Analysis of the epilogue "Crime and Punishment". The meaning and role of the epilogue

Epilogue of the work "Crime and Punishment" reveals the events that occurred after the trial and sentence. The author of the novel describes the inner state of the criminal, which changes throughout the narrative. A special emphasis is placed on the gradual change in relations between Raskolnikov and Sonya Marmeladova. Spiritual degeneration or spiritual rebirth - what awaits the criminal in custody?

Raskolnikov in the prison

At the trial, circumstances that mitigated Raskolnikov's guilt were taken into account. Such circumstances were the sincere confession, and some episodes from his past, which testified that he is not an inveterate villain.

For example, during his studies he spent the last money to care for a fellow student who was sick with tuberculosis. Subsequently, he transferred his worries to the father of the deceased comrade and even buried him at his own expense.

Risking his life, saved in the fire of young children and received severe burns. The court did not see profit in his crime, because he did not use the money stolen from the old woman. Immediately after the crime, in order to get rid of terrible thoughts, he hid them under the stone, without even asking how much money was in the purse of the murdered percentirer.

Given all these circumstances, the court found that at the time of the crime the defendant was in a state of temporary insanity. He was sentenced to 8 years of hard labor.

The hero's inner state

After spending almost a year and a half in prison, he was in a state of hopeless apathy and indifference to everything that surrounded him.

His indifference spread to himself. He was indifferent to what he eats, what he drinks, he showed no interest in comrades in misfortune, even eschewed them.

Wholly aware of what happened to him, he no longer saw in life any hopes and prospects for the future. Therefore, he treated his own position without emotions, watching himself from outside, like someone outside.

During this time, Raskolnikov's mother died in St. Petersburg, and without knowing what happened to her son in fact. Feeling something wrong, she always waited for news from her son, but she was assured that he went abroad for a long time.

The nurse married Razumikhin, who later planned to move closer to the place where he served the sentence Raskolnikov.

Sonechka Marmeladova, inheriting his money after Svidrigailov's death, followed his beloved. She settled in the city, where the prison for prisoners was located, and began to visit Raskolnikov.

Sonia and Raskolnikov

At first he, not wanting to feed any more illusions about his situation, was cold and even arrogant about Sonya's visits. They irritated him and seemed unnecessary and intrusive.

But when Sonya for some reason could not visit him, Raskolnikov began to feel emptiness and a vague longing. Analysis of the epilogue "Crime and Punishment" well shows the change in the attitude of Raskolnikov to Sonechka.

Because of the state of detachment in which Raskolnikov stayed in the prison, much went past his attention. Over time, he clearly understood that convicts, one of whom was himself, do not consider him to be "his own".

The prisoners, on the other hand, avoided him, feared him, called him atheist. As a result, their attitude towards him resulted in unconscious hatred, which almost ended in the death of Raskolnikov.

Convicts and Sonia

Sonya, however, loved prisoners, not themselves fully aware of what they were for. They liked everything in it, beginning with a kind smile and ending with a small stature and a thin physique.

Meanwhile Sonya could not do anything particularly valuable for them, she could not help them with money or food. But convicts loved her for something quite different, because in their position they valued more than food and clothing.

Sonia in convicts did not see the pariah society, rejected and dead to the world. In each of them she saw a man - God's creation, worthy of love, compassion and understanding. She became a close friend for many of them.

Relatives and wives of prisoners left her parcels for transfer to their husbands and brothers. To those prisoners who did not possess the reading and writing, Sonia helped to write letters home. Analysis of the epilogue "Crime and Punishment" gives us the opportunity to see in a small and thin creation a kind, sympathetic soul.

Understanding the gravity and senselessness of a committed crime, repentance in one's own pride and "Napoleonic" ambitions would bring him comfort.

He longed for this repentance, because then all his torment in the prison would make sense. He wanted to come to the understanding that he had committed a terrible act, crossed all spiritual and moral prohibitions and carried for it a well-deserved punishment.

But, alas, this understanding did not come to him and made existence unbearable. The only thing he regretted and reproached himself for was that he could not bear the burden of guilt for the crime and came to the investigator with a guilty conscience.

Crucial moment

The constant nervous tension gradually provoked the development of a mental illness in him . Once, in a delirious delirium, he saw a dream that frightened him and moved something in his mind.

In that dream, people who considered themselves carriers of supervalued ideas, went crazy and perished. Only a few survived, those who did not contract this terrible virus. The world was rolling into the abyss, and there was no salvation for anyone.

The role of the epilogue "Crime and Punishment" can not be overemphasized after describing such an allegorical dream in which the world is split into sinners and righteous people.

After recovering and returning to work, Raskolnikov finds out that Sonia is sick now, and this caused anxiety and panic in him. He begins to vaguely realize that Sonia is that invisible thread that still binds his darkened world to the human element. He realizes that if he loses it, he will lose and ruin himself completely and forever.

They are found after Sonya's illness, and then Raskolnikov first takes her hand in his own and can not let go. An incomprehensible impulse makes him in tears rush to Sonia's lap.

Sonia, frightened by such a manifestation of feelings, in the first instant was dumbfounded. But almost at once, a happy realization came to her that Raskolnikov loved her endlessly.

Analysis of the epilogue "Crime and Punishment" makes us believe that now the destinies of these people are woven into one. And ahead of them awaits a difficult, but joyful way to resurrection in a new life.

Origins of crime

The theory in "Crime and Punishment" was expressed by Raskolnikov through an article he wrote under the influence of his environment.

Being essentially a real humanist, sensitive to any injustice, he is very worried about all that is a witness.

Extreme poverty, a miserable dark room in which he feels himself buried alive, lack of friendly support and work that would somehow maintain his existence. All this gradually plunges him into the dark world of his own illusions and perceptions.

Petersburg with its stuffiness, dust and stench smothers it like a sack, thrown over his head. On the streets of the city, he encounters the social "bottom" of society: beggars, drunkards, mentally unhealthy people, crushed poverty parents, unhappy disadvantaged children.

The thought of an unjust world order does not give him peace, it drives people crazy, generates despair and misunderstanding in their souls. The deepest border that lies between the poor and the rich, is so insurmountable that Raskolnikov can not reconcile himself to these terrible realities. He is ready to help all mankind to stop suffering even at the price of its own well-being.

Theory in "Crime and Punishment" from the mouth of the hero

Willy-nilly being in the epicenter of human suffering, wholeheartedly sympathizing with the oppressed and disadvantaged, he comes to a concept that frightens its essence, the idea.

In his article he develops the idea of two opposite types of people. Raskolnikov divides them into "ordinary" and those who are not afraid to say "new word" in the current social order.

His idea is based on the "Napoleonic" complex and says that great people, brilliant singles stand above the people's court and human laws. For the sake of a good goal a person should not limit himself in the means of achieving it. Raising himself above human morality, he puts forward an insane statement. The essence of it is that even a crime is not considered as such if it is aimed at achieving the highest goal.

Appointing himself to the category of "extraordinary" people and being influenced by his idea, he conceives the murder of the old interest-bearer. The life of a greedy old woman does not have any value in his eyes, but on her money, he plans to do a lot of good for all who need it. The thought of pulling the family out of the quagmire of poverty warms up his decision.

Life after crime

After the murder, the old woman and her sister, recognizing all their actions as right, the perpetrator discovers that he is no longer able to live the life of an ordinary person. Having overcome that facet that separates good from evil, he condemns himself to unbearable moral suffering. An understanding comes to him that, having committed violence, he automatically placed himself in the same category of society that he hated so much. He himself became one who can do evil with impunity to the weaker and defenseless. Analysis of the epilogue "Crime and Punishment" makes it clear how low the one who dreamed to fly so high fell.

Having crossed the forbidden border, he painfully realizes that he has broken himself as a person. Raskolnikov begins to understand that the violence he committed against the two sisters, in the first place, he committed over his inner nature and morality.

It is this - moral suicide and the inability to get involved in the usual life - driving him crazy. He can not get rid of the feeling of perfect isolation from the "ordinary" world of people. Crime and punishment are problems that do not leave him alone either day or night.

He understands that, having killed an old woman, he has not solved any world problems. Not repenting of the perfected, he is simply tormented by the realization of the meaninglessness of the crime. After all, it turned out that if he somehow changed the world, then only his own.

He himself unfolded his world from the light in the direction of the pitch darkness, in which he now has to live. Without releasing from the shackles of poverty and despair, not one person, he at the same time plunged himself into the very heart of darkness. Hostage of his own idea, he turned into a living dead man.

"Crime and Punishment" is a story about how you can easily lose your soul, and at the price of what a great feat a person can again find himself.

Epilogue Analysis: Crime and Punishment

Epilogue can also clarify much in the person of the writer. Dostoevsky's idea of creating a "psychological novel" came at a time when he himself was serving hard labor and was under the influence of the Christian concept that only love and forgiveness will save the world. Crime and punishment are the problems of society.

What did the author want to put in the epilogue of the novel "Crime and Punishment"? Why is Raskolnikov's revival to a new life? What gives it a push? Is it only a terrible dream about the virus of insanity that struck people, who pushed him to fall on Sonya's lap?

No, the degeneration of the hero began from the very beginning of the novel. It was born also in the 13 days that he dreamed of murder, and in the one and a half year that he spent in emotional throws in the prison. All this time, Raskolnikov's soul, like a lost child, was rushing about in search of a way out of the labyrinth of black, suffocating thoughts and ideas.

And then there was the next push - the death of the mother. And then a terrible in nature and unnatural for supporters of Christianity scene in the church. The church is a holy place where by definition one can not raise one's hand even to an inveterate murderer. But it was in the church that "fellow convicts" were ready to kill Raskolnikov, without realizing that this person had done such a bad thing to them.

Faced with the death of his mother, looking into the face of his own death and panic-stricken at the death of Sonya, who suddenly fell ill, Rodion begins to change in his soul.

Analysis of the epilogue "Crime and Punishment" makes it clear that the process of rebirth is ripening somewhere in the secrets of his soul. Ripens long and hard, imperceptibly for him. And then in an instant an epiphany takes place: he, crying, rushes to Sonia's lap. And they are silent.

They just look at each other and realize that now everything is bad behind. The readers also understand that it was not Raskolnikov that made Sonya a supporter of her "dream", but Sonya turned it into her faith.

Not pride and contempt for the human race at the expense of self-elevation, namely, forgiving Christian love must ultimately transform the world. Analysis of the epilogue makes it possible to understand that a person without a beacon inside can very easily turn aside in the direction of a gloomy one, fall under the influence of evil forces.

By a beacon, determining where the light, and where the darkness is, God serves - the source of all-encompassing and all-forgiving love.

Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment: Epilogue

Crime and punishment are the meaning of the work. There is never one without the other. And Dostoevsky wanted to convey to the readers the idea that no one will judge you for your crime more severely and mercilessly than your conscience. Even if you escape punishment from people, then from the punishment of conscience you will not hide any of the most remote corner of the universe.

The meaning of the epilogue "Crime and Punishment" is that no evil deed can be committed in the name of good. Sonya, who embodies Christian humility, selfless love for God and for people, is opposed to Raskolnikov with his idea of the incompetence of an "extraordinary" personality.

His theory is denied that a great goal aimed at a good cause can be carried out by unworthy means.

Crime is not the worst thing. The worst is punishment. To put it more precisely, it is self-punishment, self-destruction after a person violates both the laws of society and the laws of his own conscience. Man, crime and punishment are the three main keys of the novel. The most important key is punishment.

Therefore, in the novel only the first part is devoted to the crime itself. All subsequent - this is a description of punishment, which awaits the criminal not so much from people as from the court of his own conscience.

The hero does not save his idea of dividing people into "two groups", but the love of Sonya, which "infects" him with his faith in God and that every person is worthy of divine love.

The epilogue of the novel "Crime and Punishment" says that Sonya and Raskolnikov are now one whole and indivisible core. And together they will master the difficult road to renewal and fortunately. "Crime and Punishment" is the story of a man who lost himself because of his own pride and recovered again through love.