Guilt

The Theme in the Work

In the novel, guilt and repentance do not coincide. Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov feels disgust, fear, shame and loneliness well before he acknowledges any moral guilt, and up to the penultimate page of the Epilogue he does not repent of the murder: what he admits is having failed as the executor of his own theory. The book shows the body confessing before the mind does, and the turn, when it comes, arrives as a feeling and not as a verdict on the crime.

In Chapter I of Part One, still during the rehearsal in the pawnbroker's house, Raskolnikov feels revulsion at what he is preparing to do and disavows his own sentence before he finishes it:

In Chapter VII of Part One, after killing the pawnbroker Alyona Ivanovna and Lizaveta Ivanovna with the axe (The Axe), the narrator says what would have overwhelmed him had he had a clear head:

In Chapter I of Part Two, the body responds before the mind decides anything: Raskolnikov searches his clothes for blood piece by piece, forgets the loop he sewed for the axe, and faints at the police station. When the lieutenant cuts him off in the middle of his outburst, what the narrator names is neither guilt nor fear of being caught, but separation:

In Chapter VI of Part Two, at the Crystal Palace, the terrible word leaps to his lips and he provokes Zametov with the hypothesis that he is the murderer; afterward he goes back to the old woman's apartment and rings the bell three times to feel again what he felt on the inside.

In Chapter VII of Part Two, after giving the Marmeladovs all the money he had, he asks little Polenka to pray for him, and the request is minimal: a prayer without a surname, only for the servant Rodion.

In Chapter III of Part Three, when Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikova retorts to her brother that she has not yet killed anyone, he turns so pale that he almost faints, and the narrator does not explain the dizziness:

In Chapter VI of Part Three, a stranger calls him a murderer in the street, and at home, feverish, Raskolnikov tries to separate the act from the person:

Still in Chapter VI of Part Three, the dream reverses the scene of the crime: he strikes the old woman and she feels nothing, laughing silently, while behind the door voices laugh and the anteroom fills with people who only look on.

In Chapter VI of Part Four, when Nikolai's false confession disarms the siege by Porfiry Petrovich, the anger Raskolnikov carries down the stairs is not directed at the judge: the narrator makes clear that it is directed at himself, for recalling with contempt and shame his own pusillanimity, to use his word.

In Chapter IV of Part Five, while confessing to Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladova, he discards one by one the reasons he gives (money, his mother, humanity, Napoleon) and arrives at a formulation with no external aim, in which the victim of the blow is himself:

In Chapter VII of Part Six, when Dunya speaks of washing away the crime through suffering, he reacts to the word crime and denies it. He denies the crime and yet goes to give himself up, which in the book separates giving oneself up from acknowledging guilt.

In Chapter VIII of Part Six, after kissing the earth in the square and hearing from Ilya Petrovich the news of the death of Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov, he says the sentence that the book keeps as his confession, in the tone of a report, asking for nothing:

In Chapter I of the Epilogue, the court prefers the explanation of a passing disturbance, and Raskolnikov, who barely defends himself, gives as his cause poverty and the desire to establish his career with the old woman's money, without mentioning the theory.

In Chapter II of the Epilogue, the narrator contradicts the word he gave the court about repentance:

Still in Chapter II of the Epilogue, what makes Raskolnikov ill in prison is wounded pride, and the guilt he acknowledges is that of not having borne the crime and of having given himself up. The change comes afterward, without argument:

The book separates four things that ordinary talk calls guilt: disgust, which appears before and after the blow (in Chapter I of Part One and in Chapter VII of Part One), the separation from his kind, which the narrator names in Chapter I of Part Two, the shame of having failed, which reappears in Chapter VI of Part Four and in Chapter II of the Epilogue, and remorse, which Raskolnikov desires in the Epilogue and does not find. None of them turns into repentance by force of argument: the Epilogue changes regime and puts feeling in the place of dialectics, and the guilt he never admits remains suspended, unresolved.

Who Embodies It

Besides Raskolnikov, the novel puts guilt in other mouths, and each one treats it in its own way.

In Chapter II of Part One, Semyon Zakharovich Marmeladov asks to be crucified rather than pitied, and the tavern laughs. It is guilt spoken aloud and turned into a performance, at no cost to the one who speaks it.

In Chapter IV of Part Four, Sonia, who lives under the yellow ticket, answers Raskolnikov that she is a great sinner, and it is to her that he will confess. She neither accuses nor absolves: in Chapter IV of Part Five she prescribes a rite, kissing the earth he has defiled and saying aloud that he killed.

In Chapter V of Part Five, Katerina Ivanovna Marmeladova, dying, refuses the priest, saying that she has no sins and that, if God does not forgive, it does not matter.

Svidrigailov claims, in Chapter I of Part Four, that his conscience is at ease about the death of Marfa Petrovna. On his last night, in Chapter VI of Part Six, what disturbs him is not the shot Dunya fired, it is the pity he felt for her. The text does not decide whether what pursues him in his dreams of the two little girls is true guilt or the horror of recognizing himself in an impulse.

Porfiry treats guilt as something the body gives away. In Chapter V of Part Four, he describes the guilty man as the moth circling the candle, and in Chapter II of Part Six he admits that psychology alone cuts both ways.

Where It Appears

• Part One, Chapter I: Still in the street, on the way to the pawnbroker's house, Raskolnikov feels revulsion at what he is preparing to do and disavows his own sentence before he finishes it.
• Part One, Chapter II: In the tavern, Marmeladov asks to be crucified rather than pitied, and the customers laugh while Raskolnikov listens with unease.
• Part One, Chapter VII: After killing the old woman and Lizaveta, Raskolnikov would have felt horror and revulsion at what he had done with a clear head, and would have denounced himself, the narrator says, but distraction prevents him.
• Part Two, Chapter I: On the morning after the crime, Raskolnikov searches his clothes for blood, faints at the police station and suddenly feels a solitude and estrangement that separate him from everyone.
• Part Two, Chapter VI: Raskolnikov provokes Zametov at the Crystal Palace with the hypothesis that he is the murderer, and afterward goes back to the old woman's apartment and rings the bell three times.
• Part Two, Chapter VII: Raskolnikov gives the Marmeladov family the twenty rubles he has and asks little Polenka to pray for the servant Rodion.
• Part Three, Chapter III: When Dunya says she has not yet killed anyone, Raskolnikov turns pale to the point of nearly fainting, and the narrator does not explain the dizziness.
• Part Three, Chapter VI: A stranger calls him a murderer in the street; at home, feverish, Raskolnikov says he killed a principle and did not step over, and dreams that the old woman laughs at the blows.
• Part Four, Chapter I: Svidrigailov tells Raskolnikov that his conscience is at ease about the death of his wife, Marfa Petrovna, and speaks of the ghosts attributed to her.
• Part Four, Chapter IV: In Sonia's room, Raskolnikov kisses her foot, hears that she is a great sinner, and promises to say the next day who killed Lizaveta.
• Part Four, Chapter V: Porfiry describes the guilty man as the moth circling the candle, and Raskolnikov, determined to keep silent, breaks his resolution and shouts that he will not allow mockery.
• Part Four, Chapter VI: After Nikolai's false confession disarms Porfiry's siege, Raskolnikov goes down the stairs angry at himself, ashamed of his own pusillanimity.
• Part Five, Chapter IV: Raskolnikov confesses the double murder to Sonia, first in the third person, and finally states that he killed for himself and that it was himself he killed.
• Part Five, Chapter V: Katerina Ivanovna, dying, refuses the priest, saying she has no sins and that God, if He does not forgive, is no loss.
• Part Six, Chapter II: Porfiry tells Raskolnikov that he is the one who killed, and Raskolnikov denies it in the whisper of a caught child, but refuses the reduced sentence offered to him.
• Part Six, Chapter VI: On his last night, Svidrigailov feels pity for Dunya as he recalls her face after the first shot, and dreams of two little girls before killing himself.
• Part Six, Chapter VII: When Dunya speaks of washing away the crime through suffering, Raskolnikov denies having committed a crime, but says he is going to give himself up.
• Part Six, Chapter VIII: At the police station, after hearing of Svidrigailov's death, Raskolnikov tells Ilya Petrovich in a measured tone that he killed the old woman and Lizaveta with an axe and robbed them.
• Epilogue, Chapter I: In court, Raskolnikov gives as his cause poverty and the desire to start his career, and the judges prefer to explain the crime as a passing disturbance.
• Epilogue, Chapter II: In prison, Raskolnikov does not repent of the crime and acknowledges guilt only for not having borne it, until Sonia's love puts life in the place of dialectics.

Where the Readings Diverge

On what Raskolnikov feels after the blow, Joseph Frank reads the moment as living conscience reacting before reason:

Against the reading that sees the murder as a cold and deliberate act stands the fact that Lizaveta was not part of the plan: in Chapter VII of Part One, the second blow comes when she appears before her dead sister, and the narrator himself calls it an unforeseen murder. Frank's reading starts from a fact the text fixes in that same chapter, that what would drive him to denounce himself is horror and revulsion, and not fear of being caught.