Raskolnikov Duality

It is hard to place the title of antagonist on any one character in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, even the murderer himself. This is due to Dostoevsky expertly crafting the main character, Rodion Raskolnikov, as a character who constantly struggles with internal conflicts. The reader witnesses throughout the novel Raskolnikov going back and forth between what he truly believes in. His kind and charitable side clash violently with his cold and uncaring side. The clash is exemplified in both what he does and what other characters note about him, which causes not only the internal conflict within himself, but conflict in the world around him as well, setting a precedent for duality within the novel. This duality is maintained throughout several
Raskolnikov is a literary “split personality.” He has two diametrically opposed aspects to his character which struggle for primacy throughout the book. However, Dostoevsky does not focus on the medical psychological implications of the split, but rather how it brings about moral conflict within Raskolnikov. He is trapped in an endless struggle between his caring side and his destructive theory. This strife is often exemplified in his actions, for example when he gave the prostitute in the park "twenty kopecks" to hire a "coachman" (46) to take her home - to safety away from a man who wishes to take advantage of her. However, after a policeman gets involved, Raskolnikov gets frustrated with the situation and his viewpoint on the situation does completely changes. At that point, he dismisses the girl and tells the policeman to let the man "have his fun" (49). Raskolnikov’s swap in attitude displays how he switches back and forth between two points of view towards the world. The reader is not the only one to notice this constant alternating of viewpoints; characters within the book also remark on this constant shift of personality. Razumikhin once called Raskolnikov a "hypochondriac," saying it was as though he was "alternating between two characters" (194). Dostoevsky highlights Raskolnikov's internal conflict with these statements and actions,
Svidrigailov is the most essentially “evil” character within the book. Every action he takes is only to fulfill his desires – he is, by Raskolnikov’s definition, the closest to an “Ubermensch” that any character of the novel gets. He donates to his fiancé’s family and Sonya’s now orphaned family, however it seems that he does this out of personal felling of fulfillment rather than actually caring for their well-being. He places himself and his own well-being over all others, and his mind begins to suffer the consequences due to this mindset. This notion that Svidrigailov represents what is bad within Crime and Punishment is dither exemplified when Raskolnikov calls the man which was attempting to rape the prostitute in the park a “Svdrigailov” (45). This sets Svidrigailov up as an evil symbol within the novel, and once Dostoevsky begins to parallel Raskolnikov to Svidrigailov, that same traits found within Raskolnikov begin to be highlighted to an extreme in a way. An example of this is after Svidrigailov nearly commits the crime of raping Raskolnikov's sister, Dunya, he falls into a delirium that resembles Raskolnikov's maddened sickness. During this delirium, many descriptors that Dostoevsky utilized when describing scenes after Raskolnikov's crime comes up again. One of the most notable examples is the room that both Raskolnikov and Svidrigailov stayed