Crime and Punishment

Raskolnikov’s Duality
Almost from the first, while he read the letter, Raskolnikov’s face was wet with tears; but when he finished it, his face was pale and distorted and a bitter, wrathful and malignant smile was on his lips. He laid his head down on his threadbare dirty pillow and pondered, pondered a long time. His heart was beating violently, and his brain was in turmoil. (35)
The novel Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky is about a poor man, Raskolnikov, living in Russia in the 19th century. He commits a murder and has to live with this guilt, secluding himself from the rest of the world. His dual personality shows from what his mother informs him of. She thinks of him as a perfect gentleman and would never think of him as being a murderer. Dostoevsky portrays Raskolnikov’s duality by illustrating his conflicting feelings after he reads his motherâ€...