Raskolnikov Madness

Crime and Punishment by author Dostoevsky is a fascinating study on how guilt and madness affects the mind. This is started by Raskolnikov’s isolation, as he began to remove himself from society and was only further solidified by his acts of murder as he seemed to cut all ties he possessed with humanity. The story starts out with this disillusionment Raskolnikov has of himself, despite being dirt poor and needing to ask for money from his family and not being able to pay rent, he still dresses as if he is this grand person, even when his clothes are rags. Dostoevsky writes, “It was a tall round hat from Zimmerman's, but completely worn out, rusty with age, all torn and bespattered, brimless and bent on one side in a most unseemly fashion” (3). This
His mind darking both symbolizes him losing consciousness and also his sense of self as his mind goes into a darker and darker place. His madness will come to a peak in the creation of his split personalities, going as far as to almost become two different people as Razumikhin notes for Raskolnikov’s mother and sister. Razumikhin says, “At times, however, he’s not hypochondriac at all, but just inhumanly cold and callous, as if there really were two opposite characters in him, changing places with each other” (Dostoevsky 215). This split within him is caused caused by the guilt that follows him throughout the novel until be does finally confess that he killed Alyona Ivanovna and her sister. Dostoevsky is able to capture Raskolnikov’s already weaken mental state in the beginning of the book due to his isolation and show the continuation of that as a downward spiral with Raskolnikov physically being ill and paronied as a manifestation of his guilt and eventually leading to his personality splitting and creating what seemed to be two people within Raskolnikov’s