In this chapter, Katerina Ivanova spends a large amount of the money that Raskolnikov gave to them on Marmeladov's memorial. This did not make much sense to me since Marmeladov can no longer bring any any sort of income to the family and they should be saving as much money as possible. I believe the reason why she did this was because she has a destructive amount of pride, similar to Raskolnikov's. I would even go so far as to say that both their prides are almost pathetic because of the fact that they allow their prides to get in the way of doing the right thing. She uses the memorial dinner as a way to demonstrate her classiness and nobility, which she clearly does not have. I find it repulsive that Katerina would be so selfish as to put the health of her family aside simply to prove a point to herself and try to convince herself that she is in the aristocratic social class. However, this foreshadowed disaster and disaster eventually occured. At the dinner, only the lowest class guests attend. However, she proves to be even worse than they are because she constantly insults them, attempting to make herself feel better about her status. It is a disgusting behavior, but I can not help but almost feeling sorry for her. During the dinner, her declining health is evident. She frequently coughs out blood and her face shows illness. She even gets into a fight with her landlady during this dinner and the guests proceed to instigate the fight. Katerina's health condition at this dinner foreshadows her death, which will leave her children alone in the world with no real form of income or way to survive. This represents the injustice of poverty in the lower class society at that time. Although this chapter was more eventful than the last, I am still eager to return to the main plot revolving around Raskolnikov.
-Gabriel
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