plan to become an eternal man like Bonaparte, but you stopped after the first step. Why?
- In my journey across the world of introspection, I have learned that living happily is more important than seeking eternity.
- Were you able to live considering yourself happy after committing murder?
- Yes, but she was misusing the poor to her advantage, and that is bad, I only killed a useless, harmful woman. Killing her was a sacrifice to create a new, perfect world. I became remorseful, and so already I was able to.
- Why did you choose Sonya, and only her, to confess to the crime?
- I believe that the unhappy are alike, that is why, only she was able to understand and, more importantly, forgive.
- What are your plans after you get out of prison?
- I will live with the woman I love, and maybe I will find another way to reach eternity.
The semantic contents of "crime" (judgment, condemnation, fault, offence) and "punishment" (decision, verdict, infliction of a penalty, retribution, vengeance) are reinforced by the cognitive image of the dialogue cues. The crime takes on the different shades of meaning of protest, disagreement, sacrifice, self-rightness,
self-assertion, and the punishment is associated with alarm, perturbation, pain-infliction, forgiveness, justification, lentitude, self-repentance, remorse. As the result, an alternative cognitive framework for interpreting these concepts is evolving.
Murder from Raskolnikov's point of view. Raskolnikov is a man obsessed with an idea for the sake of which he can commit a crime. He invokes his own philosophy to justify his crime, the murder of the moneylender Alena Ivanovna and her sister Lizaveta. So to speak, testing this philosophy in a desire to assert himself in this world of "injustice," at the same time he wants to confirm its opulence, thereby satisfying his own ego.
And if there is any reason for Raskolnikov's crime, it is not caused by grief and poverty, but precisely by his own philosophy. Raskolnikov wanted to change the world with inequalities, he noticed that there was a sharp difference between the two categories of people. To change the world, Raskolnikov accepted the idea that he must be an "extraordinary man," so he wanted to prove to himself that he was not an "ordinary man," but the "epitome of God's punishment" which empowered him to transgress morality laws and judge other people. In order to justify his idea, he deduced that a large part of benefactors and institutors of humanity were particularly terrible bloodsuckers and maintained that all, not that great, but a little out of the common, that is to say capable of giving some new word, must from their very nature be criminals [3, p. 211-212]. Raskolnikov counted himself among those "get out of the common rut" people and considered himself "the-anthropos". So, he gave himself the right to transform a religious text and be above the canons of religion.
One of Raskolnikov's antagonists Razumikhin explains the nature of the crime as follows: "It began with the socialist view. There is a well-known view: crime is a protest against the non-normality of the social order - and that's all, and nothing more, and no other reasons admitted" [3, p. 209].
Murder from Islamic perspective. Islam strongly warns against human aggression against others. God said: "Nor take life - which Allah has made sacred - except for just cause. And if anyone is slain wrongfully, We have given his heir authority (to demand Qisas or to forgive): but let him not exceed bounds in the matter of taking life; for he is helped (by the Law)" (Surah 17, ayat 33) [11, p. 278]. This ayat of the Qur'an forbids the killing of a soul except with a right that requires it to be killed. And God has linked unlawful killing with polytheism.
God sees the killing of one soul unlawful, as the killing of all human beings and its rebirth as the rebirth of all human beings, so God said: "...We ordained for the Children of Israel that if any one slew a person -unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people. Then although there came to them Our Messengers with Clear Signs, yet, even after that, many of them continued to commit excesses in the land" (Surah 5, ayat 32) [11, p. 115]. It means that whoever kills one soul is like one who kills all people, and
whoever refuses to kill one soul and preserves it, then he is like one who revives all people.
We can mentally identify in these ayats the concept of the "righteous kill". So, is there any righteous kill? The answer is "yes": killing is permitted only in cases of self-defence. So it must be inferred that the murder committed by Raskolnikov is premeditated and therefore unrighteous and should be punishable.
Punishment. Raskolnikov's punishment according to the judgement at law was seven years in exile, but the punishment itself is that he was killing himself, his idea, his spiritual serenity. In fact, he could never live a normal life again. He tried and could escape anguish of conscience finding his love. Dostoyevsky's concept of punishment relates to the idea of spiritual rebirth, the possibility of the soul's salvation, the sanctity of human integrity.
In Islam, murder is the second gravest mortal sin - many ayats in the Qur'an say so. God said that the one who deliberately kills a soul will spend eternity in hell if he does not repent. God said: "If a man kills a Believer intentionally, his recompense is Hell, to abide therein (for ever): and the wrath and the curse of Allah are upon him, and a dreadful chastisement is prepared for him" (Sura 4, ayat 93) [11, p. 97].
Suggestions for future research. The linguistic and cultural content of the two concepts in individual artistic, national, and universal sight should be further explored.
Conclusion. A cultural perspective on Dostoev-sky's novel "Crime and Punishment" shows a sharp difference between the two concepts of crime and punishment from Raskolnikov's perspective and from the perspective of religion.
Crime for Raskolnikov was a way to achieve eternity. When he realized his fault, he could not help but confess to his crime that did not nonetheless constitute a disclaimer of his own theory. He repented to himself, but he never repented to God. Crime from the point of view of religion is one of the grave sins which man must avoid. The punishment for Raskolnikov was the mental anguish, self-compassion, and God's punishment is not instantaneous, that is, it does not follow immediately after the crime, not in this life, but on the Last Day, in eternal life after death.
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