Leaving off from my last blog, Raskolnikov is still having a conversation with Svidrigailov. Svidrigailov finally talks a little about his wife, Marfa Petrovna, and continues on about his attraction to Dunya. He talks about this "verbal contract" they made which basically allows him to be unfaithful to her while they remain together. To ease Raskolnikov's concerns for Dunya, Svidrigailov tells him that he is engaged to a 15 year old girl. He then leaves and lures Dunya into his room by threatening her with his knowledge of Raskolnikov's secret. He basically tells her to marry him or have Raskolnikov punished. What goes down next solidly defines Svidrigailov and his true colors. He threatens to rape Dunya and ends up being grazed by two bullets to the temple. In the end, he lets her go realizing that she will never love him. I mean I could have told him that! As if the novel weren't already psycho itself, Svidrigailov ends up shooting himself on that rainy day. He tells the soldier to tell anyone who asks that he has gone to America. Before his suicide he gave away his rubles to Sonya and his fiance's family. Just like Raskolinokov, he too has feverish dreams.
After leaving his mom at dinner the other night, Raskolinokov decides to go see her. She is impressed by the publication of his article although she doesn't understand it. He then asks her if she loves him and tells her that he has to leave. Dunya, who is waiting for him at his apartment, has her last talk with him before they both go their separate ways. At this point everyone basically knows about Raskolnikov and his murders. Towards the end of the novel he is finally prepared to confess. He goes to Sonya to pick up his cross and heads to the police station. Raskolnikov kisses the ground at the Haymarket and gets nervous about making a public confession, but Sonya (who is following behind him at a distance) motivates him to continue on. Upon arrival at the police station, he runs into Ilya Petrovich who genuinely apologizes for having any suspicions against him. As always, he leaves without confessing but this time he turns back around when he sees Sonya outside and at last confesses.
The novel's plot was both interesting and entertaining to me overall. It got me predicting (the whole time) what may happen next. I also found myself asking "Why?" a lot as I continued my reading. The con of the plot is it's length. It was so descriptive that one scene would drag on for days. The pro out of this, however, was our ability to shape the characters. By realizing this, I discovered that Dostoevsky introduces and characterizes his characters through the events in the novel. I also find the novel hilarious because it took 5 parts to finally get Raskolnikov to confess to a crime he committed in part 1. Does it really take that much? In the end it just goes to show you that guilt will eat you up alive and the truth will set you free. He could have avoided all of the stress and worrying by just confessing in the first place since he was bound to do it anyways. If it weren't for Sonya, I highly doubt he would even confess to it since he was proven to be innocent from the crime he committed. I don't see how though. This also takes us back to how flawed some things may be; In this case, the justice system. I didn't like how the ending was so abrupt though. His confession and consequences were only briefly explained. The whole novel was just the process in which he went through just to confess.
Why so long?
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