The Curious Case of Raskolnikov

What’s Jordan Peterson’s appeal to young men?

“Certain novels not only cry out for critical interpretations but actually try to direct them,” as David Foster Wallace once said. Crime and Punishment, on the other hand, was quite the opposite, insofar as Dostoevsky was not trying to “direct” the novel in form or substance (and I mean this in regards to the interpretation of motive and intention behind the first step of the initial thought to officially act, which adds to rather ambiguous contexts once amalgamated) as one does with a waltz, for example, but, instead, conceal its true meaning underneath an occlusion of quotidian occurrences in the “every days” of life. Dostoevsky, like a detective leaving traces throughout a journal entry so as to guide the reader to an inevitable result, releases purposeful droplets (not the spasmodic kind of Rebecca Goldstein’s in The Mind-Body-Problem, that is, quite frankly, rather terrible) that leads to an extramural apotheosis which directly confronts the critical reader with the clues left antecedently.

We see this clearly in Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, the protagonist of Crime and Punishment (1866) by Fyodor Dostoevsky. His friend, Razumikhin (Dmitri Prokofych), succinctly expressed the existing dualities within Raskolnokov. When speaking to Raskolnikov’s mother: Pulcheria Alexandrovna; and sister: Avdotya Romanovna, Razumikhin described Raskolnikov as “sullen, gloomy, arrogant, proud,” but the juxtaposition between the two sides of Rodion comes next, and it is quite interesting here because Razumikhin notes that these observed behaviors occurred rather recently: “insecure and hypochondriac. Magnanimous and kind.” Later in the passage, Razumikhin goes on to further detail the extent to which these dualities lay within the ontology of Raskolnikov’s split persona. He describes Rodion as kind, but reserved in expressing emotions, “cold and callous,” and as someone who “sets a terribly high value on himself not without a certain justification.” The most fascinating part of the conversation was when Razumikhin directly confronted this bifurcation by saying that Raskolnikov acts “as if there really were two opposite characters in him, changing places with each other.”

After reading this conversation, a question appears before me that results in a new discovery: Why is Razumikhin so accurate in analyzing Raskolnikov? This positional shift presents a new duality that immediately reveals a “droplet” in juxtaposition, that came as a direct result from this question — Dmitri Prokofych is the mirror opposite to everything Raskolnikov is not; as in, he fills the blank-spots to the vices of Raskolnikov’s personality, not to serve as a complement; but — to serve as his replacement, altogether.

Life is nuanced, and can’t exist within the constrained determinism of dualities, alone. But Dostoevsky presents the greys upon which these dual-splits rests, and almost succeeds in giving the impression of a roman à clef. The clues discovered along the way force the reader to remember that dualism is being used as a device to deliver his purpose. Brilliant! And this is expressed most clearly (and obviously(?)) in the names of these two characters themselves: “Raskolnikov” means “schismatic’; the name itself exemplifies the “schism” between Raskolnikov’s split personalities. And “Razumikhin” is a portmanteau of faith and reason (razum: “sense,” “intelligence”). Now another question arises: What is the cause for Raskolnikov’s personality? Or, who is the cause? Here’s an excerpt of the letter sent to Raskolnikov from his mother, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, delivered just before she (and her daughter, Rodion’s sister) arrived in St. Petersburg:

“My dear Rodya,” wrote his mother — “it’s two months since I last had a talk with you by letter which has distressed me and even kept me awake at night, thinking. But I am sure you will not blame me for my inevitable silence. You know how I love you; you are all we have to look to, Dunya and I, you are our all, our one hope, our one stay. What a grief it was to me when I heard that you had given up the university some months ago, for want of means to keep yourself and that you had lost your lessons and your other work! How could I help you out of my hundred and twenty roubles a year pension? The fifteen roubles I sent you four months ago I borrowed, as you know, on security of my pension, from Vassily Ivanovitch Vahrushin a merchant of this town. He is a kind-hearted man and was a friend of your father’s too. But having given him the right to receive the pension, I had to wait till the debt was paid off and that is only just done, so that I’ve been unable to send you anything all this time…”

A lot was revealed in this excerpt. Firstly, Pulcheria Alexandrovna expresses certain perfidy in tone throughout this letter; at least, as it is perceived by Raskolnikov, which, one could submit — inasmuch as one logically can — to the corridors of his subconscious, insofar as to what is perceived as the intent is that in which guides his subsequent and immediate actions nevertheless. In the first sentence, she reveals the amount of time it has been since their last correspondence, which corresponds to the approximate time Raskolnikov reverted into self-secluded isolation; completely detached from the world and being of the world.

Secondly, in the third sentence, the reader is revealed to the possible cause of Raskolnikov’s seclusion — the tonnage onto which his mother forces the pretense of love under [what is perceived as] a messianic-like expectation, with respect to expected salvation by her son, of her present-day circumstances. This forces Raskolnikov to associate “love” with whatever feeling he has when confronted with expectations he is unable to meet — feelings of anguish, grief, anger (we see examples of this in the split of consequent emotional reactions after initially feeling love or affection, as when speaking with Sonya (Sofya Semonovna) immediately after confessing to the murder of Alyona and Lizaveta Ivanovna; and, in Razumikhin, who experiences, firsthand, these dualities).

Thirdly, in the fifth or sixth sentence, Pulcheria Alexandrovna informed Raskolnikov that the money sent to him was borrowed against her pension and given to her as a loan from his dead father’s friend, Ivanovich Vahrushin. For someone who “sets a terribly high value on himself,” being confronted with such a reality was possibly bridged by notions of inadequacy. But this was information of which Raskolnikov already knew, and could possibly explain, in part, for his depression.

What officially sets him over the edge was when his mother informed him of his sister’s engagement to Pyotr Petrovich (a rather frugal and sadistic man). Raskolnikov viewed this as his sister selling herself to a person with whom she is not in love, and to the benefit of his inadequate self. Despite the money sent to Raskolnikov, his financial latency forces him to drop out of University. To him, the sacrifices of his mother and sister are completely laid to waste. And consequently, he devises a plot to murder a malicious pawnbroker for her money, named Alyona Ivanovna.

Rather interestingly, we discover that Raskolnikov’s mother, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, is somewhat of a narcissist. She consumes Raskolnikov by the expectations set against which she leverages the lives of her and his sister. He is impotent to their sacrifices, yet is unable to live up to them, and is crippled by them. The weight from his family manifests in rage. And it begins with the letter that his mother sent, which, in his words, gave him a “bitter angry smile.”

Raskolnikov senses that his mother relies on his potential success to make her happy; and, desperately wishes, at the very least, to deliver her a “moment of happiness.” Due to the death of Raskolnikov’s father, and Pulcheria’s expectations of her son, which is contingent upon her own survival and happiness, coupled with her inability to detach her happiness from her son, we can assume that this prevented Raskolnikov from developing an individualism that would spring about a healthy separation and detachment as a result from his mother’s continual dependency (a dependency which flows in both directions). The negative, psychological confluences between mother and son, along with the letter, resulted in Raskolnikov’s “death drive,” a phenomenon of someone driven to death, “through behaviors such as aggression, repetition compulsion, and self-destructiveness.”

This Freudian “death drive” directed Raskolnikov’s attention to Alyona Ivanovna, a very vicious and mean pawnbroker who beats and mentally abuses her step-sister, Lizaveta Ivanovna. In Alyona, Raskolnikov envisions his mother and serves as the subject to his repression of rage. And Lizaveta represents himself. When he murders them both, with the swing of an ax, he symbolically murders himself (in an effort to overcome his mother) and his mother (in an effort to overcome himself). Afterward, Raskolnikov deludes himself into thinking, using a Napoleonic theory of superiority he developed in an article published while still in university, that the murders committed were a way for him to determine whether he was “a man or louse, like everyone else.” And most interestingly, the rounded, contextualized circle is completed when he confesses: “I wanted to murder for my own sake, for my self alone! . . . It wasn’t to help my mother . . . I didn’t do the murder to gain wealth and power . . . Did I murder the old crone? I murdered myself, not her! . . . crushed myself once and for all, forever! . . .”

I’m sure at this point you are wondering how this relates to Jordan Peterson and young men. Well, for starters, this was just my excuse to write on Crime and Punishment; and, considering that Jordan Peterson is an admirer of Dostoevsky (and a psychologist), I found it fitting to connect the two. He has also analyzed (albeit quite inadequately), these characters at length. With Peterson, I see him assuming the role of Razumihkin, the good-natured friend looking out for Raskolnikov; fearing, that if he ignores these young men, they might fall under the pressures of family and society. For these young men, they are potential Raskolnikovs, looking for direction, and seek their answer in someone who tells them to clean their room and stand up straight!

Typically this is something about which I would never complain if such an idea came with the absence of social Darwinism and convoluted ideas of biological mysticism and jerky philandering of forced, and unusually strange, made-up terms like “social Marxists” and “postmodern neo-Marxist” (I could not have made an even more contradictory term if I tried . . . seriously). The appeal of Peterson for these young men is in the idea that one person, an “exemplary” man, can teach you how you should be. Or more accurately, who you should be. If we are to help them, I think a good start is in reading Crime and Punishment (and literature, more generally).