Pawnbroker

Written Assignment Salvation in Suffering Suffering embodies a natural part of life. The extent of suffering, however, depends on the set of circumstances that surround a person. Upon this point, the age-old argument of nature versus nurture may be deliberated. In Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, all characters inevitably suffer. Some endure suffering induced by poverty, while others suffer through unhealthy mental states caused by their role in society. Dostoyevsky centers his…

The Medici family were the powerful Italian family of bankers and merchants whose members ruled Florence for much of the 15th century. Cosimo and Lorenzo de' Medici were notable rulers and patrons of the arts in Florence. The family also provided four popes (including Leo X) and two queens of France (Catherine de' Medici and Marie de Médicis). Being in the money business, the Medici’s honed to a science making money using a complicated system of exchange (pawning) They paid the RC 2,000 florins…

Neurologist Sigmund Freud once said, “Dreams are the royal road to the unconscious” (“The Interpretation”). Sigmund Freud firmly believes that dreams allow people to be what they cannot be, and to say what they can not say in our more repressed daily lives (Freud). Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky is a novel that involves dreams to symbolize characters and foreshadow situations. Raskolnikov’s dreams may give more insight to his mind than the entire novel. Raskolnikov experiences four…

Napoleon Bonaparte felt that he was a genius and was inclined to “better society” through his wisdom and extreme ideas. The main character of Crime and Punishment, Rodion Raskalnikov, relates himself to this leader. Moreover, Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote his magnum opus, Crime and Punishment, to dismiss a radical view of society held by the novel’s protagonist. He is trying to say that it is impossible to justify a harsh crime such as a murder because the inevitable punishment of a guilty conscience…

Raskolnikov is the protagonist of the novel, and the story is told almost exclusively from his point of view. His name derives from the Russian word raskolnik, meaning “schismatic” or “divided,” which is appropriate since his most fundamental character trait is his alienation from human society. His pride and intellectualism lead him to disdain the rest of humanity as fit merely to perpetuate the species. In contrast, he believes that he is part of an elite “superman” echelon and can…

capable of! Yes, filthy above all, disgusting, loathsome it all is!" (7) are silenced or at least alleviated by the course of fate. The argument for predestination is the best, and only case with which the rationalizing mind debates. Alas for the pawnbroker and her sister, the weaker emotional mind lost all control while the rational mind carried out the…

career criminals, those with few accusations and those who only committed a crime once, play into whether the crime is influenced by mental health (700). Rodion falls under the category in which he only truly committed two crimes, the murders of the pawnbroker and her sister (Dostoevsky 72, 75). After a crime is committed, it is also true that incarceration affects mental health. In order to help decriminalize a criminal and allow them to assimilate back into society after they are released,…

didn’t come immediately, but he was able to assure them that Lazarus’ would not die from his sickness. Like Lazarus, Raskolnikov does not die from his sickness, but in my opinion, he probably should have. He was so miserable after he murdered the pawnbroker that he started hallucinating, and his personality…

Raskolnikov, the protagonist of Crime and Punishment, in his published article proposes a theory of criminality which distinguishes between the intrinsic forms of “ordinary men” and “extraordinary men”; this division is created by “extraordinary” man’s ability to transgress the implemented social contract, and introduce a new concept into society, in comparison to the ordinary man who must live in submission and have not right to transgress the law (259). However, these five main principles…

protested but did not do anything to save it and others laughed at the horse's suffering. This dream is significant because during part 1, Raskolnikov is contemplating murdering the pawnbroker using a crowbar. However, this dream is based on his conscience and he contemplates the possibility he should not kill the pawnbroker because it is inhuman and society will judge at his…