that he is trying to, I quote: “give her a moment of pleasure” In a strange psychological sense we can see that the mother is essentially narcissistic and relies on raskolnikov’s potential success for her own happiness, Pulkheria falls into long spells, I quote: “of dismal brooding silence and speechless tears,” and whereby she to talks of her son, of her hopes, of the future. Their sacrifices make him feel like more of a failure and put him under even greater pressure to fulfill their lofty dreams, this entire rage towards his family manifests primarily in the letter which his mother sends to him, his reaction of the letter gives him a “a bitter angry smile” because it puts him in an unbearable position of financial despair and their desired dream of him becoming: “rich, respected, honoured” and that he “may even die famous” by his mother’s wishes. We come to learn that the mother in this story in the mind and from the perspective of raskolnikov is essentially a narcissist, she is an all consuming of character whereby raskolnikov for them is supposed to be their source of protection and glory, but instead they are making terrible sacrifices for him and he is impotent to them.

interest and desire becomes latent when financial problems start to occur, thus, his mother and sister continue on in the process of sacrifice, his sister out of complete passion for her brother takes upon an engagement for supposed marriage with a sadistic man called Luzhin which will help give raskolnikov further financial support. Raskolnikov is very much a split character in the dostoyevsky crime and punishment, hense for the name raskolnikov which means “schismatic” he is a poor and failing law student in petersburg who is in dire straits on the financial front, he relies on his mother and sister to send him money to allow the continuation of his studies and essentially his survival, his mother comes across as caring in the sense that she desires for him to become something mighty, a great man through his intellectual pursuits. To really understand Raskolnikov and his mental psychology in crime and punishment we have to look at his relationship most specifically with his mother, with his past and see why there remains the primary motive for Raskolnikov’s actions of murder, just like psychoanalytic’s In this brief yet comprehensive analysis I will attempt in this video to use Freudian terms to help bridge the gap between literature and psychology.

Raskolnikov dostoevsky