Crime and Punishment Injustice is defined as an unjust act; or wrongdoing. Poverty, illness, and death are all considered acts of injustice. Crime and Punishment written by Fyodor Dostoevsky examines all these areas of life. Death is the greatest injustice, especially when it comes by murder.
In the novel two murders occur and the man that commits these acts of injustice believes that he had every right to do it. Though he is punished for his actions the time that he has to spend in prison is not comparable to the time that he has taken away from the women. Although his social punishment does not fit his crime, the mental punishment that he puts himself through makes up for societies lack of punishment. Raskolnikov who is a poor student commits these murders as a way to obtain money. He convinces himself that it is okay to murder the woman because she is an old lady who doesn’t seem to share her wealth. The fact that her sister had to be killed because she walked in at the wrong time shows just how unjust the murder was in the first place.
Raskolnikov wrote an article while in school, the article argues that certain men are above the general rules of humanity, thus they have a right to commit murder. These ideas are what he used to justify his killings. Once Raskolnikov confessed to the murders he was put on trial. At the trial many of his friends and family testified that he really was a good human being. They gave examples of his good deeds towards the community, such as saving young children from a burning fire. Even though he was poor, he gave his money to others in their time of need.
The Essay on Let The Punishment Fit The Crime 2
Justice should mean helping victims as well as punishing offenders. This story and our criminal justice system ignore the problem of restoring fairness for victim as a principle of justice. We set two primary foals for our criminal penalties. We want them to deter crime and we want them to rehabilitate criminals. In theory, these two goals should go together, since they amount to saying that we ...
The police officer that suspected him all along even lied and said that Raskolnikov confessed on his own and was never suspected. Psychologists testified that he was not physically or mentally healthy at the time of the murder. All of these actions contributed to his sentence being very minimal. He received eight years of hard labor in Siberia.
During this time he was allowed to see the girl that he loved everyday. His prison sentence did not meet the severity of punishment that he felt was needed for the women’s murders. The mental punishment that Raskolnikov put himself through was harsher than any social punishment could ever be. This mental punishment caused him to fall into a deep depression.
For a long period of time he was in a deep sleep and didn’t know what was happening around him. Once he recovered enough his mind led him to the house where the murders occurred. While he was there he harassed the painters and kept asking them where the blood was? He couldn’t understand why the apartment wasn’t the way that he had left it. His mental condition caused him to almost confess more than once.
It also ruined the relationships he had with his friends and family. His social punishment was over in eight years but his mental punishment would haunt him for the rest of his life. Injustice happens to everyone is their life at some point. Raskolnikov believed that he could justify an unjust act. The fact that he believed that he could get away with the murder and live a normal life was ludicrous.
His minimal prison sentence was an injustice to the women that he killed. They had their whole lives taken away from them and he only lost eight years of his life. The only justice that the women received was that Raskolnikov had to live with his actions and live with the mental punishment of what he had done everyday for the rest of his life.
The Essay on Emotional Side Raskolnikov Murder Man
Intellect and Emotion In Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, the main character is a man with two contradicting personalities a dark grim side and a warm loving side. The terms dark and grim used loosely to describe his intellectual side. It was this side of him that allowed him to commit a great sin, a murder of an old pawnbroker. Raskolnikov wants to use intellect to act and react with. ...
