Suffering

The Theme in the Work

In the novel suffering has three places that cross without merging. It is the misery no one chooses, that of Semyon Zakharovich Marmeladov, of Katerina Ivanovna Marmeladova and of the children. It is the price that Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov says belongs to a broad consciousness, when he discusses the theory. And it is the path that Porfiry Petrovich, Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladova and Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikova propose to him, that of going into suffering as the only way to begin again. The book does not prove that suffering saves: Raskolnikov goes to it without believing in it, and the passage of the Epilogue warns that the new life is paid for dearly.

In Chapter II of Part One, Marmeladov recounts in the tavern the family's misery and Sonia's going out into the street, and in the middle of his account he asks Raskolnikov the question that names this misery, the same one that will come back to him the next day, when he himself sees no way out:

In Chapter V of Part Three, in Porfiry's house, Dmitry Prokofich Razumikhin asks whether those who have the right to kill should not suffer for the blood spilled, and Raskolnikov answers outside the tone of the conversation:

In Chapter IV of Part Four, in Sonia's room, Raskolnikov bows down to the floor and kisses her foot, and states the reason before she asks:

In Chapter VI of Part Four, the young man Nikolai bursts into Porfiry's office, pale as one going to the scaffold, and takes upon himself, in front of everyone, a crime he did not commit. The text does not say what moves him, and Porfiry will say later, in Chapter II of Part Six, that he is an impressionable young man, a fantasist of sectarian origin, who wants to suffer.

In Chapter IV of Part Five, Sonia gives him the only path she knows, and when he asks whether she means denunciation and hard labor, she answers that it is accepting suffering and redeeming oneself through it:

In Chapter V of Part Five, Katerina Ivanovna falls in the street after running after the frightened children, and the blood covering the ground comes from her chest, from consumption. Her last words return to the image of the dream of the mare (The Dream of the Mare):

In Chapter II of Part Six, Porfiry sets aside all authority and, to convince Raskolnikov to give himself up, returns to the young man who confessed in his place:

In Chapter IV of Part Six, Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov, telling Raskolnikov how he sees Dunya, makes suffering not her fate but her desire:

In Chapter VII of Part Six, Dunya, who already knows everything, hears her brother call himself vile and returns the word in a sense he did not intend; further on in the same conversation she will say that whoever goes to suffering already washes away half the crime:

In Chapter VIII of Part Six, Raskolnikov arrives at Sonia's house in a mocking tone, and it is in that tone that he speaks of the cross and of his own suffering:

Still in Chapter VIII of Part Six, what Sonia does with the two crosses (The Crosses) closes what had been agreed in the confession of Chapter IV of Part Five and brings Lizaveta Ivanovna back into the scene:

In Chapter II of the Epilogue, on a bright day by the riverbank, he falls at her feet, and the narrator names what happens to the two of them before taking account of what still remains: seven years of unbearable suffering and of endless happiness.

Still in Chapter II of the Epilogue, the narrator warns that he does not yet know that the new life is not won for free, that it must be paid for dearly, with a great deed still to come.

The suffering in the book is not one thing and does not have one thesis. That of Marmeladov and the children in Chapter II of Part One is misery, with no meaning to redeem it. What Raskolnikov attributes to great men in Chapter V of Part Three is the price of the theory, paid inwardly. What Sonia, Porfiry and Dunya propose from Chapter IV of Part Five onward is a method for a new beginning, and the book shows it being accepted without faith and without conviction, out of shame and out of weariness. The Epilogue does not make suffering a proof: it makes of it the currency of a new life, which the narrator refers to another story.

Who Embodies It

Sonia is the suffering no one disputes. In Chapter IV of Part Four, after ruling out the canal, the madhouse and debauchery as explanations for what sustained her, Raskolnikov asks whether she prays a great deal, and her answer comes in the form of another question:

Porfiry offers suffering from a lowered place. In Chapter II of Part Six, when Raskolnikov asks him by what right he speaks like a prophet, he puts himself outside of life, and the advice gains weight precisely because it comes from someone who has lost his own chance:

In prison, in Chapter II of the Epilogue, the prisoners give Sonia a name they would never give him, the one they hate:

Where It Appears

• Part One, Chapter II: Marmeladov asks Raskolnikov whether he understands what it means to have nowhere left to go, as he recounts the family's misery and Sonia's going out into the street.
• Part Three, Chapter V: In Porfiry's house, Raskolnikov answers Razumikhin that one with a broad consciousness and a deep heart suffers by obligation, and that great men carry a great sadness.
• Part Four, Chapter IV: In Sonia's room, Raskolnikov kisses her foot and says he bowed before all human suffering, after asking her what will become of the children.
• Part Four, Chapter VI: Nikolai bursts in, pale, on Porfiry's office and confesses to being the murderer, while Raskolnikov watches him and Porfiry says the words are not his.
• Part Five, Chapter IV: Sonia tells Raskolnikov to kiss the earth and confess aloud, and answers that this means accepting suffering and redeeming oneself through it.
• Part Five, Chapter V: Katerina Ivanovna collapses in the street after running after her children and dies saying they have worn out the old mare, with Raskolnikov and Sonia at her side.
• Part Six, Chapter II: Porfiry tells Raskolnikov that there is an idea in suffering and that Mikolka is right, and declares himself a finished man.
• Part Six, Chapter IV: Svidrigailov describes Dunya as someone who wants to suffer for another person and who, without that, would be capable of throwing herself out of the window.
• Part Six, Chapter VII: Dunya tells her brother that whoever goes to suffering already washes away half the crime, and he answers that he does not think of washing it away, but he is going to give himself up.
• Part Six, Chapter VIII: Sonia places the cypress cross on Raskolnikov's chest, and he says it is the symbol of taking up the cross and that until now he has suffered little.
• Epilogue, Chapter II: Raskolnikov falls at Sonia's feet by the river, and the narrator says that seven years of unbearable suffering and endless happiness remain.

Where the Readings Diverge

Porfiry's speech on suffering in Chapter II of Part Six can also be read in two ways, and the text does not choose: the conviction of someone who speaks from faith, or the argument of an investigator who knows that the guilty man gives himself up only if he finds the surrender to be his own. On Raskolnikov's side, the refusal in Chapter IV of Part Five to go before judges who also destroy millions and call it virtue is, according to the text, pride and hope at the same time.

The Epilogue brings the two ends together without undoing the doubt: the love that knocks him down in Chapter II of the Epilogue comes after he has refused Porfiry's reduction and has fulfilled only half of Sonia's rite, and the proof that suffering served stays outside the book.