Crime and Punishment Papaer

Quddus Akinlusi

Mr. Johnson

Period 5

January 21 2012

Crime and Punishment paper

One of the main focuses of many stories like Crime and Punishment is to give general specifics of the story so the reader is able to understand the flow of the story. Some of these specifics could be themes, relationships between characters, or detailed settings that relates to an important issue of the story. In the case of Dostoevsky's Crime and punishment, some aspects, mainly characters, are given more emphasis than others. Reason why may be because of their importance to the theme of the story. However, what happens if one of these aspects, such as a major character, were to be removed from the story. What would the story lose, how large of an impact would it have on the flow of the story, what would be the importance of the character and why wouldn't the story taste as well as it did before, not literally? These inquiries are ones that the reader must ask if Arkady Svidrigailov were to be withdrawn from the story. Now, although, Svidrigailov is a minor character -until much of part 3- his late incorporation into the story, especially during the Raskolnikov's breaking phase, and his oppositely different traits provides several details to the reader that indicates he, Svidrigailov, is the exact character foil to Raskolnikov. This in turn helps us realize who the real antagonist of the story is and gives us a better understanding as to the way he factors into the story dramatically changes characters which he comes in contact with and alters the outcome of the story.

First, how important is an antagonist in a novel, film, or play, and why are authors and directors so concerned about which antagonist they pick? As screenplay writer Rick Reichman explains, the role of the antagonist in the story is to initiate some change in the protagonist and to also prevent the protagonist from achieving a goal. He states,

Choosing your antagonist is not always easy. In literature, we are used to having our antagonists as the bad guy or gal trying to prevent the protagonist from achieving his or her goal. Film is different. In Million Dollar Baby, which won an Oscar for best picture, the person pushing Frankie to change in so many ways is the woman fighter he reluctantly trains, Maggie Fitzgerald.

Now, although Reichman uses a movie as an example to show how important the antagonist is, the same principles apply. I say this because a book is just like a movie, if there are some lacking qualities, then the book/movie will go flat. The only difference are that books require more thinking and the imagination is left to the reader, while movies show you what's actually going on so you don't have to bother about imagining or deciphering what a section is referring to. Any way even though he may not completely agree by saying Film is different , he fails to acknowledge that not all books, or film, base their antagonist within a separate character. Some books, such as Cather and the Rye by J.D Salinger, have the main character play the role of the antagonist. In the case of crime and punishment, Raskolnikov is a divided man who contains 2 sides to his thinking. While one side is thoughtful and positive, the other is self-consumed and thoughtless. Analogously, you could say his bad side represents Svidrigailov (which we will cover later on). Another way to reexamine Reichman's principle is through his diagram of the relationship between the protagonist and the antagonist, he claims

The best way to describe the protagonist's journey is to use a simple diagram. Say the protagonist (P) is on a bicycle at the nadir, beginning to peddle toward his or her initial goad (X). It would look like this:

Let your protagonist reach that goal without sufficient effort and opposition and you have a weak drama. But there is another character who inhabits your pages to assure that the protagonist's journey proves challenging: the antagonist.

Returning to our diagram, imagine the antagonist (A) on a slightly more powerful two-wheel vehicle--perhaps something with a small engine. The reason is that at the start of the film, the antagonist is always the stronger character. Maybe he or she is more knowledgeable, faster, stronger, richer, etc. But the antagonist definitely has it all over the protagonist for at least the first 30 pages of your script.

Reichman's two wheeled system is what we see going on between Svidrigailov and Raskolnikov throughout the book, especially during parts III and IV. In crime and Punishment, there are several candidates for possible antagonist. Characters such as Luzhin, polfry, and Alyona, but the relationship between Svidrigailov and Raskolnikov are where we witness the biggest changes in Raskolnikov. Unlike other characters Svidrigailov is constantly involved in Raskolnikov's affairs. He wants to discover some evidence that he may use to get what he wants from him. For instance, when Raskolnikov reveals to Sonya that he committed the crime, the only other character listening to his conversation was Svidrigailov (Dostoevsky 287). Now as Reichman describes, there has to be a goal that the protagonist, Raskolnikov, must overcome, while the antagonist must keep preventing him from achieving this. We see this clearly between Raskolnikov and Svidrigailov. To generally elaborate, Svidrigailov continuously taunts Raskonliv. After discovering his secret, he decides to play with it. He would purposely bring up the fact that he knows his secret as a strategy to keep Raskolnikov on his feet. For example,

Ah! You skeptical person I told you I had no need for that money. Won't you admit that it's dimply done from humanity? She wasn't a louse', you know", "was she, like some old pawn broker woman" (375).

The style of torment Svidrigailov uses here is mockery. He says the exact same words that Raskolnikov told Sonya when Raskolnikov confessed. Raskolnikov, being anxious, is within the bounds of Svidrigailov. Svidrigailov, could have turn him in if he wished, however, it's this sinister characteristics of his that places him as the antagonist. Also, this sense of power over the protagonist, this upper knowledge that Reichman details in his Protagonist-Antagonist wheel is what we see happening during the 4th and 5th parts of the story.

Now remember Reichman's Rule, it plays especially into this type of novel. Without this constant struggle between Raskolnikov (pro) and Svidrigailov (anti) the story loses one of its main conflicts, which, as Reichman points outs, causes the novel to lose its substance, to lose its intense duel between the 2 main characters

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