Download:

PDF

Author: Carol Apollonio
Information about the author:

Doctor of Philological Sciences, Professor of the Practice of Slavic and Eurasian Studies, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA.

E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

For citation:

Apollonio C. On Devils and Doors: Raskolnikov’s Ontology Problem. Dostoevsky and World Culture. 2019. № 1(5). Pp. 82-103.

Issue: 2019 № 1(5)
Department: POETICS. CONTEXT
Pages: 82-103
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22455/2619-0311-2019-1-82-103
UDK: 82+821.161.1
BBK: 83+83.3(2=411.2)
Keywords: Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov, ontology, fantastic realism, point of view

Abstract: In the novel Crime and Punishment, the shocking description of Raskolnikov’s crime and the mystery of its motivation have inspired a strong tradition of ethically-focused readings. The key to the novel’s emotional effect lies in Dostoevsky’s manipulation of point of view: from inside Raskolnikov’s head the reader sympathizes with the murder and thus is ethically complicit. The current article considers point of view as a key to ontological questions: what is the hero’s grounding in the material world? How does the reader know what actually takes place, and what might simply be a narration of the hero’s fantasies? Asking who sees Raskolnikov on his pathway to and from the murder, this close reading of key scenes calls into question basic assumptions that readers make about the world of the novel, and by extension about the world beyond the novel. Does the abused girl that Raskolnikov sees on the street after receiving his mother’s letter actually exist? Or do his thoughts about his sister’s predicament and about Sonya Marmeladova conjure her up out of thin air? Did Raskolnikov actually overhear a conversation about murdering the pawnbroker in a tavern or did he fantasize the conversation? Not only do the details of these scenes match his inner thoughts and desires; Dostoevsky’s narrator’s careful framing of them reminds the reader of other carefully constructed fictional frames in other works, such as “Peasant Marei”, where the author (with his narrator) moves inward through the deep layers of his psyche until he finds his story there. Absolutely key to this effect is the protagonist’s separation from human community: without grounding in relationship, we find ourselves in a liminal, fantastical world where in a desperate quest for company we create imaginary companions. This process culminates in the materialization of Ivan Karamazov’s devil in The Brothers Karamazov.

 

References

Apollonio 2009 — Apollonio C. Dostoevsky’s Secrets: Reading Against the Grain. Evanston, Northwestern University Press, 2009. 223 p.

Достоевский 1972–1990 — Dostoevskii F.M. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v 30-i tomakh [Complete Works in 30 vols.], ed. V.G. Bazanov et al. Leningrad, Nauka Publ., 1972-1990. (In Russ.)

Dostoyevsky 2014 — Dostoyevsky F. Crime and Punishment, trans. Oliver Ready. New York, Penguin Classics, 2014. 608 p.

Hornsby — Hornsby R. What Heidegger Means by Being-in-the-World. [Electronic resource]. — Available at: http://royby.com/philosophy/pages/dasein.html (accessed: 2 December 2018)

Kasatkina 2005 — Kasatkina T. Voskreshenie Lazaria: Opyt ekzegeticheskogo prochteniia romana F. M. Dostoevskogo “Prestuplenie i nakazanie” [Lazar’s Resurrection: Experience of Exegetical Reading of F.M. Dostoevsky’s Novel Crime and Punishment]. Dostoevskii. Dopolneniia k kommentariiu [Dostoevsky. Annexes to the Commentary], ed. T.A. Kasatkina. Moskva, Nauka Publ., 2005. Pp. 203-35. (In Russ.)

Ontology — Ontology. [Electronic resource]. — Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Ontology (accessed: 2 December 2018)

Rosenshield 1972 — Rosenshield G. The Narrator in “Crime and Punishment”. Madison, University of Wisconsin, 1972. 782 p.

Scanlan 2002 — Scanlan J. P. Dostoevsky the Thinker. Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 2002. 251 p.

Shklovsky 1990 — Shklovsky V. Art as Device. Theory of Prose, translated by Benjamin Sher. Dalkey Archive Press, 1990. 240 p.

Simons — Simons P.M. Ontology. Metaphysics. Encyclopedia Brittanica. [Electronic resource]. — Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/ontology-metaphysics (accessed: 2 December 2018)

Todorov 1975 — Todorov T. The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, trans. Richard Howard. Ithaca, Cornell Paperbacks, 1975. 180 p.

Vetlovskaia 2008 — Vetlovskaia V.E. Literaturynye i real’nye prototipy geroev Dostoevskogo (“Meshchanin v khalate” v “Prestuplenii i nakazanii”). Russkaia literature [Russian Literature]. No 1. 2008. Pp. 194-205. (In Russ.)

Trans. by Carol Apollonio, as “Literary and Real-Life Prototypes of Dostoevsky’s Heroes: The ‘Tradesman in the Robe’ in Crime and Punishment”. The New Russian Dostoevsky, ed. Carol Apollonio, trans. Carol Apollonio et. al. Bloomington, Slavica, 2010. Pp. 123-37.