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ФИЛОЛОГИЯ И КУЛЬТУРА. PHILOLOGY AND CULTURE. 2018. №4(54)
УДК 821.111: 82.01
ИЗМЕНЕНИЕ ХАРАКТЕРА ГЕРОЕВ В «ПРЕСТУПЛЕНИИ И НАКАЗАНИИ» КАК РЕАКЦИЯ АВТОРА НА ТЕРРОРИСТИЧЕСКИЙ АКТ
© Габриэль Нуссбаум
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT IN "CRIME AND PUNISHMENT" AS A REAL-TIME RESPONSE TO CONTEMPORARY TERRORISM
Gabriel Nussbaum
In her book, "The Odd Man Karakozov", Claudia Verhoeven convincingly argues that an 1866 attempt on the life of Tsar Alexander II deeply shocked Fyodor Dostoevsky and prompted him to alter the message of "Crime and Punishment". She shows that the chapters, written following the assassination attempt, shift the impetus for Raskolnikov's murder of a pawnbroker from utilitarianism to the "Napoleonic idea", which adds an explicitly political dimension to Raskolnikov's theory of when it is permissible to kill. By analyzing the introduction and characterization of Svidrigailov and Lebezyatnikov, along with the development of Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin's character, this paper argues that the first attempted tsaricide subtly influenced the novel on other levels, as well. These characters reinforce the idea that Dostoevsky's novel evolved in response to contemporary events.
Keywords: utilitarianism, Napoleonic idea, polemic, characterization, character development.
Клаудия Верховен в своей работе «Странный человек Каракозов» утверждает, что покушение на Александра II в 1866 г. глубоко потрясло Ф.М. Достоевского и побудило его изменить основную идею «Преступления и наказания». Она показывает, что главы, написанные после покушения, объясняют убийство Раскольниковым старухи-процентщицы не утилитарными причинами, а «комплексом Наполеона». Это придает определенное политическое звучание теории вседозволенности Раскольникова. В докладе утверждается, что первая попытка цареубийства повлияла на роман и на других уровнях. Таким образом, подтверждается мысль о том, что роман Достоевского претерпевал изменения, реагируя на события того времени.
Ключевые слова: утилитаризм, Наполеоновская идея, полемика, характеризация, развитие характера.
On April 4th, 1866, a young man named Dmitri Vladimirovich Karakozov tried and failed to shoot Alexander II, the tsar of Russia. This event was overshadowed by later events, most notably the successful assassination of the very same tsar a decade later [Verhoeven, p. 2-3]. At the time, however, a brazen attempt on the life of the ruler of Russia was an unprecedented and shocking event, especially for Fyodor Dostoevsky, who was in the process of writing "Crime and Punishment". Professor Claudia Verhoeven has already documented the effect that the assassination attempt of April 4th had on Dostoevsky, involving his collapsing in shock, falling ill and delaying the publication of the third part of his novel. All this suggests that the event deeply shook him [Verhoeven, p. 88- 89].
The third part of Dostoevsky's novel, which had been either completed or revised only after April 4th, was the first to appear following the attack
[Verhoeven, p. 89]. Importantly, it introduces "Crime and Punishment's" central ideological notion: Raskolnikov's "Napoleonic idea," or the license by which extraordinary people may ignore moral law and even kill, if necessary. Dostoevsky's correspondence makes it clear that he did not have this exact idea in mind when he first conceived of the novel. He only mentions "strange, unfinished ideas floating in the air," and the utilitarian idea that Raskolnikov's murder of a pawnbroker will benefit society at large [Verhoeven, p. 87-88], the idea that is later developed into a pretext for Raskolnikov's selfish test of his personal theory. Utilitarianism is only treated as a serious problem in the parts of the novel, written before Karakozov's attempt. The effects on Dostoevsky's work, however, extend to more aspects of the novel than his philosophical investigation. This discussion traces the development of two characters in "Crime and Punishment", Lu-
zhin and Svidrigailov, and considers their arcs as parallels to the novel's changing ideological polemic. This analysis lends further heft to the possibility that Karakozov's attack produced an unseen turning point within Dostoevsky's work, after which aspects of the novel subtly change in reaction to the shock of the real-life event.
Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin is first introduced as something of an antagonist for Raskolnikov: He is a driving force in the novel's early parts, because his plan to marry Raskolnikov's sister, Dunya, provides one of several justifications for the pawnbroker's murder. Raskolnikov's calculus is fashionable and modern: He imagines that his sister is ready to sell herself to Luzhin so that her family can live in comfort. He decides that murdering the pawnbroker is a better way to go about saving their family, since this pawnbroker deserves misfortune more than his sister, and the murder will improve more lives than the marriage [Dostoevsky, p. 34-35]. This moment of thought is prompted by a letter from Raskolnikov's mother, who describes Luzhin as a calculating man who shares the convictions of Russia's younger generations [Dostoevsky, p. 27- 28].
It is worth noting all this because Raskolnikov's line of thought regarding the pros and cons of Dunya's marriage is quite similar to Luzhin's own moral compass: Raskolnikov understands and opposes Luzhin's desire to control Dunya precisely because of the overlap of his ideology with that of the other man. This is also underscored in Raskolnikov's famous dream about a horse, which he experiences shortly after receiving the news of his sister's impending marriage. It certainly reflects his uncertainty about the moral reasoning that justifies his murder. On another level, though, it also alludes to economic power. Mitya, the drunken peasant, professes his ownership of the horse throughout the dream, up until the moment he actually succeeds in beating his own mare to death: "It's my goods! I can do what I want." [Dostoevsky, p. 46]. She is worthless because the value of her labor does not make up for the cost of feeding her, and therefore there is nothing wrong with her owner's ridding himself of her. In the same way, Raskolnikov fears that Luzhin will abuse his future wife's dependence on him - a dependence ensured by the lack of her own money, leaving her with no autonomy and essentially making her Luzhin's property.
This philosophy, where weakness becomes worthlessness and worthlessness becomes a justification for mistreating or even killing a weak being, is thus indirectly associated with Luzhin in Raskolnikov's dream. The connection is then made explicit during his first appearance in the flesh, when he visits Raskolnikov in the second part of the novel.
Here, Raskolnikov correctly analyses Luzhin's adopted, fashionable theory, which proclaims that economic self-interest is better for society than charity and empathy, and points out that this ideology could justify murder in certain situations. He also once again connects this utilitarianism to Luzhin's desire to "lord it over" Dunya with the debt she will owe her husband for lifting her out of poverty [Dostoevsky, p. 130].
This discussion of Luzhin's initial role is meant to stress that in the early parts of the novel, Luzhin both opposes and resembles Raskolnikov in a rather menacing way. Raskolnikov is confronted with a man who uses his capital and the bloodless, mathematical ideology that he adopts in order to take control of the lives of Raskolnikov's mother and sister. Raskolnikov's fear, suggested in his dream, is that Luzhin will have the power to visit real violence upon these women, and that he might do so out of his lack of a restraining conscience. Luzhin appears dangerous.
The reader may compare this description of Luzhin to the reader's impression the man makes at the end. In this final portrayal, Luzhin is not a dangerous abuser, but rather barely a threat. Were we to rank the obstacles Raskolnikov faces in the novel, Luzhin would be the pettiest. His weakness is most clearly evident in his argument with Raskolnikov's family and his attempt to frame Sonya. And, notably, both of these events appear in the chapters of the novel that Dostoevsky wrote and published after Karako-zov's attack.
Dostoevsky does not change Luzhin's ideology along with his character. In fact, his meeting with the Raskolnikovs in the fourth part of the novel reaffirms that his motive in arranging his marriage was to obtain absolute control over Dunya, as stated earlier. However, Luzhin utterly loses control of the later situation. His first conversation (or confrontation) with Raskolnikov casts Luzhin as merely awkward, partly because of the brusqueness with which Raskolnikov treats him. In this later argument, he comes across as enfeebled and ineffectual. The narrator affirms that he is completely unprepared for a confrontation [Dostoevsky, p. 260, 268].
Luzhin's impotence is further developed by his final comeuppance at the Marmeladovs'. His attempt to frame Sonya Marmeladova for theft does suggest his peculiarly bloodless form of cruelty - and as Raskolnikov later points out, her family could have been cast out on the streets had Luzhin's scheme worked [Dostoevsky, p. 356]. But there is something absurd in this scandal, mostly because the ruse comes undone almost immediately.
This failure is because of Luzhin's acquaintance Lebezyatnikov, another character that represents
Dostoevsky's shift from seriously critiquing the fashionable ideas of his time to mocking them. Lebezyatnikov is mentioned only once before the funeral feast, where the reader learns only that he is another great advocate for the scientific planning of a society, and that he has beaten Katerina Ivanovna [Dostoevsky, p. 10-12]. The link between new ideas and violence that Dostoevsky initially suggests with Luzhin is thus doubled. During the later scandal, however, it becomes clear that Lebezyatnikov is a poorly educated buffoon: his exposure and denunciation of Luzhin's attempted trickery is especially rife with half-baked references to positivism, Darwin, and the like. As a result, the scene at the Mar-meladovs' is an argument between clowns. And this time, Raskolnikov barely even intercedes against Luzhin. Lois Welch notes that Luzhin's pathetic melodrama in this scene serves as a contrast to the serious philosophical and psychological considerations that occupy Raskolnikov [Welch, p. 136- 137] - a far cry from the earlier common ground in the two men's ideologies. In short, when Dostoevsky returned to writing after April 4th, he reduced Luzhin, earlier a symbol of a new and menacing social order, to a parody thereof.
As the novel goes on, Dostoevsky transfers Lu-zhin's initial attributes of dangerous ideas and psychological similarities to Raskolnikov to other characters. This mirrors the change in his ideological polemic mentioned at the outset. The detective Porfiry Petrovich, who elaborates on the Napoleonic idea for the first time, is relevant in this context, but it is Svidrigailov who personifies Dostoevsky's move away from focusing on Luzhin's fashionably adopted utilitarianism. If Raskolnikov discovers, to his dismay, that he shares some attitudes with Luzhin at the novel's beginning, part of Raskolnikov becomes drawn to Svidrigailov instead in the work's later sections. At the same time that Luzhin loses control over Dunya, Svidrigailov gains power over the Raskolnikovs by discovering the truth of Rodion's murder.
As is the case with Luzhin, Svidrigailov's role evolves significantly throughout the course of the novel. Both men's names actually enter the text at the same point, when Raskolnikov receives his mother's letter. Here, as a result of his attempt to seduce Dunya, the name Svidrigailov is associated at first with ordinary baseness: his reputation is that of a drunk, a wife-beater, and a lecher. To underscore this point, Dostoevsky adds a scene where a man follows a young and drunken girl on the street in the hope of taking advantage of her - a man whom Raskolnikov calls "Svidrigailov" as an insult [Dos-
toevsky, p. 37]1. At the novel's beginning, then, Svidrigailov first exists as a type, and Dostoevsky juxtaposes this clearly immoral character with Luzhin to suggest that Luzhin's (and Raskolnikov's) "strange, unfinished" ideas are simply a facade concealing older, more recognizable sins. The horse dream effectively synthesizes these two types of abusers in that it combines the economic control that Luzhin exerts with Svidrigailov's drunkenness and open violence. However, Svidrigailov follows a trajectory inverse to Luzhin's: while the latter man's bloodless, calculating manner becomes more and more pathetic, Dostoevsky takes Svidrigailov's capacities for obscenity and violence and yokes them to a more unique personality than previously suggested. This development also takes place after the attack of April 4th, since Svidrigailov only appears in the primary text at the end of the novel's third part.
Luzhin is meant to embody a general social monstrosity, as evidenced by his own admission that his ideas are those of Russia's younger generation. Svidrigailov, on the other hand, has no manifest interest in crafting an ideology. What intrigues him about Raskolnikov is the young man's movement from theory of violence to enactment of violence: in his last conversation with Dunya, Svidrigailov dismisses all of Raskolnikov's theorizing as "so-so" [Dostoevsky, p. 430]. Svidrigailov's suicide epitomizes his antipathy towards theory: in what is almost a parody [Richardson, p. 548] of Socratic questioning, he brushes off the guard who warns him that a bridge is not the place to shoot oneself by repeating the question "why?" until the exchange becomes meaningless and incoherent [Dostoevsky, p. 447448]. Svidrigailov can be better understood as a mystic; one of the first notable quirks that elevates him from brutal type to unique personality is his superstitious belief in ghosts, along with his unnerving, but original image of Hell as a dirty room full of spiders [Dostoevsky, p. 252].
This characteristic of Svidrigailov's originality -is where he most importantly diverges from Luzhin. When Raskolnikov goes to meet him in the novel's sixth part, for example, it is because he expects something new, as Svidrigailov correctly notices and makes explicit [Dostoevsky, p. 404, p. 421]. This originality is certainly not in spite of Svidrigailov's depravity, though. It is directly connected to the
1 Richard Pevear and Larissa Volhonsky, translators of Dostoevsky, note that the name "Svidrigailov" was well-known and used to refer to "a type of shady dealer" [Dostoevsky, p. 482]. If Dostoevsky had this association in mind, it would seem even more apparent that the epithet expresses the character of Svidrigailov's typicality.
man's lustful tendencies, and to his casual attitude towards others' deaths2. Dostoevsky expresses this through a number of passages where Svidrigailov expresses his own attitude towards Romanticism, itself a theory that prized originality and rejected what were seen to be stifling aesthetic strictures. Svid-rigailov says that Raskolnikov considers him a "romantic" figure, because of the rumors that the landowner has had a hand in the deaths of several people, including a young girl [Dostoevsky, p. 426]. This understanding of the word "romantic" is clarified by a reference that Svidrigailov makes to the Romantic artist Schiller: "And you talk to me of depravity and aesthetics! You - a Schiller! You - an idealist!" [Dostoevsky, p. 413]. He mocks Raskolnikov for showing disgust at Svidrigailov's "depravity" [Dostoevsky, p. 42], even while having himself committed murder for the sake of an idea. The originality that Svidrigailov and Raskolnikov respectively express and strive towards is based on the ability to act amorally, seemingly without suffering.
This, however, is precisely Raskolnikov's theory: Great men can act monstrously without feeling guilt. It is no accident, then, that the novel also links this ability to the Romantic icon Napoleon. Napoleon's role in "Crime and Punishment" is that of a perfect symbol of amorality. And Svidrigailov's evocation of Romantic iconography is merely a second connection to Napoleon, one which doubles the casual cruelty that Raskolnikov sees in both men. On one level, then, Svidrigailov embodies Raskolni-kov's Napoleonic theory. It only adds to the effect that he professes a lack of interest in the theory itself. The qualities that make him Napoleonic - his cunning and amoral will to power - make him a man far more effective and dangerous than Luzhin.
As the novel unfolds, there is a transfer of dynamism from Luzhin to Svidrigailov. The latter man, thanks to his originality of character and rejection of theory, makes Luzhin seem impotent and lifeless. They are the external doubles of Raskolnikov's developing ideological justification for murder: their power and relevance at any given point in the novel relate to the terms of Raskolnikov's internal strug-
2 It is persistently unclear to what extent Svidrigailov has actually committed the brutal acts that others, including Raskolnikov, credit to him. It is even possible to read his character as an act put on for those bystanders who view him with revulsion, as R.E. Richardson does. However, this reading also insists on Svidrigailov's central characteristics being sensuality and an interest in escaping banality [Richardson, p. 551]. Moreover, Svidrigailov's evolution from a base type into an engaging personality, along with his ties to the Napoleonic motif in the novel, seem evident notwithstanding the question of Svidrigailov's sincerity.
gle, as a result of which he comes to understand that his own crime was not motivated by any theory of a greater good, but committed only for the satisfaction of his own ego.
Moreover, there is a correlation between the developing trajectory of "strange, unfinished ideas" in Dostoevsky's novel and in the political realities of his contemporary Russia. Just before Svidrigailov appeared in print as the harbinger of a new, original kind of cruelty that eclipsed earlier theoretical considerations, Karakozov's act stepped beyond earlier radical thought. What Karakozov called factual propaganda - that which Russian society would come to call terrorism [Verhoeven, p. 3] - was interpreted as a pure drive for the old order's destruction. This likely has something to do with why the attack so shocked society, and Dostoevsky with it. As such, it makes sense that Dostoevsky would grapple with the historical movement from the potential for political violence to its factual, seemingly nihilistic outbreak; it makes sense that he would reflect this movement in his developing novel. The Karakozov attack is consequently an instructive example of a moment in history interacting with the artistic creation of a great author in real time, and this discussion is meant to serve as a preliminary sketch of ways in which we can perceive that effect more than a century later.
References
Dostoevsky, F. M. (1993). Crime and Punishment (R. Pevear, L. Volhonsky, Trans.). 489 p. London, Vintage Classics. (In English)
Richardson, R. E. (1987). Svidrigailov and the "Performing Self. " Slavic Review, Vol. 46, No. 3/4, pp. 540552. URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2498103 (accessed 01.05.2018). (In English)
Welch, L. M. (1976). Luzhin's Crime and the Advantages of Melodrama in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. Texas Studies in Literature and Language, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 135-146. URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/ 40754432 (accessed 01.05.2018). (In English)
Verhoeven, C. (2009). The Odd Man Karakozov: Imperial Russia, Modernity, and the Birth of Terrorism. 231 p. Ithaca, Cornell University Press. (In English)
Нуссбаум Гэбриел Стивен,
Преподаватель,
Казанский федеральный университет, 420008, Россия, Казань, Кремлевская, 18. [email protected]
The article was submitted on 24.10.2018 Поступила в редакцию 24.10.2018
Nussbaum Gabriel Steven,
Lecturer,
Kazan Federal University, 18 Kremlyovskaya Str., Kazan, 420008, Russian Federation. [email protected]
