The Superman And His Antithesis (An Analysis Onv, Main Character From The Novel Crime And Punishment)
Fyodor Dostoevsky was born in Moscow, as the second son of a former army doctor. He was educated at home and at a private school. Shortly after the death of his mother in 1837 he was sent to St. Petersburg, where he entered the Army Engineering College. In 1839 Dostoevsky's father died. After graduating as a military engineer and later resigning in 1844 he devoted himself to writing. In 1846 he joined a group of utopian socialists. He was arrested in 1849 and sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted to imprisonment in Siberia. Dostoevsky spent four years in hard labor and four years as a soldier in Semipalatinsk. Dostoevsky returned to St. Petersburg in 1854 as a writer with a religious mission and published three works that derive in different ways from his Siberia experiences: The House of the Dead (1860),The Insulted and Injured, and Winter Notes on Summer Impressions. Between 1864 and 1865 his wife and brother died and he was burdened with debts. His situation was made even worse by gambling. In 1867 Dostoevsky married Anna Snitkin, his 22-year old stenographer, who seems to have understood her husband's manias and rages. An epileptic all his life, Dostoevsky died in St. Petersburg on February 9, 1881. He was buried in the Aleksandr Nevsky monastery, St. Petersburg. Published in 1866, one of his most recognized works, Crime and Punishment, reflects the beliefs of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
Before going into the analysis and discussion of the protagonist of the novel Crime and Punishment, we must become familiar with Nietzsche’s superman theory. Friedrich Nietzsche believed that men were divided into two main categories, the leaders and the followers. The leaders were the superior ones, the intellectuals. Moral laws, in Nietzsche’s opinion, did not affect these individuals, as they were set aside from the rest of humanity. The commons, ordinary men, Nietzsche believed, were merely a means to propagate and perpetuate the species. They were...
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