The Deconstruction of Raskolnikov as Ubermensch Essay Example

is reality which serves as a check and balance, so to speak, in addition to being the equilibrium. Raskolnikov can withstand guilt within his inner torments but were it to be revealed to humanity, he would at once be separated from Napoleon (his counterpart in theory) because he is a behaviorist which is in direct conflict with the superman’s relation with Social Darwinism. Crime is “prestuplenie” in Russian meaning transgressing whilst stepping over a boundary. Raskol is a word meaning schism and it is fitting when applied to the boundary Raskolnikov straddles.

Staying on one side or crossing over to the other is a key binary opposition in this chapter. Crossing over is akin to realizing the incomprehensible and that is heroic. Good and evil are abstract terms with superfluous meanings to the superman that are replaced with the all important word “justice”. The superman goes beyond good and evil by being morally skeptical of the adoptive constraints placed on the ordinary people.

Albeit, this comes with a caveat as Raskolnikov tirelessly tries in vain to subjugate his conscience and love as well as contempt for people threatens his identity. In this vein, I am inclined to agree with Sergei V. Belov when he states “whatever I might be, whatever I might do, whether I should be a benefactor of humanity or whether I would suck out its vital juices like a spider, that does not matter to me. I know that I want to rule, and that is enough”. Here lies the conflict between the will to power and the will to serve that challenges the theory.In catering to the love of the ordinary people, the

superman inadvertently reaches for the respect which brings them to his eye level and in effect grants them the privilege of living vicariously through his exploits while being on the same footing.

Transcendence in Raskolnikov’s theory requires the murder to fulfill the ascension towards the throne and then clasp it by withholding at an arm’s length the rest of society. Raskolnikov thinks to himself, “Does a Napoleon crawl under an old woman’s bed? and it becomes apparent that the deconstruction of his identity has started. These stricken pangs of conscientious debate are not characteristic of an extraordinary man. He goes on to say, “the old woman was only a symptom of my illness… I killed not a human being but a principle! Yes, I killed a principle, but as for surmounting the barriers, I did not do that; I remained on this side… The only thing I knew how to do was kill! And I could not do that properly either, it seems…”.

Belov describes one justification of the murder of Alyona Ivanova when he states, “it was simple arithmetic: to kill one worthless, harmful, and rich being, in order to use money to make many beautiful but poor people happy” (489). By showing that utilitarianism is tied at the hip with nihilism, the failure to satisfy the former provision condemns this belief as empty and serves to further augment the portrayal of Raskolnikov as a base creature. I strongly hold that to serve his ideology, Raskolnikov deludes himself from recognizing and then accepting himself as a rational egoist.He is fractured and is trying to desperately hold on the superman mindset in the midst of his cognizance

regarding the murder’s failure. In his insecurity, he is fearful of the impending scenario in which he will be shackled to one side and the nightmare of confronting normality will move forward with nothing standing in the way to stop the degradation of the promethean figure. Why is he laughing? it becomes clear that Raskolnikov is in a dream and the scene becomes very fluid and rife with impossibilities.

The dream is enveloped with reality and the real cannot be separated. In ridiculing himself while awake, Raskolnikov transfers his mockery into the dream. “He crouched down to the floor and looked up into her face from below, looked once and froze where he was: the old woman sat there laughing, overcome with noiseless laughter, striving with all her powers to prevent his hearing it. Suddenly it seemed to him that the bedroom door had opened a crack, and that whispering and laughter were coming from there too.Madness seized him: he began frenziedly striking the old woman on the head, but with every blow of the axe the sound of whispering and laughter in the bedroom grew stronger and stronger and louder, and the old woman shook with mirth” . This dream is clearly representative of Raskolnikov’s psychological state as the doubts, delirium, fear and despair rise to the surface and the tormenting guilt rises to a crescendo as Alyona laughs louder with each successive swing of the ax.

Suppression gives way to an intense outburst and the projection sitting in front of him is very much so the psycho-analysis of the deep recesses within Raskolnikov’s unconscious. It is in fact Raskolnikov laughing very scornfully at his own

deceptions, the intellectual motivations for the murder in which there was no justification and the fact that he has to accept his fall. A Napoleon does not take refuge under an old lady’s bed. With every hack, reason changes into emotion and mechanism into feeling, something Raskolnikov has not experienced in a long time.

This individualism is jarring as Raskolnikov finally sees that the principles for which he killed were a forced illusion pulled over his head to deny his desire to separate from the pack and see whether he was a Napoleon. The laughter coming outside the door attacks his pride and wounds his seared ego in the revelation that he failed in his quest for greatness. He cannot escape the image of Alyona that haunts his nightmares because he cannot subdue the fact that he killed her and that he harbors guilt. At this point, the fear becomes inevitable. The world will know and humiliation will ensue.As the globe rolls off Atlas, the road is laid bare for the fading conscience to accept the subjection to moral law that governs human beings.

From all the trials and tribulations, Raskolnikov will break through the wall of the illusory icon that entrusts him with nothingness and prevents him from being human.

WORKS CITED

1. Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment. Ed. George Gibian.
2. Tr. Jessie Coulson. 3rd ed. New York: Norton & Company, Inc. , 1989.
3. Belov, Sergei. “The History of the Writing of the Novel”. Crime and Punishment. Tr. And ed. George Cibian.
4. 3rd ed. New York: Norton & Company, Inc. , 1989. 488-493.