Week 5: Part 5 and photos of a snowy London
Marmaladov’s wife hosts a post-funeral banquet, and is hoping to use the event to show her neighbours that she even though she was widowed, poor, and had fallen down the social ladder, she was ‘no worse than they were’. As someone raised in a wealthy and prestigious family, she feels the need to show up those around her (who she perceives as below her station). But the banquet is not to go as she expects. She lashes out at her guests, insulting them and specifically targeting her landlady.
Luzhin shows up and accuses Marmaledov’s daughter Sonya of stealing money from him. Indeed, the money is found in Sonya’s pocket. But just as the attendants start turning on Sonya, Luzhin is revealed to have planted the money in Sonya’s pocket. Luzhin’s trickery revealed, his true colours are once again revealed. Sonya’s redemption came at the hands of Svidrigailov, at who’s house Raskolnikov’s sister was once a governess. Svidrigailov has been accused by Raskolnikov’s sister of impropriety and is seemingly attempting to redeem himself after his wife’s death.
The most compelling part of Part 5 is the conversation between Sonya and Raskolnikov in her flat after the banquet. In this conversation, Raskolnikov confesses his crimes to Sonya. He tries to explain his motivations in loose threads of largely unconnected thoughts. He tries to explain to her that he thought he was like Napoleon but the fact that his crime continues to haunt him has convinced him that this isnt so. Sonya, to her credit, doesn't let him get away with his poor excuses. He insists that he had the right to kill the pawnbroker because he was a ‘louse’. Further, he tries to deflect responsibility for the crime from himself to the ‘influence of the devil’, perhaps an appeal to Sonya’s religiosity. A conversation that begins with Sonya and Raskolnikov discussing the prospect of them spending their lives together, ends with Sonya telling him (horrified at what she is hearing and at the psychological effects his actions have had on him) that he will only find peace and redemption is through penance and suffering. He seems convinced that he must be punished. Oh, and Svidrigailov overhears Raskolnikov’s confession and tells him as much.
A recurring theme in Part 5 is characters revealing their true natures to those around them. Luzhin’s false facade of being respectable and honourable disappears. Marmaladov’s wife (who dies by the end of Part 5) reveals just how high of an opinion she has of herself, being driven mad by her situation and saying towards the end of her life that she doesn't need to see a priest becuase she has no sins. Raskolnikov confesses to Sonya and accidentally to Svidrigailov as well. He also admits to Sonya and to himself that he is spiteful, and acts irrationally (rejecting work when he needs money, help when he needs it, and the love of his friends and family) because of this spitefulness. He in fact even says that he hates his family and asks himself if he should hate Sonya.
Some photos of London covered in snow:
