Crime and Punishment
In war, a general has no room for his own personal feelings and emotions. He has to make logical decisions that will ensure his side victory, and relies on his intelligence, not his morals, to succeed. If he were to make decisions based on his desire not have people get hurt or killed, his goals would most likely not be met. In the same way, Raskolnikov, in Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment, tries to do what he knows to be logical and ignores his emotions, throwing away his own morals for the sake of a mere idea. Raskolnikov's struggle to listen to his mind and not his heart is portrayed through his thoughts and monologues that occur as he faces many hardships. Thoughts about the strangers he meets, the people close to him, and himself, in particular, illustrate his struggle most clearly, and demonstrate Dostoevsky's idea that people sometimes adhere to logic to avoid their true feelings. Raskolnikov's reactions to the people that he meets in Petersburg shows how he tries to listen only to his own reasoning rather than his emotions. For instance, when he meets Marmeladov and leaves money on their windowsill, he suggests that he has done " a stupid thing"...since "they have Sonia and
Raskolnikov has many thoughts about his friends and loved ones, and chooses to be intellectual and uncaring to hide his feelings towards them. His differing conflict of logic and emotion is also shown when Rasko meets a man who calls him a murderer. Also, he thinks Svidrigailov can provide him with "information, or a means of escape," but at the same time thinks "how sick he was of it all!" Rasko is showing again his attempt to act intellectual, much like his idea about "extraordinary" people, when actually he is afraid, desperate, and tired of all the hardships he has endured. Later, when he reveals his crime and anguish to Sonia, he displays true happiness towards her wanting to stay with him, saying, "Then you won't leave me, Sonia?", but afterwards thinks to himself "I will remain alone and she shall not come to the prison!" He is showing once again his struggle to hide his feelings by remaining resolute and logical, as he tries to hide his need for Sonia's companionship by showing contempt for himself and his actions. Also, later a similar situation occurs when Raskolnikov gives a policeman money to help a sixteen-year-old girl, saying to himself, "He has carried off my twenty copecks. Oh, how I hate them all!" Raskolnikov is subconsciously trying to talk himself out of turning himself in by being logical in saying that there would be no good purpose in him being in prison, that they just want him there to break him down. Sometimes we just don't want to admit that we are angry due to the embarrassment it would cause, or maybe we don't want to admit that we care for someone when we really do. It shows that the murdering of the two women was in itself an act to adhere to logic instead of emotion. " He tries to look at the idea intellectually, that he will have no use for the little money that he would make, but in actuality he longs to see Razumihin for some sort of help, whether it be for work or for his troubles. It is safe to say that each of us has lied to ourselves at one point or another. I had to have something to cling to, something to delay me. He is trying to avoid his feelings of misery that he actually has over his life and his inability to get what he wants from it by being haughty.
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