I just finished reading this behemoth, the classic by Dostoevsky. It’s the story of a man named Raskolnikov who, in a fit of rage, murders two women. He spends the rest of the novel in tortured contemplation of the act. The mental burden that occurs becomes the punishment for his crime: he’s unable to sleep, he goes crazy, etc. Clearly, Dostoevsky is implying that punishments are not merely physical—they can be psychological as well.
Colleges Are Unable to Provide an Accurate Assessment of the Novel
Much has been written about the book. The halls of academia are filled with essay exams on the story. However, modern colleges are a prison of Cultural Marxism, a gulag of liberal groupthink. We can no longer trust the opinions of the teachers. Some are good, true. But many are the foot soldiers of Max Horkheimer, useful idiots in oppressor/oppressed Weltanschauung.
Remember…college professors are primarily High-T women and Low-T men. They are women who love to administer a dominatrix spanking to their metrosexual lapdogs (aka, husbands), and men who believe that cuckoldry is an act of defiance against the patriarchy. The Liberal Arts, in particular, are nothing more than an attempt to convert the male-female dynamic into an androgynous orgy. These teachers are not interested in analyzing great literature—their goal is to destroy the edifice of America: “The 1950’s hurt muh feelings,” etc.
Given the current state of education, with its growing cuckoldry fetish, a new perspective is needed—so I’ll go first. Here’s my important takeaway on Crime and Punishment…
The Important Point: Chicks Dig Serial Killers
Raskolnikov has a relationship with a woman named Sonia. Eventually, he confesses the murder to her. Instead of becoming angry, she declares her allegiance to him.
“Then you won’t leave me, Sonia?” he said, looking at her with almost hope.
“No, no, never, nowhere!” cried Sonia. “I will follow you, I will follow you everywhere…I’ll follow you to Siberia!” (p. 608)
Sonia’s response highlights a grim reality—many women love serial killers. Ted Bundy received thousands of love letters a day when he was on death row. While Richard Ramirez sat in a Los Angeles jail cell, women across the country promised their undying love for him. And Charles Manson recently married a woman that is hotter than 90% of my friend’s wives. By contrast, how many love letters does the leader of the debate team get? The head of a physics department? That’s a rhetorical question, of course. Very few.
Men accomplish great things for the love of women. So when serial killers receive more affection than the great men of science, then society falls into a degenerate state. And that’s where we are now.
Feminists can never explain why some women love serial killers. To discuss the topic would expose a flaw in the “all women are victims” narrative. By supporting the female fan of a serial killer, the feminist is, indirectly, justifying the actions of the serial killer. So the feminist plea for equality morphs into a tacit, or direct, support for mass murder. The contradiction becomes too much, so the feminist chooses to avoid the subject altogether. They revert to the robotic wage-gap myth, or the “5 out of every 4 women are raped” line.
Conclusion
Crime and Punishment is a must read; and of course, there are many lofty questions in the book: What is the nature of punishment? Is an emotional punishment worse than a physical one? Is murder ok for some men (such as world leaders) but wrong for smaller men? These are all worthy questions, and they have been dealt with ad nauseum in the hallways of academia.
But what’s more interesting in this book is the relationship between Raskolnikov and Sonia. Why does she love him MORE when he confesses to a double murder? Why does his degeneracy turn her on? And, to a larger degree, why do other murderers like Raskolnikov receive so much female adulation?
I can guarantee you one thing – most modern college professors (aka, Cultural Marxist foot soldiers) will not be willing to answer these questions. They are too busy doing that new dance that’s sweeping the hallways of academia – the “socialism shuffle.” It’s a hypnotic, zombie-like movement towards a tenure-track position.
Major Styles 
A “major” task to analyse and interpret so much of this book Ron, I salute you. Your points about women being attracted to serial killers as demonstrated again in this book is a good one, but not a specific literary interpretation I have seen before. You make a good point about the fearful lack of in depth analysis of works like this in colleges and universities, another sign of the times we live in and the dominance of the cultural marxists.
I read ALL of Dostoyevsky’s works shortly after finishing my PhD in Chemistry as I felt relatively uneducated and ignorant having been stuck in a chem lab for many years! I followed this up with all of the works of Zola and other classical writers from that time. The effect on my psyche must have been enormous as three years later I was in the deepest depression of my life that it took several years to get out of. My subsequent education as a psychologist gave me a better perspective on understanding books such as this that I did NOT have on first reading, and this is the point of my rambling comment Ron, that you have motivated me to go back and at the very least read The Idiot. I might find myself! 😂😂
What works by Zola would you recommend?
Good grief Ron it was years ago! He wrote 30 novels and there does seem to be a natural sequence, but I have a vague recollection of Germinal being about exploitation and social injustice which may mesh with some of your current thinking and writing.
Interesting. You are the second person who has mentioned Zola this week. So I am getting hints now that I cannot ignore.
You have a brilliant way with words.
Tim, thank you so much! Your kind words are greatly appreciated.