Summer reading assignment: Crime and Punishment Journal #2-- Felice

For me, the book hasn’t gotten any better. It is still a slow read. Although there has been an increased amount of dialogue, detail still overwhelms me. The only details I actually felt were necessary were those of the murder. When he first walked into the old woman’s house, I wondered exactly how long it would take Raskolnikov to murder her. I wondered if he would ponder over it and then possibly change his mind. However, the title of the book is CRIME and Punishment, so clearly, the crime was going to be committed. I didn’t expect the crime to happen so quickly, though. It was as if he didn’t even think twice about it. “He could not waste even one more moment. He took the axe all the way out, swung it with both hands, scarcely aware of himself, and almost without effort, almost mechanically, brought the butt-end down on her head.” Is it honestly that simple to kill? Raskolnikov repeatedly hit her with the axe, almost as if it was no big deal; it was as if he had had practice or done it before. What does it take to kill someone? Does it take simply disliking a person? No matter how much I hated a person, I’m not sure I could kill anyone. I don’t know if I would have the willpower. I don’t understand how Raskolnikov could kill so effortlessly.

This isn’t about the book’s content, but as I was sitting here typing this, I glanced down at the cover of my book and realized that there are blood stains across it. The blood starts at the bottom and leads up to the top onto what appears to be a court or a place of God (there are two crosses). The blood stains are obviously the “crime” part of the book. Courts or churches usually symbolize justice. Just by glancing at this cover, I can tell that whoever commits crime will be put to justice.