Read also Life And Death In Robert Frosts Poems English Literature Essayĭreams are not the only device to show the ‘fantastic’ in the text, Crime and Punishment goes beyond character dialogues and appears to enter the character’s minds, the events as they happen are shown through the main protagonist Raskolnikov, the characters that are introduced to the reader appear to be different aspects of his personality. In the dream, he also meets a fourteen-year-old girl that committed suicide this young girl could be Svidrigailov himself because he commits suicide not long after the experience. Svidrigailov also experiences a dream, he finds a young girl aged five crying, he proceeds to carry her to his bedroom and lays her on his bed, ‘an impudent invitation gleamed from that unchildlike face it was corruption, it was the face of a courtesan’ Svidrigailov wakes up and heads to the Little Neva, he tells a Guard he is going to America and ‘ the trigger’ The dream is the moment that the character’s mind is explored, The little girl’s innocence is taken away by the image of the courtesan representing the characters’ sins. Raskolnikov is not the only character to experience such dreams and reality in the text, Marmaladov experiences a different reality when he passes out from his alcoholism, this is where the ‘fantastic’ is found. After the dream, he goes on to commit the crime which shows the unconscious influencing his decisions the protagonist’s conscious and unconscious tears Raskolnikov thoughts into contrasting positions. The dream portrays his plan to murder the pawnbroker, he associates himself with the tavern owner Mikolka, and it is with this that Raskolnikov’s anger is shown in the dream The experience confirms that he does wish to carry out the heinous act however he tries to desperately convince himself that he will not act upon the motivations to no avail ‘God! He exclaimed is it possible, is it possible, that I really shall take an axe and strike her on the head’.
Secondly, Dostoevsky was influenced by Freud’s theory of dreams when writing such passages in his works, In Freud’s study he realised that ‘the unconscious often expresses itself in the form of dreams’, he has a dream that drives him into action and ‘, in striking fashion, the unconscious forces at work within him’. Read also Their Eyes Were Watching God Joe Starks Analysis Raskolnikov has about the horse being whipped and abused. Dreams are scattered throughout Crime and Punishment. Prior to this, he pictured himself as living in an ‘imaginary and exotic world of Schiller and Hoffman’ but the dream of Neva changed his view on the real world, it suddenly became ‘fantastic and memorable to him’ referring to the world as a ‘literary daydream.’ In the text, it is referred to as ‘Little Neva.’ Dostoevsky’s realism explores reality to its utmost extreme that would not be utilized in a classic realist novel. Fantastic (or transcendental) realism varies from classic realism because Dostoevsky explores the significance of reality and dreams, it focuses on ‘penetrations into the deepest realities of the human soul.’ Â Dostoevsky first experienced the ‘fantastic’ when he had the ‘vision of the Neva a silent and frozen world glittering magically in the last rays of the sun’. One of his ideas that he employs is Fantastic realism which moves away from traditional conventions with emphasis on the characters rather than the narrator.
In a letter written to Strakhov, Dostoevsky explains that he has his own ideas that are shown throughout his works, he declares “I have my own idea about art, and it is this: What most people regard as fantastic and lacking in universality, / hold to be the inmost essence of truth.” The OED definition of realism defines it as ‘the presentation of things in a way that is accurate and true to life.’ However, Catherine Belsey states that a ‘realist text positions itself between the facts and a type of illusion through a representation of a simulated reality which could be possible but not ‘real’, Realism imposes limitations on the text therefore Dostoevsky wanted to move away from such limitations imposed by classical realism. There is a distinction between a realist novel and other literary works, realist writing is a representation of reality thus, it can never give the reader a type of true reality that is associated with life. This essay will explore how the novel Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky does not adhere to the realism conventions we have come to know it will explore the way in which the text is not realist because of Dostoevsky’s use of phycological realism, commonly referred to as ‘fantastic realism’ whilst still employing some realist tropes.įirstly, to argue that the text is not a realist text, realism must be defined.
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