Satire

Crime and Punishment

by

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Crime and Punishment: Satire 6 key examples

Definition of Satire
Satire is the use of humor, irony, sarcasm, or ridicule to criticize something or someone. Public figures, such as politicians, are often the subject of satire, but satirists can take... read full definition
Satire is the use of humor, irony, sarcasm, or ridicule to criticize something or someone. Public figures, such as politicians, are often the subject of... read full definition
Satire is the use of humor, irony, sarcasm, or ridicule to criticize something or someone. Public figures, such as politicians... read full definition
Part 1, Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—Quételet:

Dostoevsky makes a satirical allusion to the work of Belgian mathematician Adolphe Quételet in his depiction of Raskolnikov’s response to seeing a young girl walking around in a drunken haze in the early afternoon: 

In two or three years she’ll be a wreck, so altogether she’ll have lived to be nineteen, or only eighteen years old [...] Pah! And so what! They say that’s just how it ought to be. Every year, they say, a certain percentage has to go…somewhere…to the devil, it must be, so as to freshen up the rest and not interfere with them. A percentage! Nice little words they have, really: so reassuring, so scientific. A certain percentage, they say, meaning there’s nothing to worry about. Now, if it was some other word…well, then maybe it would be more worrisome…

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. 

Part 2, Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—Literary Market:

When Raskolnikov goes to visit Razumikhin, his friend and fellow former-student is shocked by Raskolnikov’s ill appearance and offers him some translation work as means to support himself financially. Razumikhin’s humorous chatter both alludes to various then-trendy literary topics and satirizes the publishing and translation industries of 19th-century Russia: 

Now, here we have two sheets and a bit more of German text—the stupidest sort of charlatanism, in my opinion; in short, it examines whether woman is or is not a human being. Well, and naturally it solemnly establishes that she is a human being. Cherubimov is preparing it in line with the woman question;[...] That done, we’ll start translating something about whales; then we’ve marked out some of the dullest gossip from the second part of the Confessions for translation—somebody told Cherubimov that Rousseau is supposedly some sort of Radishchev. 

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.

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Part 2, Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—New Money:

In the scene in which Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin first introduces himself to a crazed Raskolnikov, Dostoevsky offers a satirical portrait of the nouveau riche—that is, the newly rich class of Russian society in the 19th century: 

Pyotr Petrovich had hastened to try to use his few days in the capital to get himself fitted out and spruced up while waiting for his fiancée [...]  All his clothes were fresh from the tailor and everything was fine, except perhaps that it was all too new and spoke overly much of a certain purpose. Even the smart, spanking-new top hat testified to this purpose: Pyotr Petrovich somehow treated it all too reverently and held it all too carefully in his hands. Even the exquisite pair of lilac-colored, real Jouvain gloves testified [...] that they were not worn but were merely carried around for display.

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. 

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Explanation and Analysis—Self-Interest:

In a scene that satirizes the individualistic, rationalist worldview that Dostoevsky critiques throughout Crime and Punishment, Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin uses logos and fallacy while arguing in favor of his market-based worldview. Confronting the suspicious Raskolnikov and the hostile Razumikhin, Luzhin makes a case for pursuing self-interest: 

[Science] says: Love yourself before all, because everything in the world is based on self-interest [...] And economic truth adds that the more properly arranged personal affairs and, so to speak, whole caftans there are in society, the firmer its foundations are and the better arranged its common cause. It follows that by acquiring solely and exclusively for myself, I am thereby precisely acquiring for everyone, as it were, and working so that my neighbor will have something more than a torn caftan, not from private, isolated generosities now, but as a result of universal prosperity.

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. 

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Part 5, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Radicalism:

In his depiction of the superficial friendship between Pytor Petrovich Luzhin and Andrei Semyonovich Lebezyatnikov, Dostoevsky satirizes the utopian radicalism of certain groups, including socialists, who were active in Russia in the 1860s. Noting the frosty and increasingly tense relationship between the two men, the narrator states that: 

Incidentally, let us note in passing that Pyotr Petrovich, during this week and a half, had willingly accepted (especially at the beginning) some rather peculiar praise from Andrei Semyonovich; that is, he did not object, for example, but remained silent, when Andrei Semyonovich ascribed to him a readiness to contribute to the future and imminent establishing of a new “commune” somewhere in Meshchanskaya Street, or not to hinder Dunechka, for example, if in the very first month of marriage she should decide to take a lover, or not to have his future children baptized, and so on and so forth—all in the same vein.

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. 

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Part 5, Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—Logical Conviction:

The naive socialist Lebezyatnikov rushes to Sonya’s party after the ill-fated memorial dinner for Marmeladov in order to inform Sonya and Raskolnikov of Katerina’s lapse into full insanity, prompted by a series of tragic events, including her husband’s death, false accusations against her step-daughter, and now her eviction from the small apartment where she lives with her young children. In his depiction of Lebezyatnikov’s attempt to explain madness as a “logical error,” Dostoevsky satirizes what he believes to be the overly mechanical nature of contemporary science.

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….”

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. 

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