In my opinion, Crime and Punishment is
primarily a book about suffering. However, the internal suffering that
Raskolnikov endures is a direct result of the murders he committed. The most
intriguing aspect of the novel (in my opinion) is the extraordinary man theory,
which Raskolnikov uses to justify his violent acts. This theory states that there
are two types of men in the world, ordinary and extraordinary. The
extraordinary ones, like himself, are superior humans who have the right to violate
the law, under certain circumstances, in order to benefit mankind.
Raskolnikov’s theory even states that an extraordinary man has the right to
commit murder if the act is beneficial to the less fortunate. I would really
like to focus my term paper on Raskolnikov’s theory of the superhuman, which I
believe is a combination of the Hegelian Superman Theory and the Nietzschean
Superman Theory (I will elaborate more on these in my term paper). Part of the Ubermenshe
theory that interests me is the idea that even though both Raskolnikov and Nietzsche
are claiming that these "uber" and "extraordinary" men have
the right to kill whoever they want, what makes these kind of people
"extraordinary" in the first place? While the majority of people view
Hitler as insane, others might classify him as “extraordinary” because of the
way he was able to conform a massive group of followers. Obviously I will
elaborate further on Friedrich Nietzsche, Georg Hegel, and other
theories/philosophers that contributed to Raskolnikov’s Superman theory one way
or another, but this was just an initial idea for my paper. What do you guys
think? I hope you like it.
Alex I think this will be a really cool subject to explore! It is such an important aspect in the book as it drives Raskolnikov to do what he does, and also bring himself justification with it as well. I think that by relating it to the other theories it will become a very well rounded and intriguing paper. Continue in this direction and it will be great!
ReplyDelete-Madie