My analysis on a passage from Crime and Punishment Sonya gives a cross to Raskolnikov before he goes to the police station in order to confess his crime.

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Shazde Mehkri

12/16/08

Mr. Rogers

IB English HL

My analysis on a passage from Crime and Punishment

Sonya gives a cross to Raskolnikov before he goes to the police station in order to confess his crime. The cross was Lizeveta’s. Sonya connects the soul of the dead with that of a living man, which can be represents Raskolnikov’s spiritual resurrection. . The cross also serves as a symbol for redemption. However even after he wears the cross, he never feels that he has done something wrong or committed a crime.

        Raskolnikov never regrets the murder of the pawnbroker. In the early chapters, he rationalizes the reasons for killing her. He thought that the old woman does not “deserve” to live and that he could use her money in order to help others or himself. He thought he could help Dunya or study and make a future with her money, which is something he never does. It was by the end that Sonia makes him realize that he has done something immoral and not according to the religion. Raskolnikov becomes ashamed of the crime even before confessing it. He takes the murder as a burden on himself and thus goes into a state of delirium. This internal conflict makes him isolate from the people who are willing to comfort and help him.  

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        When Raskolnikov asks Sonya to read the story of Lazarus from the Bible, she hesitates at first but then reads the whole story to him. By presenting such scenes in the novel Fyodor Dostoyevsky is giving the readers the idea of mans ego ultimately leading him to the path to the God.

        On page 407, Sonya says:

“Go to the crossroads, and first kiss the earth which you have defiled; then bow down to the whole world, to the four points of the compass because you have sinned against it, too, and say aloud for all men to hear: “ ...

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