Since you mentioned Mr. Kurtz…

In Heart of Darkness, Marlow’s descriptions of Kurtz include the following: “a wandering and tormented thing”, someone whose words were like “phrases spoken in nightmares”, someone who “had no restraint, no faith”, whose “soul was mad”, someone who “struggled, struggled”.

Think back to the nightmare-like atmosphere that suffused Heart of Darkness, then read again the description of Rodya’s last dream (6 pages from the end of the novel, p. 547 P/V version, paragraph beginning “He lay in the hospital all through the end of Lent…” up through “…had heard their words or voices.”

Both Raskolnikov and Kurtz engage in interior battles between their better nature and their desire to “step over”, to be “supermen”. Crime and Punishment, however, ends with a powerful sense of hope and redemption, whereas Heart of Darkness ends with (naturally)…darkness.

How can we better understand Raskolnikov’s redemption through the tragedy of Kurtz? (As always, support your opinions.)

And this is it…our last blog entry of 2010-2011. See you Wednesday.

Final Discussion topics for Monday

These are the passages & issues we'll address tomorrow during class. YOU MUST have your text with you. If you don't, you will receive no credit for participation in the discuss. And of course YOU MUST participate if you wish participation credit.

For Thursday's class, bring your complete notes from C&P discussions ready to turn in. Our entire class time will be turned over to parody composition and rehearsal.

Suffering, sacrifice and redemption and the Christian symbolism of the novel

A. Early on references to Christ appear in the novel. One of the earliest is in Pulcheria’s letter to Rodya telling him about Dunya. After he reads the letter we get a window into his thoughts: p. 40, Part I, Ch. 4 “It’s hard to ascend Golgotha” and p. 41 “Can it be that she’s secretly tormented by remorse at having agreed to sacrifice her daughter for the sake of her son.”

B. When Rodya first goes to Sonya’s he asks her to read the story of Lazarus—why? p. 326-329, Part IV, Ch. 4. (She must believe in the next life—her only hope; he needs to believe in resurrection in THIS life.)

C. Both Sonya and Lizaveta assume the form of complete innocents who sacrifice and suffer for others and at the moment that Rodya tells Sonya of the murders, she even appears as Lizaveta—p. 410-411 Part five, Ch. 4: “Again, as soon as he said this, a former, familiar sensation suddenly turned his soul to ice…the same childlike smile.” (suffer the little children?)

D. P.420-421 pivotal discussion beginning with “Was it the old crone I killed? Through “your whole life” Part five, Ch. 4 two pages from the end.

The symbolism of crosses and the crossroads and the need to suffer until he learns to connect to his fellow man and love are underscored even more in the confession scene, p. 522-525 Part six, Ch. 8.

E. Note Raskolnikov has sinned not so much against God as against humanity and the earth—and so his redemption must be achieved with people, on earth.

F. Water and air also have symbolic significance:

p. 114-115 Part two, Ch. 2 - loses his right to beauty & clean air

Throughout he can’t breathe—note Porfiry keeps coming back to his need for air and to embrace suffering p. 460-461 Part six, Ch. 2

Svidrigailov hates water—“never in my life have I liked water…landscapes” p.504

G. Note his suffering in prison is of a different sort—he still has not accepted love and connection and cannot be redeemed and freed from suffering until he does.

· p. 544: “This alone he recognized as his crime ... new vision of life.”

· p. 545: “But, generally, he came to be surprised…different nations”

· p. 546: “As for him, he was disliked and avoided by everyone.”

· p. 546: “Still another question…Little mother”

H. Discuss the suddenness of his “conversion”—like a flash of light. P. 549

“He was risen and he knew it…“ p.550

Blood & Water—post group result here

Without getting too intellectually pretentious (save that for future dorm lounge discussions) we'll have a try at deciphering Dostoevsky's use of these two elements in the scheme of symbolism he developed for Crime & Punishment. I'll look over what you report, and get some ideas we can explore in our final week with Russian Lit. After that, its back to good old Will Shakespeare.

Colin: you'll like Macbeth. He dithers a bit, but plunges the knife early in Act II. By Shakespeare's standards, this also is a short five-acter.

J.D.

Apologies for the late post—from me & Svidri

Dear class: I'm sorry I forgot to put up the post right away. I hope it's just a matter of entering your results, because I'd still like to have a round table discussion based on what you discovered. You can place your own thoughts on Svidrigailov here, and the committee reports on the next post up.