Dreams in Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment. Raskolnikov's first dream - analysis of the work and characteristics of the characters Crime and punishment Raskolnikov's dream summary
The great master of the psychological novel, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, used a technique such as a dream to better depict his hero in the work “Crime and Punishment.” With the help of dreams, the writer wanted to deeply touch the character and soul of a person who decided to kill. The main character of the novel, Rodion Raskolnikov, had four dreams. We will analyze an episode of Raskolnikov's dream, which he saw before the murder of the old woman. Let's try to figure out what Dostoevsky wanted to show with this dream, what its main idea is, how it is connected with real events in the book. We will also pay attention to the hero’s last dream, which is called apocalyptic.
The writer's use of sleep to deeply reveal the image
Many writers and poets, in order to further reveal the image of their character, resorted to describing his dreams. It is worth remembering Pushkin’s Tatyana Larina, who in a dream saw a strange hut in a mysterious forest. In this way, Pushkin showed the beauty of the soul of a Russian girl who grew up on ancient legends and fairy tales. The writer Goncharov managed to immerse Oblomov into his childhood at night and enjoy the serene paradise of Oblomovka. The writer devoted an entire chapter of the novel to this dream. Utopian features were embodied in the dreams of Vera Pavlovna by Chernyshevsky (the novel “What is to be done?”). With the help of dreams, writers bring us closer to the characters and try to explain their actions. The analysis of Raskolnikov's dream episode in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment is also very important. Without him, it would be impossible to understand the restless soul of the suffering student who decided to kill the old pawnbroker.
Brief analysis of Raskolnikov's first dream
So, Rodion saw his first dream after he decided to prove to himself that he was not “a trembling creature and has the right,” that is, he dared to kill the hated old woman. An analysis of Rakolnikov’s dream confirms that the very word “murder” frightened the student; he doubts that he will be able to commit it. The young man experiences horror, but still dares to prove that he belongs to higher beings who have the right to shed “blood according to their conscience.” Raskolnikov is given courage by the thought that he will act as a noble savior for many poor and humiliated. Only Dostoevsky, with Rodion’s first dream, shatters such reasoning of the hero, depicting a vulnerable, helpless soul that is mistaken.
Raskolnikov dreams of his childhood years in his hometown. Childhood reflects a carefree period of life, when you do not need to make important decisions and be responsible for your actions. It is no coincidence that Dostoevsky returns Rodion to his childhood at night. This suggests that the problems of adult life have led the hero to a depressed state, he is trying to escape from them. Childhood is also associated with the struggle between good and evil.
Rodion sees his father next to him, which is very symbolic. The father is considered a symbol of protection and security. The two of them walk past a tavern, drunken men run out of it. Rodion observed these images every day on the streets of St. Petersburg. One man, Mikolka, decided to give the others a ride on his cart, the harness of which was an emaciated peasant nag. The whole company gets into the cart with pleasure. The frail horse is not able to pull such a load, Mikolka hits the nag with all her might. Little Rodion watches in horror as the horse’s eyes fill with blood from the blows. A drunken crowd calls to finish her off with an axe. The frenzied owner finishes off the nag. Raskolnikov the child is very scared, out of pity he rushes to the horse’s defense, but too late. The intensity of passions reaches the limit. The evil aggression of drunken men is contrasted with the unbearable despair of a child. Before his eyes, the brutal murder of the poor horse took place, which filled his soul with pity for it. To convey the expressiveness of the episode, Dostoevsky puts an exclamation mark after each phrase, which helps to analyze Raskolnikov’s dream.
What feelings are filled with the atmosphere of Dostoevsky’s hero’s first dream?
The atmosphere of sleep is complemented by strong feelings. On the one hand, we see a malicious, aggressive, unbridled crowd. On the other hand, attention is paid to the unbearable despair of little Rodion, whose heart is shaken by pity for the poor horse. But what is most impressive is the tears and horror of the dying nag. Dostoevsky masterfully showed this terrible picture.
The main idea of the episode
What did the writer want to show with this episode? Dostoevsky focuses on the rejection of murder by human nature, including the nature of Rodion. Before going to bed, Raskolnikov thought that it would be useful to kill the old pawnbroker, who had outlived her days and was making others suffer. From the terrible scene he saw in his dream, Raskolnikov was covered in cold sweat. Thus his soul struggled with his mind.
By analyzing Raskolnikov’s dream, we are convinced that a dream does not have the ability to obey the mind, therefore, human nature is visible in it. Dostoevsky’s idea was to show with this dream that Rodion’s soul and heart did not accept murder. Real life, where the hero takes care of his mother and sister, wants to prove his theory about “ordinary” and “extraordinary” personalities, forces him to commit a crime. He sees the benefit in murder, which drowns out the torment of his nature. In the old woman, the student sees a useless, harmful creature who will soon die. Thus, the writer put into the first dream the true reasons for the crime and the unnaturalness of the murder.
The connection of the first dream with further events of the novel
The actions of the first dream take place in his hometown, symbolizing St. Petersburg. Integral components of the Northern capital were taverns, drunken men, and a suffocating atmosphere. The author sees in St. Petersburg the cause and accomplice of Raskolnikov’s crime. The atmosphere of the city, imaginary dead ends, cruelty and indifference influenced the main character so much that they aroused a painful state in him. It is this condition that pushes a student to commit unnatural murder.
Torment in Raskolnikov's soul after sleep
Rodion shudders after his dream and rethinks it. Nevertheless, after mental anguish, the student kills the old woman and also Elizabeth, who resembles a downtrodden and helpless nag. She didn't even dare raise her hand to protect herself from the killer's axe. Dying, the old woman will say the phrase: “We've brought in the nag!” But in a real situation, Raskolnikov will already be an executioner, and not a defender of the weak. He became part of a rough, cruel world.
Analysis of Raskolnikov's last dream
In the epilogue of the novel, readers see another dream of Rodion, it is more like semi-delirium. This dream already foreshadowed moral recovery, getting rid of doubts. An analysis of Raskolnikov’s (the latter) dream confirms that Rodion has already found answers to questions about the collapse of his theory. In his last dream, Raskolnikov saw the end of the world approaching. The whole world has plunged into a terrible disease and is about to disappear. There were smart and strong-willed microbes (spirits) all around. They possessed people, making them crazy and insane. Sick people considered themselves the smartest and justified all their actions. People humiliating each other were like spiders in a jar. Such a nightmare completely healed the hero spiritually and physically. He goes into a new life, where there is no monstrous theory.
The meaning of a student's dreams
An analysis of Raskolnikov's dreams in Crime and Punishment proves that in compositional terms they play a significant role. With their help, the reader focuses on the plot, images, and specific episodes. These dreams help to better understand the main idea of the novel. With the help of dreams, Dostoevsky very deeply and completely revealed the psychology of Rodion. If Raskolnikov had listened to his inner self, he would not have committed the terrible tragedy that split his consciousness into two halves.
The description of the dream that Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov had on the evening before the murder of the old pawnbroker is one of the key points in the plot of “Crime and Punishment.” At first glance, this retreat into the unconscious temporarily takes the protagonist out of the framework of the surrounding reality, in which the terrible plan he has come up with begins to develop, and gives the poor student a small respite from the painful fever into which he has driven himself with his extravagant theory.
At first it seems to us that, finding ourselves in the unusual setting of the Islands, surrounded by greenery, freshness and flowers instead of the usual city dust, lime and “crowding and oppressive houses” (let us remember along the way the hero’s reflections on the need to build fountains), Rodion Romanovich was truly wonderful in this way he gets rid of “this spell, from witchcraft, charm, from obsession” and plunges into the world of his childhood. In a dream, the spiritual world of seven-year-old little Rodya opens before us, who experiences “an unpleasant impression and even fear” as soon as he walks with his father past a city tavern, and “whole trembles” from just the sounds coming from it and the sight of “drunk and scary faces.” When the hero with spiritual warmth remembers the poor small city church “with a green dome and the ancient images in it,” and the old priest, and his own incredibly touching reverence for the “little grave of his little brother, who died for six months,” it seems to us that from under of everything superficial, born of life's circumstances, in the present-day Raskolnikov, a poor student and slum dweller, the soul of a child is resurrected, unable not only to kill a person, but also to calmly look at the torture of a horse. Thus, the whole point of the episode at first glance lies in revealing the true state of mind of the hero, who, having awakened, even turns to God in prayer and renounces the cursed idea. However, literally a day later, Raskolnikov will still carry out his terrible plan, and for some reason Dostoevsky does not allow the reader to forget about this first dream of his character almost until the very end of the novel: like circles spreading across the water from a thrown stone, or echoes of a spoken word. phrases, throughout the text of “Crime and Punishment” the smallest images are scattered, again and again returning to the content of the dream. Then, having hidden the jewelry stolen from the old woman under a stone, Raskolnikov returns home, “trembling like a driven horse,” and he imagines that the assistant to the quarterly overseer, Ilya Petrovich, is beating his landlady on the stairs. Then the exhausted Katerina Ivanovna Marmeladova dies screaming “the nag has gone away.” Then suddenly the Mikolka dreamed of by the main character miraculously materializes, turning out to be, however, not a burly man with a red muzzle, but a modest dyer. But he appears at the same time as a certain innkeeper Dushkin, who, according to Razumikhin, “tells his grandmother’s dream” and at the same time “lies like a horse” (a comparison as unexpected as it is deliberate). All these fleeting indications sound like an annoying note, but do not reveal the deep symbolism of the mysterious dream.
Let us return again to the circumstances in which this dream arises in Raskolnikov’s inflamed brain. Trying to get rid of an obsession, the hero strives to get as far from home as possible. Wandering in this way, Rodion Romanovich ends up in a remote part of St. Petersburg. “At first his tired eyes liked the greenness and freshness... There was no stuffiness, no stench, no drinking bars. But soon these new, pleasant sensations turned into painful and irritating ones.” Alas, a mortal resentment towards the whole world is too deeply ingrained in the consciousness of the proud Raskolnikov, and it cannot be dislodged by a simple change of situation. And is it only the external environment that matters? Raskolnikov is too complex a person for him to simply be “swallowed by the environment” without his voluntary consent. Rodion Romanovich himself begins to search for this much later, talking with Sonya (in the fifth part of the novel): “Razumikhin is working! Yes, I got angry and didn’t want to. Then, like a spider, I hid in my corner. Oh, how I hated this kennel! But still I didn’t want to leave it. I didn’t mean to on purpose!”
It is obvious that the terrible theory about the division of people into “trembling creatures” and “those with the right” is still hidden not in the St. Petersburg slums, although they contributed a lot to it, but in the consciousness of the hero himself, and therefore the expected enlightenment while walking along the green Islands is actually doesn't really happen. All the hero’s actions here are distinguished by meaningless automatism: for some reason he counts the money, follows the strollers with his eyes and immediately forgets about them, the impressions of what he saw do not seem to reach his consciousness, do not leave a clear, integral image in him.
Real enlightenment does not occur even after the hero awakens; the author notes that Raskolnikov was “vague and dark in his soul.” The slight relief and very short-lived, as it turned out later, peace that came in his soul was more likely associated with the adoption of the final, as he thought, decision regarding his theory. But what was this decision? Abandon the plan because he cannot bear it. This is not about repentance, but only about whether the brave theorist will be able to carry out his plan with his own hands.
The dream plays a cruel joke on Raskolnikov, as if giving him the opportunity to make a test of strength, after which the hero, in a state of the same automatism, actually goes to the old pawnbroker. It is no coincidence that the author himself calls the vision of his hero “terrible”, “painful”. For all its apparent ordinariness, this first dream in the novel is actually even more fantastic than the other one that visited Raskolnikov at the end of the third part, in which the devil again brings him to Alena Ivanovna’s apartment and from which Svidrigailov seems to enter the narrative. The fact is that this is not a memory of the hero’s childhood. It is not for nothing that his description is preceded by a rather unexpected author’s reasoning that “in a painful state, dreams are often distinguished by their extreme similarity to reality,” and the subsequent statement that such a probable situation could not be imagined in reality by this same dreamer, be he even Pushkin, even Turgenev, hardly refers to the terrible, but everyday picture of killing a horse. Most likely, the author here, in his characteristic unobtrusive manner, warns the reader that, for all its plausibility, Raskolnikov’s nightmare is not so simple. The picture that appears to the hero is at first carefully “masked” as ordinary and real: “the time is gray, the day is suffocating, the area is exactly the same as what has survived in his memory.” The deceitfulness and phantasmagoric nature of the dream are expressed here only in the fact that it is more truthful than reality.
Having set the hero (and readers) on a wave of lyrical memories, the dream throws up more and more new details - about black dust on the road to the tavern, about a sugar bath on a white platter, about ancient images without salaries. And only immediately after this, as if in continuation of the same thought, without a paragraph, does the presentation of the dream itself begin. This part of Raskolnikov’s vision also has its own fantasy: here the most ordinary things suddenly begin to seem unusual to a little boy. In fact, what’s wrong, for example, in the fact that in a city tavern “it’s as if” a party is taking place - after all, the described events develop “on a holiday, in the evening,” and “a crowd of all sorts of rabble” is doing the same thing as always, - bawling songs, scaring little Rodya? Why is the cart standing near the tavern porch called “strange”, if it is immediately added that it is “one of those big carts that big draft horses are harnessed to”? The only really strange thing, perhaps, is that this time “it was harnessed to a small, skinny, shabby peasant nag,” which usually cannot move even the cart of firewood or hay intended for it - and then the men beat it with whips, which was always such a pity for a compassionate child to look at. These constantly occurring digressions seem to gradually implant in the reader’s consciousness the idea of the complete worthlessness and uselessness of the poor horse, and the scene that plays out next turns out to be, in fact, a foregone conclusion. This part of Raskolnikov’s vision undoubtedly reflected the features of the terrible plan he came up with. After all, we are talking here about the possibility of managing someone else’s life - even if for now the life of a horse (“My goodness!” - shouts a drunken Mikolka) - and about the criteria of expediency and benefit. Mikolka shouts that the nag is eating bread for nothing. How close is the position of the poor horse the student dreamed of and the very real old money-lender, who, according to the opinions of those around her, is nothing more than an insignificant and evil old woman, who herself does not know what she lives for, whose life is worth incomparably less than a horse’s, equal to the value of a louse’s life (Raskolnikov will then try to convey this phrase from a conversation overheard in a tavern to Sonya)?
Raskolnikov’s dream, as a kind of test, also quite accurately conveys the small details of the future murder: a horse is slaughtered (“With an ax,” someone shouts), blood flows down its face; Mikolka, who, like Raskolnikov later, has “no cross,” is egged on by a whole crowd, just as the student and the officer, with their conversation in the tavern, confirm the assessment Rodion Romanovich mentally gave to the old money-lender, and convince him of the peculiar justice of their own plans. However, the dream, being, in fact, a condensed summary of the entire novel, seems to insidiously suggest to the main character a possible way out of the inevitably approaching tragedy - to pretend that he is here and has nothing to do with it, to take the place of an outside observer, or, even worse, to pretend to be a kind of “horse” that was “seized” by unbearable living conditions. And indeed, just as in a dream Raskolnikov sees his planned murder from the outside, so in real life, in case Napoleon does not come out of him, the philosopher still has an imaginary chance to fight with his conscience, blaming his guilt on the dyer who turned up at the right time - a sectarian with his obsession with the need to suffer.
The role of Raskolnikov’s dream about a horse in Dostoevsky’s work is the revelation of the hero’s internal psychological state. Writers often use this form in storytelling to present something hidden, allegorically, and more vividly.
Fears from childhood
The dream takes Rodion back to childhood - he is about 7 years old. The author touches on the hero’s memories from real life: he has an extremely difficult time enduring bad treatment of animals, and more than once watches people beat horses (in anger, frantically, undeservedly, and worst of all – in the eyes). In a dream, the main character returns to childhood, to a carefree period, when his father is next to him, which means he is protected. However, in his sleep Rodion does not experience peace and can hardly be called joyful.
He sees a drunken group trying to make a horse “jump.” She is small and skinny. The injustice of the situation is obvious: the mare is not able to budge, and there are more and more people who want to ride. The boy is in frantic pain because the animal is suffering, but those around him do not seem to notice the absurdity of the situation: they whip the mare on the sides, whip him in the face and eyes. Because of the blatant injustice, the child becomes hysterical; he wants to save the animal, help it, but he is not physically or morally able to reach the killers.
Meaning of sleep
In the interpretation of the dream, researchers of F. M. Dostoevsky’s work almost unequivocally agree that its essence is the character’s unwillingness to break the law and test his theory in reality. The dream suggests that Raskolnikov has too much humanity, he is not ready for the murder he plans to commit. The soul of a young man is too subtle, he is sensitive and emotional. Raskolnikov is preparing to test his theory that all people are divided into “material” and those who are capable of breaking the law, conscience, if necessary.
However, the hero himself does not belong to the second category of people. He spends too long proving to himself that the death of the old pawnbroker is a great good towards those who are in her “bondage.” The decision has been made, but Raskolnikov is not ready for murder, he does not realize the full essence of what was planned. The character’s soul resists, it fights with reason, this is what the dream about the “downtrodden nag” emphasizes. It is important that the dream happens on the eve of the planned murder; it tells the hero that he is not the one who must “save the world” by destroying evil with his own hands.
Failure of the theory
The story about beating a horse is so realistic that the reader unwittingly becomes a participant in the situation depicted. He also feels sorry for the animal and is unbearable that it is impossible to stop the crowd. The author uses many exclamatory sentences to emphasize the horror, turmoil, and atmosphere of what is happening. And the worst thing is the general indifference to what is happening: no one is trying to help the animal, only timid remarks remind that the owner is not acting humanely. The bloody massacre of an animal, the tears of a killed horse - every detail seen through the eyes of a small child is a signal that he does not accept murder in any way. Having compassion for the animal, he is going to kill a real person - the hero’s subconscious mind resists this. Raskolnikov's theory fails - he is not one of those who is capable of killing.
“Indeed, I recently wanted to ask Razumikhin for a job, so that he could get me lessons, or something...,” Raskolnikov thought, “but how can he help me now? Suppose he gets enough lessons, suppose he even shares his last penny, if he has a penny, so that he can even buy boots and fix his suit so that he can go to lessons... hm... Well, what next? What can I do for nickels? Do I really need this now? Really, it’s funny that I went to Razumikhin...” The question of why he now went to Razumikhin worried him more than even he himself thought; He anxiously searched for some sinister meaning for himself in this seemingly ordinary act. “Well, did I really want to fix the whole matter with Razumikhin alone and found the outcome for everything in Razumikhin?” - he asked himself in surprise. He thought and rubbed his forehead, and, strangely, somehow by chance, suddenly and almost by itself, after a very long thought, a strange thought came into his head. “Hm... to Razumikhin,” he suddenly said quite calmly, as if in the sense of a final decision, “I’ll go to Razumikhin, that’s of course... but not now... I’ll go to him... the next day, after Togo I'll go when it's already That it will be over and when everything starts again..." And suddenly he came to his senses. "After Togo, he screamed, jumping off the bench, but really That will? Will it really happen? He abandoned the bench and walked, almost ran; he wanted to turn back to the house, but he suddenly felt terribly disgusted about going home: it was there, in the corner, in that terrible closet, that everything was ripening This It's been more than a month now, and he's gone as fast as he can. His nervous trembling turned into a kind of feverish trembling; he even felt a chill; in such heat he felt cold. As if with an effort, he began, almost unconsciously, out of some inner necessity, to peer into all the objects he encountered, as if intensely looking for entertainment, but he was unsuccessful in this, and he constantly fell into thoughtfulness. When again, shuddering, he raised his head and looked around, he immediately forgot what he was thinking about and even where he was passing. In this way he walked the entire Vasilyevsky Island, came out onto the Malaya Neva, crossed the bridge and turned to the Islands. The greenery and freshness at first pleased his tired eyes, accustomed to city dust, to lime and to huge, crowding and oppressive buildings. There was no stuffiness, no stench, no drinking establishments here. But soon these new, pleasant sensations turned into painful and irritating ones. Sometimes he stopped in front of some dacha decorated with greenery, looked into the fence, saw in the distance, on balconies and terraces, dressed-up women and children running in the garden. He was especially interested in flowers; he looked at them the longest. He also met magnificent carriages, riders and riders; he followed them with curious eyes and forgot about them before they disappeared from his eyes. Once he stopped and counted his money: it turned out to be about thirty kopecks. “Twenty to the policeman, three to Nastasya for the letter, which means yesterday he gave the Marmeladovs forty-seven or fifty kopecks,” he thought, counting for something, but soon forgot even why he took the money out of his pocket. He remembered this while passing by a food establishment, like a tavern, and felt that he was hungry. Entering the tavern, he drank a glass of vodka and ate a pie with some filling. He finished it again on the road. He had not drunk vodka for a very long time, and it took effect instantly, although he only drank one glass. His legs suddenly became heavy, and he began to feel a strong urge to sleep. He went home; but having already reached Petrovsky Island, he stopped in complete exhaustion, left the road, entered the bushes, fell on the grass and fell asleep at that very moment. In a painful state, dreams are often distinguished by their extraordinary convexity, brightness and extreme similarity to reality. Sometimes a monstrous picture emerges, but the setting and the whole process of the entire presentation are so plausible and with such subtle, unexpected, but artistically corresponding to the entire completeness of the picture, details that the same dreamer could not invent them in reality, even if he were such an artist, like Pushkin or Turgenev. Such dreams, painful dreams, are always remembered for a long time and make a strong impression on the upset and already excited human body. Raskolnikov had a terrible dream. He dreamed of his childhood, back in their town. He is about seven years old and is walking on a holiday, in the evening, with his father outside the city. The time is gray, the day is suffocating, the area is exactly the same as it remained in his memory: even in his memory it has been much more erased than it was now imagined in a dream. The town stands open, clear in the open, not a willow tree around; somewhere very far away, at the very edge of the sky, a forest grows black. A few steps from the last city garden there is a tavern, a large tavern, which always made an unpleasant impression on him and even fear when he passed by it while walking with his father. There was always such a crowd there, they shouted, laughed, cursed, sang so ugly and hoarsely and fought so often; There were always such drunken and scary faces wandering around the tavern... When he met them, he pressed himself closely to his father and trembled all over. Near the tavern there is a road, a country road, always dusty, and the dust on it is always so black. She walks, twisting, then, about three hundred paces, she bends around the city cemetery to the right. Among the cemetery is a stone church with a green dome, to which he went twice a year with his father and mother to mass, when funeral services were served for his grandmother, who had died a long time ago and whom he had never seen. At the same time, they always took kutya with them on a white dish, in a napkin, and the kutya was sugar made from rice and raisins, pressed into the rice with a cross. He loved this church and the ancient images in it, mostly without frames, and the old priest with a trembling head. Near his grandmother’s grave, on which there was a slab, there was also a small grave of his younger brother, who had died for six months and whom he also did not know at all and could not remember; but he was told that he had a little brother, and every time he visited the cemetery, he religiously and respectfully crossed himself over the grave, bowed to it and kissed it. And then he dreams: he and his father are walking along the road to the cemetery and passing a tavern; he holds his father's hand and looks back at the tavern with fear. A special circumstance attracts his attention: this time there seems to be a party, a crowd of dressed-up bourgeois women, women, their husbands and all sorts of rabble. Everyone is drunk, everyone is singing songs, and near the tavern porch there is a cart, but a strange cart. This is one of those large carts into which large draft horses are harnessed and goods and wine barrels are transported in them. He always loved to look at these huge draft horses, long-maned, with thick legs, walking calmly, at a measured pace, and carrying some whole mountain behind them, without getting too tired at all, as if they were even easier with carts than without carts. But now, strangely, harnessed to such a large cart was a small, skinny, shabby peasant nag, one of those who - he often saw this - sometimes struggle with some tall cart of firewood or hay, especially if the cart gets stuck in the mud or in a rut, and at the same time it’s so painful, the men always beat them so painfully with whips, sometimes even in the very face and in the eyes, and he’s so sorry, so sorry to look at it that he almost cries, but mother always used to , takes him away from the window. But suddenly it becomes very noisy: big, drunken men in red and blue shirts, with saddle-backed army coats, come out of the tavern, shouting, singing, with balalaikas. “Sit down, everyone sit down! “One shouts, still young, with such a thick neck and a fleshy face, red as a carrot, “I’ll take everyone, sit down!” But immediately there is laughter and exclamations: Such a nag, good luck! Are you, Mikolka, out of your mind or something: you locked such a little mare in such a cart! But Savraska will certainly be twenty years old, brothers! Sit down, I’ll take everyone! Mikolka shouts again, jumping first into the cart, takes the reins and stands on the front at his full height. “The bay horse left with Matvey,” he shouts from the cart, “and Etta’s little filly, 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. Yes, sit down, why! they laugh in the crowd. Hey, he’s going to gallop! She hasn’t jumped for ten years, I guess. Jumping! Don’t be sorry, brothers, take all kinds of whips, prepare them! And then! Whack her! 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 over-fed 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 beat 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, naughty, fools: let's go, don't look! and wants to take him away, but he breaks out of his hands and, not remembering himself, runs to the horse. But the poor horse feels bad. She gasps, stops, jerks again, almost falls. Smash to death! - shouts Mikolka, - for that matter. I'll spot it! Why don’t you have a cross on, or something, you devil! shouts one old man from the crowd. “Have you seen such a horse carry such luggage,” adds another. You'll starve! shouts the third. Don't touch! 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 little filly could not stand the rapid blows and, helpless, began to kick. Even the old man couldn’t resist and grinned. And indeed: it’s such a kicking little filly, and it 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. 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 all this. 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 for 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 are shouting all around. Will kill! My goodness! Mikolka shouts and lowers the shaft with all his might. A heavy blow is heard. Smash her, smack her! What have they become? voices shout from the crowd. 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 are shouting all around. Now it will certainly fall, brothers, this is the end of it! One amateur shouts from the crowd. With her ax, what! Finish with 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. Beware! he screams 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! Mikolka screams and jumps up, as if he doesn’t remember himself, from the cart. Several guys, also red and drunk, grab whatever they can find - 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! shouting in the crowd. Why didn’t you gallop! My goodness! Mikolka screams, 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! 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. Let's go! let's go to! he tells him, let's go home! Daddy! Why did they... kill the poor horse! he sobs, but his breath is taken away, and words burst out in screams from his constricted chest. Drunk, playing pranks, it’s none of our business, let’s go! - says the father. He wraps his arms around his father, but his chest is tight, tight. He wants to catch his breath, scream, and wakes up. He woke up covered in sweat, his hair wet with sweat, gasping for breath, and sat up in horror. “Thank God it’s just a dream! he said, sitting down under a tree and taking a deep breath. But what is this? Is it possible that I’m starting to feel a fever: such an ugly dream!” His whole body seemed to be broken; vague and dark at heart. He put his elbows on his knees and supported his head with both hands. "God! - he exclaimed, - can it really be, will I really take an ax, hit her on the head, crush her skull... I will slide in the sticky, warm blood, pick the lock, steal and tremble; hiding, covered in blood... with an ax... Lord, really?” He shook like a leaf as he said this. “Why is it me! - he continued, bowing again and as if in deep amazement, - after all, I knew that I couldn’t stand it, so why did I still torment myself? After all, just yesterday, yesterday, when I went to do this... sample, because yesterday I completely understood that I couldn’t stand it... What am I doing now? Why did I still doubt it? After all, yesterday, coming down the stairs, I myself said that this was vile, disgusting, low, low... because the very thought made me in reality I felt sick and terrified... No, I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it! Let, even if there is no doubt in all these calculations, even if all that is decided this month is clear as day, fair as arithmetic. God! After all, I still won’t make up my mind! I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it!.. Why, what is it still up to now...” He stood up, looked around in surprise, as if wondering that he had come here, and walked towards the bridge. He was pale, his eyes were burning, exhaustion was in all his limbs, but he suddenly began to breathe as if easier. He felt that he had already thrown off this terrible burden that had been weighing him down for so long, and his soul suddenly felt light and peaceful. "God! “he prayed, “show me my path, and I renounce this damned... dream of mine!” Passing across the bridge, he quietly and calmly looked at the Neva, at the bright sunset of the bright, red sun. Despite his weakness, he did not even feel tired. It was as if an abscess on his heart, which had been brewing all month, suddenly burst. Freedom, freedom! He is now free from these spells, from witchcraft, charm, from obsession! Subsequently, when he recalled this time and everything that happened to him during these days, minute by minute, point by point, line by line, he was always struck to the point of superstition by one circumstance, although in essence not very extraordinary, but which always seemed then, as if by some kind of predetermination of his fate. Precisely: he could not understand and explain to himself why he, tired, exhausted, for whom it would have been most advantageous to return home by the shortest and most direct route, returned home through Sennaya Square, to which it was completely unnecessary for him to go. The hook was small, but obvious and completely unnecessary. Of course, it happened dozens of times that he returned home without remembering the streets along which he walked. But why, he always asked, why did such an important, so decisive for him and at the same time such an extremely random meeting on Sennaya (where he had no reason to even go) come just now at such an hour, at such a minute? in his life, precisely to such a mood of his spirit and to such circumstances in which only this meeting could produce the most decisive and final effect on his entire fate? It was as if she was waiting for him here on purpose! It was about nine o'clock when he passed along Sennaya. All the traders on the tables, on the trays, in the shops and in the shops locked their establishments, or removed and tidied up their goods, and went home, as did their customers. Near the taverns on the lower floors, in the dirty and smelly courtyards of the houses on Sennaya Square, and especially near the taverns, there were crowds of many different types of industrialists and rags. Raskolnikov mainly loved these places, as well as all the nearby alleys, when he went out into the street without a purpose. Here his rags did not attract anyone’s arrogant attention, and he could walk around in any way he wanted without scandalizing anyone. At the very corner of Kny Lane, a tradesman and a woman, his wife, were selling goods from two tables: threads, ribbons, cotton scarves, etc. They also went home, but hesitated, talking with an acquaintance who approached. This friend was Lizaveta Ivanovna, or simply, as everyone called her, Lizaveta, the younger sister of that same old woman Alena Ivanovna, the college registrar and pawnbroker, who had Raskolnikov yesterday, who came to pawn her watch and make his try... He had known everything about this Lizaveta for a long time, and even she knew him a little. She was a tall, clumsy, timid and humble girl, almost an idiot, thirty-five years old, who was in complete slavery to her sister, worked for her day and night, trembled before her and even suffered beatings from her. She stood thoughtfully with a bundle in front of the tradesman and the woman and listened to them attentively. They were explaining something to her with particular fervor. When Raskolnikov suddenly saw her, some strange feeling, similar to the deepest amazement, gripped him, although there was nothing amazing in this meeting. “You, Lizaveta Ivanovna, would have decided it yourself,” the tradesman said loudly. Come tomorrow, about seven o’clock, sir. And they will arrive. Tomorrow? “Lizaveta said drawn out and thoughtfully, as if hesitant to make up his mind. Hey, Alena Ivanovna gave you fear! - the merchant’s wife, a lively woman, began to chatter. I’ll look at you, you’re just like a little kid. And she’s not your real sister, but a sibling, and that’s what freedom she took. “Don’t say anything to Alena Ivanovna this time,” the husband interrupted, “here’s my advice, sir, but come to us without asking.” It's a profitable business, sir. Then my sister can figure it out for herself. Shall I come in? At this hour, tomorrow; and from those they will come, sir; decide for yourself, sir. “And we’ll put out a samovar,” added the wife. “Okay, I’ll come,” Lizaveta said, still thinking, and slowly began to move away. Raskolnikov had already passed here and heard no more. He walked quietly, unnoticed, trying not to utter a single word. His initial amazement gradually gave way to horror, as if a frost had passed down his back. He found out, he suddenly, suddenly and completely unexpectedly found out that tomorrow, at exactly seven o’clock in the evening, Lizaveta, the old woman’s sister and her only roommate, would not be at home and that, therefore, the old woman, at precisely seven o’clock in the evening, will be left at home alone. There were only a few steps left to his apartment. He entered his room as if condemned to death. He did not reason about anything and could not reason at all; but with his whole being he suddenly felt that he no longer had freedom of reason or will, and that everything had suddenly been decided finally. Of course, even if he had to wait for whole years for an opportunity, then even then, having a plan, it was impossible to count on a more obvious step towards the success of this plan, like the one that suddenly presented itself now. In any case, it would have been difficult to find out the day before and probably with greater accuracy and with the least risk, without any dangerous questions and searches, that tomorrow, at such and such an hour, such and such an old woman, on whom an attempt was being prepared, would be at home alone - alone.Dostoevsky called his novel “Crime and Punishment,” and the reader has the right to expect that it will be a court novel, where the author will depict the story of a crime and criminal punishment. The novel definitely contains the murder of an old pawnbroker by a beggar student Raskolnikov, his mental torment for nine days (that’s how long the action of the novel lasts), his repentance and confession. The reader’s expectations seem to be justified, and yet “Crime and Punishment” does not look like a tabloid detective story in the spirit of Eugene Sue, whose works were very popular during the time of Dostoevsky. “Crime and Punishment” is not a judicial novel, but a social and philosophical novel, and it is precisely thanks to the complexity and depth of its content that it can be interpreted in different ways.
In Soviet times, literary critics paid main attention to the social problems of the work, repeating mainly the ideas of D.I. Pisarev from the article “The Struggle for Life” (1868). In post-Soviet times, attempts appeared to reduce the content of “Crime and Punishment” to the search for God: behind the detective intrigue, behind the moral question about the crime, the question about God is hidden. This view of the novel is also not new; it was expressed by V.V. Rozanov at the beginning of the 20th century. It seems that if these extreme points of view are combined, the most correct view of both the novel itself and its idea will be obtained. It is from these two points of view that Raskolnikov’s first dream should be analyzed (1, V).
It is known that the tragic dream of the main character is reminiscent of N.A. Nekrasov’s poem from the cycle “About the Weather” (1859). The poet paints an everyday city picture: a skinny, crippled horse is dragging a huge cart and suddenly stands up because she has no strength to go further. The driver grabs a whip and mercilessly slashes the nag in the ribs, legs, even in the eyes, then takes a log and continues his brutal work:
And he beat her, beat her, beat her!
Legs somehow spread wide,
All smoking, settling back,
The horse just sighed deeply
And I looked... (that's how people look,
Submitting to unjust attacks).
The owner’s “work” was rewarded: the little horse went forward, but somehow sideways, trembling nervously, with all his strength. Various passers-by watched the street scene with interest and gave advice to the driver.
Dostoevsky in his novel enhances the tragedy of this scene: in Raskolnikov’s dream (1, V), drunken men beat a horse to death. The horse in the novel is a small, skinny peasant nag. An absolutely disgusting sight is presented by the driver, who from Dostoevsky receives a name (Mikolka) and a repulsive portrait: “... young, with such a thick neck and a fleshy face, red as a carrot.” Drunk, drunk, he cruelly, with pleasure, whips the Savraska. Two guys with whips help Mikolka finish off the nag, and the excited owner shouts at them to hit them in the eyes. The crowd at the tavern watches the whole scene with laughter: “... the little nag pulls the cart with all his strength, but not only gallops, but even a little can’t cope with a step, he just minces with his feet, grunts and crouches from the blows of three whips raining down she looks like a pea.” Dostoevsky intensifies the terrible details: the audience cackles, Mikolka goes wild and pulls out the shaft from the bottom of the cart. The blows of sticks and whips cannot quickly finish off a horse: it “jumps up and jerks, pulls with all its last strength in different directions in order to take it out.” Drunk Mikolka takes out an iron crowbar and hits the nag on the head; his torturer assistants run up to the collapsed horse and finish it off.
In Nekrasov, only one young girl, who watched the beating of a horse from a carriage, felt sorry for the animal:
Here is a face, young, welcoming,
Here is the pen, - the window opened,
And stroked the unfortunate nag
Handle white...
In Dostoevsky, at the end of the scene, the crowd of spectators no longer shouts advice, but reproaches, that there is no cross on Mikolka, but only a boy (this is how Raskolnikov sees himself) runs among the crowd and asks first some old man, then his father to save the horse. When Savraska falls dead, he runs up to her, kisses her death’s head, and then throws his fists at Mikolka, who, I must say, did not even notice this attack.
In the analyzed scene, Dostoevsky emphasizes the ideas necessary for the novel, which are not present in Nekrasov’s poem. On the one hand, the truth in this scene is expressed by a weak child. He cannot stop the killings, although in his soul (and not in his mind) he understands the injustice and the inadmissibility of reprisals against a horse. On the other hand, Dostoevsky raises the philosophical question of resistance to evil, of the use of force against evil. This formulation of the question logically leads to the right to shed blood in general and is condemned by the author. However, in the scene described, blood cannot be justified in any way; it cries out for vengeance.
The dream reveals the character of Raskolnikov, who will become a killer tomorrow. A beggar student is a kind and gentle person who is able to sympathize with the misfortunes of others. Such dreams do not occur to people who have lost their conscience (Svidrigailov’s nightmare dreams are about something else) or who have come to terms with the eternal and universal injustice of the world order. The boy is right when he rushes at Mikolka, and the father, without even trying to intervene in the killing of the horse, behaves indifferently (the Savraska belongs to Mikolka after all) and cowardly: “They are drunk, playing pranks, it’s none of our business, let’s go!” Raskolnikov cannot agree with such a position in life. Where is the way out? Character, intelligence, desperate family circumstances - everything pushes the main character of the novel to resist evil, but this resistance, according to Dostoevsky, is directed along the wrong path: Raskolnikov rejects universal human values for the sake of human happiness! Explaining his crime, he tells Sonya: “The old lady is nonsense! The old woman is probably a mistake, it’s not her fault! The old woman is only an illness... I wanted to get over it as quickly as possible... I didn’t kill a person, I killed a principle!” (3, VI). Raskolnikov means that he violated the commandment “thou shalt not kill!”, on which human relationships have been built for centuries. If this moral principle is abolished, people will kill each other, as depicted in the hero's last dream in the epilogue of the novel.
In Raskolnikov's dream about a horse, there are several symbolic moments that connect this episode with the further content of the novel. The boy ends up at the tavern where the nag is killed by accident: he and his father were going to the cemetery to venerate the graves of his grandmother and brother and go to the church with the green dome. He loved visiting it because of the kind priest and the special feeling he felt while there. Thus, in a dream, a tavern and a church appear nearby as two extremes of human existence. Further, the dream already predicts the murder of Lizaveta, which Raskolnikov did not plan, but was forced to commit by coincidence. The innocent death of the unfortunate woman in some details (someone from the crowd shouts to Mikolka about the ax) is reminiscent of the death of Savraska from a dream: Lizaveta “trembled like a leaf, with small tremors, and convulsions ran all over her face; she raised her hand, opened her mouth, but still did not cry out and slowly, backwards, began to move away from him into the corner...” (1, VII). In other words, Dostoevsky, before Raskolnikov’s crime, shows that the hero’s bold ideas about a superman will necessarily be accompanied by innocent blood. Finally, the image of a tortured horse will appear at the end of the novel in the scene of the death of Katerina Ivanovna, who will utter her last words: “Enough! (5, V).
The dream about the horse was like a warning for Raskolnikov: the entire future crime is “coded” in this dream, like an oak tree in an acorn. No wonder when the hero woke up, he immediately exclaimed: “Am I really going to do this?” But Raskolnikov was not stopped by the warning dream, and he received in full all the suffering of the murderer and the disappointment of the theorist.
To summarize, it should be noted that Raskolnikov's first dream in the novel occupies an important place on social, philosophical and psychological grounds. Firstly, in the scene of the murder of the little horse, painful impressions of the surrounding life are expressed, seriously wounding Raskolnikov’s conscientious soul and giving rise to the legitimate indignation of any honest person. Dostoevsky's boy's indignation can be contrasted with the cowardly irony of Nekrasov's lyrical hero, who from afar, without interfering, watches the beating of an unfortunate nag on the street.
Secondly, in connection with the dream scene, a philosophical question arises about counteracting world evil. How to fix the world? Blood must be avoided, warns Dostoevsky, since the path to the ideal is inextricably linked with the ideal itself; the abolition of universal moral principles will only lead a person to a dead end.
Thirdly, the dream scene proves that in the hero’s soul there is pain for the weak and defenseless. The dream already at the beginning of the novel indicates that the killer of the old pawnbroker is not an ordinary robber, but a man of ideas, capable of both action and compassion.
