Anxiety In Crime And Punishment By Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment volumizes anxiety in his characters’ lives and exhibits it through a common body language: pacing. Whether they worry over others’ well being or attempt to contain excitement, Dounia, Raskolnikov, Katerina Ivanovna, and Porfiry Petrovitch all walk up and down a room to calm their uneasiness. These people live in a city that is coated in dirt and grime and overflowing with impoverished households; even though only four of the characters in Crime and Punishment’s display this behavior, everyone in St. Petersburg feels anxiety and paces because of it. This paper argues that Dounia, Raskolnikov, Katerina Ivanovna, and Porfiry Petrovitch pace as a result of their anxiety.
From the first book in Crime and

Petersburg, circumstances dive when they see a difference in their flesh and blood. While Pulcheria Alexandrovna copes with the sight of her sick son by sitting quietly, Raskolnikov’s behavior has an opposite effect on Dounia. When Razuminhin describes their son and brother over the past years, Dounia listens but it overtaken by anxiety over what she hears: “Avdotya Romanovna sat at the table, listening attentively, then got up [...] and began walking to and fro with her arms folded and her lips compressed, occasionally putting in a question, without stopping her walk” (Dostoyevsky 171). It is clear that Dounia loves her brother, but she knows something is troubling him, something that even his mother is too oblivious to understand at the time. Pacing allows her to think and inspect these thoughts running marathons through her brain. She is attempting to understand the psychosis of a killer. This proves to be an impossible task as she is unable to fully comprehend Raskolnikov’s sudden melancholy, even when Raskolnikov admits to “[killing the] vile noxious insect, an old pawnbroker woman, of use to no one” (Dostoyevsky 407). “‘Brother, brother, what are you saying? Why, you have shed blood!’ cried Dounia in despair” (Dostoyevsky 407). He throws numerous curve balls, including completely abandoning those who depend on him, aiming to push his mother and sister further away from him. Dounia emphatically attempts to change this

He knows he can make these guilty convicts nervous when they do not know what is coming, and Raskolnikov falls for the bait. Unable to contain his excitement, Porfiry Petrovitch “[runs] about the room, moving his fat little legs quicker and quicker, looking at the ground, with his right hand behind his back, while with his left making gesticulations that were extraordinarily incongruous with his words. Raskolnikov suddenly noticed that as he ran about the room he seemed twice to stop for a moment near the door, as though he were listening” (Dostoyevsky 268). Porfiry stops at the door multiple times because he has a surprise for Raskolnikov. This surprise most likely would have sentenced Raskolnikov to Siberia then and there, but Porfiry Petrovitch is caught off guard when his plan is foiled: “[...] a strange incident occurred, something so unexpected that neither Raskolnikov nor Porfiry Petrovitch could have looked for such a conclusion to their interview. [...] The noise behind the door increased, and suddenly the door was opened a little” (Dostoyevsky 277). Waiting anxiously behind the door was Nikolay, the painter, ready to confess his guilt to the whole world. Porfiry Petrovitch’s only hope of catching Raskolnikov in that moment was destroyed. Everything he had against the murderer vanished. Porfiry Petrovitch’s anxious excitement at finally arresting Raskolnikov ended in destruction,