To Each Her Own

Finding a human being who is completely content and satisfied with his or her life and suffers nothing nor desires any other happiness is about as rare as finding a snipe in the woods. People are constantly searching for some source of joy or are trying to escape from some sort of pain. Freud, in Civilizations and Its Discontents, ventures so far as to say, “Life, as we find it, is too hard for us; it brings us too many pains, disappointments and impossible tasks.” (23). While life may not seem this extremely unbearable to some, this is an accurate description of the lives of the characters in Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Many characters find life to be miserable or hopeless and each chooses their own method of coping with their problems. They fall into the coping mechanisms Freud describes; yet Freud seems to support some of his ideas more than others. Dostoyevsky is able to portray complex and eerily realistic characters that do fit into these categories. However, Freud oversimplifies his coping mechanisms and does not explore each to its full capacity. This creates a gap between what Freud suggests and what Dostoyevsky writes.

One of the most direct connections can be made from the analysis of Marmeladov. Marmeladov is a drunkard who confesses all his sorrows to Raskolnikov. He admits that his drinking has sent him and his family into destitution. As a result, he is unemployed, his oldest daughter works as a prostitute, his wife and children lack warm clothing, his wife has contracted consumption, he has witnessed the beating of his wife by another man, and his presence causes general misery in his home. He reveals all these details with “a certain distress” and “as if in desperation” (12, 13). Freud suggests that pain comes from three sources: one’s own body, the external world, and relations to other men (26).  In Marmeladov’s case, he is certainly discontented with all three. He is frustrated by the fact that he and his family are destitute because they cannot escape poverty placed on them by the social system. He is unhappy with his relations to his family. Finally, his own body is addicted to alcohol and he physically cannot escape his own weakness. It is evident that Marmeladov is an explicit example of someone Freud would describe as finding life too difficult.

Marmeladov fits well into one of Freud’s coping mechanisms. He clearly takes advantage of intoxicating substances. He even describes his rationale saying, “And the more I drink the more I feel it. That’s why I drink. Because when I drink, I look for compassion, I look for feeling . . . I drink because I want to suffer!” (13). However, this comment makes one of the simplest characters more complex. The addition of drinking in order to suffer adds another motive beyond just escaping the woes of life. Marmeladov is searching for a certain penance for his actions by way of drinking. Someone looking to avoid the pain of life, as Freud would reason, would not also desire to suffer. Marmeladov knows that his actions are hurting his family and he feels guilt. His conscience and sympathy for the pain of his family make Marmeladov a complicated character who does not fit neatly into Freud’s concept of intoxicating substances.

Marmeladov knows he is disgusting and even declares, “I am a swine . . . I am the shape of a beast” (12). This idea of being repulsive and dirty is cleverly contrasted with Marmeladov’s wife, Katherine Ivanovna. In the physical sense, Marmeladov is exactly the type of person that Katherine would want to avoid. Katherine is the daughter of a staff officer and although she is not from an extremely wealthy family, she is not the product of a slum either. Marmeladov says her fixation on cleanliness stems from her upbringing. Later her habits are specifically described as follows, “She preferred to drive herself at night beyond her strength, when everybody else was asleep, so she could manage to have the wet wash dried on the line by morning and have it clean, rather than see dirt in her home” (173). Katherine’s frustration comes from the fact that she lives with a man who is the embodiment of dirtiness. Freud explains that “Dirtiness of any kind seems to us incompatible with civilization” (46). Katherine yearns for the sophisticated society she remembers growing up in, but Marmeladov is preventing her from reaching that way of life.

Katherine copes with her life by engaging in a sort of powerful deflection as defined by Freud. She takes on the labor of keeping her children and their few linens clean. As she focuses all her energy toward this goal of cleanliness, she slowly begins to enter into a state of mania. Mania is a type of intoxication that occurs without any actual use of a substance (Freud 28). Katherine uses this coping mechanism so often that she eventually seems to be completely lost to reality. Her mania seems to escalate at her husband’s funeral feast. At this point in the novel “the slightest dissonance in life, the least little failure, would drive her immediately practically into a frenzy” (361). The guests provoke her in such a way that by the time the dinner is over, she gets herself thrown out of her building. Later when she is discovered on the streets, Lebeziatnikov confirms her mania saying, “But Katherine Ivanovna’s completely out of her mind. She’s definitely insane” (406).

The same phenomenon can be observed in Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Pulcheria Alexandrovna is not aware of her son’s true fate, and Dunia begins to think that “her mother had a sense of something awful in her son’s fate and feared to inquire because she might discover something even more awful . . . Pulcheria Alexandrovna was not in sound mind” (510). This fear of a more terrifying truth drives Pulcheria Alexandrovna to a mania less dramatic than Katherine’s yet still powerful enough to remove her from reality. Finally she is driven to such a state that she cannot properly control her emotions and eventually dies. Both Katherine and Pulcheria Alexandrovna completely lose touch with reality and never reconnect with it. Even though these women do not use a substance that chemically alters the mind, their mania is still too potent for them to overcome.

Raskolnikov seems to use mania to escape the woes of life as well. He withdraws himself from the world soon after he murders the pawnbroker and her sister. In one such moment of isolation he feels “as though he had cut himself off at that moment, with a scissors as it were, from everything and everyone” (110).  However, Raskolnikov does not exactly fit well into this form of coping. A better description of his coping mechanism is Freud’s idea of voluntary isolation. Freud further explains this method saying, “Against the dreaded external world one can only defend oneself by some kind of turning away from it, if one intends to solve the task by oneself” (27).  This better defines Raskolnikov’s behavior. Raskolnikov enters into a feverish and periodically unconscious state after the murder. When he passes from this and talks with Razumikhin and Zosimov, he immediately demonstrates voluntary isolation described as follows; “He had been waiting for them to leave, with a burning, convulsive impatience, so that he might get to work as soon as they were gone” (121). This mirrors Freud’s idea quite accurately because Raskolnikov closes himself off from others to straighten out his own thoughts.

Most of Freud’s methods seem rigid and inflexible. It is important to note that Freud does leave room for interpretation concerning the details of his ideas saying, “There is no golden rule which applies to everyone; every man must find out for himself in what particular fashion he can be saved” (34).  This allows Freud’s ideas to be shifted and shaped into personalized coping patterns for everyone. It is emphasized that each method of coping is unique and focuses on individuals escaping their own life. Following this thought, it can be furthered hypothesized that Raskolnikov did not use voluntary isolation alone, but rather in combination with other coping mechanisms.

Raskolnikov is constantly debating his actions and trying to discover his purpose, most specifically concerning the murder. He puts his actions in context of the article he wrote as a student. His article claims that there are two sorts of people: ordinary and extraordinary. Raskolnikov explains that “the ‘extraordinary’ man has the right . . . I don’t mean the official right; but he has the inner right to permit his conscience to transgress . . . certain obstacles, but only if the execution of his idea–which might involve the salvation of all mankind–demands it” (249). He is plagued by his own theory throughout the story because he believes himself to be extraordinary but is not quite sure if he truly is. Raskolnikov never admits to feeling guilty for actually murdering the pawnbroker, but in the end, “What he was really ashamed of was that he, Raskolnikov, had come to grief so blindly, hopelessly, deafly, and stupidly, by some decree of blind fate, and had to resign himself to such ‘meaninglessness’ and make the best of such a decree if he wanted any peace at all for himself” (515).  Raskolnikov makes use of voluntary isolation to try and sort this out, but even after determining the source of his shame “resigning to meaninglessness” does not give him peace.

The above information about Raskolnikov’s life would prove Freud’s theory about the general nature of men. He states that “men are not gentle creatures who want to be loved” (68). However, this statement refutes another coping mechanism that Raskolnikov uses. Raskolnikov is in fact searching for love to use as an escape from his hardships, and he finds it in Sonia. He chose Sonia to confess his darkest secret to and Raskolnikov is astounded that Sonia does not reject him after hearing his gruesome confession. He experiences a feeling that “surged into his soul and softened it at once” (392). He is baffled by this phenomenon. She is a fountain of love for him that he cannot live without.   Raskolnikov never quite masters this idea of unconditional love in the novel. According to Freud, this is because he is not “independent of Fate” (32). Fate tends to be used as an explanation for why certain events happen. It holds some secret explanation of one’s situation in life. It takes on a superstitious air for Raskolnikov, “And he was always inclined to see a certain strangeness, a mystery, in the whole affair; he assumed the working of special influences and coincidences” (61). Raskolnikov attributes many actions and events as signs or moments of fate (515). This almost seems to direct his decisions. It is as if he reasons that a presence of a sign indicates an impending event that cannot be avoided. After an event occurs, fate serves as a sort of scapegoat as well (64). Raskolnikov can blame his circumstances on fate even if it was his own decisions that led him to a situation. He cannot control something that belongs in the realm of fate. The idea of a preset fate attracts Raskolnikov.

An attachment to fate is not the only thing keeping Raskolnikov from using love effectively as a coping mechanism. He is also reluctant to love and be loved. Love is an alien feeling to him and he struggles to see how it can produce positive results. He questions the idea saying, “I’m not worth it­–why do they have to love me so? If only I were alone and nobody loved me and I never loved anybody! All this wouldn’t have happened!” (495).  He believes that love is connected to fate. Freud would reason that Raskolnikov also harbors a sort of fear of love. He says, “It is that we are never so defenceless against suffering as when we love, never so helplessly unhappy as when we have lost our loved object or its love” (33). Raskolnikov does not want to be defenseless, therefore he would have to take a chance to love and be loved. Freud does not really develop this idea or support it as much as other techniques. This may be because it is one of the riskiest methods of coping and many individuals are more apt to choose other paths. Freud distinguishes this as a technique used in a broader coping mechanism called the “art of living” (32).

Sonia uses love as a way to practice the art of living. Freud says that it is “the way of life which makes love the centre of everything” (32). She freely puts herself into prostitution in order to provide for her family. Although her heart is noble and selfless, she could find a less self-destructive method of providing for those she loves. She is ignorant of other solutions. She is poor and prostitution is the most accessible way to gain an immediate income. It can be argued that this is a sort of powerful deflection because it is a sort of labor that is distracting Sonia from the reality of life. However, this is not true because her purpose is not to escape, but rather to confront reality head on. She is able to focus on others rather than herself. This is defining difference between love as an art of living and every other coping mechanism. It may be the most difficult coping mechanism to grasp because it is not self-centered. Raskolnikov is certainly baffled by it.  Sonia’s actions cause him to recoil from her saying, “How strange you are, Sonia. Embracing me and kissing me after I’ve told you about that. You don’t know what you’re doing” (392). It is a very different method of coping that is foreign to nearly all of the characters in Crime and Punishment.

Sonia’s use of love as an art of living is coupled with her faith. Her religion professes forgiveness and she internalizes this. She first forgives her drunken father on his deathbed despite the fact that he was essentially the cause of her prostitution (179). Later, she offers Raskolnikov unconditional love and her own forgiveness for the murder, but she commands him to ask God’s forgiveness too. She even persuades him to use her own method of coping saying, “You must accept suffering and redeem yourself by it” (400). She is showing him that he cannot run from reality, but rather he should accept life as it is and carry on. Her ideas are faith based and she uses them to influence Raskolnikov. Freud would take issue with this. He says, “There is no golden rule which applies to everyone; every man must find out for himself in what particular fashion he can be saved” (34). Each religion in its own right is a sort of umbrella that puts everyone on the same path to coping with life.

According to Freud, coping mechanisms must be individualized for each person to escape their own unique reality. It is a very self-centered concept. Sonia’s focus on love and religion allow her to break from the self and move to others. It is radically different from the other techniques and mechanisms that Freud suggests. Not only does it focus on others rather than self, but it also confronts reality. The other various coping mechanisms that Freud theorizes all attempt to remove people from reality. A love-centered life almost intensifies reality. It suggests that people should be keenly aware of the evil present in the world and work to combat it and create change. Freud says that coping mechanisms “give priority to the positive aspect of the aim, that of gaining pleasure, or to its negative one, that of avoiding unpleasure” (34). Love as a technique in the art of living prioritizes neither. Instead it directly confronts unpleasure to work toward solidarity with others. Sonia embodies this by identifying the problem, and then giving each her own forgiveness and love in a way that works for universal good. Each character finds their own way of coping, however most try to escape their own reality while Sonia tries to make her life and the lives of those around her better.