Crime and Punishment: A Culminating Essay
Enrique Garcia
David Sudak
Honors English 3-4, Period 2
9-23-15
Crime and Punishment: A Culminating Essay
Sofya (Sonia) Semyonovna Marmeladov has a yellow ticket. Fyodor Dostoevsky gave arguably the most captivating character in his novel Crime and Punishment, a yellow ticket. Dostoevsky didn’t just give her this just to do it, but made a statement about St. Petersburg in the 1860s. Fyodor Dostoevsky makes it clear, late nineteenth century St. Petersburg society loathes prostitution, but also makes the case that prostitution was justified under the circumstances.
Sofya (Sonia) Semyonovna Marmeladov is shunned from the moment that she becomes a prostitute. According to Siobhán Hearne and her article Dangerous Women published in the View East, women became a “dangerous social element” to society and Dostoevsky was not going to let Sonia be the exception to the rule. The second Mr. Lebeziatnikov (former neighbor of Sonia) is informed of ill-doing he went to the landlady, Ms. Amalia Fedorovna Lippewechsel, and neither of them would have it. Because how can “...a highly educated man like [Lebeziatnikov] live in the same rooms with a girl like that?" (13). Hearne also claims in her article that, in the description of a citizen, these Dangerous Women were “insulting to public morality”. So naturally, Dostoevsky made his characters take advantage of this. As in the case of Pytor Petrovich Luzhin, who in a letter to his bride-to-be describes Sonia as “... a notoriously ill-conducted female” (185). He uses Sonia and her occupation to paint his future-fiancẽ’s brother (Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov) in the worst possible light. Luzhin describes a man who gave almost twenty-five roubles to this “notoriously ill-conducted female”, whereas in reality he gave it to her mother for funeral expenses. Dostoevsky then uses this letter to not to suggest that Rodion is wretched but to furthermore imply that society loathes Sonia but more broadly, prostitutes. Dostoevsky then emphasizes Pulcheria’s fear and disgust of Sonia by having her remark that “She[Sonia] was gazing at me with those eyes. I could scarcely sit still in my chair when he[Rodion] began introducing her, do you remember?” (201). In her closing statements, Hearne remarks that society always viewed prostitution as “...wretched lower-class transmitter of venereal disease”. Although Dostoevsky never explicitly remarks that Sonia transmitted venereal disease, he implies this in when father sees her, “He[Semyon Marmeladov] had never seen her before in such attire. Suddenly he recognised her[Sonia], crushed and ashamed in her humiliation and gaudy finery, meekly awaiting her turn to say good-bye to her dying father. His face showed intense suffering” With all these implication in the novel, it is clear that Fyodor Dostoevsky wanted his reader to know about how society felt about prostitutes.
Despite the fact the Dostoevsky makes it so clear that society loathes prostitutes, he certainly does not. He recognizes the innocence of some prostitutes in his age and as you dive into Crime and Punishment, and take a close look, it is clear that Dostoevsky wants us to know another viewpoint of prostitution in the late nineteenth century St. Petersburg. Laurie Bernstein is of the same opinion, and in her book Sonia's Daughters, Prostitutes and Their Regulation in Imperial Russia, Bernstein remarks how difficult it was for women to have an honest day’s work, “A typical workday for women in Russia's workshops lasted twelve hours for an average salary of 15 rubles a month.” With this knowledge we can determine algebraically, that the average salary per hour was not more than 4.67 copecks an hour. Dostoevsky recognizes this, and explicitly has Semyon Marmeladov defend his daughter as he poses this question to Rodion Raskolnikov “Do you suppose that a respectable poor girl can earn much by honest work? Not fifteen kopecks a day can she earn, if she is respectable and has no special talent and that without putting her work down for an instant!”. In doing so, Dostoevsky