Comparing Dostoevsky's Crime And Punishment

The plausibility, both aesthetic and physiological of the epilogue in Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” is debated in David Matual’s essay In Defense of the Epilogue of “Crime and Punishment.” Matual starts the essay by including some arguments that have been made against the epilogue, condemning “it as an undesirable addition.” An argument by Simmons says that it is “neither artistically palatable nor psychologically sound,” and Shklovsky claims that the characters in epilogues “are dead as far as the author is concerned, for “epilogues are to novels what life in the other world is to our life.”
With the remainder of the essay Matual goes on to explain his argument; in defense of the epilogue. Saying that Raskolnikov’s new life didn’t “spontaneously” appear “without warning”, but that there was sound reason and evidence for the quick and unexpected turn of fate. Matual goes as far as to say that a “happy conclusion” is clearly inevitable to anyone reading closely enough. The said reasons for this turn of fate range from Raskolnikov’s acts of charity to a theory where …show more content…
It’s not that I don’t believe that the events in the epilogue couldn’t happen, and that Raskolnikov couldn’t encounter a complete reversal of fortune; it’s that I almost don’t want the events of the epilogue to be true. Just because Raskolnikov repented doesn’t mean that things should work out in his favor in the end, it just isn’t realistic. A novel doesn’t always have to be realistic, that’s why there’s a genre called fiction. However, when you see an ordinary man character who commits crimes and still has everything work out so nice in the end, you get a little upset because you know things wouldn’t work out this smoothly for you (also an ordinary