Sonya, Silent No More
"A Response to the Woman Question in Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 14480909 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Elizabeth Blake (0000-0001-6845-391X, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2006 |
| Volume | 50 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 252 |
| Publication date | 2006-07-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Slavic and East European Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0037-6752 • E-ISSN: 2325-7687 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/20459250 |
| OpenAlex | W2497112471 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 6 |
In an attempt to address the woman question in his novels, F. M. Dostoevsky explores themes of sexuality2 and chastity in connection with his women characters, e.g., Nastasia Filippovna, Liza Tushina, and Grushenka, who struggle to forgive themselves for having lost their virginity to unworthy male seducers.3 In Sonya Marmeladova, however, Dostoevsky examines the moti vation for voluntary sacrifice of chastity-the compelling need to act in a spirit of self-sacrifice to alleviate the sufferings of consumptive step mother, Katerina Ivanovna, and destitute step-siblings. In the June 1876 entries to Diary of a Writer, Dostoevsky associates this longing for magnan imous self-sacrifice [velikodushnaia zhertva] with both fictional heroines in the works of George Sand and young inexperienced women in Russia (23: 36).4 In the final entry for this month, he patemalistically addresses a young woman who wishes to help war victims in Serbia, pitying youth, inexpe rience, and lack of education but hoping that God himself predetermined [this experience] for in order to save her (23: 53).5 Out of similar pater nalistic motives (which are also extended to his male characters), Dostoevsky creates a youthful and quasi-educated heroine, Sonya Marmeladova, who must endure many tribulations from the men in Crime and Punishment before abandoning futile self-sacrifice. She, like the novel's protagonist Rodion Raskolnikov, transgresses a Christian moral precept in the belief that she is 1. I would like to thank the anonymous readers at SEEJ for their helpful suggestions on ear lier drafts of this article
Art · Courage · Literature · Order (exchange) · Precept · Psychoanalysis · Punishment (psychology) · Sacrifice · Sociology · Theology · Virginity test · Philosophy · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism · Psychology · Russian Literature and Bakhtin Studies · Social Psychology · Themes in Literature Analysis
| Citations per year | 0.67 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2020 - 2024 (5) |
| Highly cited | No |