More Thoughts on Raskolnikov’s Personality

Perhaps the reason why Raskolnikov dropped out of college was connected to the reasons in NFTU. Despite his diagnosed mental illness, he is still an intelligent man, we know this from when he comments on Luzhin’s style of writing. One of my earlier blogs  I commented about how there must’ve been a switch that made Raskolnikov who he is now. The expensive top hat that was now old and rugged, and the fact he used to be in college and being what we would call productive, and his mom distress about his new characteristics  shows that there was an extreme change in his personality. The thing that we discussed form NFTU was that only a fool can become successful because an intelligent man sees all sides to any situation, and therefore cannot choose one path. A fool can weigh the pros and cons and choose, but an intelligent man will know there’s not simply one good choice and will not choose anything. Raskolnikov even denied Raskolnikov’s offer to make some money helping copying documents, and that seems like a pretty obvious thing to accept when you’re broke and owe people money.

The narrator in NFTU used to be more social, or tried to be more social, as it was spoken about in Part 2. Raskolnikov is somewhat social now, but it is because everyone is so worried about him, which is something that was not the case in NFTU, he is forced to be involved with people despite his mental condition. I’m still trying to figure out if he feels guilty for the murder, and I can’t tell. Maybe he feels guilty for not feeling guilty, or he is just scared of getting caught. It seems like the way he is acting is the only reason for making him a suspect. If he had just acted normally after and not freaked out with every discussion of the murder, not all of this attention would be placed on him. If we want to connect this for Freudian ideas, which I think is connected to NFTUs, one could possibly argue that nothing Raskolnikov’s doing is a mistake and everything he does, even if it may lead him closer to getting caught, is his unconscious way of wanting to be caught. I am not sure if that’s a proper way to interpret it, but maybe its possible.