Crime and Punishment: Satire 6 key examples

Quételet’s book Man and the Development of His Abilities was a major work in social science, or “social physics” as it was then known. This book popularized the use of statistics and statistical norms to understand social phenomena. In it, Quételet suggests that some percentage of any population is destined to engage in crime and what he considers to be antisocial behavior (like, for instance, sex work). Here, Raskolnikov satirically mocks Quételet’s ideas, suggesting with dark humor that a “certain percentage” of people must go “to the devil.” He critiques Quételet for using numbers and "scientific
language to whitewash the suffering of the poor, as if poverty is a simple statistical certainty that cannot be ameliorated. Throughout the novel, Dostoevsky critiques various “rational” ideas associated with the Enlightenment and modernity. 

Razumikhin lists some of the translation projects that he is working on, offering to share the work with Raskolnikov. First, he is translating some texts from German concerning what he calls “the woman question,” an allusion to a then-prominent debate across Russia and Europe concerning the emancipation of women, who lacked major personal and financial rights. He also alludes to Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who had recently been translated into Russian in Dostoevsky’s day, and a Russian writer, Radischev, who pushed for social reform and was exiled as a result. Razumikhin offers a satirical picture of the literary marketplace of 1860s Russia, which, Dostoevsky suggest, was fixated with trendy but ultimately unimportant topics and debates, and which was still overly dependent upon foreign writing and ideas.

Here, the narration reflects Raskolnikov’s own first impressions of the man who intends to marry his sister, Dunya. The man has taken advantage of his time in St. Petersburg to “get himself fitted out and spruced up,” and as a result “all his clothes were fresh from the tailor.” Though his clothing is “fine,” it is nevertheless “all too new” and “spoke overly much of a certain purpose.” In other words, Luzhin is trying too hard to show off his new wealth in a rather tactless manner. He carries his top hat “all too reverently” in his hands, and his expensive gloves are “merely carried around for display.” In his depiction of Luzhin, Dostoevsky satirizes the upwardly mobile Russian subjects who are eager to display their new wealth and distinguish themselves from others who share their non-aristocratic background. 

Luzhin previously echoed an old saying, arguing that if two men split a “caftan” or tunic, then both men end up naked. In contrast to this notion of splitting or sharing resources, Luzhin mobilizes “Science” to argue that “everything in the world is based on self-interest.” He reasons that if everyone loves themselves “before all,” then everything in society will be more “properly arranged” and there will be more resources overall, even if they are not distributed equally. From this principle, he uses logos to argue that, by “acquiring solely and exclusively” for himself, he is in some sense “acquiring for everyone” due to the increase in “universal prosperity.”

Though he does employ logic in his argument, Dostoevsky, who was a critic of modern individualism (though also a critic of socialism) highlights the fallacies in his argument, as it is not necessarily the case that everyone will get more resources just because there are more resources overall. Through Luzhin, Dostoevsky satirizes and critiques what he considers to be the spiritually bankrupt philosophies and practices of 19th-century Europe and Russia. 

An ardent if somewhat foolish socialist, Lebezyatnikov praises Luzhin for his apparent openness to radical ideas, though in fact Luzhin, a capitalist who believes strongly in pursing self-interest above collective good, is merely entertaining himself. Though he becomes increasingly aware of Luzhin’s gentle mockery, Lebezyatnikov at first praises him for his “readiness” to accept socialist ideas, such as the “establishing of a new ‘commune,’” open marriage in which both husband and wife can seek additional sexual partners, and a refusal of Christian baptism for children. Through his depiction of Lebezyatnikov’s political priorities, Dostoevsky satirizes the socialist ideas that he regards as frivolous and foolish according to his own traditional Christian values. 

Speaking to Sonya and Raskolnikov, Lebezyatnikov launches into a lengthy and ill-timed speech on the nature of mental illness: 

“[Do] you know that in Paris serious experiments have already been performed with regard to the possibility of curing mad people by working through logical conviction alone? A professor there [...] fancied that such treatment should be possible. His basic idea is that there’s no specific disorder in a mad person’s organism, but that madness is, so to speak, a logical error, an error of judgment, a mistaken view of things. He would gradually prove his patient wrong, and imagine, they say he achieved results! But since he used showers at the same time, the results of the treatment are, of course, subject to doubt….”

Cite this Quote

Lebezyatnikov is excited by scientific reports from Paris, a quintessentially modern city in the 19th century, and he places his full faith into the results of the experiments he reads about. He argues that “mad people” can be cured “through logical conviction alone,” as madness, according to the French scientist, is a mere “error of judgment” that simply needs to be corrected. For Dostoevsky, complex matters such as insanity cannot be fully understood by logic and science alone, and here he uses the somewhat absurd though earnest figure of Lebezyatnikov to satirize contemporary science.