Homework help: Do you think "Crime & Punishment is an intristically Christian novel? How?

Question

That is basically what my essay topic is... its far more complicated but that is the core of what is being asked. Is Crime and Punishment a "Christian" novel... and how? do you recognize Christian elements in the storyline??

Answer 1

I agree that there are Christian elements to the novel, and I think it has to do with Fyodor Dostoevsky's life up to the time he wrote the novel. Dostoevsky was part of the liberal intelligensia in Russia until he and a group of friends were arrested and sentenced to death. Right before they were to be killed, a man on a horse rides up to pardon the terrified twenty-somethings. Dostoevsky was sentenced to serve in the army (I think) where he began reading the Bible.

I think Crime and Punishment is Dostoevsky's attempt to compromise the liberal and the conservative Christian within him. Most people agree that the title of the book doesn't translate well into English. Raskolnikov actually means schismatic. And so I look at the novel as an exploration of a psychological schism between (seemingly) polar ideologies: Liberalism and Conservatism.

Christian elements: Consider morality and guilt. Consider God's place in the novel. Which character(s) are completely moral and must be sacrificed (like Jesus)? Try to apply what you know of Christianity to the structural elements of fiction: Character, plot, setting, perspective, image, symbols, etc.