The Qestion
of Self-confidence in Crime and
Punishment and The Trial
When I first read The Trial, a few
years ago and again while revising for an exam, I was reminded of the
individual’s inability to negotiate the realties of the world. How
insignificant the voice of the everyman had become over the years – perhaps it
has always been so. Was it out of naiveté, from years of putting his trust in
his elected government to uphold his welfare? Was it out of ignorance: his
inability to tutor himself or access the information that he needs to make an
informed decision. It might be just
plain laziness. As you read the essay, you might notice the subtle tones of
anger unleashed towards Josef K and his inability to take control of his
trials: why wasn’t he more informed? Why was he so naïve to believe that the
government would save him? Didn’t he understand that he existed only as a
number? Isn’t that true now more then ever? Perhaps, the anger was directed at myself: the times one feels the pangs of powerlessness when
faced with the daunting tasks of working outside one’s realm. Maybe, I should
have shown Josef K more empathy. Nevertheless, In the The Trial, it
seems to me that Kafka is saying that once the individual is out of the maze of
the familiar he is lost because he hasn’t taken time to expand on his breath of
knowledge. He manages to navigate with
some efficiency the home maze; travel to his office maze – navigate it effortlessly
for a few hours and head to home base. What happens when the individual is placed
outside the familiar routine without the tools to help him survive the inherent
obstacles of the unmapped? Josef K is
thrown from the calculated confines of banking into the jousting world of
jurisprudence and governmental bureaucracy? Who is to blame for the
individual’s predicament? Some say the government should be accountable for
allowing Josef K to believe that he would be saved from the mishap. There is
something to be said for that. Here is
the real question: when is the individual accountable? To feign ignorance and proclaim blind
allegiance in the nineteenth century; certainly today is reprehensible. A
little knowledge can be dangerous but the hope is that the seed might lend
itself to greater awareness and the ability to navigate. There are avenues that allow us to inform
ourselves.
This
essay found continuity a year later in the essay, Oh,
In Dostoevsky’s Crime and
Punishment and Kafka’s The Trial
the protagonists’ strong self-image and convictions play an important role in
their self-confidence and undoing. In Crime
and Punishment, Raskolnikov is a 23-year old
student who is confident in the conviction of his ideas,
however, a low self-image chips away the very same ideas. Josef K, the
protagonist of The Trial, is a man in
his thirties and a career banker. His confidence comes from doing his job well,
which gives him an appearance of strength, but his complacency is his undoing.
Both protagonists are thrown into a tailspin and their self-confidence, real or
theoretical, begins to deteriorate. Ideas, no matter how well rationalized,
meet just as strong an opposition from the forces of natural law. Both Raskolnikov and Josef K are men of strong convictions that
endow them with a deluded sense of self-confidence. Their crimes stem from
varying degrees of ignorance and challenge the laws of nature. Raskolnikov is convinced that he can alter his destiny and
thereby jump the cue by murdering Alene Ivanovna. He does not let nature take its course with his
life, or that of Ivanovna’s. Raskolnikov
is redeemed because he’s conscious of his world and is capable of excepting his fate. Josef K is guilty of ignorance. He does
not embrace life but he fritters it away. Josef K receives warnings from three
different sources including a prison chaplain, lawyer, and painter, each of
whom challenge his existence. Josef K’s complacency and his lack of awareness
or understanding of life make him unredeemable.
Raskolnikov assumes a Napoleonic
stature. He invests in the idea of utilitarianism, sacrificing the few for the
greater good. He believes murdering and
robbing Alena Ivanovna will
put an end to his downward spiral and restore order to his world. Raskolnikov begins to lose his self-confidence when he
finds himself in debt to his landlady and Alena Ivanovna. A false sense of self-confidence creeps into his
intellect when he contemplates Ivanovna’s murder and
justifies it in his mind. There is no purity in Raskolnikov's
plan. His motive is purely self-serving. It is about his self-preservation. His
motives bear little resemblance to the Napoleonic idea of utilitarianism,
except for the feeling of superiority through exertion of power.
Josef K accepts the idea of state
or government. Throughout the novel, he believes
that the state will intervene on his behalf. Josef K lets others take control
of his life. He consents to his own arrest without a proper charge. The police
invade his home. The vice-president of the bank takes over his office and his
clients. Through the process of keeping appointments with the state police and
the courts he is implicating himself by assuming the role of the guilty man. By
allowing other people to take control of his situations, he loses his sense of
the banker’s reason. He is oblivious to what is going on around him and lives
in ignorance; this is his crime. In the
course of The Trial, Josef K exudes
cockiness that has nothing to do with what is going in the present. His
confidence rests on the coattails of his past.
Although Raskolnikov is strong and confident
in his intellect, his conscience does not allow him to reach the Napoleonic
heights that he has constructed for himself. He swings between cold-hearted
reason and feelings of compassion and love.
He exposes Luzhin as a fraud even though Dunya’s marriage to Luzhin would
have freed him of any financial obligation to his family. It also would have
set him up as a lawyer. After
Marmeladov’s death, Raskolnikov
contributes the last of his money towards his funeral. He gives the money
because Semen Zakharovich has told him his family’s
story. His compassion for the less
fortunate Marmeladov family prevails. Eventually,
Sonya Semenovna, Semen Zakharovich’s
daughter wins over his cold-hearted reasoning.
He has deluded himself into thinking he is a Napoleonic figure: strong,
self-confident, and able to take control of his destiny. However, Raskolnikov lacks these qualities that will see him through
his plan. In the construction of his plan, Raskolnikov
does not take into account his own vulnerability. He does not count on strong
family ties to weaken his resolve. It is not a mistake that he has gravitated
to the Maremeladov family. The Maremeladovs
are a reminder of his own family’s future. Raskolnikov
finds that life is not that simple. He realizes even the most vigilantly
constructed ideas, no matter how strong our belief in them, can not escape
opposition. Similarly, the murder, no matter how well reasoned, can not escape
human compassion. He does not count on filial ties to weaken his resolve.
Josef K does not have a strong sense of self or place. Blind
confidence misleads him to believe that he is making the right decisions and
asking the right questions. He takes his
freedom for granted. Josef K with his world turned upside down is displaced; his
routine defines his existence and without these signposts he exists in a
vacuum. He is lost outside the confines of the bank and his home. Preparing to
defend himself, Josef K finds himself in the underbelly of
Raskolnikov has the theory and a plan but his control is limited. Remorse, the love
of a woman, and her belief in God wins over the cold, calculated reasoning of Raskolnikov. This pseudo-Napoleonic character does not
anticipate that Lizevata Ivanovna
will walk into the apartment as he murders her sister, Alena
Ivanovna. His
murder of the innocent, God-fearing Lizevata Ivanovna sickens
him and sinks him deeper into self-doubt. He confesses to the murders to Sonya Semenovna, a devout Christian and friend of Lizevata Ivanovna because
she has won his heart, but in order to win her, he must confess his crime to
the police. His plan has no room for remorse but guilt, and eventually spirituality
permeates his soul. The guilt he feels over his murder of Lizaveta
leads Raskolnikov to Sonya and to his acceptance of
her belief in the Christian doctrine.
By asking the right questions, Josef K can get the answers and the key to his freedom, but his lack of awareness and his self-assuredness leaves him blind to the truth. Huld, his lawyer is dismissed. Huld, by his name and the nature of his profession represents wisdom that Josef K needs to retain his status of a free man. But Josef K believes that the banker’s wisdom is what is needed. Like Raskolnikov, his perceptions are distorted and have little do with his reality. Both professions operate by a different set of rules and regulations. In the cathedral, he is admonished by the priest because he does not understand that his case is going badly. Josef K is completely blind to his destiny. He has brought his banker’s manual to the cathedral and wonders why he can not find his way out. At one point in a scene, a silver statue of a saint glimmers briefly, in front of him; this is a sure sign that it is not too late for him to be absolved, but Josef K chooses to ignore it as he is in a hurry to plead his innocence at court. There is terseness to his behavior. He accepts everything on a surface value and does not see the true meaning of the world. Josef K is afraid to find the answer: his true nature.
Money plays a major role throughout Crime
and Punishment and Raskolnikov’s loss of
confidence. Lack of funding makes it impossible for him to continue with his
university education. He also loses income from teaching. It appears from his
mother’s letter to him that his mother, Pulkheria,
and sister, Dunya, were relying on him for financial
security upon his graduation from university. Pulkheria
has borrowed money against her pension to support him. Dunya
has agreed to marry Luzhin in order to save the
family and Raskolnikov from financial disaster. It
seems Raskolnikov has let them down at a crucial time
in their lives. It is one of the stronger events that affirms
Raskonikov’s decision to murder Alena Ivanovna,
but it also suggests a helpless boy in a man's body who is unable to fulfil his
family aspirations.
Kafka’s
protagonist, Josef K, is a man who is not operating on the same plane as the
rest of the novel's characters. He does not take control of his destiny and,
therefore, is unredeemable. Kafka as author and seer indicates to Josef K that
he can not be complacent, by taking away his safety net, the routine existence.
There will be no state or divine intervention.
As long as he understands the limits, the working rules, and regulations
of the world or the unlimited possibilities of the world, and as long as he
knows what questions to ask he can survive the world. But, Kafka also indicates
that these rules and regulations are necessary to feel comfortable and
confident. It gives Josef K a stronger position and structure to work and act
from. Josef K knows the workings of the banker’s world and knows his world and,
therefore, can operate within it blindfolded with confidence. Once those
limitations, rules, and regulations are taken away, the structure of his world
is turned upside down, nothing makes sense.
Raskolnikov operates under very real
conditions in fact, his very sensitivity to his surroundings conditions him to
lose his confidence. However, because he is also aware, he also redeems
himself. By rationalising the immoral, the murder of Alena
Ivanovna, he never had a chance to reach the
Napoleonic stature. Dostoevsky’s point is that Raskonikov’s
plan is incongruous to the theory proper because
it is self-serving: it will solve his and only his problem and this has nothing
to do with the greater good. The idea brings him momentary confidence but the
actual crime finds him being sloppy in his execution and without the stomach
for the bloody deed. Raskolnikov wants to get
caught. He incriminates himself. He makes a drunken confession to Zametov, the chief clerk in the police office. Murder is
not in his nature.
In both, Dostoevsky's Crime and
Punishment and Kafka's, The
Trial, the protagonists derive their self-confidence from their
strong convictions. Raskolnikov and Josef K, armed
with their respective degrees of self-confidence, challenge the laws of nature
and fall. Both authors are serving notice to the reader, that man, in his
pursuit of material wealth and intellectual supremacy must respect the laws of
nature and religion. The authors hold
little hope for humanity. However, Dostoevsky does offer a glimmer of hope by
absolving Raskolnikov. Raskolnikov
ends up in prison and lives. Kafka on
the other hand, is devoid of hope and declares the human race dead by killing
off Joseph K.