So I've been wondering you know, what makes "classics" like "Crime and Punishment" the "great" novels they are. I asked Rema for her definition of a classic and she said that "A classic is a book that remains popular over a certain period of time. It creates controversy, and dares to question what's viewed as moral, and socially acceptable. A classic usually has something valuable to teach its readers. The author leaves you with something to think about, and ponder over- Which makes a novel a worthy read." Under this definition I can totally see why a novel such as "Crime and Punishment" has been labeled a classic etc... The thing is, to me I don't even see how someone could find this book interesting. I've always thought a classic should be something so revolutionary that after reading it your opinion on the world is changed. That your eyes were opened to something new, and you finished the book thinking to yourself "How did I miss this before" or "What would I do in a situation like that". I couldn't do this with Crime and Punishment it simply did not happen. The reason being that I didn't need this book to show me that you have a conscience, or that in a world where morality no longer played a role in decision making, that things would be messed up. To me most people would label this as a classic because it puzzled them so much because to them it was so well written and to scholars poses itself as a puzzle. But is it perhaps possible that the book is so poorly written so obvious, that it's puzzle isn't really a puzzle at all, but rather a series of contradictions which obscure the main point the author was trying to get across.
It puzzled me from the very beginning as to why Dostoevsky made the character of Raskolnikov so charitable when for the time being he was supposed to be cold and heartless making decisions based on reason rather then compassion. Based on the prologue, Raskolnikov was supposed to commit the murders and then his innate conscious was supposed to drive him towards confession, proving that morality is needed in society for society to be the nice place it is, and even exist. This wasn't how things unfolded though. Raskolnikov was donating money and looking out for strangers in the street during the time when he was supposed to be under the influence of reason only. He showed compassion prior to Dostoevsky's main effort to display where his conscience would take over. To me, this flawed his character in a way that destroyed the rest of the book for me. Now, after the murders the expectation was that Raskolnikov will start to feel guilty etc... driving him into confession. This happened as it was supposed to, but then in the epilogue things got all screwy again when Dostoevsky starts saying that Raskolnikov wasn't guilty whatsoever, and rather he was "ashamed just because he, Raskolnikov... must humble himself and submit to the idiocy of a sentence, if he were anyhow to be at peace." Where did his conscience go? It developed after the murders, and then what magically disappeared again following his confession? That's what Dostoevsky depicts here because Raskolnikov wasn't guilty about the murders, he was upset that he had been caught and that it seemed that only serving out his sentence in jail would free him. This lost me, rather then capitalizing on the conscience Raskolnikov had developed, Dostoevsky throws it away, and reverts Raskolnikov back to his pre- murdering days mindset. For me these two contradictions totally ruined the book. Where as because this is a "classic" I was expecting to learn something new, I instead finished the book thinking that the standards of what makes something a classic have been relaxed. Whether you use Rema's definition of what a classic is here or mine, for me this book fits under neaither. Using Rema's definition, this book didn't leave me with anything to ponder over, because Dostoevsky went and scrambled everything over at the end ruining a chance for me to ask myself whether under the right circumstances a crime is justified, and whether society really does need morals. And under my definition where was the eye opening? There was the chance for it, but then Dostoevsky went and destroyed that possibility by leaving Raskolnikov not haunted by the murders at the end, but haunted at his own failure. If someone thinks I got this wrong, please fill me in on my mistakes and errors I might have made in my analysis.
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