Crime and Punishment: Prophecy and Mercy in Dostoyevsky

Resumen

This article discusses the theme of literary prophecy, the existential emptiness and mercy of God present in “Crime and Punishment” which, to some extent, indicate the main themes that would become real in Dostoyevsky’s subsequent work. Literature and prophecy have been partners for quite a long time. Dostoyevsky also writes under a literary prophecy about the world that would surge and whose symptoms were present in the 19th century. “Crime and Punishment” reveals the world without a dialog with God that would increase even further during the 20th and 21st centuries, the world of Raskolnikov. Then again, it reveals its presence and its revelation in Mercy that has its place in the middle of the most stranger situations, the most sordid places, awkward situations for human beings as in the case of Sonia Marmeladov and his father. Dostoyevsky prophetically approaches the human condition when he breaks the dialogue with God.