F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment” presents the reader with a gallery of characters who not only push Rodion Raskolnikov to commit a crime, but also directly or indirectly contribute to the protagonist’s recognition of his crime, Raskolnikov’s awareness of the inconsistency of his theory, which was the main cause of the crime.
One of the central places in the novel by F. M. Dostoevsky is occupied by the image of Sonya Marmeladova, a heroine whose fate evokes our sympathy and respect. The more we learn about it, the more we are convinced of its purity and nobility, the more we begin to think about true human values. Sonya’s image and judgments force us to look deep into ourselves and help us appreciate what is happening around us.
This girl has a difficult fate. Sonya's mother passed away early, her father married another woman who has her own children. Need forced Sonya to earn money in a low way: she was forced to go to work. It would seem that after such an act, Sonya should have become angry with her stepmother, because she almost forced Sonya to earn money in this way. But Sonya forgave her, moreover, every month she brings money to the house in which she no longer lives. Sonya has changed outwardly, but her soul remains the same: crystal clear. Sonya is ready to sacrifice herself for the sake of others, and not everyone can do this. She could live “in spirit and mind,” but she must feed her family. She committed a sin, dared to sell herself. But at the same time, she does not require or expect any gratitude. She does not blame Katerina Ivanovna for anything, she simply resigns herself to her fate. “... And she just took our large green draded shawl (we have a common shawl, a draded damask one), covered her head and face with it completely and lay down on the bed, facing the wall, only her shoulders and body were all shaking...” Sonya closes face, because she is ashamed, ashamed of herself and God. Therefore, she rarely comes home, only to give money, she is embarrassed when meeting Raskolnikov’s sister and mother, she feels awkward even at her own father’s wake, where she was so shamelessly insulted. Sonya is lost under Luzhin's pressure; her meekness and quiet disposition make it difficult to stand up for herself.
All the heroine’s actions surprise with their sincerity and openness. She does nothing for herself, everything is for the sake of someone: her stepmother, stepbrothers and sister, Raskolnikov. The image of Sonya is the image of a true Christian and righteous woman. He is revealed most fully in the scene of Raskolnikov’s confession. Here we see Sonechkin’s theory - the “theory of God”. The girl cannot understand and accept Raskolnikov’s ideas; she denies his elevation above everyone, his disdain for people. The very concept of an “extraordinary person” is alien to her, just as the possibility of breaking the “law of God” is unacceptable. For her, everyone is equal, everyone will appear before the court of the Almighty. In her opinion, there is no person on Earth who would have the right to condemn his own kind and decide their fate. "Kill? Do you have the right to kill? - exclaims the indignant Sonya. Despite her reverence for Raskolnikov, she will never accept his theory.
The girl never makes an attempt to justify her position. She considers herself a sinner. Due to the circumstances, Sonya, like Raskolnikov, transgressed the moral law: “We are cursed together, we will go together,” Raskolnikov tells her. However, the difference between them is that he transgressed through the life of another person , and she - through hers. Sonya calls Raskolnikov to repentance, she agrees to bear his cross with him, to help him come to the truth through suffering. We have no doubt about her words, the reader is sure that Sonya will follow Raskolnikov everywhere, everywhere and always will be with him. And why does she need this? To go to Siberia, live in poverty, suffer for the sake of a person who is dry, cold with you, rejects you. Only she, the “eternal Sonechka”, could do this with with a kind heart and selfless love for people. Dostoevsky managed to create a unique image: a prostitute who evokes respect and love from everyone around her - the idea of humanism and Christianity permeates this image. She is loved and honored by everyone: Katerina Ivanovna, and her children, and neighbors, and convicts whom Sonya helps for free. Reading the Gospel to Raskolnikov, the legend of the resurrection of Lazarus, Sonya awakens faith, love and repentance in his soul. “They were resurrected by love, the heart of one contained endless sources of life for the heart of the other.” Rodion came to what Sonya called him to, he overestimated life and its essence, as evidenced by his words: “Can her beliefs now not be my beliefs? Her feelings, her aspirations at least..."
In my opinion, the fate of Sonechka finally convinced Raskolnikov of the fallacy of his theory. He saw before him not a “trembling creature”, not a humble victim of circumstances, but a man whose self-sacrifice is far from humility and is aimed at saving the perishing, at effectively caring for his neighbors. Sonya, selfless in her devotion to family and love, is ready to share Raskolnikov’s fate. She sincerely believes that Raskolnikov will be able to resurrect for a new life.
The basis of Sonya Marmeladova’s personality is her faith in man, in the indestructibility of good in his soul, in the fact that compassion, self-sacrifice, forgiveness and universal love will save the world. Having created the image of Sonya Marmeladova, Dostoevsky outlined the antipode of Raskolnikov and his theories (goodness, mercy opposing evil). The girl’s life position reflects the views of the writer himself, his belief in goodness, justice, forgiveness and humility, but, above all, love for a person, no matter what he is.
The image of Sonechka Marmeladova in the novel “Crime and Punishment” is for Dostoevsky the embodiment of the eternal humility and suffering of the female soul with its compassion for loved ones, love for people and boundless self-sacrifice. The meek and quiet Sonechka Marmeladova, weak, timid, unrequited, in order to save her family and relatives from hunger, decides to do something terrible for a woman. We understand that her decision is an inevitable, inexorable result of the conditions in which she lives, but at the same time it is an example of active action in the name of saving the perishing. She has nothing but her body, and therefore the only possible way for her to save the little Marmeladovs from starvation is to engage in prostitution. Seventeen-year-old Sonya made her own choice, decided on her own, chose the path herself, feeling neither resentment nor anger towards Katerina Ivanovna, whose words were the final push that brought Sonya to the panel. Therefore, her soul did not become bitter, did not hate the world hostile to her, the dirt of street life did not touch her soul. Her endless love for humanity saves her. Sonechka's whole life is an eternal sacrifice, a selfless and endless sacrifice. But for Sonya this is the meaning of life, her happiness, her joy, she cannot live otherwise. Her love for people, like an eternal spring, feeds her tormented soul, gives her strength to walk along the thorny path that is her whole life. She even thought about suicide to get rid of shame and torment. Raskolnikov also believed that “it would be fairer and wiser to dive straight into the water and end it all at once!” But suicide for Sonya would be too selfish an option, and she thought about “them” - the hungry children, and therefore consciously and humbly accepted the fate prepared for her. Humility, submission, Christian all-forgiving love for people, self-denial are the main things in Sonya’s character.
Raskolnikov believes that Sonya’s sacrifice was in vain, that she did not save anyone, but only “ruined” herself. But life refutes these words of Raskolnikov. It is to Sonya that Raskolnikov comes to confess his sin - the murder he committed. It is she who forces Raskolnikov to confess to the crime, proving that the true meaning of life is repentance and suffering. She believes that no person has the right to take the life of another: “And who made me a judge: who should live, who should die?” Raskolnikov's beliefs terrify her, but she does not push him away from her. Great compassion makes her strive to convince, to morally cleanse Raskolnikov’s ruined soul. Sonya saves Raskolnikov, her love resurrects him to life.
Love helped Sonya understand that he was unhappy, that, despite all his visible pride, he needed help and support. Love helped to overcome such an obstacle as a double murder in order to try to resurrect and save the killer. Sonya goes to get Raskolnikov to hard labor. Sonya's love and sacrifice cleanse her from her shameful and sad past. Sacrifice in love is an eternal trait characteristic of Russian women.
Sonya finds salvation for herself and for Raskolnikov in faith in God. Her faith in God is her final self-affirmation, giving her the opportunity to do good in the name of those to whom she sacrifices herself, her argument that her sacrifice will not be useless, that life will soon find its outcome in universal justice. Hence her inner strength and resilience, which help her get through the “circles of hell” of her joyless and tragic life. A lot can be said about Sonya. She can be considered a heroine or an eternal martyr, but it is simply impossible not to admire her courage, her inner strength, her patience.
F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment” was written in 1866 based on modern events as a “psychological report on a crime.” The main character of this work is former law student Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov. The title of the novel suggests that the center of the book is the psychological life and fate of this person.
Raskolnikov commits a crime by killing an old pawnbroker, and in the epilogue he serves his sentence in hard labor. But an even greater punishment for him is separation from people, pangs of conscience and the consciousness of his failure as a great man.
The central idea of the novel is the idea of the resurrection of the soul, of its rebirth to a new life. If Sonya Marmeladova had not been next to Raskolnikov, he would not have been able to resurrect himself for a new life.
Sonya is conceived by the author not only as the protagonist’s double in fate (she also “overstepped”), but she also acts as Raskolnikov’s antipode in terms of the truth that she follows in life. At the end of the novel, Sonya's truth becomes the hero's truth.
Before us is a psychological and ideological work in which each of the heroes has “a special point of view on the world and on himself,” as the literary critic M. M. Bakhtin puts it. Each hero of Dostoevsky lives in accordance with his idea. Raskolnikov’s idea is the right of a proud person to transform the world, to eliminate suffering in it. Sonya's idea is infinite love for one's neighbor, in “insatiable compassion” and self-sacrifice, in faith in God, who “will not allow” more suffering than a person can bear.
Dostoevsky is convinced that a person has no right to demand happiness. Happiness is not given so easily, it must be earned through suffering.
The image of Sonechka carries the main idea of the novel. This heroine is the moral ideal of the author.
Let's look at why Sonechka is called “eternal” in Dostoevsky’s work.
We first learn about this girl from the story of her father Semyon Zakharovich Marmeladov. After the “test,” Raskolnikov leaves the apartment of his future victim “in decisive embarrassment.” He realizes that the planned murder is “dirty, dirty, disgusting”, and goes into the tavern. Here he listens to the story of the family of the former official Marmeladov. The native daughter of this drunken and degenerate man was forced to go on a yellow ticket to save hungry children. She was pushed to this by her stepmother Katerina Ivanovna, “generous, but unfair,” “a hot-blooded, proud and unyielding lady.” When the children once again began to cry from hunger, Katerina Ivanovna began to reproach Sonya for being a “parasite.” The meek stepdaughter quietly asked: “Well, Katerina Ivanovna, should I really do this?” The stepmother, sick with consumption, “with excited feelings”, “with the crying of children who did not eat,” said “in a mockery”, “more for the sake of insult than in the exact sense”: “Well... why take care of it? Eco treasure! It was then that the poor girl went out into the street for the first time, and after a while she brought her stepmother 30 rubles as a sign that she had betrayed herself for the sake of her family.
Even then, listening to Marmeladov’s painful story about his daughter, Raskolnikov, who has not yet killed the old woman, but is only plotting a terrible crime, decides that he will tell only Sonya about everything. Even then he decides that the girl will understand him and will not leave him.
After visiting the Marmeladovs' beggarly corner, the young man experiences conflicting feelings. On the one hand, he condemns poor people reduced to extreme poverty: “Oh yes Sonya! What a well, however, they managed to dig! And they use it! That's why they use it! And we got used to it. We cried and got used to it. A scoundrel gets used to everything!” But on the other hand, he feels compassion for these humiliated and insulted, who have “nowhere else to go.” A desire arises in him to change the world, a desire to act, and he calls all his moral hesitations “prejudice”, “feigned fears”: “... and there are no barriers, and this is how it should be!”
The next day after meeting Marmeladov, Raskolnikov receives a letter from his mother. From it he learns that his sister Dunya decides to marry a respectable, wealthy lawyer Luzhin. The young man understands that his sister is sacrificing the failure for his well-being. In his thoughts, the image of the “eternal Sonechka” appears as a symbol of self-sacrifice for the sake of loved ones: “Sonechka, Sonechka Marmeladova, eternal Sonechka, while the world stands!”
Creating the image of the “eternal Sonechka”, the author attaches great importance to the portrait of his heroine. For the first time, the appearance of this fragile girl appears in the confession of her father: “... she is unrequited, and her voice is so meek... blonde, her face is always pale, thin.”
Three portrait details create gospel motifs and make us see in the heroine a prototype of the Mother of God. Firstly, this is the family’s large green draped shawl, which Sonya covered herself with when returning from the street. This is a symbolic detail. Green is the color of the Virgin Mary. Dradedam - thin cloth. This word sounds like Notre Dam - the French name for the Virgin Mary. Secondly, “burnusik” is “a cape and outerwear of various types, men’s and women’s, as if based on an Arabic model.” Such clothes were worn during the time of Christ. But the most important detail is psychological. When Marmeladov comes to his daughter to ask for money “for a hangover,” Sonya’s look is described in detail: “She didn’t say anything, she just looked at me silently... It’s not like that on earth, but there... they grieve for people, cry, but don’t reproach, don’t reproach!” Sonya does not condemn her father for sin, she loves him endlessly and has compassion for her lost father. Sonya's gaze is the gaze of the Mother of God, who looks at people from heaven and yearns for their soul.
Raskolnikov first sees Sonya at the bedside of her dying father. A girl in a “penny outfit”, but “decorated in a street style, according to the tastes and rules that have developed in her own special world with a brightly and shamefully outstanding goal.” Only before his death did Marmeladov realize how immeasurably guilty he was towards his daughter when he saw her “humiliated, murdered, dishonored and ashamed, humbly waiting for her turn to say goodbye to her dying father.” Just before his death he asked his daughter for forgiveness.
The portrait detail – “remarkably blue eyes” – emphasizes Sonya’s inner beauty.
If the first portrait conveys the abnormality, unnaturalness, and ugliness of the girl’s existence, then the second portrait, given in the episode of her visit to Raskolnikov’s apartment, reveals the inner essence of the “eternal Sonechka.” The truth is revealed in Rodion Romanovich’s reflections on the girl’s fate: “All this shame, obviously, affected her only mechanically; real depravity has not yet penetrated a single drop into her heart.” in the second portrait, the “childishness” of the heroine stands out. Before us is “a modestly and even poorly dressed girl, still very young, almost like a girl, with a modest and decent manner, with a clear, but seemingly somewhat intimidated face.”
The central place in the novel is occupied by the episode of reading the Gospel. Sonya, at Raskolnikov's request, reads to him about the resurrection of Lazarus. Conveying the excitement of a girl reading the most dear and intimate, the author reveals to readers the main secret of her life - the hope of resurrection. The young man failed to make Sonya his like-minded person. Fragile and small Sonya turned out to be spiritually strong and resilient. In this scene, the author conveys the inner strength of his heroine with the help of portrait details: “her weak chest was all swaying with excitement”; “she suddenly cried out, looking sternly and angrily at him,” “meek blue eyes that could sparkle with such fire, such a stern energetic feeling,” “small body, still trembling with indignation and anger.”
You can be great in humility.
F. M. Dostoevsky
The image of Sonechka Marmeladova in the novel “Crime and Punishment” is for Dostoevsky the embodiment of the eternal humility and suffering of the female soul with its compassion for loved ones, love for people and boundless self-sacrifice. The meek and quiet Sonechka Marmeladova, weak, timid, unrequited, in order to save her family and relatives from hunger, decides to do something terrible for a woman. We understand that her decision is an inevitable, inexorable result of the conditions in which she lives, but at the same time it is an example of active action in the name of saving the perishing. She has nothing but her body, and therefore the only possible way for her to save the little Marmeladovs from starvation is to engage in prostitution. Seventeen-year-old Sonya made her own choice, decided on her own, chose the path herself, feeling neither resentment nor anger towards Katerina Ivanovna, whose words were the final push that brought Sonya to the panel. Therefore, her soul did not become bitter, did not hate the world hostile to her, the dirt of street life did not touch her soul. Her endless love for humanity saves her. Sonechka's whole life is an eternal sacrifice, a selfless and endless sacrifice. But for Sonya this is the meaning of life, her happiness, her joy, she cannot live otherwise. Her love for people, like an eternal spring, feeds her tormented soul, gives her strength to walk along the thorny path that is her whole life. She even thought about suicide to get rid of shame and torment. Raskolnikov also believed that “it would be fairer and wiser to dive straight into the water and end it all at once!” But suicide for Sonya would be too selfish an option, and she thought about “them” - the hungry children, and therefore consciously and humbly accepted the fate prepared for her. Humility, submission, Christian all-forgiving love for people, self-denial are the main things in Sonya’s character.
Raskolnikov believes that Sonya’s sacrifice was in vain, that she did not save anyone, but only “ruined” herself. But life refutes these words of Raskolnikov. It is to Sonya that Raskolnikov comes to confess his sin - the murder he committed. It is she who forces Raskolnikov to confess to the crime, proving that the true meaning of life is repentance and suffering. She believes that no person has the right to take the life of another: “And who made me a judge: who should live, who should die?” Raskolnikov's beliefs terrify her, but she does not push him away from her. Great compassion makes her strive to convince, to morally cleanse Raskolnikov’s ruined soul. Sonya saves Raskolnikov, her love resurrects him to life.
Love helped Sonya understand that he was unhappy, that, despite all his visible pride, he needed help and support. Love helped to overcome such an obstacle as a double murder in order to try to resurrect and save the killer. Sonya goes to get Raskolnikov to hard labor. Sonya's love and sacrifice cleanse her from her shameful and sad past. Sacrifice in love is an eternal trait characteristic of Russian women.
Sonya finds salvation for herself and for Raskolnikov in faith in God. Her faith in God is her final self-affirmation, giving her the opportunity to do good in the name of those to whom she sacrifices herself, her argument that her sacrifice will not be useless, that life will soon find its outcome in universal justice. Hence her inner strength and resilience, which help her go through the “circles of hell” of her joyless and tragic life. A lot can be said about Sonya. She can be considered a heroine or an eternal martyr, but it is simply impossible not to admire her courage, her inner strength, her patience.
Dostoevsky, by his own admission, was concerned about the fate of “nine-tenths of humanity,” morally humiliated and socially disadvantaged under the conditions of the bourgeois system of his time. The novel “Crime and Punishment” is a novel that reproduces pictures of the social suffering of the urban poor. Extreme poverty is characterized by the fact that “there is nowhere else to go.” The image of poverty constantly varies in the novel. This is the fate of Katerina Ivanovna, who was left with three young children after the death of her husband. Crying and sobbing, “wringing her hands,” she accepted Marmeladov’s offer, “for there was nowhere to go.” This is the fate of Marmeladov himself. “After all, it is necessary for every person to have at least one place where he is pitied.” The tragedy of a father forced to accept his daughter's fall. The fate of Sonya, who committed a “feat of crime” against herself for the sake of love for her loved ones. The suffering of children growing up in a dirty corner, next to a drunken father and a dying, irritated mother, in an atmosphere of constant quarrels.
Is it acceptable to destroy an “unnecessary” minority for the sake of the happiness of the majority?
Dostoevsky is against it. The search for truth, denunciation of the unjust structure of the world, the dream of “human happiness” are combined in Dostoevsky with disbelief in the violent remaking of the world. The path is in the moral self-improvement of each person.
The image of Sonya Marmeladova plays an important role in the novel. Active love for one's neighbor, the ability to respond to someone else's pain (especially deeply manifested in the scene of Raskolnikov's confession of murder) make the image of Sonya ideal. It is from the standpoint of this ideal that the verdict is pronounced in the novel. For Sonya, all people have the same right to life. Sonya, according to Dostoevsky, embodies the people's principles: patience and humility, immeasurable love for people.
So, let's take a closer look at this image.
Sonechka is Marmeladov’s daughter, a prostitute. She belongs to the “meek” category. “Short, about eighteen, thin, disgruntledly pretty blonde with wonderful blue eyes.” We first learn about her from Marmeladov’s confession to Raskolnikov, in which he tells how she went to the panel for the first time at a critical moment for the family, returned, gave the money to Katerina Ivanovna, and she lay down facing the wall, “only her shoulders and body were shaking ", Katerina Ivanovna stood at her feet on her knees all evening, "and then they both fell asleep together, hugging each other."
Sonya first appears in the episode with Marmeladov, who was hit by horses, and who, just before his death, asks her for forgiveness. Raskolnikov comes to Sonechka to confess to the murder and shift part of his torment onto her, for which he hates Sonya herself.
The heroine is also a criminal. But if Raskolnikov transgressed through others for himself, then Sonya transgressed through herself for others. From her he finds love and compassion, as well as a willingness to share his fate and bear the cross with him. At Raskolnikov’s request, we read him the Gospel brought to Sonya by Lizaveta, the chapter about the resurrection of Lazarus. This is one of the most majestic scenes in the novel: “The cinder had long gone out in the crooked candlestick, dimly illuminating in this beggarly room a murderer and a harlot, strangely gathered together to read an eternal book. Sonya pushes Raskolnikov to repentance. She follows him when he goes to confess. She follows him to hard labor. If the prisoners do not like Raskolnikov, then they treat Sonechka with love and respect. He himself is cold and alienated from her, until insight finally comes to him, and then he suddenly realizes that he has no person on earth closer to her. Through love for Sonechka and through her love for him, Raskolnikov, according to the author, is resurrected to a new life.
“Sonechka, Sonechka Marmeladova, eternal Sonechka, while the world stands!” - a symbol of self-sacrifice in the name of one’s neighbor and endlessly “inexorable” suffering.
