Paragraph Posts for Monday, December 16

Paragraph Posts for Friday, December 13

Paragraph Posts for Thursday, December 12

November 22 Roundup Post 2; gabo

In chapter IV, Dostoevsky offers up the solution to the problems the main players in the novel. Throughout all of part V, what has been the main issue among the characters is pride. Even after realizing that his engagement is irreparably harmed, Luzhin’s pride won’t let him just give up until he has exhausted all of his abilities. Katerina Ivanovna’s pride won’t let her resign herself to poverty and she spends the money Rodka gave her on material items. Even Lebezyatnikov has too much hubris to just be a good person and goes on about popular intellectual ideas and ethics. Finally, in chapter IV, Rodka confesses to Sonya and recognizes that it was his pride making him strive for extraordinariness, thus making him unextraordinary. It is Rodka’s next step in returning to society as he has now made this connection with Sonya. Sonya is the only character without pride or hubris because it is a sin. While Dostoevsky is not promoting that everyone should turn to religion, he is still arguing that pride and hubris are the instruments of self-destruction, no more evident than Katerina Ivanovna literally dying while still touting her nobility earlier in part V.

Dostoevsky also uses part V to denounce popular intellectual movements as nothing more than fads. Lebezyatnikov is the human representation of these movements, and Dostoevsky spares no ink in making Lebezyatnikov look like a pompous fool. For Dostoevsky, these intellectual movements are nothing more than adventures in self-servitude and elevating oneself above others. And that hubris and pride has destructive consequences.

Roundup Post #1 for November 22: Charlie

Oddly, the talking point that I found important in class was on the quiz and hardly in the following discussion at all. Dr. Stogdill’s sixth question regarding Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin being “a bad guy” or “the worst guy” seemed to spark some debate that we hardly explored. In fact, I remember the class almost divided in half on the issue.

            Originally, when Luzhin was first introduced in the novel, many of us were not necessarily sympathetic towards his character, but understood where he was coming from. We believed he somewhat had Dunya’s best interest at heart and wanted to lift her and her family out of their poverty and into a happier life. However, as the story developed, Luzhin changes and becomes a much more negative character. In the last chapter, Luzhin’s roommate, Andrei Semyonovich Lebezyatnikov, outs Luzhin for planting a one hundred rouble note on Sonya to frame her as a thief. This childish ploy truly cements Luzhin as a villainous character, but how bad is he?

            This question leads to the crux of the debate. Who is worse, Raskolnikov or Luzhin? Since the opening of the story, we have known that Raskolnikov is a murderer. Can a sequence of terrible acts like those Luzhin committed in the past chapters add up to something worse that the killing of human beings? While murder is hard to ignore, we must look to the text for answers. Sonya, one of the most pure characters in the story, looks past the horrific actions of Raskolnikov in Part V Chapter IV. She hears him out, listening to his reasoning of wanting to transgress the moral codes of society and demonstrate that he is extraordinary compared to other people. She sympathizes, but tells him that he must confess to the public and to God in order to gain any sort of peace. She gives Raskolnikov a cross pendant like the one she wears, and promises that she will always be there for him. Is Sonya’s forgiveness valid, or does the murder of the landlady and her sister forever place Raskolnikov’s character as the lowest in the story, below even that of Luzhin?

Roundup Post #2 for November 8: Lisa

I think we should discuss Razumikhin’s struggle between being self-centered and giving to others. We’ve seen this struggle several times, and it comes up again in this chapter as he is certain Dunya is marrying Luzhin out of love for himself, instead of for her own reasons. In fact, it seems every time he performs a kind deed, he never thinks about what other people are feeling or thinking—he is thinking purely about himself, even while doing good for others. For example, re-read the story of the drunk girl (starting on page 46); not one of Razumikhin’s thoughts involves the girl’s thoughts or feelings, or even sympathizes with her, which is strongly juxtaposed to the police officer. Razumikhin is focused purely on the details of the scene.

In this chapter we also see Razumikhin give a rehearsed apology to his mother. He speaks kindly in a very normal sounding way (within society’s conventions), yet does not seem to mean any of it. I think all of his kind actions may be like this, done not out of love, but from duty. Despite his self-centered thoughts, when he sees people in need, he immediately helps, without even thinking about it, only to realize afterwards that his actions did not match up with his thoughts. This battle also fits into the “reason vs. senses” that has come up again and again—his senses tell him to do good for others, while his reason keeps him self-centered. With Dunya in this chapter, we see an interesting mix of the two sides. He is thinking of her, but in a self-centered way. Once again, though, he changes his mind quite suddenly, and tells her to marry whomever she’d like. In this instance, the lines are blurred—it could be construed as “right” for him to stop telling her to not marry Luzhin, as he is recognizing it as her decision, but it could also be “right” for him to care enough about her that he does not want her to marry a man who he believes does not care about her.

Roundup Post #1 for November 8: Lev

Is it good to apply absolute ethical laws to the conduct of individuals? This, it seems, is the fundamental question of Raskolnikov’s opposition to Dunya’s marriage. Marriage, really, is a solely personal affair: when Raskolnikov first raises the issue of the marriage with Dunya, she replies, “’ What right have you…,’” making clear the distinction she sees between her own personal choices and the influence of those around her (Dostoevsky 198). Continuously, Raskolnikov attempts to enforce his moral convictions on Dunya’s personal affairs, making such statements as “’*I* do not want this marriage, and therefore *you* must refuse him’” (Dostoevsky 198). Emphasis added. Raskolnikov’s justification for such an imposition is that this marriage, really, does concern him—“’You’re marrying Luzhin for my sake’” (Dostoevsky 198)—but Dunya argues, “If I ruin anyone, it will only be myself…I haven’t gone and put a knife into anyone yet!” (Dostoevsky 233). This answer, finally, makes an impression on Raskolnikov, who scales back his complaints about the marriage.

A parallel issue arises in the enforcement of any absolute ethical law on the lives of individuals. One might ask, similarly, “what right does the government have to tell me whether or not I may undergo an abortion, own a pistol, marry someone of my own sex, or do drugs?” In each of these cases the common argument justifying such an intervention is that these acts do, in deed, affect the lives of others, just as Raskolnikov attempts to make Dunya’s marriage about what *he* will accept. Dunya’s counterargument, parallel to those of advocates for various individual rights, is that these rights are just that: individual. Doestoevsky’s question of the application of ethical law is an important one because it informs the ways in which our society can be governed and the scope to which government can justify intervention into the lives of the individual.

Roundup Post #2 for November 1: Nicky

Throughout Chapter 6, we see Raskolnikov come to terms with his nihilism (albeit somewhat unsteadily). He is increasingly willing to upend the social expectation that he value self-preservation, as we see him heavily implicate himself as the murderer in front of Zamyotov. However, Dostoyevsky makes an important distinction regarding Raskolnikov's apparent disregard for his own life when Raskolnikov witnesses a woman's attempted suicide at --------sky Bridge.
     Dostoyevsky first notes the woman's disconnectedness from everyone: "She was looking straight at [Raskolnikov], but obviously saw nothing and recognized no one" (Dostoyevsky 169). This woman, who is about to attempt suicide, seems to share Raskolnikov's alienation from the rest of humanity, as she is "looking straight at" Raskolnikov but nonetheless "sees nothing." Raskolnikov, because he doubts his own perception of reality, also "sees nothing" in others and fiercely desires to be left alone, separated from what he cannot accept as true with complete confidence.
     However, despite this seeming similarity between the woman and Raskolnikov, he regards the woman's suicide attempt with "a strange feeling of indifference and detachment. [The woman's suicide attempt] was disgusting to him" (Dostoyevsky 170). What Dostoyevsky indicates with Raskolnikov's aversion to the woman's actions is a clear articulation of Raskolnikov's existential form of nihilism. Raskolnikov sees the actions of the woman as "disgusting" because, although it is an expression of disdain for the value of human life (that is, by being willing to extinguish it), he wants to meet with death on his own terms. Raskolnikov's firm belief in only what he can consider as an individual creates his reaction of "indifference and attachment" to the thoughts and expressions of another individual, however nihilistic they may be.
     To be clear, Raskolnikov does not reject the woman's actions because he sees inherent value in life, but rather because he wants to die in a different manner; by turning himself in to the police, he can receive full condemnation from society. He articulates this individually inspired plan of action when he says to himself, "'Nothing will come of it' … 'no point in waiting. What's that - the police station?" (Dostoyevsky 170). Thus, Raskolnikov indicates that he does not see inherent meaning in anything, but still makes it clear that he values his own individual choice to end his own life through his rejection of society at large (putting his beliefs more in line with existential nihilism).

Roundup Post #1 for November 1: Maddy

Up until the end of chapter 5, Raskolnikov has remained a passive character, only thinking for himself in a state of near-unconsciousness or while he is not doing anything per se, and only taking action (e.g. killing the two women) in a state of mechanical mental passivity. During his feeble state in Part 2, while his various friends and other miscellaneous characters tend to him, it seems Raskolnikov is restricted by his medical predicament to his peers. When his future brother-in-law appears, Raskolnikov attempts to engage with him and manages to start an argument with some sort of lucidity and coherence, but ultimately finishes it in the same form of dialogue we have seen before. Towards the end, though, Raskolnikov successfully offends Pyotr Petrovich and kicks out his friends spitefully, feigning illness once again. It is here that Raskolnikov, for the first time in the novel, takes agency, and leaves his apartment. While he ends up wandering around for the first part, when he sees Zamyatov, he purposefully engages, manages to argue with Zamyatov, and take control of his actions. In fact his magnanimity only increases, and as we reach the climax of part 2, it seems the battle he was fighting toward the beginning of part 2 is finally won over, as Raskolnikov renounces money, and gives his time and money to the family of the drunkard we met in part 1, Marmaledov. This represents his finding his place in nihilism, making his philosophy concrete. He is able to argue his place, take action, and interact with the rest of humanity.

Roundup Post for October 25: Tolstoy, Consciousness, and Murder

"Raskolnikov's real life did not take place when he was killing the old woman or her sister. When he was killing the first old woman and still more her sister, he was not living his real life; rather, he was acting like a machine, he was doing something that he was not capable of doing: he was firing a charge which had been loaded inside him a long time before. One old woman had been killed, the other stood there in front of him, the axe was in his hand.
"Raskolnikov's real life took place not when he was facing the old woman's sister, but before he had killed either old woman, when he had not yet stood in a strange apartment in order to murder, when he had not yet held an axe in his hand, and did not have a loop in the overcoat on which he hung the axe--it took place before he had even thought of the old woman, when he was lying at home on his sofa, not thinking at all about the old woman or even about whether one could, on the basis of an individual's decision, wipe another human being, a superfluous and harmful being, off the face of the earth. His real life took place when he was thinking about whether or not he ought to live in Petersburg, whether or not he should accept money from his mother, about questions which had nothing to do with the old woman. The decision whether or not he would kill the old woman was made then, in that animal sphere of life completely independent of reality. Those decisions were not made when he stood in front of the other woman with an axe in his hand, but rather when he was not yet acting but only thinking, when only his consciousness was active, when barely perceptible changes were taking place in that consciousness. It is then that the greatest possible lucidity of thought is particularly important for the correct solution of the question which arises, and it is then that one glass of beer, one smoked cigarette can impair the solution to the problem, hinder its solution, deafen the voice of the consequence, and cause the question to be decided in favor of one's lower animal nature, as it was with Raskolnikov."
--Leo Tolstoy, from "Why Do Men Stupify Themselves?"

Writing Schedule (Due at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday)

November 1: Nicky, Maddy
November 8: Lisa, Lev
November 15: Tristen
November 22: Charlie, Gabo
December 2: Annalise

Facilitation Schedule

November 1: Natalie, Evan
November 8: Sam, Shannon
November 15: Spencer, Emily
November 22: Juliet
December 2: Henry, Rachel

(Note: all responses must be posted by 9:00 p.m. on Thursday)