Dreams are the agglomeration of the fleeting flight of hidden hopes and horrors that a person experiences. Therefore, dreams are the looking glass with which we can glimpse a person’s inner character and the reason why they act as they do. In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment, the author emphasizes how dreams mirror reality by accentuating within the characters their subconscious guilt and fears, by providing insight into the hidden underscoring concept of the character during their times of emotional distress, and by presenting the revelations provided within their dreamscape that reveal the internal schism of the characters. In the first dream presented within the novel, Dostoevsky describes the atmosphere from which Rodia Raskolnikov
…show more content…
This continues to contrastingly mirror adult Rodia who lacks religious faith and seems to shun it for his own psychological musings. However, Rodia’s fear is made evident when he comes across Mikolka–a type who symbolizes Rodia’s nihilistic desire to do away with a cancer to society in the name of the greater good. Yet, within the dream young Rodia becomes distraught and righteously indignant when he sees Mikolka beating his horse brutally, “Daddy, Daddy… Daddy, what are they doing! Daddy, they’re beating the poor horsie!” (55). As Mikolka continues to savagely beat his mare “and he lashes, and lashes, no longer knowing why,” this foreshadows his fear of losing control as he attempts to do away with Alyona the pawnbroker. However, through the dream we are given wisdom of his schismatic reasoning. In the dream, he …show more content…
He still internally poses the haunting underscoring question: “Am I not an extraordinary man? Certainly my murder was not a crime, simply a lapse in forethought, correct?” These unresolved, unspoken questions cause Rodia to continue to inflict himself with mental suffering within the Siberian prison where he is to serve his sentence. As this self-imposed mental stress accumulates, Rodia falls extremely ill and the audience is whisked away into his fourth dream and the revelations they propose. The fourth dream is different because it addresses Rodia’s underscoring nihilistic moral utilitarian philosophy–the überman–those who are able to transgress the law under the guise of causing the betterment and greatest good for society. This philosophy is depicted within his dreamscape as a plague, which ravages across the land and those who are infected “considered themselves so intellectual and so completely in possession of the truth compared to the other… they considered their decisions, their scientific conclusions, and their moral convictions so infallible,” (427). As the dream progressed, the world began to fall into complete chaos as the infected were driven insane, and war and famine spread throughout the cultural landscape. This dream was a
This continues to contrastingly mirror adult Rodia who lacks religious faith and seems to shun it for his own psychological musings. However, Rodia’s fear is made evident when he comes across Mikolka–a type who symbolizes Rodia’s nihilistic desire to do away with a cancer to society in the name of the greater good. Yet, within the dream young Rodia becomes distraught and righteously indignant when he sees Mikolka beating his horse brutally, “Daddy, Daddy… Daddy, what are they doing! Daddy, they’re beating the poor horsie!” (55). As Mikolka continues to savagely beat his mare “and he lashes, and lashes, no longer knowing why,” this foreshadows his fear of losing control as he attempts to do away with Alyona the pawnbroker. However, through the dream we are given wisdom of his schismatic reasoning. In the dream, he …show more content…
He still internally poses the haunting underscoring question: “Am I not an extraordinary man? Certainly my murder was not a crime, simply a lapse in forethought, correct?” These unresolved, unspoken questions cause Rodia to continue to inflict himself with mental suffering within the Siberian prison where he is to serve his sentence. As this self-imposed mental stress accumulates, Rodia falls extremely ill and the audience is whisked away into his fourth dream and the revelations they propose. The fourth dream is different because it addresses Rodia’s underscoring nihilistic moral utilitarian philosophy–the überman–those who are able to transgress the law under the guise of causing the betterment and greatest good for society. This philosophy is depicted within his dreamscape as a plague, which ravages across the land and those who are infected “considered themselves so intellectual and so completely in possession of the truth compared to the other… they considered their decisions, their scientific conclusions, and their moral convictions so infallible,” (427). As the dream progressed, the world began to fall into complete chaos as the infected were driven insane, and war and famine spread throughout the cultural landscape. This dream was a