Nicole's Third Entry on Crime and Punishment

Svidrigailov was not only my favorite character in the narrative, but also the one that struck me the most. Not only that, but he was surprisingly the one I most understood. When his character first came into the picture I did not feel the same way about him. In Pulcheria Alexandrovna's letter to her son and in the thoughts of Raskolnikov in the beginning of the book Svidrigailov came off as a terrible man who severely mistreated Dunya. But I did like the way Svidrigailov carried himself when facing Raskolnikov. He proved himself to be a very intelligent man who knew what he wanted. After finishing the book and looking back on Svidrigailov's character it seemed as if he had had the plague all along. (I also believe that Raskolnikov, his mother and Katrina Ivanova may have had the plague as well.) I mean he was always so sure of what he was doing and what was to come out of his actions. After finding out his actions of trying to make Dunya his would not work, he was in disbelief and killed himself.

Svidrigailov also seemed a bit insane after poisoning his wife. By the way, I thought from the very moment after he had his first conversation with Raskolnikov, in Raskolnikov's room, that he must have committed a murder. This is because he acted in the same jittery and laughing way that Raskolnikov did after killing the two women. (I think Dostoyevsky was giving us little hints all along for everything.) Without much thought, he realized he should not rape Sonya and after a few nights of wandering, he realized what he believed would be best for him, thus having set his priorities straight very quickly.

Though his character may have not been the sincerest of characters, I liked what Svidrigailov did before his death. I think it was his way of apologizing to those people for his wrongdoings. He felt bad. After reading about the dream he had about the five year old girl, it was proved that he a had a conscience about Raskolnikov disapproving of him going around looking for lechery, especially with his fifteen year old fiancee. If his need to be with other women was true, then maybe I can understand the killing of his wife. He was also in a frenzy like many others were in that town, so it's not like another murder came as much of a surprise to me.

Honestly, I did not like the ending of the book. Yes, it was cute and all how Sonya and Raskolnikov finally realized they both loved each other dearly, but what happened to Sonya? She changed so much. She used to be a prostitute and now she's basically the saint of Siberia who immensely believes in God. Well good for her I guess. I did not like how Dostoyvesky added the plague issue. "The plague grew worse, spreading further and further. Only a few people in the whole world managed to escape." So the whole world catches the plague, huh? That sounds more like some zombie book than a classic. Well I guess you could look at it in a symbolic way, and think that everyone in the world starts to think that they are all Napoleons, (like Raskolnikov did,) and that sooner later Dostoyevsky thinks that every man will go insane and that we will start killing each other. If that's what he meant, then maybe he was right; there are many murders today, just not everyone in the world commits one. Unless the ones who don't are the "pure and chosen, who had been predestined to begin a new species of mankind," but I'm not quite sure if that's what Dostoyevsky was aiming at...