St. Petersburg: A city of false reality

            The book started out confusing and hard to follow. It seemed as if this could all just be Raskolnikov’s imagination. When I reached Parts 3-5, everything started to piece together slowly. I started to understand what was making Raskolnikov tick and what made him calm down.

            In Part 5, we start to see more of Luzhin and why he is in St. Petersburg. It is nice to read from another character’s point of view instead of just Raskolnikov’s. It makes the story a little easier to follow. As Luzhin goes into detail about his ideas of what St. Petersburg is suppose to be like, I kept thinking about our class discussion with NFTU. St. Petersburg was suppose to be this marvelous city where everyone was able to make it and be on top, at least that was what it was designed to do. In both stories you start to see the reality of what became of St. Petersburg in the 19^th century. It was basically a city of unreachable dreams. The elite were those who did not want to help anyone else but themselves and then there were those who had no choice but give up everything they had in order to help themselves or their family. Raskolnikov moved to St. Petersburg to enhance his writing abilities and make a name for himself like many of the others who now live in one-bedroom apartments and struggle to meet their rent. Luzhin on the other hand moved to St. Petersburg to see what all the fuss was about and how people actually lived here. He also wanted to set up his family. He wanted to marry and settle down.

            Andrei, Luzhin’s roommate, has some strange principles that are address in the start of Part 5. Luzhin continues to rant about how Raskolnikov ruined his relationship with Dunya and is constantly putting down Andrei. This does not seem to bother Andrei whatsoever. Andrei actually agrees with Luzhin and tells him that it was better for him not to have married Dunya at all. I found it interesting that Andrei has his eyes on Sonya and deliberately tries to project his beliefs onto her as if he were some sort of priest or teacher. Luzhin immediately takes advantage of Andrei’s interest in Sonya and invites her into his loggings to have a chat. When Luzhin notices Raskolnikov in the hallway he quickly has Andrei stay in the room in order to not draw attention to himself and Sonya. It was strange that Luzhin was now willing to part with his money to help Sonya and her stepmother when he would not even give his wife to be and his soon to be mother-in-law money for their trip to St. Petersburg or offer them any services.