- Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov
: "This article is about the fictional protagonist of
Crime and Punishment . For theRussia nsailor ,Bolshevik agitator anddiplomat , seeFedor Raskolnikov ."Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov (Russian: Родион Романович Раскольников) is the fictionalprotagonist of "Crime and Punishment " byFyodor Dostoevsky . The name Raskolnikov comes from theRussia n "raskolnik " meaning "schismatic".In film he has been portrayed for the first time by Grigori Chmara (1923) in the famous silent adaptation by
Robert Wiene (with the decors byAndré Andrejew ), and recently byJohn Simm (2002)Crispin Glover (2002) and Ilya Kremnov (2005).Raskolnikov is a young ex-student of law living in extreme
poverty in St Petersburg. Many characters state that he is very intelligent, and Raskolnikov himself occasionally thinks of himself as a genius. He lives in a tiny garret which he rents, although due to a lack of funds has been avoiding payment for quite some time (he claims the room aggravates his depression). He sleeps on a couch using old clothes as a pillow and doesn't eat much, although the landlady sometimes sends her servant in with food. He is frequently referred to as a former student because he doesn't have the money to finish his institute education. Emotionally and financially stressed, he is also socially inept and neurotic about small things, such as crowded spaces. Raskolnikov fluctuates between extremes ofaltruism andapathy . He is described by the narrator as "extremely handsome".He murders a
pawnbroker , Alyona Ivanovna, with an axe he found in a porter's woodshed, with the intention of using her money for good causes, based on a theory he had developed. Raskolnikov believed that people were divided into the "ordinary" and the "extraordinary": the ordinary are the common rabble, the extraordinary (notablyNapoleon ) must not follow the moral codes that affect the ordinary since they are meant to be great men. An extraordinary man would not need to think twice about his actions. He has been contemplating this theory for months, only telling it to his (now deceased) fiancée (although he wrote an article along those lines in a journal on the condition that only his initials be used to attribute it to him). He believes himself to be one of these extraordinary men and is thus allowed to commitmurder . However, his plan goes wrong; before he is able to make his escape from thepawnbroker 's flat, her meek sister arrives and stumbles across the body. Raskolnikov, in a panic, murders the pawnbroker's sister as well (Lizaveta Ivanovna), a crime which weighs far more heavily on his mind.He finds a small purse on Alyona Ivanovna, which he hides under a rock without checking the contents of the purse. His grand failure is that he lacks the conviction he believed to accompany greatness and continues his decline into madness. After confessing to the destitute, pious prostitute Sonia Semyonovna Marmeladova, she guides him towards admitting to the crime, and he confesses to Ilya Petrovich, a police lieutenant with an explosive temper. Raskolnikov is sentenced to
exile inSiberia , accompanied by Sonia, where he begins his mental and spiritual rehabilitation.ee also
*
Despair (novel)
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.