A Transient Epiphany

After having gone through Rodion’s entire change of mental state from paranoia to sheer depression, one thing that changes drastically is his view on life. Fairly early in the novel Rodion remarks:

“Somebody condemned to death said or thought an hour before his death that if he had to live somewhere on a crag, on a cliff, on a narrow ledge where his two feet could hardly stand, and all around him there’d be the abyss, the ocean, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, and an everlasting storm, and he had to remain like that—standing on a square yard of space—all his life, a thousand years, an eternity, it would still be better to live like that than die at the moment. To live and to live and to live and to live! No matter how you live, if only to live! How true that is!” ¹

At this point in the novel Rodion is in this sort isolation, by his own mind. He was separated from the world both mentally and emotionally as he was overcome by sickness, delirium, and monomania. Whilst in this internal prison he never chose to end his own suffering. He could very easily have chosen to end all his misfortune’s and flee his responsibilities, but he chooses instead to suffer and live. As the novel continues his mentality changes from delirium to remorse and whilst combating the internal conflict starts to treasure life less as his depression worsens and again drives the world away.

At the end of the book he his view has completely changed where he began regarding others that treasured life in awe:

“He looked at his fellow prisoners and was amazed to see how they all loved life and prized it. It seemed to him that they loved and valued life more in prison than in freedom.”²

At that point, it seems he felt no joy for life as each day brought no surprise and no real pleasure. He still regarded to person that loved him most with disrespect and ire. This sort of detachment and apathy towards life is a sharp contrast to the zeal he lived previously. Because of his conviction, Rodion was freed of his prison, whilst the other prisoners have come to the same realization of their own lives that he did in is actual captivity.

¹Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment (New York: Penguin Group, 1968), 153

²Dostoyevsky, 516

~ by Mr. Cynic on November 30, 2008.