Crime And Punishment And Svidrigailloff Differences

141007016

Mr. Kurt Stoecker

IENG 0006

Spring 1, 2015

On Crime and Punishment

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel written in 1866, entitled Crime and punishment (Taylor, 2008) relates the fascinating story of Raskolnikoff, a young clever and handsome student who has to give up his studies because of poverty and depression. Hence, he decides to make a crucial crime by murdering an old greedy moneylender. However, after committing his deplorable crime, the young murderer gets seriously confused and ill. He has to manage how he will explain his mo-tives, and hesitates on whether he should confess or not. Subsequently, he confesses his crime to seek for redemption and finally finds true love with Sonia while he is in jail, which certainly helps him to start

Overall, this character is quite similar to his description in the novel. One of the common facts about him is, undoubtedly his generosity. For instance, in the novel, Svidrigailloff is described as a generous person, but who also has some personal flaws and misbehaviors. In the movie, he really appears not to be tightfisted because as we know in the novel he gave money to Marmeladoff’s desperate family after his death, and he also gives charity to Sonia with the mon-ey that his wife Marfa left before she dies. He reacts the same way in the movie. Another similar point, is the love that Svidrigailoff has for Dounia in the novel, which certainly proves his affec-tion towards her. Also, in the film, we see how he begged Dounia to profess her love for him. The third similarity about him, in both accounts, is that Svidrigailoff listened to the secret conversa-tion between Rakolnikoff and Sonia behind the door, in which the murderer confesses his crime. On the other hand, there is a clear difference in both accounts. In contrast, it is said in the novel that Svidrigailloff kills himself after Dounia refuses to profess her love towards him. However, in the movie we don’t see him put an end to his life. But, despite this contrast, there are quite many similarities that appear in both accounts about

Firstly, Jay Seaver on Efilmcritic.com (2004) esteemed Peter Lorre’s performance by saying “Lorre is fun to watch; he isn't subtle, but he picks exactly the right kind of emoting for each moment. That's a valuable skill for this movie” (p. 66). From this statement, we notice that Jay Seaver, truthfully appreciated Lorre’s perfor-mance. From his perspective, Peter Lorre is amusing to watch, but even though he isn’t delicate, he is able to make suitable distinctions of Raskolnikoff in the film, and he is pretty competent for his role and acts adequately. He adopted the correct attitude for every single scene of the film. Jay Seaver's opinion is also held up with a writer from The New York Times review (1935) of the movie. The author corroborated by saying "Within the limits permitted him by an indecisive script, Mr. Lorre gives a fascinating performance, revealing once again his faculty for blending repulsion and sympathy in the figure he projects to his audience. He also shows a hitherto unsus-pected talent for comedy” (p. 122). By this quotation, they clearly approve that Peter Lorre ac-complished a splendiferous role and assured a spectacular acting. However, although these two critics corroborate about Peter Lorre's satisfying performance, his task wasn't well fulfilled as they suggest it was. Some deficiencies appear in his way of