English

Benefiting from Social Isolation (Or Not)

            Many characters in Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment tend to turn inward, shut the world out, and isolate themselves from society. Sonia segregates herself from her family when her father’s addiction forces her into prostitution so that she may keep the family afloat. Sonia, like many sinners, hides her deepest faults from those she loves and others around her. It is because she loves her stepmother and siblings enough to remove herself from their living space so that they don’t often have to view what she has needed to bring herself to so that she might compensate for what her father has done. When Katerina Ivanovna is taken to Sonia’s to die she announces that she has never been to Sonia’s room showing just how far she – Sonia – has taken herself out of her family’s lives. (Dostoyevsky 686)

Sonia feels horrible when she cannot help those around her or when she causes problems for them. “She knew that she, Sonia, was the chief reason for the ‘genteel’ ladies’ contemptuous treatment of Katerina Ivanovna’s invitation” (610). Sonia understands that her sins and her flaws and her mistakes hurt those she loves; her wrong choices that are meant to help the people she cares for have affected them. She secludes herself from them so as to lessen their involvement and leave them in a ‘better standing’ with the rest of society because they’re not so connected to Sonia. Isolation from family also hides her and her misdeeds from the loving eyes of her family.

Raskolnikov often points out that Sonia forgets herself and puts too much of her resources and time towards the ones she loves. Katerina Ivanovna agrees with this when she’s defending Sonia and says “she’d give away her last penny” (624). She’s caught in this cycle of giving everything she has to her family because of Marmeladov’s drinking problems. Even when he dies she has no relief because she must still take care of Katerina Ivanovna and the children. Later, just the children when Katerina dies also. The only break she gets is when Svidrigailov offers to pay for their place in an orphanage asylum which she only takes out of fear that her sister would go the same way as she.

Sonia is faithful even through her sin. Raskolnikov even calls her a “religious maniac” (517). When she asks Raskolnikov “What would I be without God?” (516), Sonia realizes in her own self that only through the grace of God will she or anyone else be led through this life and be given mercy at the end of it. When she pauses at the last verse “Could not this Man which opened the eyes of the blind...” while she’s reading with Raskolnikov she’s asking “Can this Man not save me?” but as a rhetorical question to him because she knows but she wants him to know too. She realizes that she has done wrong but believes with all her being that if she makes those mistakes for the right reasons and does all she can for those around her then she will be alright in the end. “She will see God” (519) because her giving outweighs her sins because she cares so much for others.

            Sonia reaches out to Raskolnikov in a time of need. She breaks down her walls and gives him all that she is because she sees that he needs this human contact, she understands that he needs a connection to a bit of humanity so that he doesn't lose himself completely. She threw off her shroud of isolation for him and brought him into her heart and Raskolnikov allowed her to do it though he knew “how painful it was for her to betray and unveil all that was her own” (520). She again puts others before herself by giving up her seclusion not to show Raskolnikov that what he has done is okay, but that he can be redeemed from it when he confesses his failure of character.

            However, Sonia perfectly exemplifies the idea that people will hide their deepest flaws from the people they love the most. Many would try to sell the thought that if Sonia or even Raskolnikov would only share their flaws and lapses in judgment with those they care about then they would be able to breathe easier but in reality they cannot afford to do so. It must be that they hide their wrongs and mistakes so that they may secure the love of those around them; if they tell all they may lose the love of their loved ones and in result lose themselves in a deeper isolation that is not of their own construction.

            Isolation, whether from keeping facts or altogether just staying away, from others severs relationships. Raskolnikov states that “it all cuts both ways” (571) meaning that when he isolated himself he hurt both he and his mother and sister whom he was isolated. He was hurt because he had no one to help him with his guilt and conscience (until he tells all to Sonia) and his family is hurt because they don’t understand why they are being pushed away. Raskolnikov retreats from his family after they come to live in Petersburg so that they won’t be affected by his situation but instead it leads to Dunia having to come into contact with Svidrigailov and the illness and death of his mother.

            To again look at the quote “she will see God” (519) shows that neither Sonia – to whom the quote is referring – nor anyone else can fully isolate themselves because the inverse must be true, that God can see her. Flaws and mistakes cannot be fully concealed as when the stranger, whom is later found out to be working for Porfiry, tells Raskolnikov that he knows he is the murderer. The police found out that Raskolnikov killed the two women even though he isolated himself from the incident and supposedly no one knew that he was even out of his room because he had spent so much time in there during his isolation previous to the crime.

            One form of isolation is to keep emotions and problems hidden from the people that would care most to know about them. Raskolnikov keeps his demons and frustrations deep inside himself and when he sees the beggar women on his way to confess he finds that “it’s curious that she thinks me happier than she is” (827). He has hidden himself and his emotions from those around him so that no one could guess the turmoil that has arisen from his secret crime. He keeps an indifferent face so that no one will pester him. Sonia does the same when she smiles everywhere she goes in Siberia, masking her worry for Raskolnikov and his feelings towards her.

            Going back to see when Raskolnikov realized how hard it was for Sonia to reveal herself to him he understands also that pain of taking down walls after having them up for so long. It becomes painful to interact with others when they have no more preconceptions, when they know everything, especially when you've been hiding for so long. After Raskolnikov has secluded himself and kept himself locked up in his room for so long it hurts him to be around people. At the end of the book he wants nothing but to be alone but he never can be again because even though he wants to be by himself his body doesn't.

            Sonia is isolated, maybe not from society but from the morals she cherishes and the innocence that she wishes she could give to Raskolnikov. That is one of the reasons she is not so put off by Raskolnikov’s crime, for he cannot give her that innocence either; they both live in sin and while at first Raskolnikov will not repent of his crime she believes in time he will.