Past Tense

            As Timon, a character in Disney’s The Lion King would say, “’You got to put your past behind you,’” (The Lion King). These wise words spoken by an animated meerkat also ring true in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Dostoevsky’s novel follows the psychological battles of an ex-student, Raskolnikov stricken by poverty, as he struggles with an internal battle of ethics after murdering two women. The characters in this novel display exaggerated aspects of humanity, including regret and longing for redemption or “atonement or compensation for [their] faults” (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary). All characters have regrets in Dostoevsky’s novel, and most seek redemption. When people hold on to past faults, they forfeit their chance of redemption.

Pulcheria Alexandrovna, by holding on to her lost ideals, loses her chance of redemption. In the first glimpse of Pulcheria’s character, the reader discovers that first impressions stick with her and she very rarely changes her mind about them. When Pulcheria writes about Luzhin, the first impressions of generosity in marrying her daughter, Dunia, far outweigh his “defects of character, for some habits and even certain differences of opinion,” (37). Her attachment to those first intentions reveals Pulcheria’s naivety, and by continuing to hold on to that first impression, she has no way of realizing her fault and therefore cannot compensate for her naivety. This inability to atone for her fault proves that she cannot receive redemption because of her attachment to initial impressions. Even after he proves himself to be a jerk, Luzhin holds some still holds some promise as a suitable candidate for Dunia’s hand in marriage according to Pulcheria. When he writes a letter to the women of the family, requesting a meeting where he may apologize for his rude actions, Pulcheria immediately declares that “‘We must be off, Dunia, we must be off… He will think we are still angry after yesterday,’” and immediately returns to her first impressions of Luzhin’s alleged good intentions and kindness (211). Although Luzhin’s actions do not require any acceptance or forgiveness, Pulcheria still cannot see past his initial good qualities and continually tries to convince others of his good wishes. Pulcheria, as a pushover, in by definition cannot resist attraction or appeal, which she finds in Luzhin’s first offers. Her naïve dependency on past impressions makes her not realize her faults; she therefore loses her chance of redemption. Later, when Pulcheria learns of Raskolnikov’s murders and imminent conviction, rather than worrying and stressing completely over the fact that her son killed someone, she instead reminisces about how he is “‘just as when you were little. You would run like this to me and hug me and kiss me,’” (489). Her comparison of Raskolnikov’s current turmoil to his childhood exemplifies her want for a younger time, a simpler time, and a more naïve time. She clings onto the memory of Raskolnikov’s childhood and does not accept fully that her son has become a murderer. Pulcheria gets so caught up in what he used to be instead of what has become and refuses to see his faults. If she cannot see the major and obvious faults in others, she will not see her own faults and atone for them. Because of this, she forfeits her chance of redemption. Even after he has confessed and been convicted, Pulcheria continues to try to hold on to Raskolnikov’s innocent times. She incessantly and deliriously rambles about how she believes Raskolnikov shall become the greatest man in Russia and once “her restlessness reached an extreme point… She died within a fortnight,” from an intense brain fever (512). Her cling to Raskolnikov’s naivety and innocence causes her delirium and eventually her death. Her worrying and delirium sparked by her semi-conscious realization that Raskolnikov lacked a child’s innocence after his conviction were the causes of her death and lack of redemption. When she died, she lost any possible chance of recovery and ability even to begin to compensate for her worrying and faults. Her long-standing attachment to her past caused Pulcheria’s loss of ability to compensate for her faults all chance of redemption. Pulcheria’s death was the ultimate end to her naïve attachment to innocence and her chance of redemption.

Katerina Ivanovna, by holding on to her real and imagined past, forfeits all chance of redemption. Marmeladov, Katerina’s drunken husband, describes her as always “‘scrubbing and cleaning and washing the children, for she’s been used to cleanliness from childhood,’” (17). The way she treats her family evidences her obsession with her past life. She acts horribly to her present family, and completely disregards their comfort when trying to fix them to her past ideals. Until she let's go of her past and accepts her current family as different from what she’s used to, she will not be able to expiate her sins and receive redemption or compensation for her unjustified acts of neuroticism. To further exemplify her impatience with her changing family, when Marmeladov comes home drunk with Raskolnikov, she charges at him with disdain and demands, “‘What’s in your pocket, show me! And your clothes are all different! Where are your clothes? Where is the money! Speak!’” and freaks out at the minor changes in Marmeladov’s appearance. She cannot accept Marmeladov for his currently pathetic appearance and instead concentrates on the changes that have occurred since she last saw him. She concentrates on his previous state rather than trying to fix the new problems arisen from his current state. Her complete blindness to the present and lingering on past problems renders her incapable of atoning for her rash actions in the future. If she does let go of the past and allow herself to accept Marmeladov for himself, she will be able to atone for her own stupid and rash outbursts. However, until then she forfeits all chance of compensation from her own faults. After Marmeladov’s death, Katerina throws a party to “show that she had been brought up ‘in a genteel, she might almost say aristocratic colonel’s family’” however debatable the latter formality may have been (360). Instead of holding a funeral that reflects the life of her late husband, she tries to hold on to her past by attempting to prove her descent from aristocracy. She disregards Marmeladov’s life because she sees it as something that has changed since her ideal former life; consequently, she does not grieve as much as she should following his death. This disregard is simply rude and the delusion of her previously comfortable life blinds her so that she does not see it as such. By holding on to her past and trying to relive it, she does not realize her disrespect and so cannot compensate for her rudeness and redeem herself and her shrewish reputation.

Svidrigailov, in holding on to his failures with Dunia, forfeits his chance of redemption. His first attempt at seducing Dunia fails when she writes a letter that “reproached him with great heat and indignation for the baseness of his behavior in regard to Marfa Petrovna,” (35). Even after this blatant rejection from Dunia, Svidrigailov insists on vying for her love and continues to fail. He continues his adulterous ways as he continually attempts to cheat on his wife with Dunia. By continuing to vie for Dunia’s love, he does not end his evil ways and as a result, cannot compensate for them. Without compensation, by definition there is no redemption, so by continuing his adulterous acts, he forfeits all chance of redemption. Much later in the novel, Svidrigailov confesses that the thought of being with Dunia “‘has haunted [his] dreams,’” and to further prove his ceaseless longing, he speaks endlessly about his lust for Dunia to her brother, Raskolnikov. Only a desperate man would hold on to and continue to dream about a woman who cares nothing for him. His endless desperation for Dunia forces Svidrigailov to think of nothing else and makes him blind to his own desperation. Without realizing his pathetic longing, he can never expiate this fault and (omit) never gain redemption. Once again, Svidrigailov attempts to sway Dunia to love him by promising that “‘[He] will be [her] slave… all [his] life… [he] will wait [with her],’” (469). She rejects him yet again, and instead of moving on with his life and letting it go, he shoots himself. His desperation for a life with Dunia completely overtakes him; since he held on to the smidgen of a chance with her for so long, he decided that dying would be better than a life without her. His choice, based on his pathetic cling to his past faults, makes for the ultimate loss of redemption. Without his life, he cannot compensate for any of his faults and in his death, he cannot be redeemed.

Svidrigailov’s problems with holding on to the past do not end with Dunia; he forfeits his chance of redemption by clinging on to other faults in his past. Svidrigailov seemingly moves on from the past by announcing “‘[he] really [has] a fiancée and it’s been settled,’” but he is “‘fifty and she is not yet sixteen’” alluding to his obsession with Dunia, another comparatively young girl. His hasty engagement shortly after his wife’s death is Svidrigailov’s way of trying to attain what he lost with Dunia. He uses his new fiancée as a replacement of sorts in his mind while he still holds on to Dunia. However, this arrangement does not prove satisfactory and he ends up shooting himself. By trying to hold on to his past with Dunia by his relations with this other girl, Svidrigailov kills himself and winds up dead without atonement for his faults and failures. Shortly before his final attempt with Dunia and after his wife Marfa’s death, he hallucinates that “She has been three times… first on the very day of the funeral, an hour after she was buried,” (274). Even when he does not try to consciously hold on to his past, he holds on to the memory of his wife, as evident in her imagined reappearance after her funeral. His attachment to his late wife proves his guilt for being unfaithful to her and possibly killing her. He has such a strong attachment to his dead wife, that he imagines her presence. Marfa Petrovna’s ghost serves as an almost comforting distraction that keeps him from realizing and atoning for his guilt. He cannot accept his faults and take appropriate measures to compensate for them because his attachment to the past, as evident in his wife’s ghost, causes him to deny any problem in the first place. Because of his intense attachment to his past, he cannot be atoned for his faults or attain redemption.

When people hold on to past or previous failures and ideals they forfeit their chance of compensating for their wrong doings and character flaws. Usually this problem in losing their chance of redemption arises because when the character clings on to his or her past, he or she does not realize that their attachment is folly and is pointless to try to fix. The characters try to pick up what they tripped over in their past instead of jumping over the hurdles that the present throws at them. By looking back, they cannot see the dangers that lie ahead of them. As the dim-witted but warm-hearted warthog Pumbaa says, “You got to put your behind in your past,” and keep your front facing the obstacles ahead and just let the places where you tripped remain distant memories.