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30DOI 10.22455/2619-0311-2018-4-40-64 УДК 82+821.161.1 ББК 83+83.3(2=411.2)
Дебора А. Мартинсен
Стыд и вина в романе Ф.М. Достоевского «Преступление и наказание»
Deborah A. Martinsen Shame and Guilt in Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment"
Об авторе: Дебора А. Мартинсен, профессор, заместитель декана по работе с аспирантами (Columbia College), адъюнкт-профессор кафедры русской литературы, президент Международного общества Достоевского (2007-2013), Колумбийский университет, Нью-Йорк (США).
E-mail: [email protected]
Аннотация: Эта статья показывает, как способ повествования Достоевского в «Преступлении и наказании» не только создает у читателя ожидание осуществления сценария вины, на самом деле предлагая ему сценарий стыда, но и забрасывает читателей прямо в голову Раскольникова прежде создания должной дистанции между нами и его способом мыслить. Поскольку Раскольников совершает убийство в первой части, читатель ожидает развития повествования по сценарию вины: преступление, раскаяние, наказание, искупление. Но повествователь Достоевского предлагает нам сценарий стыда, не имеющий четко зафиксированных стадий развития. Стыд относится к человеку в целом, вина захватывает гораздо более узкую область - область человеческих действий. В «Преступлении и наказании» Достоевский исследует, как острый и болезненный стыд за себя самого вынуждает Раскольникова совершить преступление. В конце шестой части Раскольников, наконец, признается в своем преступлении (и это важный этап - признание вины) - но при этом совсем не проявляет раскаяния. Достоевский таким образом не дает читателю обрести чувство устойчивости в течение всего романа: мы ожидаем - но не получаем - развития повествования по сценарию вины вплоть до заключительных страниц эпилога. Достоевский усиливает свою стратегию, сохраняя сценарий вины актуальным и работающим в сознании других персонажей романа. Поскольку большинство персонажей рассматривают Раскольникова как носителя нравственного чувства, они ожидают от него заботы о других. Но этого не происходит. Поскольку читатели разделяют ожидания персонажей, их удивление становится нашим удивлением. По мере того, как герои «читают» Раскольникова - его лицо, слова и действия - пытаясь понять, что им движет, - читатели делают то же самое. Несоответствие между тем, чего мы ожидаем, и тем, чему мы становимся сви-
детелями, заставляет нас строить предположения дальше. Раскольников сможет увидеть в себе нравственное чувство, которое в нем ищут повествователь, читатели и герои-наблюдатели, не раньше, чем он осознает и признает в себе потребность в другом, как это происходит в конце эпилога, когда он повергается к Сониным ногам. Любовь - самое могучее нравственное чувство из всех чувств - позволит Раскольникову оставить в прошлом свой стыд, признать свою вину и воссоединиться с человечеством.
Ключевые слова: стыд, вина, раскаяние, идентичность, нигилизм, повествовательные стратегии, детективный роман
Для цитирования: Мартинсен Д. Стыд и вина в романе Ф.М. Достоевского «Преступление и наказание» // Достоевский и мировая культура. 2018. N0 4. С. 40-64. БО! 10.22455/2619-0311-2018-4-40-64
About the author: Dr. Deborah A. Martinsen, Associate Dean of Alumni Education (Columbia College), Adj. Associate Professor of Russian Literature, President of International Dostoevsky Society (2007-2013), Columbia University, New York (USA).
E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract: This article shows how Dostoevsky's narration in Crime and Punishment not only creates the expectation of a guilt script while offering readers a shame scenario but also plunges readers into Raskolnikov's head before distancing us from his thinking. Because Raskolnikov commits murder in Part One, readers expect a guilt script: crime, repentance, punishment, expiation. But Dostoevsky's narrator offers us a shame scenario, which has no fixed script. Shame relates broadly to human identity; guilt relates more narrowly to human action. In Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky explores how the pain of shame at one's identity leads Raskolnikov to commit murder. At the end of Part Six, Raskolnikov finally confesses his crime -an important acknowledgement of guilt, but he does not yet signal repentance. Dostoevsky thus keeps readers off-balance for the novel's duration - we expect, but do not get, a guilt script until the Epilogue's final pages. Dostoevsky strengthens this strategy by keeping the guilt script alive among the novel's characters. Because most characters view Raskolnikov as a moral agent, they expect him to feel concern for others and to act accordingly. But he doesn't. Since readers share characters' expectations, their puzzlement becomes ours. As characters "read" Raskolnikov -his face, his words, his actions - trying to understand what motivates his actions, readers do the same. The discrepancy between what we all expect and what we witness keeps us guessing. Not until Raskolnikov realizes and admits his need for others, as he does at the end of the Epilogue when he is thrown at Sonya's feet, can he see himself as the moral agent that Dostoevsky's narrator, readers, and character-observers have been expecting all along. Love, the most powerful moral emotion of all, allows Raskolnikov to get past his shame, admit his guilt, and rejoin the human community.
Key words: shame, guilt, repentance, identity, nihilism, narrative, whodunit
For citation: Martinsen D. Shame and Guilt in Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" // Dostoevsky and World Culture. 2018. No 4. Pp. 40-64. DOI 10.22455/2619-0311-2018-4-40-64
Shame and guilt are moral and thus profoundly interpersonal emotions1. Located on the boundary of self and other, shame and guilt are intimately linked to questions of identity - individual, social, cultural, and national. Shame and guilt make us aware of ourselves, others, and the world. So does literature, which may explain the ubiquity of shame and guilt on the pages of classic as well as popular works of literature. As moral emotions, shame and guilt have evaluative and moral dimensions, that is, they can help us to recognize wrong action and motivate right action [Taylor 2006: 55], [Prinz 2010: 520]. On these terms, not all emotions are moral: fear for one's life is not, whereas fear for one's soul is. Contemporary research has also shown that emotion works as a process: it starts with an automatic, non-cognitive evaluation of a person or a situation that triggers a physiological response and is followed by a cognitive evaluation of the initial response [Robinson 2005: 59]. Instant judgment, physical response, mental evaluation. Long before this research, Dostoevsky exploited this process, using the dual action of emotion and evaluation to involve readers in the action of his texts. Since moral emotions entail judgments that identify what we care about and thus value, they awaken our cognitive as well as affective capacities. By portraying characters experiencing emotions, Dostoevsky not only allows us to understand who they are and what they care about, he also activates readers' emotions to make us experience and then reflect on emotion. In short, Dostoevsky engages readers' emotions then pushes us into cognitive overdrive. In an unexpected yet powerful way, Dostoevsky's texts mimic the process of emotion itself.
In what follows, I will show how Dostoevsky's narration in Crime and Punishment not only creates the expectation of a guilt script while offering readers a shame scenario but also plunges readers into Raskolnikov's head before distancing us from his thinking. By the end of Part One, Raskolnikov has committed murder. Readers thus expect a guilt script: crime, repentance, punishment, expiation. But Dostoevsky's narrator offers us a shame scenario, which has no fixed script. Shame relates broadly to human identity; guilt relates more narrowly to human action. Shame entails a negative evaluation
1 My shame studies started with the mothers: the sociologist Helen Merrill Lynd wrote Shame and the Search for Identity (1958), a fundamental text for all shame researchers; and Helen Block Lewis contributed both Shame and Guilt in Neurosis (1971) and Sex and the Superego (1987), which show how shame's affective power is brought to bear on gender issues as well as on the study of shame itself. Some of the most useful psychological shame studies are: Francis Broucek (1991); Gunnar Karlsson and Lennart Gustav Sjoberg (2009); Gershen Kaufman (1993); Melvin Lansky (2005); Michael Lewis (1992); Susan Miller (1993); Andrew Morrison (1989); Donald L. Nathanson (1992) and editor (1987 and 1996); and Carl Schneider (1977; 1992). Useful philosophical studies are: Jesse Prinz (2010); Anthony J. Steinbock (2014); Gabriele Taylor (2006); J. David Velleman (2001); and Dan Zahavi (2011).
of a person's whole self, arising from feelings of inferiority, inadequacy, or exclusion. Guilt entails transgression against personal, moral, social, or legal norms. Most importantly, shame is not about the action itself, but about an exposed part of self [Karlsson and Sjoberg 2009: 352]. While guilt involves temporary, voluntary actions that one can compensate for, shame is a more permanent state, which is connected to one's being in the world. We may feel guilty for harming another, but we feel shame that we are the kind of person who can do so. Moreover, in guilt one is the subject of an action, whereas in shame one has the experience of being objectified. Shame is thus experienced passively, which accounts for much of the pain it evokes2. In Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky explores how the pain of shame at one's identity leads Raskolnikov to commit murder.
In order to hide his shame at being dependent on the women in his life, Raskolnikov develops a theory in which guilt serves as a litmus test: no guilt = strength, guilt = weakness, which is shameful. For Raskolnikov to admit guilt would mean to acknowledge that he is not the extraordinary man he wants to be. At the end of Part 6, Raskolnikov finally confesses his crime - an important acknowledgement of guilt, but he does not signal repentance, which is critical for a guilt script, until the end. Dostoevsky thus keeps readers off-balance for the novel's duration - we expect, but do not get, a guilt script until the Epilogue's final pages. Dostoevsky strengthens this strategy by keeping the guilt script alive among the novel's characters. Because most characters view Raskolnikov as a moral agent, they expect him to feel concern for others and to act accordingly. But he doesn't. Since readers share characters' expectations, their puzzlement becomes ours. As characters "read" Raskol-nikov - his face, his words, his actions - trying to understand what motivates his actions, readers do the same. The discrepancy between what we all expect and what we witness keeps us guessing.
Dostoevsky's Narrative Strategy Part One - Plunging Readers into his Murderer's Head
Although Dostoevsky initially drafted Crime and Punishment in the voice of a first-person narrator, he shifted to a third-person narrator, who rapidly moves into his protagonist's head and uses his omniscience both to depict Raskolnikov's actions and to reveal his thoughts. By the opening of para-
2 Robinson (2005) and Karlsson and Sjoberg (2009) are among the scholars who note the pain of passivity.
graph six, we are outside on a Petersburg street as well as inside the unnamed protagonist's head. In little more than a page, Dostoevsky's narrator has both provided us context, analysis, and perspective (the advantages of third-person omniscience) and plunged us into Raskolnikov's fevered brain (the advantage of first-person narration).
A look at the novel's opening paragraphs shows how Dostoevsky achieves this. The novel's first paragraph is a single sentence:
В начале июля, в чрезвычайно жаркое время, под вечер, один молодой человек вышел из своей каморки, которую нанимал от жильцов в С-м переулке, на улицу и медленно, как бы в нерешимости, отправился к К-ну мосту [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 5].
In the beginning of July, during an extreme heat wave, toward evening, a young man exited the closet he rented from tenants in S- Lane, stepped out to the street and slowly, as though undecided, headed toward the K- Bridge3.
This sentence provides the set up: time, protagonist, place. Local time is also Biblical time: the novel's first two words - V nachale - are the opening words of the Gospel of John, which cite the opening words of Genesis: "In the beginning". Likewise, the novel's time is literary time: the beginning of a middle month (July) toward the end of day. Beginning - middle - end: Aristotle's unity of time4. By combining Aristotelian time with Biblical and local time, Dostoevsky cannily inscribes elements of tragedy and salvation into his realistic novel.
Dostoevsky's protagonist is an impoverished young man - the room he rents from other renters is so small that the narrator calls it a "closet", the first word that signals the novel's Petersburg setting5. Next, the narrator designates locations using abbreviations (S-Lane and K-Bridge), a fairly standard Russian literary practice that signifies typicality. Since Moscow and provincial towns were organized differently, these abbreviations would have allowed Dostoevsky's contemporaries to recognize that the young man lives in Petersburg, information the narrator withholds until paragraph six [Tikhomirov
3 All translations are my own. Citations from: F.M. Dostoevskii. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v tridtsati tomakh. Leningrad: Nauka, 1972-90 [Достоевский 1972-1990].
4 I am indebted to Margo Rosen for both these observations. Margo Rosen, "Teaching Crime and Punishment", lecture for teaching staff of Literature Humanities, Columbia University, April 10, 2013.
5 Petersburg had more rental buildings than Moscow and other cities, whose inhabitants tended to live in houses (osobnyaki). Muscovites leasing space to others would offer a wing or annex. Dostoevsky's earlier works were set in St. Petersburg, so contemporary readers may also have been primed to expect a Petersburg setting.
2005: 47], [Toporov 1995a: 259-367]6. Our young man walks slowly - because of the extreme heat or because he's undecided? The opening sentence raises many questions.
In paragraph two, the narrator provides background information, informing readers that the young man «благополучно избегнул встречи с своею хозяйкой на лестнице» / "had successfully evaded a meeting with his landlady on the stairs." We learn that his «каморка» / "closet" is more like a «шкаф» / "armoire" than a "квартиру / "apartment," that it is under the roof of a five-story building, that his landlady lives one floor down, and that he must pass by her almost always open door to exit the building. These external facts indicate the young man's poverty. In the paragraph's last two sentences, the narrator reports on his protagonist's emotions, supplying an explanation for them as he does so: «И каждый раз молодой человек, проходя мимо, чувствовал какое-то болезненное и трусливое ощущение, которого стыдился и от которого морщился» / "And each time the young man passed by, he felt some kind of fevered and cowardly sensation, which made him wince with shame. He was indebted to his landlady, and he was afraid to meet her." In this mixture of reporting and commentary, we already see Dostoevsky's authorial hand: his narrator blurs the line between description (passing the landlady's door) and emotion (fear and shame), analysis (his indebtedness) and insight (his fear again).
In paragraph three, the narrator moves further into his protagonist's head, moving from commentary to indirect discourse, that is, to voicing his character's thoughts. We find commentary near the beginning of the paragraph: «Он до того углубился в себя и уединился от всех, что боялся даже всякой встречи, не только встречи с хозяйкой» / "He was so immersed in himself and had isolated himself so much from everyone that he was afraid not only of meeting his landlady but of meeting anyone at all." We move to indirect discourse at the end of the paragraph: «Никакой хозяйки, в сущности, он не боялся, что бы та ни замышляла против него»/ "Basically, he was not afraid of any landlady, whatever she might be plotting against him." Here, Dostoevsky's narrator is reporting from the inside, allowing readers to overhear the young man's thinking. By the fifth paragraph, the narrator has moved to direct discourse, reporting his protagonist's inner speech: «На какое дело хочу покуситься и в то же время каких пустяков боюсь! - подумал он с странною улыбкой» / "I want to attempt such an undertaking and at the same time I fear such trifles' - he thought with a strange smile". As the
6 These locations, identified by Anna Grigor'evna Dostoevskaya, Dostoevsky's wife, are also significant locations in the literary tradition of the Petersburg text.
young man thinks aloud to himself, we learn about his pride and fear, even as the narrator comments on his "strange smile". Reading the opening of Crime and Punishment closely introduces readers to the strategy Dostoevsky uses throughout most of the novel: this narrator stays so close to Raskolnikov that we see events almost entirely from his perspective7. In short, Dostoevsky the author keeps the advantages of both first-person and third-person narration. As readers of Dostoevsky, we must never underestimate his narrative skill.
Getting Away with Murder
When I teach Crime and Punishment, my students and I start with a close reading of the novel's opening paragraphs, as we have just done here, but then we leap forward to the murder scene at the end of Part One. Here I ask the question posed by my mentor Robert Belknap: Do we want Raskolnikov to get away? Since most of us say yes, I ask why? My students then point to textual clues that reveal Raskolnikov's basic goodness - such as his spontaneous charity, his response to his mother's letter, his dream of the mare. One student replied "because he's not a murderer at heart" - an answer that identifies Raskolnikov self-division. Some students know that Raskolnikov's name derives from the word for "schism," which allows us to discuss Raskol-nikov as a modern, divided self. In Part Three, Dostoevsky's narrator has Ra-zumikhin explain Raskolnikov's self-divisions to his friend's newly arrived mother and sister:
Полтора года я Родиона знаю: угрюм, мрачен, надменен, и горд; в последнее время (а может, гораздо прежде) мнителен и ипохондрик. Великодушен и добр. Чувств своих не любит высказывать и скорей жестокость сделает, чем словами выскажет сердце. Иногда, впрочем, вовсе не ипохондрик, а просто холоден и бесчувствен до бесчеловечия, право, точно в нем два противоположные характера поочередно сменяются [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 165].
I've known Rodion for a year and a half: sullen, gloomy, arrogant, and proud; recently (and maybe much earlier) touchy and hypochondriacal. Magnanimous and kind. He doesn't express his feelings and would rather commit a cruelty than express his heart with words. At times, however, he's not hypochondriacal at all, just inhumanly cold and unfeeling, exactly as though there were two opposing characters in him, changing places with one another.
7 As Gary Rosenshield has demonstrated, Dostoevsky's narration remains very close to Raskolnikov, who is in all but six scenes in the novel. Moreover, all eyes, including the narrator's, are on him. See [Rosenshield 1978].
Razumikhin, whose name derives from the Russian word for "reason", actually observes two sets of oppositions: (1) the obvious contrast between Raskolnikov's altruistic and egoistic impulses and (2) the less obvious duality of his egoistic traits - an excess of emotion, seen in his narcissistic touchiness and hypochondria, and a deficit of emotion, seen in his coldness and unfeel-ingness. Razumikhin's diagnosis suggests that Raskolnikov's unfeeling coldness is a defense against his feelings of touchiness and hypochondria, which are symptoms of shame sensitivity. Raskolnikov's complex psychological profile complicates reader response: we sympathize with his altruistic moral self, manifest in his dreams and spontaneous acts of charity, yet we respond uneasily to the warring factions of his egoistic self - his emotionally vulnerable self and his calculating, rational self.
Dostoevsky the author further complicates reader response to Raskol-nikov by making it clear that he is not just a young man torn between the desire for power and dominance and the desire for love and community, but also a product of 1860s Russia. By taking the language and ideas for Raskolnikov's article "0 prestuplenii / On Crime" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 198-206] from Русское Слово / Russian Word, the "thick" journal that was the platform for Russia's nihilists, Dostoevsky identifies Raskolnikov as a nihilist who believes that the superior individual not only has the right but the obligation to act now, creating the future by tearing down existing beliefs and power structures. As Raskolnikov, Razumikhin, and Porfiry Petrovich, the examining magistrate, discuss Raskolnikov's article in Part Three, Dostoevsky reminds us of his novel's title Prestuplenie i nakazanie / Crime and Punishment, by using seventeen variations on the verb perestupit' - which means to overstep, cross over, transgress, commit a crime8. By identifying Raskol-nikov as a young nihilist whose ruthlessness is inspired by sympathy for the downtrodden and desire to improve society, Dostoevsky not only portrays Raskolnikov as a modern divided self, he also reveals a deep contradiction inherent in the 1860s Russian nihilist movement.
Shame and Guilt: Divided Scripts
Dostoevsky further complicates reader response to Raskolnikov by having both shame and guilt contribute to his crime. His theory raises him above the guilt and shame resulting from the debts and withdrawal from the world that make him dependent on two women - his landla-
8 Robert L. Belknap. Dostoevsky seminar, 1981.
dy and his mother9. His will to power can be seen as a defense against his sense of dependency and weakness. As the psychologist Gershen Kaufman notes, "Scripts that aim at maximizing power over others and maintaining control in either relationships or situations encountered constitute another strategy for protecting the self against shame" [Kaufman 1989: 101]. As we see, Raskolnikov divides the world into the powerful and the powerless. By murdering the old woman, he hopes to prove that he belongs among the powerful: «Я догадался тогда, Соня, - продолжал он восторженно, - что власть дается только тому, кто посмеет наклониться и взять его. [...] Я...я захотел осмелиться и убил...» / "Then I realized, Sonya,' he went on ecstatically, 'that power is given only to the one who dares to reach down and take it. [...] I...I wanted to dare, and I killed..." [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI: 321]. Raskolnikov sees the act of murder as a way to elevate himself not only above his victim but above all those who would not do the same. If he can prove to himself, and to the world, that he is extraordinary, he can overcome the shame of being like others. After all, he's not the first young man to squander his family's hard-earned money upon arrival in the big city.
While Raskolnikov's shame-guilt dynamic does not lend itself to easy schematization, Dostoevsky helps us to separate them. Raskolnikov plans one murder but commits two. The intended victim, the old pawnbroker Alyona Ivanovna, is the predominant figure in Raskolnikov's shame script; the unintended victim, her sister Lizaveta, figures in the guilt script. When Raskol-nikov thinks about his crime, he thinks about Alyona Ivanovna, his intended victim, whom he objectifies with labels such as «процентщица»/ "pawnbroker", «старушонка or старуха»/ "the old crone" or «вошь» / "louse" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI: 211]. When the novel's male characters discuss the crime, they also focus on the old pawnbroker. Since the third-person narrator stays so close to Raskolnikov that readers tend to identify with his thinking10, we also tend to think of his intended victim as "the old crone". Moreover, like Raskolnikov, we also tend to forget Lizaveta, the unintentional victim, who is always referred to by name rather than label. But Lizaveta is not forgotten - the landlady's servant Nastasya Petrovna, Sonya, and Dunya all mention Lizaveta, thereby keeping her and the guilt script alive in readers' awareness. By dividing Raskolnikov's murder victims in this way, Dostoevsky
9 See Edward Wasiolek for an examination of Raskolnikov's relationships with women [Wasiolek 1988: 1-26].
10 For excellent discussions of the narration in Crime and Punishment, see Rosenshield and Frank.
keeps the tension between shame and guilt alive. Raskolnikov's task, in the novel, will be to get past his shame in order to get to his guilt. In short, he must remember Lizaveta.
The first time Raskolnikov spontaneously remembers Lizaveta, rather than being reminded of her by others, comes before the novel's most concentrated shame scene - Raskolnikov's dream of trying to kill the pawnbroker again. This is Raskolnikov's second major unconscious dream in the novel11. Readers tend to remember the first unconscious dream - the peasant Mikolka's brutal beating of an old mare. Scholars and readers concur that Raskolnikov identifies with all three major figures in the dream: the child Raskolnikov, the old mare, and the peasant Mikolka. Raskolnikov's relief upon waking from this horrific dream offers evidence of Raskolnikov's sense of guilt: «Господи! - молил он, - покажи мне путь мой, а я отрекаюсь от этой проклятой... мечты моей!» / "'Lord!' he prayed, 'show me my way; I renounce this cursed. dream of mine!'" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 50]. This dream thus reinforces readers' expectation of a guilt script: Raskolnikov acknowledges and repudiates the evil of his intended crime.
Raskolnikov's second unconscious dream - the beating of the old crone -is more puzzling because it is a shame dream. As noted earlier, guilt follows a script: transgression, repentance, expiation, redemption. Shame has no set script, yet it always involves an unexpected and disorienting sense of exposure. Seeing and being seen are critical: the painful self-consciousness that accompanies shame derives from a sense of being exposed. Standard responses are flight and paralysis. We find all of this in Raskolnikov's dream.
Before this shame dream, Raskolnikov remembers Lizaveta: «Бедная Ли-завета! Зачем она тут повернулась!.. Странно, однако ж, почему я об ней почти и не думаю, точно не убивал?.. Лизавета! Соня! Бедные, кроткие, с глазами кроткими... Милые!» / "Poor Lizaveta! Why did she have to turn up there!.. Strange though, why do I almost never think of her, as if I hadn't killed her?.. Lizaveta! Sonya! Poor meek ones, with meek eyes. Dear ones!" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 212]. This is the only time Raskolnikov thinks of the unintended consequences of his consciously realized "dream." Signifi-
11 As I note elsewhere, there are four kinds of dreams in the novel: 1) unconscious dreams (sny) - of the mare [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 54-60] and of beating the old crone [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 273-8]; 2) conscious dreams (mechty) , such as Raskolnikov's "ugly" "dream" of killing the pawnbroker [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 7] and Razumikhin's "dream" of marrying Dunya, semi-conscious dreams such as the daydreams (grezy) of the oasis [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 67], the dream in Epilogue 2, and the auditory hallucination of Ilya Petro-vich beating the landlady [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 115-117]; and 4) nightmares (koshmary), such as Svidrigailov's [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 506-510]. See [Martinsen 2014: 165].
cantly, as he remembers Lizaveta, he associates her with Sonya using the language of the Beatitudes - "meek ones" (Matt 5.5).
Raskolnikov's encounter with the tradesman who accuses him of murder precipitates this dream. He returns to his room feeling vulnerable and exposed, and the narrator reports his internal monologue. Raskolnikov bemoans the fact that his crime was petty and insignificant, not grand and Napoleonic: «Наполеон, пирамиды, Ватерлоо - и тощая гаденькая регистраторша, старушонка, процентщица, с красною укладкою под кроватью» / "Napoleon, pyramids, Waterloo - and a scraggly, repulsive registrar's widow, an old crone, a moneylender with a red trunk under her bed" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 211]. His crime does not reflect his idealized, Napoleonic self-image. As he heaps scorn on himself, Raskolnikov identifies with his victim: «Потому, потому я окончательно вошь, - прибавил он, скрежеща зубами, - потому что сам-то я, может быть, еще сквернее и гаже, чем убитая вошь, и заранее предчувствовал, что скажу себе это уже после того, как убью!» / "That's why, that's why I am definitively a louse,' he added, grinding his teeth, 'because I am myself perhaps even more nasty and repulsive than the louse I killed, and I sensed beforehand that I would tell myself so after I killed her!'". Raskol-nikov is clearly not experiencing guilt or repentance here. In fact, he tells himself, «О, как я ненавижу теперь старушонку! Кажется, бы другой раз убил, если б очнулась!» / «Oh, how I hate that little old crone now! If she revived, I'd kill her again!" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 212].
In the dream that follows, Raskolnikov does exactly that. He revisits the murder scene and repeatedly hits his victim on the crown of her head with an axe. She does not stir, as though she were made of wood. The dream thus reflects his sense of impotence. He commits the crime, but he fails: «Он пригнулся тогда совсем к полу и заглянул ей снизу в лицо, заглянул и помертвел: старушонка сидела и смеялась, - так и заливалась тихим, неслышным смехом, на всех сил крепясь, чтоб он ее не услышал» / "Then he bent completely down to the floor and peeked into her face from below, peeked and went dead: the little old crone was sitting and laughing -simply dissolving in soft, inaudible laughter, trying with all her might not to let him hear her" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI. 213]. As the victim lives and the murderer goes dead, Raskolnikov's worst fears are realized - he is not only impotent but ridiculous. Responding with the rage of the narcissistical-ly injured, he renews his assault. Yet the harder he hits, the louder she laughs. Raskolnikov then hears laughter and whispering from the bedroom:
Он бросился бежать, но вся прихожая уже полна людей, двери на лестнице отворены настежь, и на площадке, на лестнице и туда вниз - всё люди, голова с головой, все смотрят, - но все притаились и ждут, молчат... Сердце его стеснилось, ноги не движутся, приросли... Он хотел вскрикнуть и - проснулся [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI: 213].
He started to run away, but the whole entryway is already full of people, the door to the stairs are wide open, and on the landing, on the stairway, and farther down -there are people, head to head, all looking - but they held themselves back and they wait, they are silent...His heart contracted, his feet do not move, they've become root-ed...He wanted to cry out - and woke up.
This part of the dream magnifies Raskolnikov's sense of exposure. He is caught red-handed: not as a murderer but as an impotent killer. His unconscious exposes him as a failure.
By murdering the pawnbroker, Raskolnikov exposes himself to a humiliating self-examination. He is not the hero he wants to be. His crime has failed - not literally, but figuratively. He has killed his dream of greatness. Raskolnikov confesses to Sonya, «Я себя убил, а не старушонку!» / "I killed myself, not the old crone!" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 322]. In his theory, Raskolnikov divides the world into the powerful and the powerless. We see his will to power as a defense against his sense of dependency and weakness. He is indebted to his landlady and his mother because of the choices he has made: after arriving in Petersburg, he lived above his income; more recently he has given up tutoring. If he proves to himself and others that he is extraordinary, he can overcome the shame of poverty and nonentity. Raskolnikov is seeking a new word12, but students must understand that he is not only a literary cliché - a young man from the provinces who squanders his family's money in the city, he is also a derivative thinker who overhears other young men in a tavern discussing "his" theory. Raskolnikov has fallen victim to what Dostoevsky calls "ideas in the air" [Достоевский 1972-1990: XXVIII, 2, 136].
Significantly, the dream underscores Raskolnikov's obsession with the pawnbroker, and we come to see that she is associated with Raskolnikov's sense of identity and thus with the shame script. Lizaveta, on the other hand, represents the unintended consequence of his theory or "dream" and thus the guilt script. In order to take responsibility for Lizaveta's murder, he must acknowledge it. But Lizaveta does not figure in this disturbing dream. Viewing this as a shame dream helps us see that Raskolnikov must get past his shame in order to acknowledge his guilt.
12 Dostoevsky introduces the theme of original thinking in the novel's fifth paragraph, as Raskolnikov comments that most people are afraid of a new step, a new word [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 6].
Narrative Strategy Part Two: Getting Out of Raskolnikov's Head
While staying close to Raskolnikov creates a lot of sympathy for him, it also taints our thinking. One way Dostoevsky gets readers to distance ourselves from his protagonist's perspective is by portraying other characters who "read" Raskolnikov and discover gaps between what they expect and what they find. Dostoevsky constantly reminds readers of these gaps by focusing on other characters' perceptions of Raskolnikov.
After spending most of Parts One and Two getting readers into Raskol-nikov's head, Dostoevsky starts helping us get out of it in Part Three by providing more character-observers. In Chapter Three, the narrator reports the observations of Zosimov, who was «наблюдавший и изучавший своего пациента со всем молодым жаром только что начинающего полечивать доктора» / "observing and studying his patient with all the youthful ardor of a doctor who has just begun to practice" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 171]. Surprised that Raskolnikov seems to regard the arrival of his family not as an occasion for joy but as an ordeal, Zosim-ov observes that «вчерашнего мономана» / "yesterday's monomaniac" is keeping his emotions in check. Zosimov's diagnosis of Raskolnikov's monomania establishes his credibility. Moreover, Dostoevsky's narrator articulates the gap between Zosimov's expectation that the arrival of his mother and sister will have a healing effect on Raskolnikov and his observations that the ensuing conversation seems to open an old wound. By this point in the novel, readers have seen Raskolnikov act spontaneously and generously as well as calculatedly and selfishly, a split in his character that keeps us off-balance. In this scene, Dostoevsky focuses readers' attention on the split.
Because we know more than Raskolnikov's young doctor at this point, readers can appreciate the astuteness of Zosimov's diagnosis:
Этих первоначальных причин я не знаю, но вам они должны быть известны. Вы человек умный и, уж конечно, над собой наблюдали. Мне кажется, начало вашего расстройства совпадает отчасти с выходом вашим из университета. Вам без занятий оставаться нельзя. [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI: 213]
I do not know the underlying causes [of your illness, DAM], but they must be well-known to you. You are an intelligent person and, of course, have observed yourself. It seems to me that the beginning of your disorder partially coincides with your leaving the university. You cannot remain without occupation.
Although Raskolnikov agrees with Zosimov here, the doctor notes «решительную насмешку» / "a decided mockery" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 171] in his face, a passing observation that underscores Raskolnikov's irritability and arrogance13. As we can see, Dostoevsky uses the professional observer to sharpen his readers' observational skills: he wants us to be aware of Raskolnikov's emotional states and the disconnect between his words and actions.
Zosimov's observations prepare readers for Dunya's. In this same scene, the narrator notes that Dunya sees but does not understand her brother Ro-dya's playacting. Dunya's observations confirm Zosimov's outsider diagnosis and establish her insider emotional perspicacity. The scene further reinforces Dunya's observational credentials by contrasting her perspicacity to Razu-mikhin's. Although earlier we had come to admire Razumikhin's judgments, the narrator shows us what a difference family knowledge can make:
Он увидал бы, если б был проницательнее, что чувствительного настроения тут отнюдь не было, а было даже нечто совсем напротив. Но Авдотья Романовна это заметила. Она пристально и с беспокойством следила за братом.[Досто-евский 1972-1990: VI, 172]14.
Had he been more penetrating, he would have seen that there was no sentimental disposition here, rather something quite the opposite. But Avdotya Romanovna noticed it. She fixedly and anxiously watched her brother.
By portraying Zosimov and Dunya observing Raskolnikov, Dostoevsky models keen observation for readers, teaching us how to read. The verb I translate as "watch" is "sledit"' - to follow or investigate, a verb that is also used for judicial as well as medical investigations. If we want to understand Raskolnikov like his doctor or sister, we must watch him closely. And if we watch through their eyes, we will share their cognitive dissonances - the moments when our prior knowledge or assumptions clash with our observations.
I next jump to Raskolnikov's third and final meeting with Porfiry Petro-vich, the novel's other professional observer, or investigator / sledovatel' [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 343-353]. Here Dostoevsky draws on the nascent genre of detective stories in order to model keen observation and thereby provide reading instruction for his audience. A fan as well as publisher of Edgar Allan Poe, Dostoevsky plays with the form of the detective novel, stressing the "whydunit" over the "whodunit" in Crime and Punishment, a novel that
13 The narrator's observations elsewhere confirm this diagnosis - Raskolnikov's self-chosen self-enclosure and obsessive thinking cause him great anguish.
14 See also [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 178].
had an enormous influence on the Russian detective tradition15. In Part Six, Porfiry visits Raskolnikov to warn him of his imminent arrest. In this meeting, Porfiry disconcerts his suspect, who expects an accusation, by treating Raskolnikov respectfully and voicing sympathy for him. Porfiry lays out his investigatory process, thereby establishing his psychological acuity and outlining a method of reading. Readers already know who committed the crime (the "whodunit"). Nonetheless, Dostoevsky has Porfiry explain to Raskol-nikov how he put various clues and incidents together to determine who committed the murders, all while creating a psychological profile that helps account for the why (the "whydunit") - the major unresolved question of Crime and Punishment.
Porfiry's process has two prongs: evidentiary and intuitive. He cites the clues and incidents that led him to Raskolnikov - the pawnbroker's labels, Raskolnikov's fainting spell in the police station, his taunting of Zamyotov, his article on crime, his visit to the empty apartment, and his earlier interviews with Porfiry: «Всё ведь это одно к одному-с, одно к одному-с, Родион Романыч, голубчик!» / "One thing leads to another, one thing leads to another, my dear Rodion Romanych!" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 345]. More importantly, however, Porfiry prides himself on comprehending Raskolnikov's character: «Раздражительны вы уж очень» / "you are too irritable" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 344]; «удрученному, но гордому, властному и нетерпеливому, в особенности нетерпеливому!» / "aggrieved but proud, domineering, impatient - especially impatient" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 344]; «смелы, заносчивы, серьезны» / "daring, presumptuous, serious" someone who «много уж чувствовали» / "had felt a great deal" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 345]. When he read Raskolnikov's article, Porfiry declared it « нелепа и фантастична, но в ней <...> гордость юная и <...> смелость отчаяния» / "absurd, fantastic, full of pride, the courage of despair», and he thought «Ну, с этим человеком так не пройдет!» / "'Well, for this man it won't end there!'" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 345]. Now Porfiry declares «убил, да за честного человека себя почитает, людей презирает, бледным ангелом ходит» / "he killed, and yet he considers himself an honest man, despises people, walks around like a pale angel" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 348]. Porfiry observes: «Ну, так жду я вас, смотрю, а вас бог и дает - идете!» / "And so I waited for you, and look, what a godsend - you came!" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 346]. He claims that he
15 [Whitehead 2013: 101-21]; [ McReynolds 2013: Ch 4]. Dostoevsky's novel, coming so early in the development of Russian detective fiction, seems to have fixed the Russians' marked preference for the "whydunit."
saw through Raskolnikov's laughter at Razumikhin at the start of their first meeting: «а не жди я вас таким особенным образом, и в смехе вашем ничего бы не заметил. Вот оно что значит в настроении-то быть» / "but if I hadn't been waiting for you in such a special way, I wouldn't have noticed anything in your laughter. That's what it means to be in the right frame of mind" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 346].
"The right frame of mind" can serve as an apt prescription for the good reader / observer. Like other authors of detective stories, Dostoevsky makes readers co-investigators. Like Porfiry, we must remember all sorts of conversations, details, characters, and incidents that we have encountered in the past and put them together with our present encounters in order to interpret characters and their actions. Unlike a criminal investigator, we are reading a text - so all our evidence is documentary. It is also selected and arranged to guide or mislead us. Like investigators, we must draw conclusions by piecing together the evidence, but unlike investigators, we are in a structured environment where the author can decide to simulate either the randomness of evidence or the serendipity of intuition. Like Porfiry, we must learn how to "wait" "in a special way" for characters to reveal their personalities.
The professionals in Crime and Punishment employ their powers of observation sympathetically. Zosimov offers readers as well as Raskolnikov's family a clinical analysis, focusing on diagnosis and treatment. He leaves the psychologizing to his patient, and Dostoevsky leaves it to readers. Porfiry, on the other hand, offers readers an investigatory analysis that pays as close attention to Raskolnikov's character and actions as it does to the material evidence. During his first meeting with Raskolnikov, Porfiry mostly observes but also tests Raskolnikov. During the second, he plays antagonist, hoping to get his suspect to confess or incriminate himself. During the third, Porfiry appeals to Raskolnikov's conscience and sense of justice. He asks Raskolnikov to put aside their agonistic relationship and act on his own behalf: Porfiry wants him to confess not only for the sake of his soul16 but also for the sake of the accused innocent Mikolka.
As Porfiry lays out his investigatory process, readers see that he deploys both intuition and reason. Porfiry explains that because «эта проклятая психология о двух концах!» / "this cursed psychology is double-ended!", all his evidence «до последней черты можно в другую сторону объяснить» / "can be explained in the opposite sense" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 346]. He thus yearns for a «черточку» / "trace", for something that will prove
16 See [Ronner 2015] for a discussion of Porfiry's role as a practitioner of therapeutic justice.
Raskolnikov's guilt. Upon hearing about Raskolnikov ringing the bell at the empty apartment, Porfiry has an epiphany that parallels the workings of emotion: he makes an automatic, non-cognitive evaluation followed by a physiological response «Да как услышал тогда про эти колокольчики, так весь даже дрожь прохватила» / "And then, when I heard about those little bells, I even stopped dead, I even began shivering" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 346]. Next he makes a cognitive evaluation of his initial judgment: «'Ну, думаю, вот она черточка и есть!'» / "'Now,' I thought, 'here's that little trace! This is it!'" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 346]. Although the process involves a final cognitive evaluation, Porfiry declares that he has not employed logic or reason to form a conclusion: «Да уже и не рассуждал я тогда, просто не хотел» / "'And I wasn't reasoning then, I simply didn't want to'" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 346].
To make sure that readers understand the process, Dostoevsky has Porfiry explain it to Raskolnikov:
Нет, батюшка Родион Романыч, тут не Миколка! Тут дело фантастическое, мрачное, дело современное, нашего времени случай-с <...> Тут книжные меч-ты-с, тут теоретически раздраженное сердце; тут видна решимость на первый шаг, но <. > Дверь за собой забыл притворить, а убил, двух убил, по теории. Убил, да и денег взять не сумел, а что успел захватить, то под камень снес. Мало было ему, что муку вынес, когда за дверью сидел, а в дверь ломились и колокольчик звонил, - нет, он потом уж на пустую квартиру, а в полубреде, припомнить этот колокольчик идет, холоду спинного опять испытать потребовалось... [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 348]
No, my dear Rodion Romanych, there's no Mikolka here! Here's a fantastic, gloomy, modern case, an incident of our times, sir . . . Here are bookish dreams, sir, here is a heart irritated by theory; here is clearly a resolve to take a first step, but . . . He forgot to lock the door behind him, but killed, killed two people, according to a theory. He killed, but wasn't able to take the money, and what he managed to grab, he hid under a stone. It wasn't enough to bear the torment of standing behind the door while the door was being forced and the bell was ringing, - no, he later goes to the empty apartment, in a half-delirium, to remember that bell, he felt the need to experience that spinal chill again.
Although Porfiry knows that the bells are not concrete evidence, they clinch his intuition about Raskolnikov's guilt. Yet Dostoevsky does not denigrate the role of reason. Porfiry uses his reason to collect and process information: it gets him to the place where he is in "the right frame of mind" to understand the significance of the bells. Moreover, Porfiry stresses Raskolnikov's theory as the explanation of his crime. Like readers, Porfiry develops his theory of motive from reading, in his case from reading then discussing Raskolnikov's article.
Dostoevsky deliberately leaves the question of motive open, as we see in Raskolnikov's third meeting with Sonya in Part 5, Chapter 4. Unlike Por-firy, who develops a theory of motive from reading and questioning, Sonya uses her great sympathy and intuition to try to understand why Raskolnikov killed two women, including her friend Lizaveta. In this masterful scene, Son-ya repeatedly rejects Raskolnikov's explanations, asks him to stop speaking so metaphorically, and claims that she will understand «про себя» / "inside herself [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 318].
As a moral agent, Sonya expects a guilt script, that is, she expects Raskol-nikov to acknowledge his crime, voice repentance, and move toward expiation. But while Raskolnikov goes to Sonya because he feels the need to confess, a sign that his moral self is responding to his guilt, he quickly moves away from this topic and instead lays out a power script and indirectly explains his theory of crime in which guilt is a sign of weakness. He says he wanted to be a Napoleon, someone who can step over moral and civil law without a second thought. By returning to the power script, Raskolnikov remind readers of the guilt script. After all, the Russian word for crime derives from the verb per-estupit', which literally means stepping over or transgressing17. Sonya does not understand Raskolnikov's desire to transgress moral limits without guilt because it does not make moral sense: «Вы лучше говорите мне прямо... без примеров» / "It would be better to tell me directly...without examples" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 319] Sonya's resistance compels Raskolnikov to try again. She dismisses his argument from poverty and desire to help his family because it doesn't square with her experience of Raskolnikov as a moral agent. Raskolnikov returns to his superman theory, arguing that he wanted to prove to himself that he was not a louse, but a human being, by which he means a person with the will to power. The terms «вошь» / "louse" and «человек» / "human being" demonstrate Raskolnikov's contempt for others (a defense against shame), but also a desire to defeat his self-contempt. Sonya's passionate refusal to accept his equation - «Это человек-то вошь!» / "A human being - a louse!" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 320] - reveals the moral flaw in his rational arguments18.
Even as Raskolnikov's unconscious, moral self pushes him to confess his crime to Sonya, his rational self protects him from feelings of guilt. When he asks
17 As Marina Kostalevsky so nicely points out, "Throughout the novel Raskolnikov returns repeatedly to the motivation of his crime (переступление), though almost to the very end he continues to see it as a mere overstepping of bounds (преступление)" [Kostalevsky 1997: 84].
18 It also jolts readers into recognizing that we have largely accepted his view of Alyona Ivanovna as a stereotype, a social parasite.
her what he should do, she tells him to respond to the guilt script: «Страдание принять и искупить себя им, вот что надо» / Accept suffering and redeem yourself by it, that's what you must do" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 323]. Raskolnikov refuses: «В чем я виноват перед ними? Зачем пойду? Что им скажу? [...] Так ведь они же надо мной сами смеяться будут [...] Ничего, ничего не поймут, они, Соня, и недостойны понять» / How am I guilty before them? Why should I go? What should I tell them? [...] They'll just laugh at me. [...] They won't understand a thing, Sonya, not a thing - and they are not worthy to understand" [Ibid.]. Raskolnikov responds by defending against shame: he projects blame outwards, accuses others of evil doing, and expresses contempt for them. Nonetheless, these self-justificatory, rational defenses bracket an admission that he fears mockery. This interaction also identifies a critical difference between guilt and shame. While guilt, as Sonya notes, allows for expiation, shame is irreversible. As Helen Merrill Lynd notes, "No single, specific thing we can do can rectify or mitigate such an experience [Lynd 1958: 50].
The three methods of ridding the self of shame - denial / forgetting, laughter, and confession - all involve distancing the self from pain by pushing it out of consciousness or by changing position, viewing self from the witness perspective. Raskolnikov both confesses and forgets. Though Raskolnikov comes to tell Sonya who killed Lizaveta, he constantly forgets Lizaveta as he talks. Sonya, however, never forgets Lizaveta, which is why she expects a guilt script; she also reminds Raskolnikov, and Dostoevsky's readers, of her friend - both verbally and visually. As Raskolnikov asks Sonya to guess who committed the crimes by looking at him,
[О]н смотрел на нее и вдруг, в ее лице, как бы увидел лицо Лизаветы. Он ярко запомнил выражение лица Лизаветы, когда он приближался к ней тогда с топором, а она отходила от него к стене, выставив вперед руку, с совершенно детским испутом в лице, точь-в-точь как маленькие дети, когда они вдруг начинают чего-нибудь пугаться <...> Почти то же самое случилось теперь с Соней. [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 315]
He looked at her and suddenly, in her face, seemed to see the face of Lizaveta. He vividly recalled the expression on Lizaveta's face as he approached her with the axe and she backed away from him towards the wall, holding her hand out in front of her, a completely childlike fear on her face, exactly like little children when they suddenly begin to be afraid of something [...] Almost the same thing now happened with Sonya.
Raskolnikov's identification of Sonya and Lizaveta with children emphasizes the heinousness of the crime, and thus his guilt. It also prepares readers for the abrupt shift in his behavior at novel's end, as he stops foregrounding his shame and begins expiating his guilt.
The Real Punishment
For the shamed person, others are essential. Part of the searing quality of shame's pain derives from the devastating sense of lost connection to others. The «[м]рачное ощущение мучительного, бесконечного уединения и отчуждения» / dark sensation of tormenting, infinite isolation and estrangement" that Raskolnikov feels in the police station [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 81] or the anguish he feels as he bids farewell to his sister for what he believes will be the last time [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 401] exemplify this pain. Raskolnikov's crime alienates him from his family and the human community. In order to reintegrate psychically and socially, Raskolnikov must confront his shame. Zosimov recognizes that Raskolnikov's current illness partially coincides with his leaving the university, which is a community. Porfiry Petrovich recognizes the failure of Raskolnikov's theory as a source of shame: «Теорию выдумал, да и стыдно стало, что сорвалось, что уж очень не оригинально вышло!» / He came up with a theory and became ashamed because it didn't work, because it did not come out originally!" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 351]. Porfiry advises Raskolnikov to find himself to realize his own potential: «Не во времени дело, а в вас самом. Станьте солнцем, вас все и увидят» / It's not a matter of time but of you, yourself. Become a sun and everyone will see you" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 352]. A sun is a source of life and light: Porfiry tells Raskolnikov that he must become an agent who not only acts as a unique individual but one who acts on others' behalf.
Porfiry also diagnoses Raskolnikov's need for community when he dismisses the suggestion that he will run away: «Убежите и сами воротитесь. Без нас вам нельзя обойтись» / Run away, and you'll return on your own. You cannot get along without us" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 352]. Porfiry thus appeals to one of the tenets of Russian Orthodoxy: the mutual interdependence of all human beings. While shame can cause an individual to feel alienated from others, it can also remind an individual of their place in the community. As Vladimir Solovyov, the Russian religious thinker Dostoevsky knew and liked most, has observed: even though shame is experienced as a negative self-assessment, the very fact that shame is experienced speaks of a positive self-assessment. Only if we think ourselves capable of something better can we experience the pain of falling short. Because affiliation arouses his anxiety, Raskolnikov tries to deny his sense of connection. Yet denial exacerbates his suffering. Only by acknowledging his shame and expiating his guilt can Raskolnikov return to community.
Sonya becomes the natural path for Raskolnikov's reintegration: he identifies with her both as a divided self whose beliefs conflict with her profession and as a fallen creature - «Разве ты не то же сделала?» / "Haven't you done the same thing?" he asks her [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 252]. Furthermore, because she has experienced shame and banishment from community, Sonya is an ideal partner: «Мы вместе прокляты, вместе и пойдем!» / "We're cursed together, so let's go together" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 252].
As we have seen, Dostoevsky's narrative strategy of remaining close to Raskolnikov while having others observe and comment on his behavior not only imitates Raskolnikov's internal divisions but also creates a similar division within readers. We feel sympathetically towards Raskolnikov, but we see him critically. Dostoevsky's much criticized narrative strategy for his Epilogue reflects a different authorial goal. While I agree with Rosenshield's argument that Dostoevsky's shift to summarization allows him to convey authorial message [Rosenshield 1998: 118-21], I also observe that the narrator's reportorial change reflects the change in Raskolnikov. By confessing and accepting external punishment, Raskolnikov experiences some relief from internally generated pain. Exile to Siberia gives him geographical, temporal, and spiritual distance on his crime. The narrator's summarizing reflects the similar distance that readers need to get entirely out of Raskolnikov's head.
In Epilogue, Part One, the narrator summarizes the events of the eighteen months following Raskolnikov's confession (which include nine months in Siberia). He concludes by reporting that Raskolnikov is seriously ill. In Epilogue, Part Two, the narrator notes that «его гордость сильно была уязвлена: он и заболел от уязвленной гордости» / "his pride was severely wounded; he fell ill from wounded pride" [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 461]. More tellingly, the narrator comments:
О, как бы счастлив он был, если бы мог сам обвинить себя! Он бы снес тогда всё, даже стыд и позор. Но он строго судил себя, и ожесточенная совесть его не нашла никакой особенно ужасной вины в его прошедшем, кроме разве простого промаху, который со всяким мог случиться. Он стыдился именно того, что он, Раскольников, погиб так слепо, безнадежно, глухо и глупо. [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 416-417]
Oh, how happy he would have been had he been able to condemn himself! He would have borne everything then, even the shame and disgrace. But he judged himself severely, and his hardened conscience found no especially terrible guilt in his past, except perhaps a simple blunder, which could happen to anyone. He was ashamed precisely because he, Raskolnikov, had perished so blindly, hopelessly, dumbly, and stupidly.
Raskolnikov suffers in Siberia precisely because he does not feel guilt. As the narrator observes - «Но он не раскаивался в своем преступлении» / "he had not repented his crime" [Ibid.]. Readers infer that repentance would bring relief. The narrator lets us know that guilt is easier to bear than shame.
By changing narrative strategies in the Epilogue, summarizing rather than reporting, Dostoevsky condenses events - eighteen months in a few pages. Dostoevsky also uses scriptural shorthand to convey authorial message: for instance, after he has been in Siberia for nine months, Raskolnikov lies in the hospital haunted by dreams of trichinae at the end of Lent during Easter season. These dreams, like the narrator's reporting, are more abstract, reflecting their cognitive nature: they express the enactment of great pride - extreme individualism and rationalism. Their cognitive nature also reflects Raskolnikov's emotional state. Like his earlier dreams, what was repressed now returns: they reveal his understanding that beings who act completely out of rational self-interest kill one another. Raskolnikov's trichinae dreams thus function similarly to his earlier dreams, reflecting him to himself. But these dreams occur after he's been in Siberia for nine months (a gestational period) and during Easter season, thereby preparing readers for Raskolnikov's rebirth.
Near the end of his hospital stay, Raskolnikov looks out his window, sees Sonya, and steps away. The next day, he looks out the window, and she is not there. Realizing that he misses her, he writes to her, that is, he literally steps out of his self-enclosure to express concern for another. Only when Raskol-nikov stops obsessing about himself and thinks of Sonya can he leave the prison house of his shame, accept his guilt, and start to heal.
Conclusion
Throughout Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky the author focuses relentlessly on character psychology, especially on Raskolnikov's. By revealing his characters' thoughts, actions, and emotions, he reveals their values and connection to others. By portraying characters as readers of others, particularly Raskolnikov, Dostoevsky models practices of observation and interpretation for readers. He also keeps alive gaps between what we expect and what we get, thereby reinforcing his larger narrative strategy of creating and thwarting reader expectation of a guilt script. Up to the very last page of the Epilogue, Dostoevsky keeps readers off-balance, thwarting our expectations of a guilt script by portraying a man consumed by shame at his identity.
Zosimov, Porfiry, Sonya, and Dunya all view Raskolnikov as a moral agent. They thus expect him to acknowledge his membership in the human commu-
nity and to act according to shared moral principles19. When he places himself above others, Raskolnikov willfully removes himself from community. Zosi-mov's diagnosis is accurate - whether Raskolnikov's illness is a symptom or a consequence of his leaving the university, it signals a self-willed self-enclosure. When Porfiry identifies Raskolnikov as the murderer, and when Son-ya and Dunya learn of his guilt, they all expect him to confess and repent his crime. Although Raskolnikov eventually confesses at the police station20, he shows no sign of repentance until the novel's last paragraphs when «он знал, какою бесконечною любовь искупит он теперь все ее страдания» / "he knew by what infinite love he would redeem" Sonya's suffering [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI: 242]. Since Raskolnikov identifies Sonya so closely with Lizaveta, redeeming Sonya's suffering entails expiation of his sin. On the very last page of the novel, Dostoevsky the author finally gives readers the guilt script we expect.
As Crime and Punishment shows, Raskolnikov's moral emotions reveal his inner goodness as well as his inner divisions. In the Epilogue, readers see more clearly that Raskolnikov not only feels guilt for his crime but shame for failing to prove his theory. He pushes the guilt away not only because it disproves his theory, but because it increases his shame by making him feel weak and passive - one of the reasons he developed his theory in the first place. Not until he realizes and admits his need for others, as he does at the end of the Epilogue when he is thrown at Sonya's feet21, can he see himself as
19 My discussion of moral agency is deeply influenced by Jeanine Grenberg's discussion of humility [Grenberg 2005].
20 Before Raskolnikov's final confession to Lieutenant Gunpowder at the police station, Dostoevsky offers readers glimpses into Raskolnikov's internal struggle by portraying scenes of near-confession: in Part 2, he pretends to confess to Zamyotov at the Crystal Palace [Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 124-129]; in Part 4, he tells Razumikhin with his eyes in a dark corridor Достоевский 1972-1990: VI, 240], promises to tell Sonya who killed Lizaveta (Pt 4, Ch 4), and almost confesses to Porfiry (Pt 4, Ch 5); in Part 5, he conveys his guilt to Sonya without actually saying he killed Lizaveta and her sister (Pt 5, Ch 4). Not until Part 6 does he admit his crime aloud - first to Dunya after he realizes that she already knows (Pt 6, Ch 7), then to Lieutenant Gunpowder (Pt 6, Ch 8). In different ways these moments dramatize the struggle between Raskolnikov's guilt, manifest in his desire to confess, and his shame, manifest in his desire to avoid capture and his lack of repentance. By viewing Raskolnikov's internal struggle in terms of guilt and shame, we can understand why he confesses to Lieutenant Gunpowder rather than to Porfiry. Because Porfiry understands Raskolnikov's theory and exposes him to himself, Porfiry wins their game of cat and mouse. While Raskolnikov may concede that he has lost the legal battle, he surrenders on his own terms to Lieutenant Gunpowder, thereby retaining control of the process and his sense of self. Pride still has the upper hand. Only in the novel's epilogue, after his final dream demonstrating that placing self above others leads to destruction for all, does he recognize that he loves and needs Sonya, who is his link to human community. See [Ronner 2015)].
21 See Workman's analysis of the importance of erotic love in the novel [Workman 2014: 87-97].
the moral agent that Dostoevsky's narrator, readers, and character-observers have been expecting all along. Love, the most powerful moral emotion of all, allows Raskolnikov to get past his shame, admit his guilt, and rejoin the human community.
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