Zeehan's First Entry on Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment is not the type of book that I would generally think of reading for fun. Before I began the book, I thought to myself that this is going to be another A Tale of Two Cities, one great piece of literature, but one that I particularly hate. However as I began reading it, that really wasn’t the case. I have to admit that the book is a little hard to follow, however even though it’s a translated version, it’s quite interesting. From the first few pages, Raskolnikov, the protagonist, obviously appears to have a very dark and somewhat sick personality. He seems like he is depressed, and I would be too, if I was in his position. I think that Raskolnikov’s depression was caused by more than the fact that he is in debt and hungry. I’ve noticed from his reaction from his mothers letters and the time when he wanted to save the girl who fainted in the street is that he wants to be useful, but he feels absolutely useless. Keeping the time period in mind, it’s usually the responsibility of the son of the family to marry off his sister and take care of his mother; however, in Rodya’s case, his younger sister and his mother are taking care of him instead of the other way around. I think that’s one of the fundamental causes of Rodya’s depression. After receiving the letter from his mother, Rodya murmured to himself that he is not going to let his mother sacrifice his sister for him, but then he realized that she would have never had to even think about sacrificing one child for the other if he had been established and useful as he was expected to be. I’m not yet sure how the story is connected to murder, but I think that the fact that Rodya is in so much debt has a lot to do it, and maybe it’s because of money, since it’s such an important theme in the book so far.