19th Century Theories in Dostoevskys Crime and Punishment Essay

19th Century Theories in Dostoevskys villainy and Punishment   I learn you the Super humankind. Man is more or lessthing that has to be surpassed. What have you done to surpass him? These words verbalize by Friedrich Nietzsche encompass the theories present in Dostoevskys nineteenth century novel, Crime and Punishment. Fyodor Dostoevsky, living a life of suffering himself, created the character of Raskolnikov with the preconceptions of his own bitter and struggling life. Throughout his exile in Siberia from 1849-1859, his sentiments of suffering, sorrow, and the common man surfaced and heightened, inspire him to begin writing Crime and Punishment in 1859.         The main paper in this novel is that of suffering. It is apparent that all characters, major and minor, experience some sort of internal or external affliction. The overall theme of the ladder is that all mortal men suffer, and that salvation can not be obtained unless this anguish is present. Dostoevskys protagonist, Raskolnikov, must evolve and realize this fact to overcome his conflicts and chafe the salvation of peace and tranquillity. Volumes and volumes of critique can be written on where this suffering originated, precisely Dostoevskys main concentration and focus is not where, just why suffering must exist and how this suffering can be overcome. This is seen from the fact that throughout the six sections of the novel, only one section is rivet on the origin of the torment - the Crime, and the remaining five sections are difficult on Raskolnikovs path to overcoming this anguish - the Punishment.         By focusing solely on the punishment, the internal an... ... all serve a justified purpose in benefiting his moral and rational states. He overcomes the common man through the salvation he obtains from this linear evolution of trials. He suffers not from Marxist classes, but from internal struggle, excluding him as a memb er of the proletariat, or common man. though not physically or emotionally fit to survive, his confession becomes his salvation, his survival, and his disavowal in the Darwin theory of surviving. The common man may survive because he is fit to survive, but Raskolnikov survives because he chooses to survive. Unlike Freuds theory that the everyday man lives his life through his ego, Raskolnikov makes his decisions based on his superego, doing things not just because it would be rational, but because that it the way it should be done.  So then, Is Raskolnikov a Superman? Yes.