In the 7th chapter and conclusion of part 1 of F Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment the deed is done: Raskolnikov smashes the pawnbroker over the head w the axe handle. Without remorse he grabs her keys and rummages in various places till he finds her stored loot and stuffs watches and other items in his pockets. Then, something I completely forgot from previous readings, the victim's daughter, Lizaveta, enters unexpectedly and R splits her forehead w the axe. Suddenly - bad luck. Two "customers" show up and knock. Through some good fortune R manages a tense escape and a dash to his dingy home where he returns the axe to its spot and crashes w exhaustion. What's most amazing about this highly dramatic chapter is the D manages to keep us in sympathy w this brutal killer - it's impossible, I think, to read the section without screaming (in your mind) to R: Get out of there! Somehow we find ourselves rooting for his safe escape from the scene - perhaps because we are so preconditioned to identify w the protagonist. Any rational response would have us condemn R as a monster. Yet we lose our reason somehow and get caught up in the dramatics. We can't get out of R's head - even though D created only the most thin and attenuated motive for this killing: narrative daring at the extreme.
Sent from my iPhone
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.