“Crime and Punishment” (start Pt 4) by Dostoevsky: Raskolnikov is Self-Contradictory

The murders that Raskolnikov committed at the beginning of the novel portrayed him as stupid, evil, and crazy. But later, when an acquaintance is trampled by horses, and the man’s family is in dire straits, he is competent and benevolent.

Now, he has gotten a letter from his mother—he had not seen his mother and sister for quite some time—and he infers from a passing comment in the letter that his sister’s fiancé would be a tyrant in their marriage, which his mother and sister had not realized.

Raskolnikov’s vehement opposition to his sister’s marriage, based on such seemingly flimsy evidence, turns out to have been quite perceptive and responsible. His sister and mother come to see that he is right, the engagement is ended, and the fiancé’s private thoughts, provided for the reader at length, confirm exactly the kind of malevolence that Roskolnikov had suspected.

Thus, Dostoevsky’s portrayal of his protagonist is inconsistent and contradictory. He presents the reader with the psychological puzzle of how a person can be extremely stupid, evil, and crazy, but at other times be the opposite.

As I have discussed in many past posts (search “self-contradictory”), puzzling self-contradiction may be a clue to multiple personality.

1. Fyodor Dostoevsky. Crime and Punishment [1866]. Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. New York, Vintage Classics/Random House, 1993.