Sonia and Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment Essays - Literature

Sonia and Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment Sonia and Raskolnikov are two characters who connect with each other in the novel Crime and Punishment. They interact on multiple levels, sharing many likenesses. Both of these characters are at-times self-sacrificing, both are struggling for meaning in a dreary existence, and both are generally unhappy people, but brighten and seem to enjoy each other's presence--even when Raskolnikov is rebuking her religion. What is self-sacrifice, for which these characters and so many people around the world engage in? It is a desire to help those around us more than we wish to help merely ourselves. This desire is not normal human state, although it can be brought about easily by social pressures, and sometimes even political societies can compel this attitude. Sonia practices a form of benevolence for her family however. She takes her body off to the moral downfall by sacrificing it to others for money - money that will go to her starving, poor family. Though not his dominating state of mind or action, Raskolnikov does have temporal tendencies towards self-sacrifice. It seems that part of his state of mind when considering the murder of the pawnbroker is that he will be helping society as a whole - definitely a motive that comes from outside the self. Sonia and Raskolnikov share many characteristics that make them an interesting find for each other. A tendency to self-sacrifice for one, and a life of it for another, provides for an alloy of psychological likenesses which help the characters relate. Due in part to their self-sacrificing lives, both characters are also trying to search for meaning in the bleak reality which they are subjected to. Sonia finds this meaning in the Bible, in a belief in God. Raskolnikov writes his theory. He finds solace in thinking that he himself is a god-like creature; he believes he is extraordinary. A belief in being a subject of the Divine and thinking that there are two divisions of men is extremely close. Both of these characters also have their meaning attacked. Porfiry Petrovich attacks the theory of Raskolnikov. Perhaps as a reaction to this, Raskolnikov attacks the support for meaning in Sonia's life - God, the Bible, and her faith. The final glues that continually attract these two characters are the fact that all of their grim similarities bring them together so that they actually enjoy each other's presence. Although Raskolnikov berates her religion mercilessly, there have been at least two other major instances in which Raskolnikov has shown great charity and love toward Sonia and her family. Raskolnikov lives life according to his theory in his mind, and unfortunately he is not able to realize behaviors that connected with his moral code. Therefore by his own code, not even ours or society's, he is morally bankrupt. Yet Sonia and Raskolnikov enjoy each other's presence and time - misery loves company.