Similarities Between Crime And Punishment And How To Read Literature Like A Professor

Who knew that two completely different books could be quite similar! For example, in the second chapter of How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Foster elaborates about characters coming together for a meal. He mentions that it happens not only to particularly eat but also to interact with each other and to notice the relationships between characters. Since the characters in Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment are in fact human, they have to eat because they are mortal. Meals are reminders of our shared morality, and food is never simply just food, it has a more profound symbolic meaning. Raskolnikov, the main character of Crime and Punishment, sat down for dinner with Dunya, his sister, and her fiancée. While this dinner unfolds, we

Characters are what you want to make them, they exist in order to serve a particular role in the plot. For example, in Crime and Punishment Dostoyevsky makes Marmeladov an important role in the story. Although Raskolnikov had his own problems, he was very worried for his friend Marmeladov and his family. When they first meet, he says to Raskolnikov “poverty is not a vice, that's a true saying. Yet I know too that drunkenness is not a virtue, and that that's even truer. But beggary, honored sir, beggary is a vice”, Dostoyevsky wrote (Dostoyevsky 9). Marmeladov’s words and actions cause an impact in Raskolnikov’s life up to his death. The deeper the reader reads though, the better the distinction they'll have between the level of importance of different

Chapter six of How to Read Literature Like a Professor explains that the bible can any story can be tied into the bible but not say it word for word. Foster wrote, “Moreover, our early literature in English is frequently about, and nearly always formed by, religion” (Foster 46). The way that literature is written in a religious aspect, depends on the historical period and has greatly changed over time. In Crime and Punishment before Raskolnikov confessed to the police that he is the murderer, Sonia gifts him with a cross and asks him to pray. Raskolnikov learns that in order to truly be forgiven for his crime, he had to restore his relationship with God. “Cross yourself, say at least one prayer,” Sonia begged in a timid broken voice,” stated Dostoyevsky (Dostoyevsky 410). Raskolnikov agrees with Sonia is order to show her how much he meant to her and that he'd do anything for her. Sonia is the one person whom stayed with Raskolnikov through all the troubles. She was the reason that he wouldn't give