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CLOAK
AND AXE:
Dostoevsky’s
Raskolnikov as a Byronic Hero
By Caitlin Malone
The
As the era of
Byronic heroes in Russian literature climaxed with Onegin
and Pechorin, and then began to decline in
popularity, the “new people” of the 1860s and the ensuing Realism became the
new Russian literary standard.
Relatively recent analysis, such as that offered by Daniel Hocutt, however, has challenged the traditional perception
that the Realist heroes were the antitheses of their Romantic counterparts.
While concurring with Hocutt on the premises of his
argument, I propose that this trend continues even further, into the heart of
Russian literary Realism, where it unexpectedly materializes in Rodion Raskolnikov, the
axe-murdering protagonist of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s 1866 novel Crime and Punishment.
Traditional
readings interpret Raskolnikov as a completely and
indisputably Realist character, but a departure from this tradition and into
Romanticism allows for a deeper understanding of Dostoevsky’s artistry and
intentions. Firstly, I will delineate the progression of the Russian Byronic
hero, as well as show how this progression leads directly to Raskolnikov’s distinct position as successor to the Byronic
archetype. Secondly, I will offer an explanation and evidence as to why
Dostoevsky, who as a Realist and a Slavophile was
fundamentally opposed to foreign literary and cultural influences in
The traditional
Byronic hero is distinguished by a number of physical, behavioral, mental and
spiritual traits, which can perhaps be most comprehensively summarized as
“solitary and superior, a hero and leader above the common herd.” He is
good-looking and willfully independent, and particularly characterized both by
self-confidence bordering on apotheosis and a unique moral code and sense of
alienation that result from his refusal to obey the rules of his society. The Russified Byronic hero, developed primarily by Alexander Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, Alexander Pushkin,
and Mikhail Lermontov, takes on characteristics
distinct from those of Byron’s protagonists. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky
creates Romantic protagonists who are truest to the original, although they are
highly imitative and melodramatic to the point of absurdity. Pushkin, with
Eugene Onegin, creates a hero who carefully crafts
his own isolation by rejecting romantic happiness, then dwelling on his
loneliness. Lermontov
distills the ennui, pride, and loneliness of characters penned by Bestuzhev-Marlinsky and Pushkin,
and arrives at quintessential Russified Byronic hero
in Pechorin, who selfishly rejects any concern for
his neighbor and indulges his fancy to often lethal effects. In Pechorin, the sense of superiority and the ensuing
isolation become reversed in their causality, as they combine to give Pechorin his justification for playing God and deciding who
will live and who will die.
This trend reaches
its Romantic climax in Lermontov’s other infamous
character, Demon, possibly the darkest, and by far most complex of the Russified Byronic heroes, who nevertheless remains
undeniably appealing (if disconcerting) to the reader. Daniel Hocutt
argues that Turgenev’s Bazarov
is the next development in the progression of the Russian Byronic hero, whose
isolation is exclusively self-imposed, whose cynicism morphs into nihilism, and
whose purpose is rather mundane compared to that of the original Byronic hero.
Byronic rebellious individualism was also not confined to the pages of popular
literature: political revolutionaries, especially the Decembrists, elevated
Byron to iconic status in their politics, which then interplayed heavily with
Russian literature.
As in the case with
the earlier Russian Byronic heroes, Rodion Raskolnikov’s isolation is not physical, but stems from his
mental isolation from, and feeling of superiority
over, the society in which he lives.
Since his status above his contemporaries cannot be reinforced by
physically distancing himself from them, Raskolnikov
cultivates a mental and spiritual isolation.
The crime that does differentiate him is an attempt to legitimize his
long-held pride:
He was very poor
and superciliously proud and reserved.
It seemed to some of his fellow students that he looked down on them all
as children, as if he had outdistanced them in knowledge, development, and
ideas, and that he considered their interests and convictions beneath him.
This superiority is
not only what spurs Raskolnikov to prove himself with
his crime, but is also what allows him to play God by deciding who is not
worthy of living. The individualism of
the Byronic hero exalts man as being his own God, thus taking the God of
religion out of the picture. Dividing
people into those worthy and unworthy of living allows Raskolnikov
to place himself at the pinnacle of Byronic arrogance, where man assumes the
prerogatives of the supreme deity.
Raskolnikov’s feeling of superiority also isolates him
from his peers, which in turn feeds his pride.
The Byronic mentality interplays heavily with his solitariness, which is
the critical consequence of his perception of his own unique abilities and
understandings of the world. Dostoevsky
develops this sense of isolation to an extreme, with Raskolnikov
saying at one point, “Whatever happens to me, whether I perish or not, I want to be alone.” This sense of isolation is heightened after Raskolnikov’s murders, when he is indeed separated from
everyone else by his crimes. Significantly, it manifests itself in “a new and
irresistible sensation of boundless, almost physical repulsion for everything
around him, an obstinate, hateful, malicious sensation” rather than in a
self-satisfied feeling of accomplishment.
This Byronic
creation is by no means an accident. Dostoevsky himself makes numerous
allusions both to Byron and to his prototypical hero. As an enthusiastic Slavophile,
Dostoevsky realizes the power that the Byronic hero had in Russian society, and
is disturbed by the extremes to which he saw the model taken. He alludes to the
Byronification of Russia in A Writer’s Diary:
[…] there was a
time when we would go so far as to idealize certain nasty types who appeared
among our literary characters and who were largely borrowed from foreign
literatures. It’s not enough that we
esteemed such people –
we slavishly tried to imitate them in real life and even bent
over backward to model ourselves on them.
This discomfort
with the popularity of the Byronic model provides some context for Dostoevsky’s
construction (and subsequent deconstruction) of a Byronic protagonist. Dostoevsky’s hostility toward the Byronic
hero is also religious in its origins, for as a devout Christian, Dostoevsky
sees the godlessness of the Byronic heroes as threatening and the characters
themselves as “evil, impatient, and quite openly concerned only with
themselves.” Crime and Punishment
itself also contains thinly-veiled references to Byron and Byronism. Romanticism in its original form had largely
fallen out of favor by the time Crime and
Punishment was written, a fact that Luzhin
welcomes: “[…] literature has been given
a tinge of maturity; many harmful prejudices have been rooted out and held up
to ridicule … In a word, we have irrevocably severed ourselves from the past,
and that, in my opinion, is an achievement, sir…” Raskolnikov’s own
Byronic attitude is also acknowledged by Porfiry Petrovich, who says that Raskolnikov
is “one of those who would allow themselves to be disemboweled, and stand and
face their torturers with a smile—if they had found a faith, or found
God.” When Porfiry
adds “find your faith, and you will live,” it shows Dostoevsky’s attempt to
redirect the power of the Byronic hero toward a religious end, thus turning the
model into one consistent with Christianity.
Raskolnikov’s Byronic independence, however, will not yield
to such platitudes, and Dostoevsky ultimately ends up completely deconstructing
his protagonist. The process is
methodical to the point of being scientific, beginning with Raskolnikov’s
feelings of being out of control during the murders and ending with his
realization that he is not the extraordinary man of his own theory.
Dostoevsky’s narrative method of showing the pathetic panic with which Raskolnikov struggles internally while projecting an
outward air of aloof control, casts doubt on the Byronic hero in all his
manifestations, implying that his suave power is merely a façade and that, in
truth, he is just as frightened and weak as anyone else is. To methodically expose the Byronic hero as a
fraud and a front is to destroy his mystique, and thus his power.
As a Christian and
a Slavophile, Dostoevsky saw the Byronic hero as dangerous in his godlessness
and cancerous in his popularity, a foreign model that infiltrated Russian
literature and culture and made destructive ennui fashionable. Crime and Punishment
provides a prescription for this ailment as Sonya, the most
noble character in the book, admonishes Raskolnikov
to “accept suffering and achieve atonement through it—that is what you must
do.” Dostoevsky’s criticism is aimed at
the Russified Byronic hero in particular, with its
emphasis on the most destructive qualities, which resulted in a much darker
hero than Byron had originally created. As a cultural phenomenon, Dostoevsky
finds the Byronic hero tremendously harmful to