In class discussion, I think it was MC that said "I believe Raskolnikov is extraordinary because he choose to change". The idea of change as a choice, and how one copes with change is to embrace is what I was getting at in my blog post about Lear. The changes in my life over the last year for the most part have not been things I have passively let happen to me. I have enacted change, sought new opportunities, worked at deliberately forming my life to what I want it to be.
For most of the book, Raskolnikov's lack of deliberate action frustrated me. The wanders on the street, the murder without a defined motive, giving away money, throwing it over the bridge. Raskonlnikov had no purpose. This "rationalist" is the least deliberate character in the novel, giving in to fits of passion and urges.
But sometime through out the book he finds a will to live for something. The times he doesn't commit suicide is a glimmer of hope for him realizing a reason to live deliberately, the budding relationship with Sonya indicates him learning to live for someone else. And it is at the end, not when he is convinced to turn him self in by Sonya and Porfiry, but when he makes the choice to change for himself, that he finally changes in a significant way from his "adventure", if you will, through crime and punishment.
In class when we reflected on why the end of Crime and Punishment could make one want to be religious, I wrote about what my own religion gives to me. My faith gives me purpose, my religion gives me order and structure, both result in deliberate actions. I think Raskolnikov is striving to act deliberately, to do something of consequence, something extraordinary through out the novel. At the end, when he decides deliberately to change, he finally is extraordinary, he finally is not just going through the motions of a life without purpose.
In the last post I talked about "beginning to embrace change and this transition", Raskolnikov changes because of a choice of his own. I have changed over the last year because of my choice to go to HMI and my choices each day that I have been home. Through Crime and Punishment, I have realized that personal change isn't just something that happens to a person, yes, circumstance are different, but I deliberately transform myself with choices.
For most of the book, Raskolnikov's lack of deliberate action frustrated me. The wanders on the street, the murder without a defined motive, giving away money, throwing it over the bridge. Raskonlnikov had no purpose. This "rationalist" is the least deliberate character in the novel, giving in to fits of passion and urges.
But sometime through out the book he finds a will to live for something. The times he doesn't commit suicide is a glimmer of hope for him realizing a reason to live deliberately, the budding relationship with Sonya indicates him learning to live for someone else. And it is at the end, not when he is convinced to turn him self in by Sonya and Porfiry, but when he makes the choice to change for himself, that he finally changes in a significant way from his "adventure", if you will, through crime and punishment.
In class when we reflected on why the end of Crime and Punishment could make one want to be religious, I wrote about what my own religion gives to me. My faith gives me purpose, my religion gives me order and structure, both result in deliberate actions. I think Raskolnikov is striving to act deliberately, to do something of consequence, something extraordinary through out the novel. At the end, when he decides deliberately to change, he finally is extraordinary, he finally is not just going through the motions of a life without purpose.
In the last post I talked about "beginning to embrace change and this transition", Raskolnikov changes because of a choice of his own. I have changed over the last year because of my choice to go to HMI and my choices each day that I have been home. Through Crime and Punishment, I have realized that personal change isn't just something that happens to a person, yes, circumstance are different, but I deliberately transform myself with choices.
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