Overview---Raskolnikov visits Sonya after her fathers' funeral party. He tells her that it was he who killed the pawnbroker and Lizaveta. His motives seem to be that he is longing to share some of the burden.
-Though devastated, Sonya is still full of love and compassion, and for some crazy reason pledges never to leave him. She seems to feel responsible for his salvation, and bringing him to repentance and forgiveness.
-Lebezyatnikov arrives at Sonya's apartment to tell her Katerina Ivanovna has gone insane. She has gone out wandering in the streets, to be a street musician, forcing her children to sing and dance. They go to find her.
-Katerina has lost the plot, and is making a spectacle in the streets. Her children are crying and distraught. She eventually falls, and is bleeding from the mouth with consumption.
-They take her back to Sonya's, where she finally dies.
-the peculiar Svidrigailov appears, and says that he is going give a lot of money to the children. More private philanthropy.. He then lets Raskolnikov know that he overhead everything he said to Sonya about the murders...
Katerina Ivanovna--
Gotta say I was kind of relieved when Katerina finally died. She has been a mess for the last few chapters, and to be honest I have wanted to skip through the bits about her to get back to the story. Something she said in her dying speech was pretty sad -- "A priest? There's no need.. I have no sins!...In any case, God will have to forgive me..he knows how much I've suffered! And if he won't forgive me, there's even less need!"
It was good to see her so remorseful about sending Sonya into prostitution, but I wonder then why she then sees no need for forgiveness. It seems she asks forgiveness from Sonya, but sees no need of forgiveness from God..
Svidrigailov--
I am very pleased about this strange guy bearing down on Raskolnikov like a smiling assassin. All of R's attempts to conceal, and be in control of the situation seem to suddenly fly out the window as Svid drops the bombshell that he knows everything. I am very curious about his motives in it all though.
Well, only three weeks to go!
For Next Week-- Read Part 6, i-iii
1 comment:
I found Ras's excavating through the different *possible* motives fascinating, discarding them one after the other... and we're familiar with all of them, for they've all been hinted at already. He second guesses his second guesses so much that he is never sure what his true motives are - all there is is a crazy spiral to this thinking that never stops.
Sonya's wierd though, and her attachment to him...
"kind of relieved": I feel the same about Katerina... her hysterics got on my nerves, and the way she dreamed up things and then believed them annoyed the hell out of me.
Both of these questions seem to be revolving around the role of suffering in life. It's pretty foreign - we're so comfortable...
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