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.