"Crime and Punishment": reviews. "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky: brief content, main characters

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky - one of the most significant creators of not only Russian literature, but also world, universal. The novels of the great writer are still being translated and published in ever new languages. Creativity Dostoevsky impregnated with compassion and boundless love for ordinary people. A unique talent to show the most profound qualities of the human soul, which everyone diligently hides from the whole world, is what attracts people in the works of the great writer.

Fyodor Dostoevsky: "Crime and Punishment" - the year of writing and readers' reviews

Perhaps the most controversial novel of Dostoevsky is "Crime and Punishment." Written in 1866, he made an indelible impression on the respectable audience of readers. As it always happens, opinions are divided. Some, superficially leafing through the first pages, were indignant: "A beaten topic!" Those who accepted to read anything, just to emphasize their status and boast of the very fact of reading, and not understanding the author's thoughts, sincerely pitied the honest murderer. Still others threw a novel, exclaiming: "What an anguish is this book!"

These were the most common reviews. "Crime and Punishment," a work so valuable in the literary world, did not immediately find the proper recognition. However, it radically changed the entire way of social life of the nineteenth century. Now on secular receptions and fashionable evenings there was a duty topic for conversation. To fill the embarrassing silence could have been a discussion of Raskolnikov. Those who had the misfortune not immediately to read the work quickly made up for lost time.

False representation of the novel "Crime and Punishment"

To understand what Dostoevsky's novel was supposed to bring to the reader, then few could. Most saw only the tip of the iceberg: the student killed, the student went insane. The version about madness was supported also by many critics. In the described situation, they saw only absurd ideas about the life and death of the protagonist. However, this is not quite so: one must look deeper into the soul, be able to catch subtle hints at the true state of affairs.

The problems raised by FM Dostoevsky

The main problem raised by the author, it is difficult to distinguish from all the others - too many-sided came out "Crime and Punishment". The book contains problems of morality, or rather, its absence; Social problems that generate inequality between people who are at first sight the same. Not the least role is played by the topic of incorrectly prioritized priorities: the writer shows what happens to a society obsessed with money.

Contrary to popular opinion, the protagonist of Dostoyevsky's novel "Crime and Punishment" does not represent the younger generation of that time. Many critics have apprehended this character in hostility, deciding that Raskolnikov expressed contempt for the popular in the late nineteenth century trend - nihilism. However, this theory is fundamentally wrong: in a poor student Dostoevsky showed only a victim of circumstances, a man who broke down under the onslaught of public vices.

A brief summary of the novel "Crime and Punishment"

The described events occur in the 60's. 19th century, in gloomy Petersburg. Rodion Raskolnikov, a poor young man, a former student, is forced to huddle in the attic of an apartment building. Tired of poverty, he goes to the old woman-penny-maker to lay the last value. Acquaintance with the drunkard-Marmeladov and the letter of the mother, which describes them with her daughter a hard life, push Rodion on a terrible thought - about the murder of an old woman. He believes that the money that he will be able to take away from the interest-bearing, can make life easier, if not for him, then at least for his family.

The thought of violence is against the student, but he decides to commit a crime. To understand his own theory of Raskolnikov will help quote from Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment: "For one life - thousands of lives saved from decay and decomposition, one death and a hundred lives in return - but this is arithmetic!" "It's not that great," the student believes, "but out of the rut, people who come out by nature must be criminals, more or less, of course." Such thoughts encourage Rodion to test himself, having carried out his plans. He kills the old woman with an ax, takes something valuable and disappears from the crime scene.

On the basis of a strong shock, Raskolnikov is overcome by illness. All the remaining time of the narrative, he is distrustful and alienated from people, which causes suspicion. Rodion's acquaintance with Sonechka Marmeladova, a prostitute who is forced to work for the benefit of a poor family, leads to confession. But, contrary to the expectations of the murderer, the deeply believing Sonya regrets him and convinces him that the torment will cease when he surrenders and is punished.

As a result, Raskolnikov, though convinced of his rightness, confesses to the deed. After him, Sonia rushes to penal servitude. The first years Rodion is cold to her - he is also alienated, uncommunicative, suspicious. But over time, sincere repentance comes to him, and in the soul a new feeling begins - a love for a devoted girl.

The main characters of the novel

It is impossible to make an unequivocal opinion about this or that character - everyone here is real as much as the reader is real. Even a small passage of the text makes it easy to understand that this is Fyodor Dostoevsky - "Crime and Punishment." The main characters are absolutely unrepeatable, the characters require a long and thoughtful analysis - and these are signs of real psychological realism.

Rodion Raskolnikov

Raskolnikov himself is still haunted by mixed reviews. "Crime and Punishment" - the creation is very multidimensional, voluminous, and it's difficult to understand even such routine as the character's character. At the beginning of the first part, the appearance of Rodion is described: a tall, slender young man with dark blond hair and dark expressive eyes. The hero is definitely beautiful - the sharper he contrasts with violence and poverty, which is full of the world of gray Petersburg.

The nature of Rodion is very ambiguous. As events unfold, the reader learns more and more aspects of the hero's life. Much later, the murder is proving that Raskolnikov, like no other, is capable of compassion: when he found an already familiar drunkard Marmeladov, crushed by a coach, gave the last money to his family for a funeral. Such a contrast between morality and murder causes doubts in the reader: is this person as terrible as it seemed at first?

Assessing the actions of Rodion from a Christian point of view, the author claims: Raskolnikov is a sinner. However, his main misconduct is not suicide, not that he has transgressed the law. The worst thing that there is in Rodion is what his theory is: dividing people into those who "have the right" and those whom he considers "a creature trembling." "Everyone is equal," Dostoevsky asserts, "and everyone has the same right to life."

Sonechka Marmeladova

Sonia Marmeladova deserves no less attention . This is how Dostoevsky describes her: a short, slender, but pretty pretty blonde of eighteen years with beautiful blue eyes. The complete opposite of Raskolnikov: not very beautiful, inconspicuous, quiet and modest, Sonechka, as the author called it, also violated the law. But there was no similarity with Rodion: she was not sinful.

Such a paradox is explained simply: Sonia did not divide people into good and bad; She sincerely loved everyone. Working on the panel enabled her family to survive in the terrible conditions of poverty, and the girl herself, forgetting about her own well-being, devoted her life to serving her relatives. Sacrifice redeemed the fact of the crime - and Sonechka remained innocent.

Critical reviews: "Crime and Punishment"

As mentioned above, Dostoevsky's offspring were not appreciated by all. People far from the art of speech, in forming their own opinion, relied more on the reviews of influential critics; Those, in turn, saw in the work each something of its own. Unfortunately, many, understanding the meaning of the novel, were mistaken - and their mistakes led to deliberately false opinions.

Thus, for example, A. Suvorin is a fairly influential person who, with the analysis of Crime and Punishment, appeared in the well-known print edition Russkiy Vestnik, stated: the whole essence of the work is interpreted as the "painful direction of the entire literary activity" of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Rodion, in the opinion of the critic, is not at all the embodiment of some direction or a storehouse of thoughts assimilated by the multitude, and there is only a completely sick person. He even called Raskolnikov a nervous, crazy sort.

Such categoricality found its supporters: P. Strakhov, a man close to Dostoevsky, declared: the writer's primary strength is not in certain categories of people, but "in depicting positions, in the ability to grasp deeply the individual movements and upheavals of the human soul." Like Suvorin, P. Strakhov did not pay attention to the tragic fate of the heroes, but considered the work as the deepest perversion of the understanding of morality.

Is Dostoevsky a realist?

The most accurate to see in Dostoevsky writer-realist was able DI Pisarev, writing about this valuable reviews. "Crime and Punishment" was carefully considered in the article "The Struggle for Life": in it the critic raised the issue of the moral development of the society that surrounded the criminal. A very important idea about the novel was formulated precisely by this author: that part of the freedom that Raskolnikov had at his disposal was absolutely insignificant. The true causes of the crime Pisarev sees poverty, the contradictions of Russian life, the moral fall of people surrounding Raskolnikov.

The true value of love

"Crime and Punishment" is a book of real Russian life. A characteristic feature of the art of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky is his ability to infinitely love not only "positively beautiful" people, but also fallen, broken, sinful. It is the motives of philanthropy that are reflected in the famous novel "Crime and Punishment". The content of chapters, paragraphs, lines includes the author's bitter tears shed over the fate of the Russian people, over the destiny of Russia itself. He desperately urges the reader to compassion, because without him in this dirty, cruel world, life - as well as death - no, there was, and never will be.