Pride

The Theme in the Work

In Crime and Punishment pride is what sustains the theory, what refuses help and what, in the end, makes him ill. Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov needs to know which side of the division between ordinary and extraordinary men he stands on, refuses the sacrifice of others and refuses to be helped, and in prison what makes him ill is neither the labor nor the food, it is the wounded pride of having fallen through blindness and chance. The novel extends the same passion to others, from Katerina Ivanovna Marmeladova to Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin, and leaves open, in several scenes, whether Raskolnikov's pride is arrogance or the last thing holding him up.

In Chapter IV of Part One, after deciding that the marriage of Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikova to Luzhin will not take place, Raskolnikov asks himself by what right he forbids it and what he has to offer in exchange, since he lives on the money they pawn. The answer is that he must do something right away:

In Chapter II of Part Two, looking for Dmitry Prokofich Razumikhin, he finds at the door that he cannot stand anyone, and the phrase in which he says he needs nothing has two halves: what he came looking for and what he concludes.

Still in Chapter II of Part Two, on the bridge, a merchant woman takes him for a beggar and puts twenty kopecks in his hand. He throws the coin into the water, and the gesture comes together with the sensation of cutting himself off from everything.

In Chapter I of Part Three, by demanding that Dunya break with Luzhin, he takes the choice away from his sister and puts it on his own account. Refusing sacrifice also keeps him from owing anything in exchange:

In Chapter V of Part Three, in the house of Porfiry Petrovich, after setting out the article with Kepler, Newton, Lycurgus and Napoleon, the question turns to himself, and the answer is arrogant and true in the conditional:

In Chapter VI of Part Three, alone, feverish, he clings to the name of louse, and the reasons he lists show that the punishment comes from having had a method, not from having killed:

In the same outburst, he imagines the saber-wielding prophet, who commands without explaining himself, and identifies with him:

In Chapter IV of Part Four, Raskolnikov's farewell to Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladova joins two things that in the rest of the night he had kept apart: taking suffering upon himself and wanting power over every trembling creature.

In Chapter II of Part Five, the narrator says what lies behind Katerina Ivanovna's spending on her husband's funeral: the pride and vanity that, he says, also seize the poorest and most beaten people and turn into an irresistible need.

In Chapter IV of Part Five, in telling Sonia what led him to the murder, Raskolnikov discards the money, his mother and humanity, and arrives at a formulation with no external end:

In Chapter II of Part Six, Porfiry offers him voluntary surrender with a reduced sentence, and Raskolnikov refuses, calmly and almost with sadness. What he rejects is the advantage, not the surrender:

In Chapter VII of Part Six, he tells Dunya that by the river he wanted to drown himself to escape shame, but thought that, if he judged himself strong, he should face it, and asks whether this is pride. Dunya says that it is.

In Chapter II of the Epilogue, the narrator gives the cause of his illness in prison:

Still in Chapter II of the Epilogue, the prisoners hate him without his knowing why, and say what they think of his crime:

Raskolnikov's pride always takes the same form: refusing to be in debt. He refuses his sister's sacrifice in Chapter I of Part Three, Razumikhin's help and the merchant woman's coin in Chapter II of Part Two, Porfiry's reduction in Chapter II of Part Six, and in prison what wounds him is being able to accuse himself of nothing beyond an error of calculation. That is why the same disposition can be read in two ways in almost every scene: the arrogance of someone who thinks himself above others, or the last thing standing of someone who has nothing else. The Epilogue does not choose between the two and makes wounded pride the declared cause of the illness.

Who Embodies It

Katerina Ivanovna carries the pride of someone raised in a colonel's house: in Chapter II of Part Five, after spending the funeral money on a wake no one asked for, she only wants to prove to the whole house that her husband and she are worth as much as any tenant. The narrator says that the circumstances could finish her off, but could not break her morally.

Luzhin has another pride, that of a man who came from nothing and likes to look at his own face in the mirror. In Chapter III of Part Four, the narrator tells that he counted until the last moment on the dependence of Dunya and her mother, and in Chapter I of Part Five he wakes with wounded self-love, blaming Raskolnikov alone.

Dunya has her own. In Chapter V of Part Six, following Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov to the apartment, with her brother's secret in his hands, she leaves Razumikhin out and does not ask whether the landlady is at home: her courage has a part of arrogance, and it is that which leaves her alone among empty rooms.

Where It Appears

• Part One, Chapter IV: Raskolnikov decides that Dunya's marriage will not take place and asks himself by what right he forbids it, since he lives on the money they pawn.
• Part Two, Chapter II: At Razumikhin's, Raskolnikov says he needs nothing from anyone and, on the bridge, throws into the water the coin a merchant woman gave him, mistaking him for a beggar.
• Part Three, Chapter I: Raskolnikov demands that Dunya break with Luzhin and says he does not accept her sacrifice, since she would be marrying for his sake.
• Part Three, Chapter V: In Porfiry's house, Raskolnikov says that if he had stepped over the obstacle he would certainly not tell the judge, an answer at once arrogant and true.
• Part Three, Chapter VI: In fever, Raskolnikov declares himself a louse and imagines the prophet with the saber, who orders the trembling creature to obey without explaining.
• Part Four, Chapter III: On the stairs, Luzhin is surprised by the break, since he was counting on the dependence of Dunya and her mother, and resolves to set things right the next day and destroy Raskolnikov.
• Part Four, Chapter IV: In his farewell to Sonia, after kissing her foot, Raskolnikov says the goal is freedom and power over every trembling creature and over the anthill.
• Part Five, Chapter I: Luzhin wakes with wounded self-love; the landlord demands the fine in the apartment contract, and he blames Raskolnikov alone for the end of the engagement.
• Part Five, Chapter II: Katerina Ivanovna spends the funeral money on a wake no one asked for, out of poor people's pride, and receives Raskolnikov as the only educated guest.
• Part Five, Chapter IV: Raskolnikov tells Sonia he killed for himself, for himself alone, and refuses her order to kiss the earth and confess aloud.
• Part Six, Chapter II: Porfiry offers Raskolnikov voluntary surrender with a reduced sentence, and Raskolnikov refuses, saying he wants none of that reduction at all.
• Part Six, Chapter V: Dunya follows Svidrigailov to the apartment without calling Razumikhin, with her brother's secret in his hands, and her courage has a part of arrogance.
• Part Six, Chapter VII: Raskolnikov tells Dunya that he wanted to drown himself to escape shame, but at the water's edge thought he should face it, and asks whether that is pride.
• Epilogue, Chapter II: In prison, Raskolnikov falls ill from wounded pride and is hated by the prisoners, who call him a gentleman not fit to carry an axe, while all of them call Sonia mother.

Where the Readings Diverge

The refusal of the reduction in Chapter II of Part Six can be read in two ways, and the text supports both: a point of honor, of someone who will not buy his penalty down, or the indifference of someone who no longer cares about the penalty. Porfiry attributes it to bourgeois shame and youth.

In Chapter II of the Epilogue, Raskolnikov explains his own surrender as a dull instinct he lacked the strength to break, and the narrator suggests another cause: a foreboding, already on the riverbank, of the falsehood of his convictions, which would be the first sign of change.

In both cases the text gives two explanations for the same gesture, and pride is what the two have in common: refusing the reduction out of a point of honor or out of indifference, giving oneself up out of weakness or out of foreboding. The Epilogue makes wounded pride the cause of the illness and, in the same chapter in which love knocks him down, does not contradict it.