Two Kinds of Responsibility in "Crime and Punishment"
Keywords:
Dostoevsky, responsibility, personhood, individuality, confessionAbstract
There are two types of responsibility in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment: a judgmental one and a healing one. In judgmental responsibility, humans judge others and the world around them and act in order to “cleanse” it from any impurities. In doing so, they establish themselves as supra-humans and, by consequence, as murderers. In healing responsibility, the cleansing of the world takes place in acknowledging that one is responsible before all. This kind of responsibility transcends morality and reestablishes the connection between all humans as members of the same world: it is the attitude that a human being is called to have when faced with a broken reality.Dostoevsky succeeds in distinguishing between these two types of responsibility by having characters engaged in similar actions. Dunya and Sonya both sacrifice themselves for their families, but the first does it as a personal choice, while the second perceives it as a given. Then, Porfiry and Sonya both ask Raskolnikov to confess his crime. The first wants Rodion’s eternal damnation, while the second sees in confession Raskolnikov’s chance to obtain salvation and to thus renew the entire world.
Downloads
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
CC BY-SA: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.
CC BY-SA includes the following elements:
BY – Credit must be given to the creator
SA – Adaptations must be shared under the same terms
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).