Crime and punishment is the life of children. Literature: Images of children and their role in Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment. Scientific work on literature

In the theory of Raskolnikov, which allowed him to commit murder, the main argument is the accusation of cruelty to society. The very people who verbally acknowledge the need to love their neighbor are indifferent to the real suffering of others. It is from this, and indeed a true observation in itself, that Raskolnikov draws the conclusion about the duality, hypocrisy of generally accepted morality, about the need for "blood according to conscience" to overcome evil. But, accusing the world of cruelty, Raskolnikov primarily speaks about children. In this painful, ardent love for children, the ability of the protagonist of the novel to sympathize with someone else's grief is revealed with special force.

Children are defenseless, they cannot resist the merciless pressure of life. They are not guilty of the grief of those around them, and therefore their suffering is especially unjust. If a society "tramples" those who are not guilty of anything, then its structure is immoral, abnormal. The impressions of meeting with unhappy children aggravate Raskolnikov's hatred of the surrounding reality and strengthens confidence in the correctness of his theory.

Raskolnikov hears the sounds of a cracked seven-year-old voice - in a tavern, among drunken shouts and abuse. These sounds complement the tragic story of Marmeladov. The next impression is a meeting with Katerina Ivanovna and her children. The sight of these unfortunate children makes Raskolnikov give Marmeladov almost his last pennies. A terrible thought is fixed in his tortured soul: "And there are no barriers ..." And then another impression pushes Raskolnikov to the decision to "cross": he sees a deceived and disgraced girl on the boulevard.

Raskolnikov indignantly thinks about those scientists who argue that a certain percentage of people should die, and consider this to be normal. For him, a living person stands behind this reassuring word "percentage", and Raskolnikov does not want and cannot put up with the death of at least one child. And here the author and his hero find themselves side by side, but only in this. Moral indignation dictates fundamentally different conclusions to them - this is clearly reflected in the novel.

Dostoevsky saw in children that moral purity, kindness of soul, which were lost by adults. It is no coincidence that all the best that is characteristic of the adult heroes of the novel is associated with the world of the child. You cannot talk about the topic of childhood in Crime and Punishment, meaning only the children of Katerina Ivanovna. Sonya is portrayed as a child, weak, helpless, with a childishly pure, naive and bright soul. She is like a child in her feelings, in her actions - sincerity and kindness. The pure and fair world of a child's soul is also revealed in Raskolnikov's dream. It is the child who protests against the cruelty of the adult world in this dream. That direct, non-thinking kindness that Raskolnikov repeatedly shows - contrary to his own theory - is inextricably linked with the boy Rodya, with that moral "reserve" that has been preserved in the hero of the novel from childhood. Having killed the helpless, childishly defenseless Lizaveta, Raskolnikov seemed to raise his hand to himself. Svidrigailov helps children with atoning for their sins in "Crime and Punishment".

Dostoevsky, of course, also follows the Christian understanding. Children in the Gospels symbolize the moral closeness of man to God, the purity of the soul, able to believe - and be ashamed. Raskolnikov is twofold in the novel: the natural, God-given kindness of the hero is "obscured" by the pride and anger of an adult. Throughout the novel, the child in Raskolnikov fights with an adult, kindness - with cruelty and pride. The moral change that took place in Raskolnikov's soul in the epilogue of Crime and Punishment means the final victory of kindness, the hero's return to himself - the child, the return to God. And here the author of the novel, having walked alongside his hero his long, painful and contradictory path, for the first time, finally, "meets" him "face to face", as people of the same faith, of the same understanding of life meet ...

(377 words) On the pages of Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel “Crime and Punishment, one can often come across images of children. This image is extremely important for the author. According to F.M. Dostoevsky, a child is the embodiment of all the purest on earth, the most sincere. In relation to children, the author "checks" his characters for humanity, for kindness and humanity. Also, the position of the child can tell a lot about the situation in society, exacerbate social problems.

The author compares Lizaveta and Sonya Marmeladova with children, which speaks of their sensitive, vulnerable soul, compassionate and defenseless nature. Before swinging the ax, Raskolnikov saw a childish look on Lizaveta's face. Subsequently, Rodion Romanovich saw "childish fright" on the face of Sonya Marmeladova. She seemed to him "almost still a girl, much younger than her years, quite almost a child." The spiritual purity of the heroine is manifested in her behavior. Despite the fact that Sonya Marmeladova stepped over the moral laws, she retained faith in man, the ability to compassion and mercy.

The attitude towards children reveals the main character from the other side. The readers are not presented with the author of a harsh theory, according to which murder is allowed for the sake of a "high" goal, but a vulnerable, caring character who responds to help the disadvantaged. So, Raskolnikovspas a young girl out of shame. On one of the dark St. Petersburg streets, the hero saw that fat man "Hunted" for a defenseless child. He did not pass by, but called a police officer and sent her along with him. Raskolnikov worries about the fate of other people's children. After the death of Marmeladov, he first of all worries about the future of Polechka, Kolenka and Lidochka. Raskolnikov saw in what impoverished environment they survived. Pity for children, attempts to help them characterize the protagonist as a person with kind heart, with noble impulses of the soul.

Describing the plight of children, Dostoevsky touches on the topic of injustice, reveals the problem of the “humiliated and insulted”. Peter at that time was an unsuitable habitat for the younger generation. Children are forced to endure humiliation, beg for alms, survive in terrible conditions, instead of enjoying the carefree period of their lives. Dostoevsky Petersburg is a drinking house at every corner, constant robberies, dark and terrible nooks and crannies. A child's soul dies in a place like this.

Thus, the image of a child is extremely important in Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment. Children in the work open their eyes to acute social problems, make them think about the social order. Also, in relation to the relationship of the characters of the novel to the child, you can see their important spiritual qualities. Such as kindness, mercy, compassion, indifference to the fate of other people, willingness to come to the rescue in difficult times, sacrificing herself (Sonya for the sake of other people's children was forced to go “on the yellow ticket”).

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In the theory of Raskolnikov, which allowed him to commit murder, the main argument becomes the accusation of cruelty to society. The very people who verbally acknowledge the need to love their neighbor are indifferent to the real suffering of others. It is from this, and indeed a true observation in itself, that Raskolnikov draws the conclusion about the duality, hypocrisy of generally accepted morality, about the need for "blood according to conscience" to overcome evil. But, accusing the world of cruelty, Raskolnikov primarily speaks about children. In this painful, ardent love for children, the ability of the protagonist of the novel to sympathize with someone else's grief is revealed with special force.

Dostoevsky, of course, also follows the Christian understanding. Children in the Gospels symbolize the moral closeness of man to God, the purity of the soul, able to believe - and be ashamed. Raskolnikov is twofold in the novel: the natural, God-given, kindness of the hero is "darkened" by the pride and anger of an adult. Throughout the novel, the child in Raskolnikov fights against an adult, kindness - with cruelty and pride. The moral turning point that occurred in Raskolnikov's soul in the epilogue of Crime and Punishment means the final victory of kindness, the hero's return to himself - the child, the return to God. And here the author of the novel, having walked alongside his hero his long, painful and contradictory path, for the first time, finally, “meets” him “face to face”, as people of the same faith, of the same understanding of life meet ...

Raskolnikov indignantly thinks of those scientists who argue that a certain percentage of people should die, and consider this to be normal. For him, behind this reassuring word “percentage” is a living person, and Raskolnikov does not want and cannot put up with the death of at least one child. And here the author and his hero find themselves side by side, but only in this. Moral indignation dictates fundamentally different conclusions to them - this is clearly reflected in the novel.

In 1866, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment was published, which became a completely new phenomenon in Russian literature. Its main difference from the previous works was the rich polyphony of images. In the novel, there are about ninety characters: here are the policemen, and passers-by, and janitors, and organ-grinders, and burghers, and many others. All of them, down to the most insignificant, constitute that special background against which the action of the novel develops. Dostoevsky even introduces an unusual, at first glance, image of a big city (Dostoevsky's Petersburg!) With its gloomy streets, courtyards' wells, bridges, thereby reinforcing the already painfully tense atmosphere of hopelessness and depression that defines the mood of the novel. There is an even more unusual image of a child, which is invisibly present everywhere. These are the children ruined by Svidrigalov, and the image of Raskolnikov as a child, and the image of a girl who "got drunk and cheated ... for the first time ... do you understand?" Sonya Marmeladova is also a child, it is no coincidence that Raskolnikov often refers to her. Sonya herself calls Katerina Ivanovna a child, but here it is rather a comparison with the holy fools, all of whose behavior is childishness and spontaneity. Of course, the image of a child, like all other images in the novel, serves one purpose - a comprehensive and complete disclosure of the image of Rodion Raskolnikov.

We know little about Raskolnikov's childhood. We only know that he lived in a dusty city, as dusty as Petersburg, in which the action takes place, we know that he went to church and that he had a younger brother, whom he had never seen, but at whose grave he always cried. We also see a blurred image of the father holding Raskolnikov's hand tightly - the child. It is noteworthy that it is through the image of Raskolnikov's childhood, namely through the dream that he sees, falling asleep in a ditch before his crime, that Dostoevsky shows us the roots of that theory, which grew and became stronger with Raskolnikov.
Sometimes the picture is monstrous, but the setting and the whole process of the entire performance are so probable and with such subtle, unexpected, but artistically corresponding to the entirety of the picture, details that they cannot be invented in reality ... "We see how the" poor horse was beaten to death. ”, And how everyone looked at this terrible action, including Raskolnikov's father, and did nothing. Of course, an analogy is born in the mind of the reader, this unfortunate horse and the same unfortunate people who are beaten and beaten to death by life. We immediately remember Marmeladov, Katerina Ivanovna, Sonechka. We see what horror the child experiences, witnessing this picture of murder, and hardly anyone who has seen something like this will have the same soul as before. This dream further strengthens Raskolnikov in the idea that it is necessary to carry out his plans. But let's look at what Dostoevsky, the psychologist, is trying to tell us, repeating after Freud that the roots of all problems should be sought in childhood: “But the poor boy no longer remembers himself. With a cry he makes his way through the crowd to Savraska, grabs her dead, bloody muzzle and kisses her, kisses her in the eyes, on the lips ... Then he suddenly jumps up and in a frenzy rushes with his fists to Mikolka. At that moment, his father, who had been chasing him for a long time, grabs him at last and carries him out of the crowd. - Let's go to! let's go to! - he says to him, - let's go home! - Daddy! For which they ... the poor horse ... killed! - he sobs, but his breath catches, and the words are screaming out of his tight chest. "

Here it is - that sprout planted in the child's soul: if my good, then what I want, then I do! And how to become one who has this "good", how to become "entitled to"? We know the answers to these questions. Who knows, maybe Raskolnikov should have killed Alena Ivanovna in order to return to his child, to himself, and to understand that the pain that he saw in the eyes of the "horse", the same pain was reflected in the eyes of the victim, however , he simply did not see her. Returning, repenting and forgiving oneself in childhood, for not saving the poor animal at that time - this is one of the roles assigned by the author to the image of a child.

But there are also people in the novel who, having matured, remain children. They live in peace with their child inside (again we quote Freud, but we cannot do without this, for the views of Dostoevsky and Freud are so similar) and in a relative peace with themselves. This is, first of all, Sonya Marmeladova, who had no childhood as such. She was simply put out on the street, sacrificed, one child was sacrificed to three others, so that "Polechka would not follow the same path." And the faith of Sonechka Marmeladova is also somehow childish and naive, but all-consuming and light. She herself is a child and sees this childishness in others, for she does not want to notice the dirt and vices of adulthood. And they, thanks to the protection of this little child in her, did not touch her: “Of course, he understood that Sonya's position is an accidental phenomenon in society, although, unfortunately, it is far from solitary and not exclusive. But this very accident, this certain development and all her previous life, it seems, could have killed her at once at the first step on this disgusting road. What supported her? Not debauchery? All this shame, obviously, touched her only mechanically; real debauchery has not yet penetrated a single drop into her heart: he saw it; she stood before him in reality ...
Through them, Dostoevsky poses another question to Raskolnikov and his theories: "Do children fall under his definition of 'trembling creatures'?" We remember that he killed not only the old money-giver, but also Lizaveta, this large child, who at the time of her death was apparently pregnant. We also remember the girl whom he noticed on a park bench and even gave twenty kopecks to “save her,” but of course, they were not enough. Let us recall the children ruined by Svidrigailov, the children of Katerina Ivanovna, who, when they grow up, will surely repeat the path of their parents (again we hear Freud's voice), and finally recall Svidrigailov's dream before his suicide. This episode makes us think. We understand that many children, many innocent souls are doomed to follow the path of sin and depravity, for such is their fate, and if you kill even a thousand people, you still cannot save them, because the vice is inside, not outside. People who have lost their inner child, whether they are all the same children or adults, are doomed to suffering and death, terrible death, suicide. Throughout the novel, this idea arises in many characters. A child, or people who have preserved him in their souls, will never dare to do this, because this is a great sin, and Dostoevsky judges his heroes primarily from the standpoint of Christian morality. Yes, the child will not even think of committing suicide, he will simply continue to live, suffer and sometimes rejoice, as the eternal child Sonya Marmeladova does, because life is a gift, and they need to be disposed of according to conscience.

What is the bottom line? We see that although in the novel the image of the child is not expressed as vividly as others, still its echoes run through the entire narrative. And this is no coincidence. The child, like the gospel, is another way to oneself. Both Sonya and Raskolnikov found him, found him and Svidrigailov, who bought the blood of other children with his own blood.
The author also returned with them: “But here it begins new story, the history of the gradual renewal of man, the history of his gradual degeneration, the gradual transition from one world to another, acquaintance with a new, hitherto completely unknown reality. This could form the theme of a new story, but our present story is over. "

Children in the novel "Crime and Punishment"