Analysis of the episode “Raskolnikov’s Dream” based on F. Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment”

Describing the dream of a literary character is a technique often used by writers and poets to more deeply reveal the image of their character. Pushkin leads Tatyana Larina in her dream to a strange hut standing in a mysterious forest, revealing to us the Russian soul of a girl who grew up on fairy tales and traditions of “common antiquity.” Goncharov grants Oblomov a return to childhood, to the serene paradise of Oblomovka, devoting an entire chapter to the hero’s dream. In Vera Pavlovna's dreams, Chernyshevsky embodies his utopian dreams. The dreams of literary characters bring us closer to them, help us penetrate into their inner world, and understand the root causes of certain actions. After reading the novel “Crime and Punishment” by F. M. Dostoevsky, I realized that understanding the image of Raskolnikov, his restless soul, would be incomplete without comprehending the depth of his subconscious, reflected in the dreams of this hero.

“Crime and Punishment” describes four dreams of Rodion Raskolnikov, but I want to consider and analyze the first dream that the hero had after he made the final decision to confirm his theory about “trembling creatures” and “those with the right” , that is, the decision to kill the old money-lender. Fearing the very word “murder,” he constantly asks himself: “...will it really happen?” The very possibility of carrying out his plans plunges him into horror, but, trying to prove to himself that he belongs to the caste of higher beings who dare to shed “blood according to their conscience,” Raskolnikov is brave and spurs his pride with thoughts of saving many wretched people, when he comes out in the role of a noble savior. But Rodion’s dream, described by Dostoevsky, nullifies all the cynical reasoning of the hero, revealing to us his vulnerable soul, helpless in its delusion.

Raskolnikov dreams of his childhood, his hometown. Childhood is usually associated with the most carefree period of life, deprived of the need to make vital decisions and take full responsibility for one’s actions. And it is no coincidence that Raskolnikov returns to childhood in a dream. From this alone one can judge that the problems of adult life oppress him, he wants to abandon them, not know them at all. In addition, childhood implies an instinctive distinction between good and evil. The image of the father with whom little Rodion walks in a dream is also symbolic. After all, the father is traditionally a symbol of protection and safety. The tavern they pass by and the drunken men running out of it are already images of the real world that has tormented the hero. One of the men, Mikolka, invites the others to take a ride on his cart, which is harnessed to a “small, skinny Savras peasant nag.” Everyone agrees and sits down. Mikolka beats the horse, forcing it to pull the cart, but due to its frailty it cannot even walk. The boy sees with horror how the horse is “flogged in the eyes, right in the eyes!” Among the screams of the drunken crowd one can hear “With an axe, what!” Then the owner furiously finishes off the nag. Raskolnikov the child looks at everything that is happening in terrible fear, then, in a fit of pity and indignation, rushes to protect the horse, but, alas, it is too late. The atmosphere around what is happening is heated to the limit. On the one hand, there is the evil aggression of a drunken crowd, on the other, the unbearable despair of a child, before whose eyes an action terrible in its cruelty is being carried out, shaking his soul with pity for the “poor horse.” And in the center of everything are the horror and tears of the finishing nag. To convey the expressiveness of the episode, the writer ends almost every phrase with an exclamation mark.

The dream, first of all, shows us Raskolnikov’s rejection of murder in kind. And its whole meaning, at first glance, is to reveal the true mental state of the hero, who, upon waking up, even turns to God with a prayer: “Lord... show me my path, and I renounce this damned... ... my dreams! However, the student will still carry out his terrible plan, and here one can discern the second, hidden meaning of the dream. After all, in this dream, as in Raskolnikov’s real life, we are talking about the opportunity to control someone else’s life - in this case, the life of a horse. A horse is a worthless and useless creature, due to its weakness: “... and this little mare, brothers, only breaks my heart: so, it would seem, I killed her, she eats bread for nothing.” Just like “a stupid, senseless, insignificant, evil, sick old woman, useless to anyone and, on the contrary, harmful to everyone, who herself does not know what she lives for, and who will die of her own accord tomorrow.” Her life, in Raskolnikov’s view, is equal to “the life of a louse, a cockroach.”

Thus, Raskolnikov’s first dream, on the one hand, reveals to the hero all the horror of what he has planned, on the other hand, it pushes him to commit a crime. But as the plot develops, Dostoevsky leads us to the idea that only the first meaning of the dream is true - the cry of the soul about the inadmissibility of atrocities.

annotation

The abstract contains the materials necessary to study and understand the work “Crime and Punishment.” It presents a description and explanation of Raskolnikov's dreams. The basis of the abstract is a critical articleNazirova R.G.. An appendix is ​​included in the form of a table compiled by the author of the work.

Introduction

What are dreams? Where do they come from? Why, closing our eyes and not perceiving anything around us, without leaving not only our home but our own bed, we experience amazing adventures, travel to places we have never been, talk to those we are unfamiliar with, look in a way we cannot at all to look like? Why does the ordinary world turn into a bizarre, magical and completely unpredictable one, why does its border tremble? Where does its action come from without beginning and end, but with its own special conditions? The ancients said - from God, doctors believe - from our thoughts, dream interpreters - from the future. What do they mean, these fragments of some unprecedented and “non-future” life, which either illuminate the day, then unsettle, or make you suffer? And are they worth thinking about?

It is not surprising that dreams play a very special role in literary works. The heroes' dreams often determine their lives. Often what characters in works see when they close their eyes is more important than what they do when they open them. They can show the hero’s inner world, his experiences or what may await him in the future. The most striking examples of heroes’ dreams in literature are Tatyana’s dream from the novel “Eugene Onegin” by A.S. Pushkin, Ilya Ilyich’s dream from the novel “Oblomov” by I.A. Goncharov, dreams of Raskolnikov and Svidrigailov from “Crime and Punishment” by F.M. Dostoevsky, the dreams of the heroes in the novel “The Master and Margarita” by M.A. Bulgakov. In all these books, the authors assign dreams a serious ideological and artistic role. Dreams predict the future of heroes, explain their past, help them make the right choice, or try to warn against mistakes.

The deep psychologism of F. M. Dostoevsky’s novels lies in the fact that their heroes find themselves in complex, often extreme life situations, in which their inner essence is revealed, the depths of psychology, hidden conflicts, contradictions in the soul, ambiguity and paradox of the inner world are revealed. To reflect the psychological state of the main character in the novel “Crime and Punishment”, the author used a variety of artistic techniques, among which dreams play an important role, since in an unconscious state a person becomes himself, loses everything superficial, alien and, thus, his thoughts manifest themselves more freely and feelings.

Purpose of the work: to find out the meaning of dreams in the novel to reveal the inner world of the hero.

Tasks:

1. Analyze the episodes of the novel that contain the hero’s dreams.

2. Identify the relationship between dreams and his moral state and understanding of reality.

3. Understand what ideological and artistic meaning the author put into the dreams of Rodion Raskolnikov, which visit him throughout the novel “Crime and Punishment.”

Main part

Throughout almost the entire novel, a conflict occurs in the soul of the main character, Rodion Raskolnikov, and these internal contradictions determine his strange state: the hero is so immersed in himself that for him the line between dream and reality, between sleep and reality is blurred, an inflamed brain gives rise to delirium , and the hero falls into apathy, half-asleep, half-delirious. Therefore, about some dreams it is difficult to say whether it is a dream or delirium, a play of the imagination. However, the novel also contains vivid, clear descriptions of Raskolnikov’s dreams, which help to reveal the image of the main character and deepen the psychological side of the novel.

First dream

So let's move on to the first dream.

“A terrible dream”, an excerpt from childhood, seemingly the brightest, kindest and most wonderful period of human life. But this is far from what we feel when reading the lines about the beating of a horse: “But the poor horse feels bad. She gasps, stops, jerks again, almost falls.” We see all this through the eyes of a seven-year-old boy who will forever remember the embodiment of cruelty. Raskolnikov sees this dream shortly before the murder, having fallen asleep in the bushes in the park after the “test” and a difficult meeting with Marmeladov. The dream is difficult, painful, exhausting and unusually rich in symbols: Raskolnikov the boy loves to go to church, which personifies the heavenly principle on earth, that is, spirituality, moral purity and perfection; however, the road to the church passes by a tavern, which the boy does not like; a tavern is something terrible, worldly, earthly that destroys a person in a person. Beating an animal once again reminds him of the violence in the world, strengthens his conviction in the correctness of his theory, which he nurtured while in a painful state and dreaming of the “role of a ruler,” “Napoleon.” Raskolnikov finds no difference between man and animal. In the form of a horse, he again sees humiliated and insulted people. The word "axe" is mentioned several times in this dream, and this is no coincidence. After all, here the ax is a murder weapon, but not only of the horse (“With her ax, why! Finish her off at once”), but also of the old woman already in the real world. Little Rodion, already at the age of seven, is trying to restore justice, waving his arms, “in a frenzy he rushes with his little fists at Mikolka,” but it is too late. The horse is dead: “The nag stretches out its muzzle, sighs heavily and dies.” This means that Raskolnikov’s efforts alone are not enough to change people’s consciousness and eradicate the instinct of self-destruction of humanity. The abundance of violence in this dream was another impetus that forced Raskolnikov to commit murder. In the scene at the tavern we see that little Raskolnikov is trying to protect the unfortunate animal, screaming, crying; here it is clear that by his nature he is not at all cruel: mercilessness and contempt for other people’s lives, even horses, are alien to him, and possible violence against a living creature is disgusting and unnatural for him.

From the article On Zirova N.G. .: Dostoevsky realistically prepares the dream of a slaughtered horse. From the beginning of the novel we begin to learn about someRaskolnikov’s plan (“ugly dream”, “deed”, “test”). When he goes to "do a test" along the streetfor some reasontransported in a huge cart drawn by a huge draft horse,somedrunk. He, noticing Raskolnikov, shouts: “Hey, you German hatter!” This detail prepares the dream about a slaughtered horse. He dreams of his childhood and his late father (from a letter to his mother). They see men walking outside the city. At the tavern porch there is a “strange cart” - “one of those big carts into which large draft horses are harnessed” (the hero recently saw one on the street when he was called a “hatter”). But a small peasant nag is harnessed to a huge cart. Next, a nightmarish scene of the drunken guy Mikolka beating to death of a weak nag plays out. Little Rodya kisses the bloody muzzle of the dead Savraska, then rushes with his fists at Mikolka, but his father carries him out of the crowd. Waking up in horror, Raskolnikov realizes that he is incapable of murder.

With this dream, Dostoevsky characterizes Raskolnikov as a person who is humane by nature, and at the same time introduces a plot twist - the hero’s refusal to bloodshed. The dream of a slaughtered horse, pitting the “humane subconscious” against the embittered mind of the hero, dramatizes his mental struggle and constitutes the most important event in the novel: secret threads stretch from it to other events, which will be discussed below. All attempts to literally read this dream (“the horse is a pawnbroker”) are erroneous. Raskolnikov's dream means a rebellion of his nature against his erring mind. Causedexternal reasons, the dream revealsinternal the hero's struggle."

Second dream

The second dream takes place in the desert. But in this hot desert there is a beautiful oasis with palm trees and camels, and most importantly, clean cool water. In a dream, water is a symbol of life. The inner “I” of the protagonist strives for pure and life-giving moisture, and not at all for death and violence. Unfortunately, Raskolnikov is in no hurry to listen to his inner voice.

From an article by Nazirov N.G.: “Raskolnikov seems to see the second dream in the novel in reality: he is not sleeping, but dreaming. He sees thathe's somewherein Egypt, in an oasis, a caravan is resting, camels are lying quietly, there are palm trees all around, everyone is having lunch. One feels that Raskolnikov himself is traveling with this caravan. He doesn’t have lunch, “he keeps drinking water” - wonderful cold water from a blue stream running over multi-colored stones and clear water.golden sparkles in the sand. This is all. The colorfulness of this dream and its emphasized purity are the opposite of dirt, stuffiness,dull yellowand the blood-red tones of St. Petersburg. This dream symbolizes Raskolnikov’s longing for beauty and peace,thirsty purity (“he drinks everything” - and cannot get drunk, does not quench his thirst).”

Third dream

Raskolnikov has a third dream after the murder. He is in a semi-conscious state. Rodion Romanovich dreams that Ilya Petrovich is beating his landlady “He kicks her, bangs her head on the steps.”

Raskolnikov was amazed by the cruelty of people, which was reflected in this dream:

“He could not imagine such atrocity, such frenzy.” Most likely, here Raskolnikov subconsciously justifies himself, as if saying: “I’m not the only one.” The reader is able to understand here that not only Ilya Petrovich is portrayed here as a cruel killer, but also any person is capable of a crime if fate or circumstances push him to it, and maybe even a distorted understanding of everything that happens around him, what can push him to murder.

From an article by Nazirov N.G.: « The third dream is actually a delusional vision generated by the onset of the disease. Raskolnikov imagines that on the stairs of the house the assistant of the quarterly warden is terribly beating the landlady. You can hear her screams and the sound of her head hitting the steps. There is none of this in reality, the hero is delusional. This delirium is connected with the fear of persecution, with a recent visit to the police office, a quarrel with the assistant warden and his rude scolding of the procurer for the scandal in her “institution”.»

Fourth dream

In the next dream, student Raskolnikov again commits the murder of the old woman; it is as if he is returning to where he once committed injustice, following the principles of his theory. But now he feels guilty, he sees how a huge number of people laugh at him. Raskolnikov sees this dream immediately before the arrival of Svidrigailov, a demonic man who uniquely personifies evil. This dream, like the first, is nightmarish: the old pawnbroker laughs in response to Raskolnikov’s attempts to kill her. Dostoevsky intensifies, thickens the colors: the old woman’s laughter is “sinister”, the hubbub of the crowd outside the door is clearly unfriendly, angry, mocking; the dream clearly and reliably reflects the state of the hero’s excited, desperate, restless soul, especially intensified after the failure of the “self-experiment.” Raskolnikov turns out to be not Napoleon, not a ruler who has the right to easily step over other people’s lives in order to achieve his goal; pangs of conscience and fear of exposure make him pitiful.

The old woman, whom he cannot kill again, laughs, but for some reason she tries not to show her laughter to our hero. “Raskolnikov looked into her face from below, looked in and froze: the old woman sat and laughed - she burst into quiet, inaudible laughter, trying with all her might so that he would not hear her.” Something terrible is happening in the hero’s soul, he feels oppressed because for the murders of the pawnbroker and her unfortunate sister Lizaveta, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Raskolnikov understands that, having killed the old woman, he did not feel freer, he did not become a “ruler”, did not prove the correctness of his theory, and the old woman’s laughter is the triumph of evil over Raskolnikov, who failed to kill his humanity.

And in the end, everything remained the same, the test did not give any result, no one was saved, neither Raskolnikov’s idea nor mission came true, and could not come true.

From an article by Nazirov N.G.: « After a terrible meeting with a tradesman-accuser, Raskolnikov dreams of the “re-murder” of the old woman. There is an eerie silence in her house.

The hero dreams that an old woman is hiding in the corner, he takes out an ax and hits her on the crown of the head once and again, but the old woman did not even move from the blows. Raskolnikov is horrified to discover that she is bursting into quiet laughter, and in the next room they also seem to be laughing. In a rage, he hits the old woman on the head, but with each blow of the ax the laughter intensifies. He rushes to run, but there are people everywhere, on the stairs and beyond - solid crowds, silently looking at him. Raskolnikov wakes up in mortal horror.”

Fifth dream

The greatest significance for the realization of the concept of the novel “Crime and Punishment” is Raskolnikov’s fifth dream, which takes place already in the epilogue itself. Here the author enters into an implicit dispute with Chernyshevsky, completely denying his theory of “reasonable egoism.”

In Raskolnikov’s dream, we see how the world is plunging into an atmosphere of selfishness, making people “possessed, crazy,” while forcing them to consider themselves “smart and unshakable in the truth.” Selfishness becomes the cause of misunderstanding that arises between people. This misunderstanding, in turn, leads to a wave of natural disasters, which leads to the world being destroyed. It becomes known that not all people can be saved from this nightmare, but only “the pure and chosen, destined to start a new race of people.” Obviously, when speaking about the chosen ones, the author means people like Sonya, who in the novel is the embodiment of the truth of spirituality. The chosen ones, according to Dostoevsky, are people endowed with the deepest faith. It is in this dream that Dostoevsky says that individualism and egoism pose a real and terrible threat to humanity; they can lead to a person forgetting all norms and concepts, and also ceasing to distinguish between criteria such as good and evil. In this dream, Raskolnikov presented in a transformed form everything that he thought about the terrible, real capitalist world, with its disintegration and separation, with the isolation of the individual from the masses, with its common dumping ground, with its competition of everyone against everyone and everyone against each, with its pride and its misfortunes, with its social anthropography, with its wars, with its numerous and contradictory programs of salvation, with its vain search for a way out and its vain expectation of the righteous, the redeemer and the leader.

From an article by Nazirov N.G. : « Raskolnikov's last dream is in his delirium in a prison hospital bed. This is the philosophical conclusion of the novel. He dreams of a moral epidemic caused by the smallest trichinae and turning humanity into an ocean of individualists who absolutely do not accept each other

This last dream of Raskolnikov is the only motivation for the hero’s rebirth. After all, he went to hard labor without repentance; turning himself in was only a recognition of his personal weakness, but not the falsity of his idea. The dream about triquinas produced a decisive turning point in his soul.”

Conclusion

Many Russian writers, both before and after Dostoevsky, used dreams as an artistic device, but it is unlikely that any of them was able to so deeply, subtly and vividly describe the psychological state of the hero through the depiction of his dream. Dreams in the novel have different contents, moods and artistic microfunctions, but the general purpose of the artistic means used by Dostoevsky in the novel is one: the most complete disclosure of the main idea of ​​the work - a refutation of the theory that kills a person in a person when that person realizes the possibility of him killing another person. The position of dreams in the fabric of the novel is subtly thought out; it allows the author to place the right emphasis in the right places. Thus, Raskolnikov sees his second dream immediately before the arrival of Svidrigailov, a demonic image that uniquely personifies evil. This dream, like the first, is nightmarish: the old pawnbroker laughs in response to Raskolnikov’s attempts to kill her. Dostoevsky intensifies, thickens the colors: the old woman’s laughter is “sinister”, the hubbub of the crowd outside the door is clearly unfriendly, angry, mocking; the dream clearly and reliably reflects the state of the hero’s excited, desperate, restless soul, especially intensified after the failure of the “experiment on himself.” Raskolnikov turns out to be not Napoleon, not a ruler who has the right to easily step over other people’s lives in order to achieve his goal; the torments of conscience and the fear of exposure make him pitiful, and the old woman’s laughter is the laughter and triumph of evil over Raskolnikov, who failed to kill his conscience. “Everything and everything perished. “...” Only a few people in the whole world could be saved, “...” but no one saw these people anywhere, no one heard their words and voices.” Dostoevsky understood that such people may not exist, so the end of the dream does not have the clarity that the reader wanted to receive. Perhaps Fyodor Mikhailovich had to work hard on the dreams that visited Raskolnikov. Each of them is a mirror of the soul of Rodion Romanovich, which reflects exactly what the author wanted to convey to us. I believe that it is with the help of Raskolnikov’s dreams that we can empathize with the hero, feel the atmosphere of that time, and most fully understand the goals and thoughts of the people of the nineteenth century. After all, only in a dream the human subconscious is released and is able to tell the reader a lot.

Application

Raskolnikov's dreams in chapters: description and essence

Raskolnikov, as a little boy, probably saw a horse killed live.

Due to Raskolnikov's painful condition and his plans for murder, this dream reminded Raskolnikov of a terrible situation that he witnessed with his own eyes.

“...Raskolnikov had a terrible dream. He dreamed about his childhood, back in their town...”

“... a small, skinny, brown-haired peasant nag was harnessed to such a large cart...”

The hero is covered in sweat, out of breath; trembling, woke up in horror; the body seemed to be broken: the soul was vague and dark

The dream reflects the duality of Raskolnikov's nature. In a dream, he feels pity for the horse. But at the same time he is contemplating the murder of a person for whom he has no pity.

Part 1, ChapterV

Dream about Africa

Raskolnikov also had this dream on the eve of the crime. At the same time, he was in a painful condition.

In this dream, Raskolnikov sees Egypt, an oasis, blue water, golden sand.

“...He dreamed everything, and all the dreams were strange: most often he imagined that he was somewhere in Africa, in Egypt, in some kind of oasis...”

My heart was beating fast, it was hard to breathe

This dream is a contrasting dream, it is the complete opposite of Raskolnikov’s life - pitiful, colorless, gray.

Part 1, ChapterVI

Dream about Ilya Petrovich and the hostess

In delirium, after committing a crime, Raskolnikov has a dream about Ilya Petrovich, who beats his landlady.

“...Suddenly Raskolnikov trembled like a leaf: he recognized this voice; it was the voice of Ilya Petrovich. Ilya Petrovich is here and beats the mistress..."

“...But, therefore, they will come to him now, if so, because... it’s true, all this is from the same... because of yesterday...”

“...Fear, like ice, surrounded his soul, tormented him, numbed him...”

Fear that they came for him

The dream embodied Raskolnikov’s fear that he would be exposed and arrested. At the same time, the hero, even in his sleep, does nothing to run, hide, or avoid getting caught by the police.

Part 2, ChapterII

Dream about a laughing old woman

Before Svidrigailov's arrival, Raskolnikov had a crazy dream about a murdered old pawnbroker.

In a dream, Raskolnikov goes to the old woman’s apartment after some tradesman who calls him there.

In the corner of the living room he discovers an old woman sitting. The old woman laughs. Raskolnikov hits her with an ax, but the old woman’s laughter only intensifies.

“...the old woman sat and laughed, and burst into quiet, inaudible laughter, trying with all her might so that he would not hear her...”

In the dream, Raskolnikov started to run, but there were people everywhere - on the stairs, in the rooms, etc.:

“... everyone is looking, - but everyone is hiding and waiting, silent... His heart was embarrassed, his legs did not move, they were frozen... He wanted to scream and woke up...”

Fear that punishment cannot be avoided

In a dream, the schismatics experience the fear that tormented him in reality after the crime. After killing the old woman, the hero was afraid of shame and human judgment. He was afraid of being embarrassed in front of the crowd. This fear was embodied in a dream.

Part 3, ChapterVI

Dream about the end of the world

This is Raskolnikov's last dream. Already at hard labor, he once fell ill and was admitted to the hospital. In his morbid delirium, he had several times what seemed to be a recurring dream about the end of the world.

“...He spent the entire month of fasting and the Holy month in the hospital. Already recovering, he recalled his dreams when he was still lying in the heat and delirious. In his illness, he dreamed that the whole world was condemned to be a victim of some terrible, unheard of and unprecedented pestilence coming from the depths of Asia to Europe. Everyone had to perish, except for some very few, chosen ones ... "

Raskolnikov dreams of this last dream after the trial, in hard labor. Hard labor became for him the beginning of his new life, the beginning of atonement for his sin. This dream is a symbol of the purification and renewal of Raskolnikov’s soul. The dream is very vivid and emotional and speaks of Raskolnikov’s active internal work on himself.

Epilogue

Bibliography

Dostoevsky F.M. “Crime and Punishment”: A novel in six parts with an epilogue. - M.: Khudozh.lit., 1983. 527 pp. . shpargalkino. com – Dreams and reveries of Raskolnikov;

Sleep is an expression of the unconscious in the human psyche. Therefore, as an element of a work of art, it is one of the means of creating an image, an opportunity to show the inner world of the hero, his hidden thoughts, hidden from himself. .

The role of dreams in revealing Raskolnikov’s inner world

Each of these episodes has its own “double” in real life.

• The hero's first dream is a reflection of his internal state before the murder, a state of painful perception of the injustice of the world, the world of the humiliated and insulted. The dream of killing a horse (in the perception of a child) characterizes the inhumanity of this world, as well as the kindness of Raskolnikov himself, and has a compositional double - the death of Katerina Ivanovna (“They drove the nag”);

• Raskolnikov's second dream ( about the beating of the hero’s landlady by a policeman), on the one hand, a continuation of the theme of the lawlessness of this world, on the other hand, a foretaste of the hero’s future isolation from people, i.e. his punishment. The compositional “double” is the murder of the old pawnbroker and Lizaveta.

• Raskolnikov’s third dream (the repeated murder of the old woman) is an analogue of a real murder, a second living of what he did. The revived old woman (the literary double of the old countess from “The Queen of Spades” by A.S. Pushkin) is a symbol of the defeat of the hero theory.

• The hero's last dream (he sees him in hard labor) is an allegorical embodiment of the implementation of the theory, a symbol of the hero's liberation from the power of theoretical constructs, his revival to life. The literary analogue is Voltaire’s philosophical treatise on the madness of humanity. This dream does not have a real compositional double, which is symbolic.
  The hero abandons the theory - it cannot come true.

Raskolnikov's dreams are a kind of dotted line, which at different levels reflects the ideological and artistic content of the novel.

Materials are published with the personal permission of the author - Ph.D. Maznevoy O.A. (see "Our Library")

In his novels, Dostoevsky reveals the complex processes of the inner life of the characters, their feelings, emotions, secret desires and fears. In this aspect, the characters' dreams are especially important.

Let's try to analyze Raskolnikov's dreams and dreams in the novel "Crime and Punishment." The hero sees his first dream on Petrovsky Island. In this dream, Rodion’s childhood comes to life again: together with his father on a holiday, he travels out of town. Here they see a terrible picture: a young man, Mikolka, coming out of a tavern, with all his might he whips his “skinny... savras nag”, which is not able to carry an overwhelming cart, and then finishes her off with an iron crowbar.

Rodion's pure childish nature protests against violence: with a cry, he rushes to the slaughtered Savraska and kisses her dead, bloody face. And then he jumps up and throws himself at Mikolka with his fists.

Raskolnikov experiences here a whole range of very different feelings: horror, fear, pity for the unfortunate horse, anger and hatred for Mikolka. This dream shocks Rodion so much that, upon waking up, he renounces “his damned dream.” This is the meaning of the dream directly in the external action of the novel. However, the meaning of this dream is much deeper and more significant.

Firstly, this dream anticipates future events: red shirts of drunken men; Mikolka’s red, “like a carrot” face; woman "in red"; an ax that can be used to kill the unfortunate nag at once - all this predetermines future murders, hinting that blood will still be shed.

Secondly, this dream reflects the painful duality of the hero’s consciousness. If we remember that a dream is an expression of a person’s subconscious desires and fears, it turns out that Raskolnikov, fearing his own desires, still wanted the unfortunate horse to be beaten to death. It turns out that in this dream the hero feels like both Mi-kolka and a child, whose pure, kind soul does not accept cruelty and violence.

This duality and contradictory nature of Raskolnikov in the novel is subtly noticed by Razumikhin. In a conversation with Pulcheria Alexandrovna, Razumikhin notes that Rodion is “gloomy, gloomy, arrogant and proud,” “cold and insensitive to the point of inhumanity,” and at the same time “generous and kind.” “It’s as if two opposite characters are alternately replaced in him,” exclaims Razumikhin.

Raskolnikov’s painful duality is also evidenced by two opposing images from his dream - a tavern and a church. The tavern is what destroys people, it is the center of depravity, recklessness, evil, this is the place where a person often loses his human appearance. The tavern always made a “most unpleasant impression” on Rodion; there was always a crowd there, “they were screaming, laughing, cursing... ugly and hoarsely singing and fighting; There were always such drunken and scary faces wandering around the tavern.” The tavern is a symbol of depravity and evil.

The church in this dream personifies the best that is in human nature. It is typical that little Rodion loved church and went to mass with his father and mother twice a year. He liked the ancient images and the old priest; he knew that memorial services for his deceased grandmother were served here.

The tavern and the church here, thus, metaphorically represent the main guidelines of a person in life. It is characteristic that in this dream Raskolnikov does not reach the church, does not enter it, which is also very significant. He is delayed by the scene near the tavern.

The image of a skinny peasant Savras woman who cannot withstand an unbearable burden is also significant here. This unfortunate horse is a symbol of the unbearable suffering of all the “humiliated and insulted” in the novel, a symbol of Raskolnikov’s hopelessness and dead end, a symbol of the misfortunes of the Marmeladov family, a symbol of Sonya’s situation. This episode from the hero’s dream echoes the bitter exclamation of Katerina Ivanovna before her death: “They drove away the nag! I tore it!”

The image of Raskolnikov’s long-dead father is also significant in this dream. The father wants to take Rodion away from the tavern and does not tell him to look at the violence being committed. The father here seems to be trying to warn the hero against his fatal act. Recalling the grief that befell their family when Rodion’s brother died, Raskolnikov’s father leads him to the cemetery, to the grave of his deceased brother, towards the church. This is precisely, in our opinion, the function of Raskolnikov’s father in this dream.

In addition to dreams, the novel describes three visions of Raskolnikov, three of his “dreams”. Before committing a crime, he sees himself “in some kind of oasis.” The caravan is resting, camels are lying peacefully, and there are magnificent palm trees all around. A stream gurgles nearby, and “wonderful, wonderful blue water, cold, runs over multi-colored stones and over sand so clean with golden sparkles...”

And in these dreams the painful duality of the hero’s consciousness is again indicated. As B. S. Kondratiev notes, the camel here is a symbol of humility (Raskolnikov resigned himself to renouncing his “damned dream” after his first dream), but the palm tree is “the main symbol of triumph and victory,” Egypt is the place where Napoleon forgets the army1. Having abandoned his plans in reality, the hero returns to them in a dream, feeling like a victorious Napoleon.

The second vision visits Raskolnikov after his crime. It’s as if in reality he hears how the quarter warden Ilya Petrovich terribly beats his [Raskolnikov’s] landlady.

This vision reveals Raskolnikov’s hidden desire to harm the landlady, the hero’s feeling of hatred and aggression towards her. It was because of the landlady that he found himself in the police station, forced to explain himself to the assistant quarter warden, experiencing a mortal sense of fear and almost without self-control.

But Raskolnikov’s vision also has a deeper, philosophical aspect. This is a reflection of the hero’s painful state after the murder of the old woman and Lizaveta, a reflection of his feeling of alienation from his past, from “previous thoughts,” “previous tasks,” “previous impressions.” The landlady here is obviously a symbol of Raskolnikov’s past life, a symbol of what he loved so much (remember the story of the hero’s relationship with the landlady’s daughter). The quarterly warden is a figure from his “new” life, the start of which was his crime. In this “new” life, he “seemed to cut himself off from everyone with scissors,” and at the same time from his past. Raskolnikov is unbearably burdened in his new position, which is imprinted in his subconscious as damage, harm caused to the hero’s past by his present.

The third vision visits Raskolnikov after his meeting with a tradesman who accuses him of murder. The hero sees the faces of people from his childhood, the bell tower of the Second Church; “a billiard in a tavern and some officer at the billiard, the smell of cigars in some basement tobacco shop, a drinking room, a back staircase... from somewhere you can hear the ringing of Sunday bells...”

The officer in this vision is a reflection of the hero’s real life experiences. Before his crime, Raskolnikov hears a conversation between a student and an officer in a tavern. The very images of this vision echo the images from Rodion’s first dream. There he saw a tavern and a church, here - the bell tower of the Second Church, the ringing of bells and a tavern, the smell of cigars, a drinking establishment. The symbolic meaning of these images is preserved here.

Raskolnikov sees his second dream after his crime. He dreams that he again goes to Alena Ivanovna’s apartment and tries to kill her, but the old woman, as if mocking her, bursts into quiet, inaudible laughter. He can hear laughter and whispers in the next room. Raskolnikov is suddenly surrounded by a lot of people - in the hallway, on the landing, on the stairs - silently and expectantly, they look at him. Overwhelmed by horror, he cannot move and soon awakens.

This dream reflects the subconscious desires of the hero. Raskolnikov is burdened by his position, wanting to reveal his “secret” to someone, it’s hard for him to carry it inside himself. He literally suffocates in his individualism, trying to overcome the state of painful alienation from others and himself. That is why in Raskolnikov’s dream there are many people next to him. His soul yearns for people, he wants community, unity with them.

In this dream, the motif of laughter, which accompanies Raskolnikov throughout the novel, reappears. This laughter, as M. Bakhtin accurately noted, debunks the theory of the hero. “We have before us the image of a carnival king-impostor debunking nationwide ridicule on the square,” writes the researcher. After committing the crime, Raskolnikov feels that “he killed himself, and not the old woman.” This truth seems to be revealed to the people surrounding the hero in a dream.

An interesting interpretation of the hero’s dream is offered by B. S. Kondratiev. The researcher notes that laughter in Raskolnikov’s dream is “an attribute of the invisible presence of Satan”; demons are laughing and teasing the hero.

Raskolnikov sees his third dream already in hard labor. In this dream, he seems to rethink the events that took place and his theory. Raskolnikov imagines that the whole world is condemned to be a victim of a “terrible... pestilence.” Some new microscopic creatures, trichinae, have appeared, infecting people and making them possessed. The infected do not hear or understand others, considering only their own opinion to be absolutely true and the only correct one. Having abandoned their occupations, crafts and agriculture, people kill each other in some senseless rage. Fires begin, famine begins, everything around dies. In the whole world, only a few people, “pure and chosen,” can be saved, but no one has ever seen them.

This dream represents the extreme embodiment of Raskolnikov’s individualistic theory, showing the threatening results of its harmful influence on the world and humanity.

It is characteristic that individualism is now identified in Rodion’s mind with demon possession and madness. In fact, the hero’s idea of ​​strong personalities, Napoleons, to whom “everything is permitted” now seems to him to be illness, madness, clouding of the mind. Moreover, the spread of this theory throughout the world is what causes Raskolnikov's greatest fears. Now the hero realizes that his idea is contrary to human nature itself, reason, and the Divine world order.

Having understood and accepted all this with his soul, Raskolnikov experiences moral enlightenment. It is not for nothing that it is after this dream that he begins to realize his love for Sonya, which reveals to him faith in life.

Thus, Raskolnikov’s dreams and visions in the novel convey his inner states, feelings, innermost desires and secret fears. Compositionally, dreams often precede future events. In addition, the hero’s dreams resonate with the ideological concept of the work, with the author’s assessment of Raskolnikov’s ideas.

Raskolnikov's dreams are the semantic and plot supports of Dostoevsky's entire novel. Raskolnikov's first dream occurs before the crime, precisely when he is most hesitant in making a decision: whether to kill or not to kill the old money-lender. This dream is about Raskolnikov's childhood. She and her father are walking through their small hometown after visiting their grandmother's grave. There is a church next to the cemetery. Raskolnikov the child and his father pass by a tavern.

We immediately see two spatial points where the hero of Russian literature rushes about: the church and the tavern. More precisely, these two poles of Dostoevsky’s novel are holiness and sin. Raskolnikov will also rush throughout the novel between these two points: either he will fall deeper and deeper into the abyss of sin, or he will suddenly surprise everyone with miracles of self-sacrifice and kindness.

The drunken coachman Mikolka brutally kills his inferior, old and emaciated horse only because she is unable to pull the cart, where a dozen drunken people from the tavern sat down to laugh. Mikolka hits his horse in the eyes with a whip, and then finishes off the shafts, going into a rage and thirsting for blood.

Little Raskolnikov throws himself at Mikolka’s feet to protect the unfortunate, downtrodden creature - the “horse”. He stands up for the weak, against violence and evil.

“- Sit down, I’ll take everyone! - Mikolka shouts again, jumping first into the cart, taking the reins and standing on the front at his full height. “The bay one left with Matvey,” he shouts from the cart, “and this little mare, brothers, only breaks my heart: it would seem that he killed her, she eats bread for nothing.” I say sit down! Let me gallop! Let's gallop! - And he takes the whip in his hands, preparing to whip the Savraska with pleasure. (...)

Everyone climbs into Mikolka’s cart with laughter and witticisms. Six people got in, and there are still more to be seated. They take with them one woman, fat and ruddy. She's wearing red coats, a beaded tunic, cats on her feet, cracking nuts and chuckling. All around in the crowd they are also laughing, and indeed, how can one not laugh: such a frothing mare and such a burden will be carried at a gallop! The two guys in the cart immediately take a whip each to help Mikolka. The sound is heard: “Well!”, the nag pulls with all her might, but not only can she gallop, but she can even barely manage a step; she just minces with her legs, grunts and crouches from the blows of three whips raining down on her like peas. The laughter in the cart and in the crowd doubles, but Mikolka gets angry and, in a rage, strikes the filly with rapid blows, as if he really believed that she would gallop.

- Let me in too, brothers! - shouts one overjoyed guy from the crowd.

- Sit down! Everyone sit down! - Mikolka shouts, - everyone will be lucky. I'll spot it!

- And he whips, whips, and no longer knows what to hit with out of frenzy.

“Daddy, daddy,” he shouts to his father, “daddy, what are they doing?” Daddy, the poor horse is being beaten!

- Let's go, let's go! - says the father, - drunk, playing pranks, fools: let's go, don't look! - and wants to take him away, but he breaks out of his hands and, not

remembering himself, he runs to the horse. But the poor horse feels bad. She gasps, stops, jerks again, almost falls.

- Slap him to death! - Mikolka shouts, - for that matter. I'll spot it!

- Why don’t you have a cross on, or something, you devil! - one old man shouts

from the crowd.

“Have you ever seen such a horse carry such luggage,” adds another.

- You'll starve! - shouts the third.

- Don't touch it! My goodness! I do what I want. Sit down again! Everyone sit down! I want you to go galloping without fail!..

Suddenly, laughter erupts in one gulp and covers everything: the filly could not stand the rapid blows and began to kick in helplessness. Even the old man couldn’t resist and grinned. And indeed: such a yapping mare, and she kicks too!

Two guys from the crowd take out another whip and run to the horse to whip it from the sides. Everyone runs from their own side.

- In her face, in her eyes, in her eyes! - Mikolka shouts.

- A song, brothers! - someone shouts from the cart, and everyone in the cart joins in. A riotous song is heard, a tambourine clangs, and whistles are heard in the choruses. The woman cracks nuts and chuckles.

...He runs next to the horse, he runs ahead, he sees how it is being whipped in the eyes, right in the eyes! He is crying. His heart rises, tears flow. One of the attackers hits him in the face; he doesn’t feel, he wrings his hands, screams, rushes to the gray-haired old man with a gray beard, who shakes his head and condemns everything. One woman takes him by the hand and wants to lead him away; but he breaks free and runs to the horse again. She is already making her last efforts, but she begins to kick again.

- And to those devils! - Mikolka screams in rage. He throws the whip, bends down and pulls out a long and thick shaft from the bottom of the cart, takes it by the end in both hands and swings it with effort over the Savraska.

- It will explode! - they shout all around.

- My goodness! - Mikolka shouts and lowers the shaft with all his might. A heavy blow is heard.

And Mikolka swings another time, and another blow lands with all its might on the back of the unfortunate nag. She sinks all over, but jumps up and pulls, pulls with all her last strength in different directions to take her out; but from all sides they take it with six whips, and the shaft again rises and falls for the third time, then for the fourth, measuredly, with a sweep. Mikolka is furious that she cannot kill with one blow.

- Tenacious! - they shout all around.

“Now it will certainly fall, brothers, and this will be the end of it!” - one amateur shouts from the crowd.

- Ax her, what! Finish her at once,” shouts the third. - Eh, eat those mosquitoes! Make way! - Mikolka screams furiously, throws the shaft, bends down into the cart again and pulls out the iron crowbar. - Be careful!

- he shouts and with all his strength he stuns his poor horse. The blow collapsed; the filly staggered, sagged, and wanted to pull, but the crowbar again fell with all its might on her back, and she fell to the ground, as if all four legs had been cut off at once.

- Finish it off! - Mikolka shouts and jumps up, as if unconscious, from the cart. Several guys, also flushed and drunk, grab whatever they can - whips, sticks, shafts - and run to the dying filly. Mikolka stands on the side and starts hitting him on the back with a crowbar in vain. The nag stretches out his muzzle, sighs heavily and dies.

- Finished! - they shout in the crowd.

- Why didn’t you gallop!

- My goodness! - Mikolka shouts, with a crowbar in her hands and with bloodshot eyes. He stands there as if regretting that there is no one else to beat.

- Well, really, you know, you don’t have a cross on you! - Many voices are already shouting from the crowd.

But the poor boy no longer remembers himself. With a cry, he makes his way through the crowd to Savraska, grabs her dead, bloody muzzle and kisses her, kisses her on the eyes, on the lips... Then suddenly he jumps up and in a frenzy rushes with his little fists at Mikolka. At that moment his father, who had been chasing him for a long time, finally grabs him and carries him out of the crowd.”

Why is this horse being slaughtered by a man named Mikolka? This is not at all accidental. After the murder of the old money-lender and Lizaveta, suspicion falls on the painter Mikolka, who picked up the box of jewelry dropped by Raskolnikov, a mortgage from the old money-lender's chest, and drank the find in a tavern. This Mikolka was one of the schismatics. Before he came to St. Petersburg, he was under the leadership of a holy elder and followed the path of faith. However, St. Petersburg “whirled” Mikolka, he forgot the elder’s covenants and fell into sin. And, according to the schismatics, it is better to suffer for the big sin of others in order to more fully atone for your own small sin. And now Mikolka takes the blame for a crime that he did not commit. While Raskolnikov, at the moment of the murder, finds himself in the role of that coachman Mikolka, who brutally kills the horse. The roles in reality, unlike in the dream, were reversed.

So what then is the meaning of Raskolnikov’s first dream? The dream shows that Raskolnikov is initially kind, that murder is alien to his nature, that he is ready to stop, even if only a minute before the crime. At the very last minute he can still choose good. Moral responsibility remains entirely in the hands of man. God seems to give a person a choice of action until the very last second. But Raskolnikov chooses evil and commits a crime against himself, against his human nature. That is why, even before the murder, conscience stops Raskolnikov, draws terrible pictures of a bloody murder in his sleep, so that the hero gives up his crazy thought.

The name Raskolnikov takes on a symbolic meaning: schism means splitting. Even in the surname itself we see the beat of modernity: people have ceased to be united, they are split into two halves, they constantly fluctuate between good and evil, not knowing what to choose. The meaning of Raskolnikov’s image is also “twofold”, splitting in the eyes of the characters around him. All the heroes of the novel are attracted to him and make biased assessments of him. According to Svidrigailov, “Rodion Romanovich has two roads: either a bullet in the forehead, or along Vladimirka.”

Subsequently, remorse after the murder and painful doubts about his own theory had a detrimental effect on his initially handsome appearance: “Raskolnikov (...) was very pale, absent-minded and gloomy. From the outside, he looked like a wounded person or someone enduring some kind of severe physical pain: his eyebrows were knitted, his lips were compressed, his eyes were inflamed.”

Around Raskolnikov's first dream, Dostoevsky places a number of contradictory events that are in one way or another associatively connected with Raskolnikov's dream.

The first event is a “test”. This is how Raskolnikov calls his trip to the old pawnbroker Alena Ivanovna. He brings her his father’s silver watch as a pawn, but not because he needs money so much so as not to die of hunger, but in order to check whether he can “step over” the blood or not, that is, whether he is capable of murder. By pawning his father’s watch, Raskolnikov symbolically renounces his family: it is unlikely that the father would approve of his son’s idea of ​​committing murder (it is no coincidence that Raskolnikov’s name is Rodion; he seems to betray this name at the moment of murder and “trial”), and having committed a crime, he seems to “ uses scissors to cut himself off from people, especially from his mother and sister. In a word, during the “test” Raskolnikov’s soul leans in favor of evil.

Then he meets Marmeladov in a tavern, who tells him about his daughter Sonya. She goes to the panel so that Marmeladov’s three young children do not die of hunger. Meanwhile, Marmeladov drinks away all the money and even asks Sonechka forty kopecks to get over his hangover. Immediately after this event, Raskolnikov receives a letter from his mother. In it, the mother talks about Raskolnikov’s sister Duna, who wants to marry Luzhin, saving her beloved brother Rodya. And Raskolnikov unexpectedly brings Sonya and Dunya closer together. After all, Dunya also sacrifices herself. Essentially, she, like Sonya, sells her body for her brother. Raskolnikov does not want to accept such a sacrifice. He sees the murder of the old pawnbroker as a way out of the current situation: “...eternal Sonechka, while the world stands!”; “Oh yes Sonya! What a well, however, they managed to dig! and use it (...) They cried and got used to it. A scoundrel of a man gets used to everything!”

Raskolnikov rejects compassion, humility and sacrifice, choosing rebellion. At the same time, the motives for his crime lie in the deepest self-deception: to free humanity from the harmful old woman, give the stolen money to his sister and mother, thereby saving Dunya from the voluptuous Luzhins and Svidrigailovs. Raskolnikov convinces himself of simple “arithmetic”, as if with the help of the death of one “ugly old woman” humanity can be made happy.

Finally, just before the dream about Mikolka, Raskolnikov himself saves a fifteen-year-old drunken girl from a respectable gentleman who wanted to take advantage of the fact that she did not understand anything. Raskolnikov asks the policeman to protect the girl, and angrily shouts to the gentleman: “Hey, you, Svidrigailov!” Why Svidrigailov? Yes, because from his mother’s letter he learns about the landowner Svidrigailov, in whose house Dunya served as a governess, and it was the voluptuous Svidrigailov who encroached on his sister’s honor. By protecting the girl from the depraved old man, Raskolnikov symbolically protects his sister. This means he is doing good again. The pendulum in his soul swung again in the opposite direction - towards good. Raskolnikov himself evaluates his “test” as an ugly, disgusting mistake: “Oh God, how disgusting it all is... And could such horror really come into my head...” He is ready to retreat from his plan, throw out his erroneous, destructive theory from his consciousness: “ -Enough! - he said decisively and solemnly, - away with mirages, away with feigned fears... There is life!... - But I already agreed to live on a yard of space!

Raskolnikov’s second dream is, rather, not even a dream, but a daydream in a state of slight and short oblivion. This dream appears to him a few minutes before he commits a crime. In many ways, Raskolnikov’s dream is mysterious and strange: This is an oasis in the African desert of Egypt: “The caravan is resting, the camels are lying quietly; There are palm trees growing all around; everyone is having lunch. He keeps drinking water, straight from the stream, which is right there, by his side, flowing and babbling. And it’s so cool, and such wonderful, wonderful blue water, cold, runs over multi-colored stones and over such clean sand with golden sparkles...”

Why does Raskolnikov dream of a desert, an oasis, clean transparent water, to the source of which he leans and drinks greedily? This source is exactly the water of faith. Raskolnikov, even a second before a crime, can stop and fall to a source of pure water, to holiness, to return the lost harmony to his soul. But he doesn’t do this, but, on the contrary, as soon as six o’clock strikes, he jumps up and, like an automaton, goes for the kill.

This dream about a desert and an oasis is reminiscent of a poem by M.Yu. Lermontov "Three Palms". It also spoke of an oasis, clean water, and three flowering palm trees. However, nomads approach this oasis and cut down three palm trees with an ax, destroying the oasis in the desert. Immediately after the second dream, Raskolnikov steals an ax in the janitor's room, puts it in a loop under the arm of his summer coat and commits a crime. Evil conquers good. The pendulum in Raskolnikov's soul again darted to the opposite pole. In Raskolnikov there are, as it were, two people: a humanist and an individualist.

Contrary to the aesthetic appearance of his theory, Raskolnikov’s crime is monstrously ugly. At the moment of murder, he acts as a maverick. He kills Alena Ivanovna with the butt of an ax (as if fate itself were pushing Raskolnikov’s lifeless hand); smeared in blood, the hero uses an ax to cut the cord on the old woman’s chest with two crosses, an icon and a wallet, and wipes his bloody hands on the red set. The merciless logic of murder forces Raskolnikov, who claims aestheticism in his theory, to hack Lizaveta, who returned to the apartment, with the edge of an ax, so that he split her skull right up to her neck. Raskolnikov definitely gets the taste for bloody carnage. But Lizaveta is pregnant. This means that Raskolnikov kills a third, not yet born, but also a person. (Remember that Svidrigailov also kills three people: he poisons his wife Marfa Petrovna, a fourteen-year-old girl, molested by him, and his servant commit suicide.) If Koch had not been frightened and would not have run down the stairs when Koch and the student Pestrukhin were pulling the door of the old woman’s apartment, pawnbroker, closed from the inside with one hook, then Raskolnikov would have killed Koch too. Raskolnikov held an ax at the ready, hiding on the other side of the door. There would be four corpses. In fact, the theory is very far from practice; it is not at all similar to the aesthetically beautiful theory of Raskolnikov, created by him in his imagination.

Raskolnikov hides the loot under a stone. He laments that he did not “step over the blood”, did not turn out to be a “superman”, but appeared as an “aesthetic louse” (“Did I kill the old woman? I killed myself...”), suffers because he suffers, because Napoleon would not have suffered, because “forgets the army in Egypt (...) spends half a million people on the Moscow campaign.” Raskolnikov does not realize the dead end of his theory, which rejects the immutable moral law. The hero violated the moral law and fell because he had a conscience, and it takes revenge on him for violating the moral law.

On the other hand, Raskolnikov is generous, noble, sympathetic, and uses his last means to help a sick comrade; Risking himself, he saves children from a fire, gives his mother’s money to the Marmeladov family, protects Sonya from Luzhin’s slander; he has the makings of a thinker, a scientist. Porfiry Petrovich tells Raskolnikov that he has a “great heart,” compares him to the “sun,” to Christian martyrs who go to execution for their idea: “Become the sun, everyone will see you.”

In Raskolnikov's theory, as if in focus, all the contradictory moral and spiritual properties of the hero are concentrated. First of all, according to Raskolnikov’s plan, his theory proves that every person is a “scoundrel”, and social injustice is in the order of things.

Life itself comes into conflict with Raskolnikov’s casuistry. The hero's illness after the murder shows the equality of people before conscience; it is a consequence of conscience, so to speak, a physiological manifestation of the spiritual nature of man. Through the mouth of the maid Nastasya (“It’s the blood screaming in you”) the people judge Raskolnikov’s crime.

Raskolnikov's third dream occurs after the crime. Raskolnikov's third dream is directly related to Raskolnikov's torment after the murder. This dream is also preceded by a number of events. In the novel, Dostoevsky precisely follows the well-known psychological observation that “the criminal is always drawn to the scene of the crime.” Indeed, Raskolnikov comes to the pawnbroker’s apartment after the murder. The apartment is being renovated, the door is open. Raskolnikov, as if out of the blue, begins to pull the bell and listen. One of the workers looks at Raskolnikov suspiciously and calls him a “burnout.” The tradesman Kryukov pursues Raskolnikov as he walks from the house of the old pawnbroker and shouts to him: “Murderer!”

Here is this dream of Raskolnikov: “He forgot; It seemed strange to him that he did not remember how he could have ended up on the street. It was already late evening. The dusk deepened, the full moon grew brighter and brighter; but somehow the air was especially stuffy. People walked in crowds along the streets; artisans and busy people went home, others walked; it smelled of lime, dust, and stagnant water. Raskolnikov walked sad and worried: he remembered very well that he had left the house with some intention, that he had to do something and hurry, but he forgot what exactly. Suddenly he stopped and saw that on the other side of the street, on the sidewalk, a man was standing and waving at him. He walked towards him across the street, but suddenly this man turned and walked as if nothing had happened, with his head down, without turning around and without giving any sign that he was calling him. “Come on, did he call?” - thought Raskolnikov, but he began to catch up. Not ten steps away, he suddenly recognized him and was frightened; it was a tradesman from a long time ago, in the same robe and hunched over in the same way. Raskolnikov walked from afar; his heart was beating; We turned into the alley - he still didn’t turn around. “Does he know that I’m following him?” - thought Raskolnikov. A tradesman entered the gates of a large house. Raskolnikov quickly walked up to the gate and began to look to see if he would look back and call him. In fact, having gone through the entire gateway and already going out into the yard, he suddenly turned around and again seemed to wave to him. Raskolnikov immediately passed through the gateway, but the tradesman was no longer in the yard. Therefore, he entered here now on the first staircase. Raskolnikov rushed after him. In fact, two stairs up, someone else's measured, unhurried steps could be heard. Strange, the stairs seemed familiar! There's a window on the first floor; the moonlight passed sadly and mysteriously through the glass; here is the second floor. Bah! This is the same apartment in which the workers smeared... How did he not find out immediately? The steps of the man in front died down: “it means he stopped or hid somewhere.” Here is the third floor; should we go further? And how quiet there is, it’s even scary... But he went. The noise of his own steps frightened and worried him. God, how dark! The tradesman must be hiding in a corner somewhere. A! the apartment was wide open to the stairs, he thought and entered. The hallway was very dark and empty, not a soul, as if everything had been taken out; Quietly, on tiptoe, he walked into the living room: the whole room was brightly bathed in moonlight; everything is still there: the chairs, the mirror, the yellow sofa and the framed pictures. A huge, round, copper-red moon looked straight into the windows. “It’s been so quiet for a month,” thought Raskolnikov, “he’s probably asking a riddle now.” He stood and waited, waited for a long time, and the quieter the month was, the stronger his heart beat, and it even became painful. And all is silence. Suddenly, an instant dry crack was heard, as if a splinter had been broken, and everything froze again. The awakened fly suddenly hit the glass and buzzed pitifully. At that very moment, in the corner, between the small wardrobe and the window, he saw a cloak as if hanging on the wall. “Why is there a cloak here? - he thought, “after all, he wasn’t there before...” He approached slowly and guessed that someone seemed to be hiding behind the cloak. He carefully pulled back his cloak with his hand and saw that there was a chair standing there, and an old woman was sitting on a chair in the corner, all hunched over and her head bowed, so that he could not see her face, but it was her. He stood over her: “Afraid!” - he thought, quietly released the ax from the loop and hit the old woman on the crown, once and twice. But it’s strange: she didn’t even move from the blows, like she was made of wood. He got scared, leaned closer and began to look at her; but she also bent her head even lower. He then bent down completely to the floor and looked into her face from below, looked and froze: the old woman was sitting and laughing - she burst into quiet, inaudible laughter, trying with all her might so that he would not hear her. Suddenly it seemed to him that the door from the bedroom opened slightly and that there, too, seemed to be laughing and whispering. Fury overcame him: with all his might he began to hit the old woman on the head, but with each blow of the ax the laughter and whispers from the bedroom were heard louder and louder, and the old woman was shaking all over with laughter. He rushed to run, but the entire hallway was already full of people, the doors on the stairs were wide open, and on the landing, on the stairs and down there - all the people, head to head, everyone was watching - but everyone was hiding and waiting, silent... His heart was embarrassed, his legs don’t move, they’re rooted... He wanted to scream and woke up.”

Porfiry Petrovich, having learned about Raskolnikov’s arrival at the scene of the murder, hides the tradesman Kryukov behind the door of the next room, so that during the interrogation of Raskolnikov he will unexpectedly release the tradesman and expose Raskolnikov. Only an unexpected confluence of circumstances prevented Porfiry Petrovich: Mikolka took upon himself Raskolnikov’s crime - and Porfiry Petrovich was forced to let Raskolnikov go. The tradesman Kryukov, who was sitting outside the door of the investigator’s room and heard everything, comes to Raskolnikov and falls to his knees in front of him. He wants to repent to Raskolnikov that he accused him of murder unfairly, believing after Mikolka’s voluntary confession that Raskolnikov did not commit any crime.

But that will happen later, but for now Raskolnikov is dreaming of this particular tradesman Kryukov, who threw this menacing word “murderer” in his face. So, Raskolnikov runs after him to the apartment of the old money-lender. He dreams of an old woman hiding from him under a cloak. Raskolnikov hits her with an ax with all his might, but she just laughs. And suddenly there are a lot of people in the room, on the threshold, and everyone looks at Raskolnikov and laughs. Why is this motif of laughter so important to Dostoevsky? Why is Raskolnikov madly afraid of this public laughter? The thing is that more than anything else he is afraid of being funny. If his theory is ridiculous, then it is not worth a penny. And in this case, Raskolnikov himself, together with his theory, turns out to be not a superman, but an “aesthetic louse,” as he declares this to Sonya Marmeladova, confessing to the murder.

Raskolnikov's third dream includes a mechanism of repentance. Raskolnikov Between the third and fourth dreams, Raskolnikov looks in the mirror of his “doubles”: Luzhin and Svidrigailov. As we said, Svidrigailov kills, like Raskolnikov, three people. In this case, why is Svidrigailov worse than Raskolnikov?! It is no coincidence that, having overheard Raskolnikov’s secret, Svidrigailov, mockingly, tells Raskolnikov that they are “birds of a feather,” considers him as if his brother in sin, distorts the hero’s tragic confessions “with the appearance of some kind of winking, cheerful trickery.”

Luzhin and Svidrigailov, distorting and mimicking his seemingly aesthetic theory, force the hero to reconsider his view of the world and man. The theories of Raskolnikov’s “doubles” judge Raskolnikov himself. Luzhin’s theory of “reasonable egoism,” according to Raskolnikov, is fraught with the following: “But bring to the consequences what you preached just now, and it will turn out that people can be slaughtered...”

Finally, Porfiry’s dispute with Raskolnikov (cf. Porfiry’s mockery of how to distinguish “extraordinary” from “ordinary”: “is it not possible to have special clothes here, for example, to wear something, there are brands there, or something?” .") and Sonya’s words immediately cross out Raskolnikov’s cunning dialectic, forcing him to take the path of repentance: “I only killed a louse, Sonya, a useless, disgusting, harmful one.” - “This is a great man!” - Sonya exclaims.

Sonya reads Raskolnikov the Gospel parable about the resurrection of Lazarus (like Lazarus, the hero of Crime and Punishment is in the “coffin” for four days - Dostoevsky compares Raskolnikov’s closet to a “coffin”). Sonya gives Raskolnikov her cross, leaving on herself the cypress cross of Lizaveta, whom he killed, with whom they exchanged crosses. Thus, Sonya makes it clear to Raskolnikov that he killed his sister, for all people are brothers and sisters in Christ. Raskolnikov puts into practice Sonya’s call - to go out to the square, fall to his knees and repent before all the people: “Accept suffering and atone for yourself with it...”

Raskolnikov's repentance on the square is tragically symbolic, reminiscent of the fate of the ancient prophets, as he indulges in popular ridicule. Raskolnikov’s acquisition of faith, desired in the dreams of the New Jerusalem, is a long journey. The people do not want to believe in the sincerity of the hero’s repentance: “Look, you got whipped! (...) It is he who goes to Jerusalem, brothers, says goodbye to his homeland, worships the whole world, the capital city of St. Petersburg and kisses its soil” (cf. Porfiry’s question: “So you still believe in the New Jerusalem?”).

It is no coincidence that Raskolnikov had his last dream about “trichinas” on Easter days, during Holy Week. Raskolnikov’s fourth dream Raskolnikov is sick, and in the hospital he has this dream: “He spent the entire end of Lent and the Holy Day in the hospital. Already recovering, he recalled his dreams when he was still lying in the heat and delirious. In his illness, he dreamed that the whole world was condemned to be a victim of some terrible, unheard of and unprecedented pestilence coming from the depths of Asia to Europe. All were to perish, except for a few, very few, chosen ones. Some new trichinae appeared, microscopic creatures that inhabited people’s bodies. But these creatures were spirits, gifted with intelligence and will. People who accepted them into themselves immediately became possessed and crazy. But never, never have people considered themselves as smart and unshakable in the truth as the infected believed. They have never considered their verdicts, their scientific conclusions, their moral convictions and beliefs more unshakable. Entire villages, entire cities and peoples became infected and went crazy. Everyone was in anxiety and did not understand each other, everyone thought that the truth lay in him alone, and he was tormented, looking at others, beating his chest, crying and wringing his hands. They didn’t know who to judge and how, they couldn’t agree on what to consider as evil and what as good. They didn’t know who to blame, who to justify. People killed each other in some senseless rage. Whole armies gathered against each other, but the armies, already on the march, suddenly began to torment themselves, the ranks were upset, the warriors rushed at each other, stabbed and cut, bit and ate each other. In the cities they sounded the alarm all day long: they called everyone, but who was calling and why, no one knew, and everyone was in alarm. They abandoned the most ordinary crafts, because everyone proposed their thoughts, their amendments, and they could not agree; Agriculture stopped. Here and there people gathered in heaps, agreed to something together, swore not to part, but immediately started something completely different from what they themselves had immediately intended, began to blame each other, fought and cut themselves. Fires started, famine began. Everything and everyone was dying. The ulcer grew and moved further and further. Only a few people in the whole world could be saved; they were pure and chosen, destined to start a new race of people and a new life, to renew and cleanse the earth, but no one saw these people anywhere, no one heard their words and voices.”

Raskolnikov never fully repented of his crime in hard labor. He believes that it was in vain to succumb to pressure from Porfiry Petrovich and came to the investigator to confess. It would be better if he committed suicide like Svidrigailov. He simply did not have the strength to dare commit suicide. Sonya followed Raskolnikov to hard labor. But Raskolnikov cannot love her. He doesn't love anyone, just like him. The convicts hate Raskolnikov and, on the contrary, love Sonya very much. One of the convicts rushed at Raskolnikov, wanting to kill him.

What is Raskolnikov’s theory if not “trikhin”, which moved into his soul and made Raskolnikov think that in him alone and in his theory lies the truth?! Truth cannot dwell in man. According to Dostoevsky, truth lies in God alone, in Christ. If a person decides that he is the measure of all things, he is capable of killing another, like Raskolnikov. He gives himself the right to judge who deserves to live and who deserves to die, who is a “nasty old woman” who should be crushed, and who can continue to live. These questions are decided only by God, according to Dostoevsky.

Raskolnikov's dream in the epilogue about the "trichinas", which shows the perishing humanity, which imagines that the truth lies in man, shows that Raskolnikov has matured in order to understand the fallacy and danger of his theory. He is ready to repent, and then the world around him changes: suddenly he sees in the convicts not criminals and animals, but people with a human appearance. And the convicts suddenly also begin to treat Raskolnikov kinder. Moreover, until he repented of his crime, he was not able to love anyone at all, including Sonya. After a dream about “trichinas,” he falls on his knees in front of her and kisses her foot. He is already capable of love. Sonya gives him the Gospel, and he wants to open this book of faith, but is still hesitating. However, this is another story - the story of the resurrection of “fallen man,” as Dostoevsky writes in the finale.

Raskolnikov's dreams are also part of his punishment for the crime. This is a mechanism of conscience that is turned on and works independently of a person. Conscience transmits these terrible dream images to Raskolnikov and forces him to repent of his crime, to return to the image of a person who, of course, continues to live in Raskolnikov’s soul. Dostoevsky, forcing the hero to take the Christian path of repentance and rebirth, considers this path the only true one for man.