2nd Quarter SSR

     For our second quarter assignment I read the novel Crime and Punishment, a Russian novel written by Fyodor Dostoyevsky who escaped death row for revolutionary activities, centers around the Russian youth and human nature. This work of literature is praised and a part of the high school curriculum and even evaluated and appreciated by psychologists and analysts such as Sigmund Freud. The main character/ protagonist of the story is not a hero at all. In fact he is twisted and unstable in the sense that he wishes to commit murder during his struggling years as a poor and paranoid student. Due to this behavior and the double homicide he actually commits, I gravitated more towards his only friend Dmitri Prokofitch Razumihin who is almost the opposite of the protagonist, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov. Dmitri is in the same boat as Raskolnikov because they are both highly intelligent and educated students who have little to no money to support them. Dmitri was the main force that kept Raskolnikov as grounded as he could be from the murders and his troubled thoughts and was a positive energy in his life. Dmitri also took care of Rodion's family, specifically his mother and sister who he eventually married. Unlike Rodion, Dmitri does not succumb to crime and veer away from sanity under the cruel treatment they faced as youth in an impoverished Russia to cope. That being said, Raskolnikov also prevents Dmitri from falling into a drinking binge that would bring nothing but trouble and make matters worse for Dmitri. Dmitri also provides most of the information in the book due to his urge to gossip essentially. Despite dropping out of college alongside Raskolnikov he did not let this deter him and had aspirations of opening up a publishing house instead of murdering an old pawnbroker and her sister with an axe in cold blood. Dmitri was generally a stable character; however he still possessed his downfalls like drinking and remained loyal to Raskolnikov and his family which was admirable.