Raskolnikov Guilt Analysis

Have you ever felt the drastic effects that consume the body after breaking the rules: stomach aching, heart racing, the sickening sensation of finding moral justice, the maddening conflict of every thought being countered by an equally intense view of wrongness? These inevitable side effects invade the mind and body as feelings of guilt begin to devour your moral conscience. Dostoyevsky expands on these effects in order to portray the true feeling of guilt in Raskolnikov’s character despite how some may say he believes he feels he has done no wrong. Through his thoughts, actions, and dialogue, Raskolnikov expresses his true beliefs of his crime and develops the theme of guilt and innocence. Dostoevsky illustrates Raskolnikov’s realization
“Here a strange thought came into his head: perhaps all his clothes were covered with blood, perhaps there were stains all over them, and he simply did not see, did not notice them, because his reason was failing, going to pieces...his mind darkening” (Dostoevsky, 91). In this scene, Raskolnikov is beginning to process the crime he just committed. The thought of blood covering his clothes represents the idea that he feels as though he is stained by the murder. He can feel his mind losing reason and darkening because he knows he was not smart in his actions. Dostoevsky includes these thoughts to represent guilt taking a rapid effect on his conscience. Raskolnikov is aware of his crime and Dostoyevsky uses this awareness early on to highlight the importance guilt and crime plays in the novel before Raskolnikov loses his mentality. “Crime will be understood only as the awareness by the subject himself of some moral norm which he has violated, quite apart from whether this violation has been recognized externally, morally, as a real crime. Without such a limitation [in the definition of crime] the correlation between guilt and crime, which plays such a crucial role in Dostoevsky, would be incomprehensible. Quite often, particularly in Dostoevsky's earlier works, the feeling of guilt becomes extremely and even tragically intense when only an extremely vague sense of a concrete crime lends support to this feeling,” (Bem). As experts agree, the sense that he committed a crime is what enhances his feeling of guilt. As explained, crime is not viewed as doing the wrong thing in Raskolnikov’s perspective; however, by going against society’s guidelines he will admit he is guilty of breaking the rules. By providing insight to Raskolnikov's thoughts and revealing his guilt, Dostoevsky is able to display his theme of guilt and