The originality of F. M. Dostoevsky’s skill as a psychologist (On the example of the novel “Crime and Punishment”). The beginning of literary activity. Raskolnikov's doubles: Luzhin and Svidrigailov


1. Evolution psychological portrait.
2. Dostoevsky as an innovator.
3. “The depth of the human soul” in “Crime and Punishment.”
4. Basic techniques for creating a psychological portrait.

After M. Yu. Lomonosov, when creating “A Hero of Our Time,” first used the technique of a psychological portrait of a hero, a gradual evolution of the depiction of a person’s psychological state began in Russian literature. F. M. Dostoevsky, like no one else, managed to change and supplement this process with new methods and types.

For this author psychological world the character becomes the leader for the entire work. It is shown during a period of maximum tension, when all the hero’s senses are heightened to the limit. Most often, such tension is associated with non-standard life situations, which allow the reader to reveal the hero’s inner world. In Dostoevsky’s work there is not a single author’s phrase or remark that does not directly or indirectly indicate the thoughts and feelings of the person depicted. The inner world of any person for him represents a constant confrontation between good and evil principles. This is not so much the evolution of the hero from one state to another, but rather a visual depiction of his fluctuations from dark to light and vice versa.

The main character of the Writer’s novel “Crime and Punishment” is precisely in this state of emotional tension. He is torn between denying his dream and pursuing it. Here the author demonstrates not just a transition from one state to another, but highest points transition, two extremes of human impulse. In this transition lies the state of suffering that constantly weighs on the heroes: “So he tormented himself, teasing himself with these questions with some kind of pleasure. The former painfully terrible peculiar sensation began to be remembered more vividly and vividly and became more and more pleasant.”

Dostoevsky was one of the first who managed to depict on the pages of his works the bottomless depth of the human soul, the inability of man himself to fully comprehend and understand the secrets of his own heart. Often the author depicts not the actual, but the possible or desired state of the hero. This makes the description shaky and shows complexity inner world, which is almost impossible to accurately convey in words and terms. The author repeatedly repeats that there are such hidden layers in the human soul that cannot be verbal description. A complete, clear and dry analysis is uncharacteristic of Dostoevsky. On the contrary, he always leaves the reader the opportunity to independently think out or imagine points left unsaid by the author himself.

Classic psychological analysis includes a description of an interior or landscape that is memorable or important to the hero. Usually they are filled with certain objects - keys, symbolizing certain feelings and sensations. The seasons also help to understand the hero more precisely, so Dostoevsky depicts a hot and stuffy summer not by chance. The heat and stuffiness literally kill Raskolnikov. In addition, the author depicts that part of St. Petersburg, whose residents do not have the opportunity or money to get out anywhere, and who have to breathe stale, stinking air. Investigator Porfiry Petrovich, in a conversation with Raskolnikov, throws out the following phrase: “It’s time for you to change the air.” It is the stuffiness and rotten atmosphere of the city that pushes the hero to crime. At the same time, the writer depicts external details that could influence Raskolnikov’s behavior. This is the city, and the street, and the closet in which he lives and which “sucks the life out of a person.” The hero of the novel goes out most often in the evening, so descriptions of sunsets are of great importance to understand his character. What is symbolic is that the spring, bright and shining sun shines only in the epilogue of the novel, when the reader already understands what changes await the hero. In other cases, the sunset picture is described from a majestic but gloomy point of view.

Color painting in a novel is important. It is no coincidence that Dostoevsky chooses a dirty yellow, “purulent” color to describe Raskolnikov’s St. Petersburg. The walls of the houses are yellow, the wallpaper in Raskolnikov’s own apartment, the old pawnbrokers and the furniture in Porfiry Petrovich’s house. Sonya Marmeladova lives and works on a “yellow ticket”. This shade of yellow symbolizes dirt, power, and human suffering. Shade creates special atmosphere the actions of the hero and his inner life, painful and tense.

The meaning of another color is also important - green. It symbolizes the purity and renewal of both nature (green leaves and grass free from dust and pus of the city) and the hero himself. It is no coincidence that during the crime, Raskolnikov’s ideas, free from bad thoughts, are colored emerald green; green is also found in the epilogue - this is the color of Sonya Marmeladova’s scarf, in which she comes to hard labor. Blue and brown are also symbolic in the main context of the novel. The first is the color of God and heaven, the color of Sonya’s eyes and good aspirations and thoughts. The second is a symbol of tragedy and breakdown. Thus, Dostoevsky’s water is constantly colored crimson and brown, as if it were clouded with blood.

Dostoevsky’s special merit to the reader is the creation of a special world. Where the boundaries of the real and the unreal, the internal and the external are destroyed, the boundaries are unclear, and the picture of the world itself becomes unsteady and blurred. Reality takes on a special shade of delusional images, visible as if through a thin flickering haze.

Thus, the thoughts of the main character and the events that actually occur are depicted by the author using the same techniques. The reader is completely immersed in Raskolnikov's delusions and nightmares that have become reality.

A special category of the hero’s consciousness in the work is dreams. In them, the dreamer’s emotions and experiences become more realistic, brighter, and clearer. Thus, the writer manages to achieve a feeling of increasing anxiety and horror, which becomes even more obvious during the release of the character’s subconscious. The eyes, as a mirror of the human soul, play their role here. Each character's eye description is individualized. The description of the gaze is characteristic only of the main characters and is as important for understanding the main idea of ​​​​the work as dreams. So, Sonya has blue eyes, Raskolnikov has stunning, beautiful dark eyes, Dunya has “sparkling and proud” eyes. In the beauty of the look lies the opportunity for the hero to resurrect, to cleanse himself and become himself. Great importance as psychological characteristics have monologues and dialogues. For the first time in Russian literature, the hero himself tells his interlocutor and the reader about his emotional experiences. The characters’ speech becomes extremely expressive, and the author’s remarks during the conversation make it possible to more accurately convey the character of the interlocutor. The rhythm and structure of the conversation, and the thoughts that come to mind during it, are important. Thus, the author highlights double thoughts with brackets; pauses and italics are also used to convey the intonations and movements of the characters’ voices.

Thanks to such techniques, Dostoevsky made a revolution within Russian literature and became the creator, in fact, of a new genre of psychological and philosophical novel.


F.M. Dostoevsky is rightfully considered a master of psychological analysis. The great Russian author demonstrates this talent especially clearly in his novel “Crime and Punishment.”

An attentive reader will notice that special attention is paid to the psychological state of the novel's heroes. By drawing the inner worlds of the characters in the work, Dostoevsky thereby reveals the contradictory essence of the human personality.

His methods of psychological analysis provided good ground for the future development of psychologism in Russian and foreign literature. Dostoevsky believed that man is a mystery. In his novel, he tries to show the reader all the contrast human soul, its extremes and the uncertainty of its impulses, thereby revealing the deepest secrets of human psychology.

A special technique of psychological analysis in the novel is the description of the atmosphere that surrounds the characters. It is no coincidence that Dostoevsky, when talking about the landscape, often repeats the words “heat” and “stuffiness”. It is the stuffiness, the constant “stuffiness of life” that pushes Raskolnikov to commit a crime.

A woman who rushed into the Neva, a rich chaise, under whose wheels Raskolnikov almost fell... Dostoevsky mentions all this not by chance. He shows the reader a true picture of that life - a picture of hopeless grief. A person does not find a place for himself in that environment. Raskolnikov, in turn, exists in the conditions of exactly that picture. It is not difficult to guess that this also plays an important role in the formation of his psychological state.

One of the methods of the author's psychological analysis is portrait characteristic heroes. Dostoevsky deliberately gives several descriptions of the appearance of the same Raskolnikov or Sonya. At the beginning of the novel, we learn that Rodion Romanovich “was remarkably good-looking, with beautiful eyes, dark brown hair, above average height, thin and slender.” But after a few chapters we will read completely different lines about the same person: “...Raskolnikov... was very pale, absent-minded and gloomy.” The second description is given absolutely not by chance, because by this moment Raskolnikov had already committed his bloody crime. The author wants to show that the mental torment occurring in the hero’s soul leaves an indelible imprint on his appearance. This indicates the internal struggle that occurs in Raskolnikov’s soul.

In the color painting of the novel one can also discern one of the methods of analysis. Very often the work mentions yellow. As you know, yellow is the color of madness and strong power. It’s not for nothing that the wallpaper in Raskolnikov’s closet is painted yellow. Perhaps with this Dostoevsky wanted to emphasize the emerging “delusions of grandeur” of Raskolnikov, who considered himself to be a “Napoleon”.

But most important technique are, perhaps, the monologues of the heroes themselves. As they read, all the thoughts, experiences and feelings reigning in the souls of the heroes are revealed to the reader. Dostoevsky reveals the contradictory essence of man precisely through the internal monologues of the main characters. For example, Raskolnikov’s constant reflection testifies to the struggle between his nature and his theory. After all, despite his perfect calculation of the crime, he was never able to fully accept his act, and the reason for this is his human nature. Raskolnikov’s monologues seem to contain “internal dialogues” between the two principles of his personality. This is especially noticeable in Raskolnikov’s thoughts about whether it is worth committing a crime or not. The protagonist's personality is split into two. One side is trying to warn him against making a bloody mistake, and the other, on the contrary, is pushing him to commit bloodshed.

Dialogues between characters are also a central device author's analysis. The dialogues of Crime and Punishment present a battle of different ideas and positions. Dialogues between the characters characterize their state of mind, and also help to study their characters more deeply, and, therefore, better understand the motives of their actions. In addition to traditional forms of dialogue, the novel also features a form of “interrogation.” Now I’m talking about the “duel” between Raskolnikov and Porfiry. At first glance, these are ordinary dialogues, but in fact, they are shining example amazing psychological analysis. Porfiry allegedly reads all the secrets of Raskolnikov, although he does not say a word to him directly about committed crime. Together with Porfiry, Dostoevsky conducts this psychological analysis. Here the author pays special attention to the hero’s facial expressions, his movements, and gestures. The investigator skillfully penetrates into the innermost corners of Raskolnikov's soul.

Another form of expression of the hero’s psychological state is his dreams. Dostoevsky gives Raskolnikov's dreams symbolic meaning, thereby most fully revealing his psychological state. For example, Dostoevsky introduced a dream about Ilya Petrovich into the novel to show the horror and inconsistency of Raskolnikov’s theory. The staircase in this dream symbolizes the confrontation between good and evil. A dream about a laughing old woman means that on a subconscious level, Raskolnikov understands the senselessness of murder, but is not yet ready to repent. The last dream about trichinas marks the beginning spiritual rebirth Rodion Romanovich. As we see, dreams are a direct reflection of the psychology of the main character.

Psychological techniques of the author's analysis in the novel “Crime and Punishment” help the reader to more fully understand main idea works. To summarize, we can say that it is the psychologism of Dostoevsky’s works, his ability to penetrate the human soul, his holistic understanding of human psychology, as well as his talent to immerse the reader in the inner worlds of the characters he created, that continue to attract attention to the work of the great Russian writer.

Features of the psychological analysis of the novel
"Crime and Punishment"

Dostoevsky contrasted himself with his contemporaries in two respects: as a realist in the highest sense of the word, who is not limited to the social and everyday characteristics of the character, but reveals the depths of the human soul, and also as an artist who turned not to stable forms of life, but to the “current chaos of history.”

In the novel “Crime and Punishment,” the writer turned to the image of post-reform Russia, when everything was changing, the former social relations collapsed, and new ones were in the process of formation, the peasantry and its patriarchal foundations were ruined.
It is impossible, for example, to compare the reality of Dostoevsky with the reality of Gogol. That is why so many “formers” appeared in Dostoevsky’s novel: _ former student Raskolnikov, former official Marmeladov.

Objectively, Dostoevsky depicted in his novel the transitional types of the transitional era of Russian life. The writer did not seek to recreate certain social types corresponding to his era.

The realistic principle of depicting reality was not the main one for Dostoevsky. For his predecessors, life, environment, social environment - everything explained the character of a person. Dostoevsky rejects everyday life and social status a person as the basis of his character. As a rule, the life of the writer’s heroes belongs to their past, and psychology characterizes them in the present and even in the future. If for his predecessors the main thing was the creation of social types, then for Dostoevsky the opposition was of interest social type an individual person as an object of artistic research.

The main task of the writer is to reveal the inner world of a person. By the way, Dostoevsky himself did not like the term “psychologism.” “Psychologism,” in his opinion, is a scientific word that presupposes a rational analysis of human consciousness; the writer believed that one consciousness cannot analyze another consciousness. It is with this position of the author that the Features of the psychological analysis of the novel "Crime and Punishment" .

Dostoevsky strives to show the independence of the heroes’ consciousness from the author’s consciousness. The consciousness of each hero exists independently of the consciousness of others. Such Features of psychological analysis M. M. Bakhtin called “polyphony”; Dostoevsky, first of all, strives to give the voice to the hero himself. Hence, the monologues of the characters are of great importance in the novel. A special role is assigned to the confessional monologue, that is, the confession of one hero to another.

According to Dostoevsky, one consciousness must be refracted into another consciousness.

Consciousness a separate hero is revealed in his relationship and interaction with the consciousness of another hero.

Here we can already see another property of the analysis of the hero’s state of mind - dialogicality. Great importance There are also dialogues between the characters.

The dialogue between student Raskolnikov and an officer in a tavern is typical here. Talking with the officer, the student subconsciously understands that he can commit a crime, saving thousands of lives “from rot and decay.”

There is another one in the novel Features of psychological analysis hero: internal monologue and internal dialogue hero. Heroes often think to themselves. Here special role They play, of course, the reflections of the student Raskolnikov, for example, before the murder of the old woman.

Raskolnikov is trying to convince himself that this is not a crime. He reflects on why almost all criminals are so easily found.

The hero’s internal dialogue is already a unique form of psychological analysis, since there is a split in a person, two live in him. For example, Raskolnikov is tormented by terrible nightmares and haunted by hallucinations.

A special role is played by the looks, facial expressions, and gestures of the characters, because they convey the feelings of the characters, their inner states of mind. After all, it is important for Dostoevsky to show the subconscious in his heroes, and therefore the dreams and nightmares that haunt Raskolnikov after committing a crime play an exceptional role.

Thus, such artistic techniques, as double portraiture, internal monologue, description of dreams and hallucinations, character dialogues, help the writer to more fully reveal the inner world of his characters and understand the motives of their actions.

“Dostoevsky is an artist... of the human abyss, of human bottomlessness” (N. A. Berdyaev).

Mastery of psychological analysis in the novel “Crime and Punishment.”

One of the writer’s tasks and his artistic achievement was the depiction of the inner life of the characters and psychological analysis. The writer shows the deep foundations of the hero's soul. His consciousness is aimed at preparing an “ideological” murder, but initially kind soul involuntarily and unconsciously he manifests himself either by helping the Marmeladovs or by caring for a random girl in trouble. On this side, Raskolnikov is not ready for a crime and only by force of will forces himself to go further along his chosen path.

Recreating the internal monologue, recording the details of Raskolnikov’s behavior and state at the time of the murder, the writer conveys the entire horror of what is happening, without specifically focusing attention on it anywhere. Reflection - analysis of one’s own feelings, moods, reactions to life phenomena, remarks and behavior of other characters reveals all corners of the hero’s sick soul, rushing about in search of a way out.

The writer deliberately constructs the plot in such a way that Raskolnikov has every opportunity to avoid legal punishment. There are no witnesses or direct evidence. And the main thing for a writer-psychologist is the depiction of the hero’s inner life after the crime. Dostoevsky himself, pondering the novel, wrote about this: “Unsolvable questions arise before the murderer, unsuspected and unexpected feelings torment his heart. God's truth and earthly law take their toll, and he ends up being forced to denounce himself. Forced to die in hard labor, but to join the people again; the feeling of isolation and disconnection from humanity, which he felt immediately after committing the crime, tormented him. The law of truth and human nature took their toll."

A big role in revealing Raskolnikov’s psychological state is played by scenes with investigator Porfiry Petrovich, smart, professional, subtly understanding the criminal’s state of mind, but ruthless, playing with Raskolnikov like a cat with a mouse.

Raskolnikov's painful condition paints many pages of the work in gloomy tones. It is important for the writer to convey the full depth of torment to which a proud mind condemns itself when it refuses the prompts and unaccountable attraction of the heart. But only by heart and soul having accepted Christian moral values By sincerely and deeply repenting, it is possible to take the path of recovery and return to people. After all, even in hard labor, Raskolnikov persists for a long time, considering his theories to be completely correct, although he himself did not turn out to be a superman. And only suffering, penetration into hidden meaning The Gospels and Sonya’s selfless help return the hero to truly human life.

Since the creation of the novel “A Hero of Our Time” by M. Yu. Lermontov, the “evolution of the depiction of the psychological state of the heroes” has been clearly visible in the works of Russian authors. Main feature Dostoevsky's creativity is an innovation in the study of the inner world of man.

The psychological state of the hero becomes the universal element of the novel, and in all of Dostoevsky’s works the inner world of the character is shown during periods of maximum tension, when the state and feelings are extremely heightened. It is this situation that allows the author to penetrate the deep layers of the human psyche and expose the inner essence and complexity contradictory nature person. In Dostoevsky’s structure of all his works there is not one literary device, phrases or details that would not serve direct or indirect reproduction emotional state heroes. The author depicts the inner world of a person as a contradictory unity of good and evil principles in his soul. Dostoevsky shows not so much evolution spiritual qualities the hero, how much he fluctuates from one extreme to the other.

The main character of the novel “Crime and Punishment” is in exactly this state, he rushes from denial of his dream to a firm intention to realize it. Dostoevsky not only shows the existing struggle in the hero’s soul, but also focuses on the state of a person’s transition from one extreme to another. And in this painful transition, in the suffering for his heroes, there is a kind of pleasure. Dostoevsky reflects psychological paradoxes in the state of mind of the heroes (“So he tormented himself, teasing with these questions with some kind of pleasure. The former painfully terrible peculiar feeling began to be remembered more vividly and more vividly and became more and more pleasant.”).

Dostoevsky was one of the first prose writers to show the inexhaustibility and unknowability to the end of the depths of the human soul. Sometimes the author depicts the psychological state of the hero not as reliable, real, but as possible and approximate. This makes the description unsteady. Dostoevsky shows by this that internal state the hero is much more complex than can be conveyed in precise words, that all shades of feelings can be depicted only with a certain degree of approximation, that there are layers in the human soul that cannot be described.

Psychological analysis, as a rule, is accompanied by a description of the atmosphere, which is accompanied by specially selected details indicating feelings and sensations. The choice of the season in the novel by Dostoevsky is also not accidental; it creates a certain situation. Summer, heat and stuffiness kill Raskolnikov - Dostoevsky shows that part of St. Petersburg whose residents do not have the opportunity or means to go anywhere, so in the summer there are so many people there that there is not enough air. Porfiry Petrovich, the investigator, says to Raskolnikov: “It’s time for you to change the air a long time ago.” This stuffy city pushes Raskolnikov to commit a crime. Dostoevsky uses a description of the details of the external, objective world, which, according to his plan, influence the soul of the hero. This is Raskolnikov’s closet, and Petersburg as a whole, a city that “sucks the life out of a person.”

There are a lot of descriptions of sunsets in the novel; Raskolnikov most often goes out into the street in the evening, and the description of the atmosphere at that time is very symbolic. Dostoevsky includes a picture of a sunset in the narrative to enhance the impact on readers; the shining, spring, daytime sun will appear only in the epilogue. There, in the vast steppe flooded with light, Raskolnikov will get rid of his theory. Rising Sun- a symbol of the hero's rebirth.

Color painting is very important in the novel. The colors most often used by the author are: yellow, brown, blue, black. “Yellow Petersburg,” speaks of the city in which the main action takes place. Yellow is the color of madness and power; the houses, the wallpaper in Raskolnikov’s closet and the apartment of the old pawnbroker, and the furniture in Porfiry Petrovich’s apartment are painted in it. Sonya lives on a “yellow ticket”. This color creates the background of the city and becomes part of the inner world of the main character. In addition, the green color is very important in the novel, it is no coincidence that Raskolnikov’s dream about a beaten horse, symbolizing that the essence of the hero is to protect and not kill, Rodion Romanovich sees this dream outside the city, in a grove, against the backdrop of fresh greenery, where there is no suffocating , oppressive atmosphere of city life. When Raskolnikov goes to commit a crime, his thoughts, beyond the control of the hero, are connected with green. He also appears in the epilogue of the novel. Sonya Marmeladova has a green scarf.

Blue color is a symbol of purity and aspiration towards God (Sonya has blue eyes). Green and blue colors fully reflect the essence of Sonya's character.

Water in the novel is always depicted as dark and brown and symbolizes tragedy.

Smells and sounds affect a person’s state and create a certain atmosphere (smell from the basement, sounds are very sharp).

Dostoevsky creates a feeling of the illusory nature of life by disrupting the usual relationships between the external and the internal. Reality becomes, as it were, a product of consciousness, unsteady, immersed in some kind of fog, just like Raskolnikov’s delusional visions and real pictures depicted in the novel equally reliably using the same techniques. Dostoevsky often does not focus on the fact that what is being described is a game of an inflamed consciousness; the reader is, as it were, transported into a state of nightmare and delirium of the hero.

One form of depicting a psychological state is dreams. The experiences in them are preserved and even intensified, since in the subconscious state the horror that the hero carries in his soul is more freely manifested. Dreams serve as the basis for the entire work.

Dialogues and monologues in the novel carry a huge semantic load. For the first time in literature, Dostoevsky introduces a technique: the heroes themselves talk about their psychological state. The speech of the characters is extremely expressive, and the nature of the speech is indicated by the author's remarks. When conveying a conversation, Dostoevsky focuses on the pace and rhythm of the monologue. The double train of thought of the characters is often shown in brackets; the author uses pauses and italics.

Portrait characteristics play a big role in the psychological perception of a person’s inner world. For Dostoevsky, the description of the eyes is important, but it is inherent only in the image of Sonya, Raskolnikov, Dunya, Svidrigailov, Razumikhin and Porfiry Petrovich. The author pays special attention to the look (Raskolnikov’s beautiful dark eyes, Sonya’s blue, Dunya’s “sparkling, proud”), and the beauty of the eyes is the key to the hero’s resurrection. The description of lips and smiles is very important.

Dostoevsky entered Russian literature precisely as a writer-psychologist who was an innovator in depicting the characters and emotional experiences of his heroes.

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