...Entering the tavern, he drank a glass of vodka and ate a pie with some filling. He finished it again on the road. He had not drunk vodka for a very long time, and it took effect instantly, although he only drank one glass. His legs suddenly became heavy, and he began to feel a strong urge to sleep. He went home; but having already reached Petrovsky Island, he stopped in complete exhaustion, left the road, entered the bushes, fell on the grass and fell asleep at that very moment.

In a painful state, dreams are often distinguished by their extraordinary convexity, brightness and extreme similarity to reality. Sometimes a monstrous picture emerges, but the setting and the whole process of the entire presentation are so plausible and with such subtle, unexpected, but artistically corresponding to the entire completeness of the picture, details that the same dreamer could not invent them in reality, even if he were such an artist, like Pushkin or Turgenev. Such dreams, painful dreams, are always remembered for a long time and make a strong impression on the upset and already excited human body.

Raskolnikov had a terrible dream. He dreamed about his childhood, back in their town. He is about seven years old and is walking on a holiday, in the evening, with his father outside the city. The time is gray, the day is suffocating, the area is exactly the same as it remained in his memory: even in his memory it has been much more erased than it was now imagined in a dream. The town stands open, clear in the open, not a willow tree around; somewhere very far away, at the very edge of the sky, a forest grows black. A few steps from the last city vegetable garden there is a tavern, a large tavern, which always made an unpleasant impression on him and even fear when he passed by it while walking with his father. There was always such a crowd there, they shouted, laughed, cursed, sang so ugly and hoarsely and fought so often; There were always such drunken and scary faces wandering around the tavern... When he met them, he pressed himself closely to his father and trembled all over. Near the tavern there is a road, a country road, always dusty, and the dust on it is always so black. She walks, twisting, then, about three hundred paces, she bends around the city cemetery to the right. Among the cemetery is a stone church with a green dome, to which he went twice a year with his father and mother to mass, when funeral services were served for his grandmother, who had died a long time ago and whom he had never seen. At the same time, they always took kutya with them on a white dish, in a napkin, and the kutya was sugar made from rice and raisins, pressed into the rice with a cross. He loved this church and the ancient images in it, mostly without frames, and the old priest with a trembling head. Near his grandmother’s grave, on which there was a slab, there was also a small grave of his younger brother, who had died for six months and whom he also did not know at all and could not remember; but he was told that he had a little brother, and every time he visited the cemetery, he religiously and respectfully crossed himself over the grave, bowed to it and kissed it. And then he dreams: he and his father are walking along the road to the cemetery and pass by a tavern; he holds his father's hand and looks back at the tavern with fear. A special circumstance attracts his attention: this time there seems to be a party, a crowd of dressed-up bourgeois women, women, their husbands and all sorts of rabble. Everyone is drunk, everyone is singing songs, and near the tavern porch there is a cart, but a strange cart. This is one of those large carts into which large draft horses are harnessed and goods and wine barrels are transported in them. He always loved to look at these huge draft horses, long-maned, with thick legs, walking calmly, at a measured pace, and carrying some whole mountain behind them, without getting too tired at all, as if they were even easier with carts than without carts. But now, strangely, harnessed to such a large cart was a small, skinny, shabby peasant nag, one of those who - he often saw this - sometimes work hard with some tall cart of firewood or hay, especially if the cart gets stuck in the mud or in a rut, and at the same time it’s so painful, the men always beat them so painfully with whips, sometimes even in the very face and in the eyes, and he’s so sorry, so sorry to look at it that he almost cries, but mother always used to , takes him away from the window. But suddenly it becomes very noisy: big, drunken men in red and blue shirts, with saddle-backed army coats, come out of the tavern, shouting, singing, with balalaikas. “Sit down, everyone sit down! - shouts one, still young, with such a thick neck and a fleshy, red face like a carrot, “I’ll take everyone, sit down!” But immediately there is laughter and exclamations:

- Such a nag, good luck!

- Are you, Mikolka, out of your mind or something: you locked such a little mare in such a cart!

“But Savraska will certainly be twenty years old, brothers!”

- Sit down, I’ll take everyone! - Mikolka shouts again, jumping first into the cart, taking the reins and standing on the front at his full height. “The bay one left with Matvey,” he shouts from the cart, “and this little filly, brothers, only breaks my heart: it would seem that he killed her, she eats bread for nothing.” I say sit down! Let me gallop! Let's gallop! - And he takes the whip in his hands, preparing to whip the Savraska with pleasure.

- Yes, sit down, what! - the crowd laughs. - Listen, he’s going to gallop!

“She hasn’t jumped for ten years, I guess.”

- He's jumping!

- Don’t be sorry, brothers, take all kinds of whips, prepare them!

- And then! Whack her!

Crime and punishment. Feature film 1969 Episode 1

Everyone climbs into Mikolka’s cart with laughter and witticisms. Six people got in, and there are still more to be seated. They take with them one woman, fat and ruddy. She's wearing red coats, a beaded tunic, cats on her feet, cracking nuts and chuckling. All around in the crowd they are also laughing, and indeed, how can one not laugh: such a frothing mare and such a burden will be carried at a gallop! The two guys in the cart immediately take a whip each to help Mikolka. The sound is heard: “Well!”, the nag pulls with all her might, but not only can she gallop, but she can even manage a little at a walk, she just minces with her legs, grunts and crouches from the blows of three whips raining down on her like peas. The laughter in the cart and in the crowd doubles, but Mikolka gets angry and, in a rage, strikes the filly with rapid blows, as if he really believed that she would gallop.

- Let me in too, brothers! - shouts one overjoyed guy from the crowd.

- Sit down! Everyone sit down! - Mikolka shouts, - everyone will be lucky. I'll spot it! - And he whips, whips, and no longer knows what to hit with out of frenzy.

“Daddy, daddy,” he shouts to his father, “daddy, what are they doing?” Daddy, the poor horse is being beaten!

- Let's go, let's go! - says the father, - drunk, playing pranks, fools: let's go, don't look! - and wants to take him away, but he breaks out of his hands and, not remembering himself, runs to the horse. But the poor horse feels bad. She gasps, stops, jerks again, almost falls.

- Slap him to death! - Mikolka shouts, - for that matter. I'll spot it!

- Why don’t you have a cross on, or something, you devil! - one old man shouts from the crowd.

“Have you ever seen such a horse carry such luggage,” adds another.

- You'll starve! - shouts the third.

- Don't touch it! My goodness! I do what I want. Sit down again! Everyone sit down! I want you to go galloping without fail!..

Suddenly, laughter erupts in one gulp and covers everything: the little filly could not stand the rapid blows and, helpless, began to kick. Even the old man couldn’t resist and grinned. And indeed: such a hopping little filly, and she kicks too!

Two guys from the crowd take out another whip and run to the horse to whip it from the sides. Everyone runs from their own side.

- In her face, in her eyes, in her eyes! - Mikolka shouts.

- A song, brothers! - someone shouts from the cart, and everyone in the cart joins in. A riotous song is heard, a tambourine clangs, and whistles are heard in the choruses. The woman cracks nuts and chuckles.

...He runs next to the horse, he runs ahead, he sees how it is being whipped in the eyes, right in the eyes! He's crying. His heart rises, tears flow. One of the attackers hits him in the face; he doesn’t feel, he wrings his hands, screams, rushes to the gray-haired old man with a gray beard, who shakes his head and condemns all this. One woman takes him by the hand and wants to lead him away; but he breaks free and runs to the horse again. She is already making her last efforts, but she begins to kick again.

- And to those devils! - Mikolka screams in rage. He throws the whip, bends down and pulls out a long and thick shaft from the bottom of the cart, takes it by the end in both hands and swings it with effort over the Savraska.

- It will explode! - they shout all around.

- My goodness! - Mikolka shouts and lowers the shaft with all his might. A heavy blow is heard.

And Mikolka swings another time, and another blow lands with all its might on the back of the unfortunate nag. She sinks all over, but jumps up and pulls, pulls with all her last strength in different directions to take her out; but from all sides they take it with six whips, and the shaft again rises and falls a third time, then a fourth, measuredly, with a sweep. Mikolka is furious that she cannot kill with one blow.

- Tenacious! - they shout all around.

“Now it will certainly fall, brothers, and this will be the end of it!” - one amateur shouts from the crowd.

- Ax her, what! Finish her at once,” shouts the third.

- Eh, eat those mosquitoes! Make way! - Mikolka screams furiously, throws the shaft, bends down into the cart again and pulls out the iron crowbar. - Be careful! - he shouts and with all his strength he stuns his poor horse. The blow collapsed; the filly staggered, sagged, and wanted to pull, but the crowbar again fell with all its might on her back, and she fell to the ground, as if all four legs had been cut off at once.

- Finish it off! - Mikolka shouts and jumps up, as if unconscious, from the cart. Several guys, also flushed and drunk, grab whatever they can - whips, sticks, shafts - and run to the dying filly. Mikolka stands on the side and starts hitting him on the back with a crowbar in vain. The nag stretches out his muzzle, sighs heavily and dies.

- Finished! - they shout in the crowd.

- Why didn’t you gallop!

- My goodness! - Mikolka shouts, with a crowbar in her hands and with bloodshot eyes. He stands there as if regretting that there is no one else to beat.

- Well, really, you know, you don’t have a cross on you! - Many voices are already shouting from the crowd.

But the poor boy no longer remembers himself. With a cry, he makes his way through the crowd to Savraska, grabs her dead, bloody muzzle and kisses her, kisses her on the eyes, on the lips... Then suddenly he jumps up and in a frenzy rushes with his little fists at Mikolka. At that moment his father, who had been chasing him for a long time, finally grabs him and carries him out of the crowd.

- Let's go! let's go! - he tells him, - let's go home!

- Daddy! Why did they... kill the poor horse! - he sobs, but his breath is taken away, and the words burst out in screams from his constricted chest.

“They’re drunk and acting out, it’s none of our business, let’s go!” - says the father. He wraps his arms around his father, but his chest is tight, tight. He wants to catch his breath, scream, and wakes up.

He woke up covered in sweat, his hair wet with sweat, gasping for breath, and sat up in horror.

“Thank God it’s just a dream! - he said, sitting down under a tree and taking a deep breath. - But what is it? Is it possible that I’m starting to feel a fever: such an ugly dream!”

His whole body seemed to be broken; vague and dark at heart. He put his elbows on his knees and supported his head with both hands.

"God! - he exclaimed, “is it really possible, am I really going to take an ax, hit her on the head, crush her skull... I’ll slide in the sticky, warm blood, pick the lock, steal and tremble; hide, covered in blood... with an ax... Lord, really?

He dreamed of his childhood, back in their town.- The description of this dream is inspired by autobiographical memories. Dostoevsky could see trembling from weakness, driven, skinny peasant nags in the village, on his parents’ estate, not far from Zaraysk. Dostoevsky chose “Raskolnikov’s Dream of a Cornered Horse” to be read at an evening in favor of pedagogical courses on March 21, 1880.

He runs next to the horse - he sees how it is being slashed in the eyes...- These lines echo Nekrasov’s poems on the same topic: “and by the crying, meek eyes” (from the cycle “About the Weather”, part II - “Before Twilight”, 1859). Dostoevsky recalls these verses later in the novel “The Brothers Karamazov” (Part 2, Chapter IV, “Revolt”). A similar motif is also found in V. Hugo (“Melancholy”, 1846; published - 1856).

In F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment” there are many symbolic scenes that play an important role in the meaning of the work. A striking example is Raskolnikov’s dreams and their meaning. Through the images that appear to the hero in dreams, important decisions come to him, and the reader more accurately understands the hero’s inner experiences.

Convenient table on Raskolnikov’s dreams

Raskolnikov's dreams occupy an important place in the novel. Each of them is significant for Raskolnikov’s fate. They come in especially vivid states and have a very symbolic meaning. The most convenient way to display the symbolism and meaning of the hero’s dreams is in the “Raskolnikov’s Dreams” table.

Dream		Meaning	Symbolism
Dream about a horse	Rodion's distant childhood. She and her father head to church and pass a tavern. Rodya sees how drunken men brutally beat a small, weak horse, which is harnessed to a very large cart that is disproportionate to it. Rodya wants to intercede for the animal, but before his eyes the horse is killed, beaten to the end with an iron crowbar.	The dream, as it were, prepares Raskolnikov, warns him, says that the planned crime is contrary to the pure soul and positive qualities of the hero.	The church and the tavern are like opposition to life positions, but they are very close to each other. The tavern is the personification of evil and cruelty, drunkenness, which leads to negative consequences. The Church is the personification of the pure and bright principle in man, God. It is no coincidence that a church and a tavern are found not far from each other: this shows that each person is free to choose for himself what principles to live by, and from good to evil there can be only one step.
Dream about Africa	Egypt, oasis, blue water and warm sand.	The thirst of the soul, the desire for the pure and beautiful. The dream occurs on the eve of the murder; the hero can still stop and choose the path of a pure life.	An oasis, blue water, warmth - like purity of motives and way of life in the midst of an ocean of poverty and waste, dirty thoughts and evil plans.
Dream about Ilya Petrovich and the hostess	The dream occurs as if in delirium. In a dream, policeman Ilya Petrovich comes and Rodion allegedly hears him beating the owner of the apartment downstairs.	Rodion's fear of being exposed, caught for his crime. Raskolnikov is afraid that he will be arrested and does nothing to save the mistress.	The scene acts as a compositional double of the murder of the old woman and Lizaveta. Rodion could have stopped himself, come to his senses, but did nothing.
Dream about a laughing old woman	At the call of some person, Raskolnikov comes to the pawnbroker’s apartment and sees her sitting in the corner. The hero tries to deal with the old woman, but he fails, he only hears her laughter. Raskolnikov escapes and finds himself under the gaze of many people who are hiding and silently waiting for what he will do.	The dream symbolizes the inner state of the hero. It’s not for nothing that the dream occurs just before the arrival of Svidrigailov, who confesses that he knows everything. The dream means a complete failure of the experiment on oneself.	Laughter acts as a victory for the old woman - he killed her, but did not win, but lost to her, experiencing pangs of conscience.
Dream about the end of the world	All people are susceptible to a terrible disease. They must die, they are infected with anger and cruelty, they kill each other and spread horror on Earth. Only a select few can survive by bringing light and purity into the world.	Raskolnikov has a dream when he is in hard labor, after all the torment he endured. Next to him is Sonya, who knows how to sympathize and carries all the pain of humanity, purification and suffering. Hard labor and Sonya become for the hero the beginning of a new life and atonement for his terrible sin.	Sleep as a symbol of soul renewal, its purification.

Using this table, you can write an essay on the topic “Raskolnikov’s Dreams”, indicate their meaning and symbolic meaning.

Work test

The first dream of Rodion Raskolnikov (Chapter 5 of the first part) in the novel by F. M. Dostoevsky « Crime and Punishment"

Essay plan:

1. Sleep in nature. A dream about killing a horse is an excursion into the hero’s past.

The essence of Raskolnikov, his soul of a pure, compassionate person, a dream helps to understand the hero, to penetrate into the hidden corners of the human soul,

In the scene of the killing of a horse, Dostoevsky identifies Raskolnikov’s internal contradictions,

The hero's path from fall to purification is outlined,

The ambiguity and symbolism of the dream (images, artistic details, colors are determined, which will subsequently determine the events and fates of the heroes),

3. The dream is a kind of plan according to which Raskolnikov is invited to act - “God! - he exclaimed, - can I really take an ax, start hitting her on the head, crushing her skull ... "

4. Raskolnikov's first dream is one of the key moments in the plot of the novel Crime and Punishment.

Working materials for the essay

(analysis - study of the text of the novel “Crime and Punishment”)

Dream content:

How old was the hero in the first dream? (“He is about seven years old and is walking on a holiday, in the evening, with his father outside the city.”

What attracts little Rodya? (“A special circumstance attracts his attention: this time it’s like there’s a party here... He and his father are walking along the road to the cemetery and pass by a tavern..."

What struck Rodya? (“a small, skinny, dirty peasant nag was harnessed to such a large cart... Everyone climbed into Mikolka’s cart with laughter and witticisms...” -

What happens in the cart and in the crowd? (“The laughter in the cart and in the crowd doubles, but Mikolka gets angry and, in a rage, whips the little filly with rapid blows, as if he really believes that she will go galloping.. Suddenly laughter is heard in one gulp and covers everything, the little filly could not bear the rapid blows and, powerless, began kick".

How does little Rodya react to this? (“Daddy, why did they... kill that poor horse!” he sobs, but his breath is taken away, and the words burst out in screams from his constricted chest... He wraps his arms around his father, but his chest is constricting, constricting him." The soul of a seven-year-old boy rebels, he I feel sorry for the poor horse.

2.What does Raskolnikov’s first dream reveal? The secret meaning of sleep.

The hero rushes between mercy and violence, good and evil. The hero is split in two.

The dream dramatizes Raskolnikov's mental struggle and constitutes the most important event in the novel: threads stretch from it to other events.

Trying to get rid of his obsession, Raskolnikov strives to get as far from home as possible. Falls asleep in nature. It is obvious that the terrible theory about the division of people into “trembling creatures” and “those with rights” is hidden not in the St. Petersburg slums, but in the mind of the hero himself.

The dream plays a cruel joke on Raskolnikov, as if giving him the opportunity to make a “trial test”, after which the hero goes to the old pawnbroker for a second attempt.

“The last part of the dream undoubtedly reflected the features of the terrible plan he had come up with - let it be horses for now. (Daria Mendeleeva).

Raskolnikov's nightmare has ambiguity and symbolism, is an excursion into the past and at the same time predestination, a kind of plan according to which he had to act.

People stopped plowing and sowing. People stopped perceiving the world around them sensibly, because their brains were inflamed from feverish visions. Arguments and screams filled the air. Parties and unions began to be founded with ease, only to soon disintegrate with the same ease amid mutual reproaches and accusations of betrayal. The economy fell into disrepair. Rallies and riots escalated into stabbings and fires. But even when, illuminated by the senseless flame of self-destruction, the world approached its end, people continued to argue and shout until they were hoarse, confident in their rightness and not listening to anyone.

Here is a free retelling of the picture that Rodion Raskolnikov imagined in hard labor in terrible dream visions. And how similar it is to reports from the notorious Eastern European capital, the same one that until recently dared to compare itself in holiness with Jerusalem. The cries for justice do not cease, but economic life stands still. Disputes flare up at every step, and each of the disputants does not listen to the other. Of course! Each debater is initially confident in the absolute rightness of his own person and the absolute wrongness of his opponent. The flywheel of anger and misunderstanding is spinning up. Neighbors quarrel, families are torn apart. The predatory eye of a proud loser prowls around in search of the culprits. The country is crumbling to the sounds of mantras about imminent and inevitable happiness. And the charred buildings in the city center are just an indication of the charred souls of people who are confident in their suicidal revolutionary rightness.

And where are the reasons for such an unsightly picture with an incomprehensible and threatening future? No matter how much "British scientists" tell us about the alchemical importance of politics, economics and sexual health, all the ups and downs of humanity are rooted in the spirit. And successes are associated with the freedom of the children of God, and failures are associated with demonic possession, with the enslavement of the human spirit to the fallen spirit. This is exactly what Raskolnikov dreamed of. “Some new trichinae appeared, microscopic creatures that inhabited people’s bodies. But these creatures were spirits, gifted with intelligence and will. People who accepted them into themselves immediately became possessed and crazy. But never, never have people considered themselves as smart and unshakable in the truth as the infected believed.”

Raskolnikov is a murderer. One might think that it is right for him to rage and rush about in the heat of night visions. But this will be too quick and superficial an answer. Raskolnikov was not born a murderer. He became one because of a false and deeply internalized ideology. In general, it is not pathological bloodthirstiness, but false ideology that breeds and creates the most dangerous villains and criminals. If the convict dreams of an idealistic murderer coincide to the smallest detail with the real everyday life of an entire people, then we can assume that the causes of their suffering are similar. False ideology!

Raskolnikov is a lover of truth. The world in his eyes is unfair, and he decides to set about correcting the world according to his own moral standards. Let us pay attention to this, because lovers of truth and idealists are very dangerous. They are beneficial if they believe in God and with Him - the One Lover of Mankind - try to heal the ulcers of the world. If they are godless, like Salieri, and, like Salieri, irritated by injustice, then their attempts to establish this very justice will smell of sulfur.

Raskolnikov agrees to blood, and even more. It is blood that he perceives as the price for the right to rebuild the world. He's not going to kill just anyone. He looks for a victim among those who are denied the right to life. The old woman for him is a spider, nothing more. And he’s not going to kill her, but he’s going to crush her. Which of us hasn't crushed spiders? A person is first dehumanized, attaching to him the label of a “lower race,” a degenerate, a convict, a villain, an insect... Then he is killed with unheard-of ease, because his death is not only no longer a sin, but almost a virtue. Let us note this feature for ourselves.

Next. The ax that crushed the old woman's skull also crushed another unplanned skull - Elizabeth's. Before us is another law, inexorable and cruel: at the hands of people who valiantly enforce justice, innocent people will certainly fall dead, which will only increase overall injustice. The demon will laugh, people will cry, and the short-sighted Robin Hoods will suddenly discover that they are not the harmonizers of the Universe, but ordinary villains. They will feel themselves in the shoes of Cain, and will now moan and shake him to death. Moan, shake and come up with excuses. “We didn’t know”, “we didn’t guess”, “it happened that way”, “we were deceived.” All hell is full of such sounds. Actually, Raskolnikov is Cain, only Cain who has repented, which not every “Cain” succeeds in.

Finally, nothing Raskolnikov planned succeeded. It turned out something completely unexpected and terrible. So in a revolution, what always comes out (!) is not what we wanted, but something unexpected and terrible. And he will now toss around in his own hell, which he carries under his heart, until he surrenders to the authorities from the enormous burden of guilt and from the nausea of ​​false ideas. This is where, from this hell, prophetic dreams came to Raskolnikov in hard labor about trichinas possessing intelligence and will, about fires and riots, about the destruction of the world at the hands of self-confident blind men.

What does a literary murderer have in common with a very tangible capital city that has fallen into yet another ruin? Obviously it is a false ideology. An ideology of evil superiority that grew out of an inferiority complex.

The world is unfair, because I am deprived of what I deserve, and I deserve a lot. - This is what the ideology said, with which the rebel part of the people agreed.

In general, I am very good, and my troubles and historical failures are rooted not in me, but in external reasons. - So the ideology continued, and the people nodded approvingly.

These, and these, and these (most often, increasingly successful neighbors) are to blame for my troubles.

Then all that remains is to pick up an ax (Herzen called to him), a cobblestone (also a tool of the proletariat), paving slabs, a Molotov cocktail (despite the fact that the brand is communist). Next, the first blood will be shed, usually innocent. It won’t stop anyone, but it will only whet a strange appetite and awaken the beast in many. Further blood will be more, more, more, because Pandora's box will open wider, wider and wider. Next, it’s time to think about what is written in Revelation - where horsemen are galloping and under one of them is a pale horse. But for now the situation is not in the final stage yet, but in development. The city center is charred, and, presumably, the thoughts of many residents are charred as well. Economic life has stopped, and the coming autumn threatens a new wave of riots. The country is disintegrating and agonizing in blood, to which they are already getting used. But they don’t stop wanting happiness, and they argue and argue, without listening or respecting their interlocutors.

Raskolnikov's dream comes true where yesterday music was still playing, chestnut trees were blooming and fountains were flowing. And who would have thought in our selfish and materialistic world that an ephemeral thing called “false ideology” has such terrible destructive power?

The role of sleep in Dostoevsky's works is different from Pushkin's. We can see this clearly by looking at his novel Crime and Punishment.

The description of the dream that Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov had on the evening before the murder of the old pawnbroker is one of the key points in the plot of Crime and Punishment.

At first glance, this retreat into the unconscious temporarily takes the hero out of the framework of the surrounding reality, in which the terrible plan he has come up with begins to develop, and gives the poor student a small respite from the painful fever into which he drove himself with his extravagant idea. At first it seems that finding himself in the unusual setting of the Islands, surrounded by greenery, fresh flowers, instead of the usual city dust, lime and “crowded houses”, Rodion really miraculously gets rid of “this spell”, from witchcraft, from obsession and plunges into the world of his childhood. When the hero with spiritual warmth remembers the poor small city church, with a green dome, and “the ancient images in it,” and the “stationary priest with a trembling head,” and his own incredibly touching reverence for the “little grave of his little brother, who died for six months, whom he “I didn’t know at all and couldn’t remember,” it seems to us that from under the superficial, born of life’s circumstances, in the present Raskolnikov, a poor student and slum dweller, the soul of a child will be resurrected, unable not only to kill a person, but to calmly look at the killing of a horse. Thus, the whole point of the episode is to reveal the true state of mind of the hero, who, having awakened, even turns to God with a prayer: “Lord, show me my path, and I will renounce this damned dream of mine.” However, literally a day later, Raskolnikov will still carry out his terrible plan, and Dostoevsky for some reason does not allow the reader to forget about this first dream of his character almost until the very end of the novel: like circles spreading across the water from a thrown stone or echoes of a spoken word. out loud phrases throughout the text of “Crime and Punishment” the smallest images are scattered, again and again returning him to the content of the dream. Either, having hidden the jewelry stolen from the old woman under a stone, Raskolnikov returns home, trembling like a driven horse, and he imagines that the assistant apartment warden, Ilya Petrovich, is beating his landlady on the stairs, then shouting: “Get the nag away!” - Katerina Ivanovna Marmeladova dies. All these fleeting indications sound like an annoying note, but do not reveal the deep symbolism of the mysterious dream.

Let us return to the circumstances in which this dream arises in Raskolnikov’s inflamed brain. Trying to get rid of his obsession, the hero tries to get away from home: “It suddenly became terribly disgusting for him to go home (..,) and he went wherever his eyes looked.” Wandering in this way, Rodion Romanovich ends up in a remote part of St. Petersburg. “The greenery and freshness,” writes Dostoevsky, “at first pleased his tired eyes. There was no stuffiness, no stench, no drinking establishments here. But soon these new, pleasant sensations turned into painful and irritating ones.

Alas, the mortal resentment is too deeply embedded in the hero’s mind and cannot be dislodged by a simple change of situation.

Obviously, the terrible theory about the division of people into “trembling creatures” and “those with rights” is hidden not in the St. Petersburg slums, but in the consciousness of the hero himself, and therefore the expected enlightenment while walking along the green Islands does not actually happen. All the hero’s actions are distinguished by meaningless automatism: “once he stopped and counted his money, but soon forgot why he took the money out of his pocket,” and the impressions of what he saw did not seem to reach his consciousness, did not leave a clear, integral image in him: “especially interested his flowers, he looked at them for a long time."

Real enlightenment does not occur even after the hero awakens - the author notes that Raskolnikov was “vague and dark in his soul.” The slight and very short-lived relief that came in his soul was associated with the adoption of a final decision regarding his theory. But what was this decision?

“Even if there are no doubts in all these calculations, even if this is all that is decided this month, as clear as day, as fair as arithmetic. Lord! After all, I still won’t make up my mind! I won’t be able to stand it!” So, it is obvious that we are not talking here about repentance, but only about whether the brave theorist will be able to carry out his plan with his own hands. The dream plays a cruel joke on Raskolnikov, as if giving him the opportunity to make a trial, after which the hero, in a state of the same automatism, actually goes to the old woman-pawnbroker for a second attempt.

It is no coincidence that the author calls the vision of his hero “terrible,” “painful,” “monstrous picture.” Despite all the seeming ordinariness, this first dream in the novel is actually even more fantastic than the other one that visited Raskolnikov at the end of the third part, in which the devil again brings him to Alena Ivanovna’s apartment and from which Svidrigailov seems to enter the narrative.

The description of this dream is preceded by a rather unexpected author's reasoning that in a “painful state, dreams are often distinguished by their extreme similarity to reality. The picture that appears to the hero at first is carefully “disguised” as an ordinary, real one. The deceitfulness and phantasmogorism of the dream is expressed here only in the fact that it is truer than reality: “even in his memory it was much more erased than it was now imagined in a dream.”

Having set the reader and the hero on a wave of lyrical memories, the dream throws up more and more new details - about black dust on the road to the tavern, about a sugar bath on a white platter, about ancient images without salaries... . And only immediately after this, as if in continuation of the same thought, does the presentation of the dream itself begin: “And then he had a dream...”.

This second part of Raskolnikov’s vision has its own fantasy: here the most ordinary things suddenly begin to seem unusual to a little boy. In fact, what is it, for example, that there is a celebration going on in a city tavern - after all, the events described take place on a “holiday”, in the evening, and the “crowd of all sorts of rabble” is doing the same thing as always - bawling songs, frightening little Rodya. Why is the cart standing near the “tavern porch” called “strange”, if it is added that it is one of those large carts into which draft horses are harnessed, which the little boy loved to watch so much?

Indeed, perhaps the only strange thing is that it is harnessed to such a small, Savras, peasant nag, which usually cannot move even the cart of firewood or hay intended for it, and then the men beat it with whips, sometimes in the face and on the face. eyes, which is always so pitiful for a compassionate child to look at.

The last part of Raskolnikov's knowledge undoubtedly reflected the features of the terrible plan he came up with. After all, we are talking about the opportunity to control someone else’s life - even if for now the life of a horse - and about the criteria of expediency, the benefits expected from the existence of others. “And this little mare, brothers, only breaks my heart: so, it would seem, I killed her, she eats bread for nothing.” How close is the position of the poor horse that the student dreamed of, and the very real old woman-pawnbroker, who, according to the opinions of those around her, is nothing more than “a stupid, senseless, insignificant, evil old woman, no one needs, but on the contrary, harmful to everyone, who herself does not knows what she lives for, and who will die by herself tomorrow,” whose life is worth incomparably less than a horse’s, equal in value to “the life of a louse or a cockroach.”

Raskolnikov's dream, as a kind of test, conveys small details of the future murder: a horse is killed (“with an ax, what!” - someone shouts), blood flows down its face. Mikolka, on whom, like later on Raskolnikov, “there is no cross,” is egged on by a whole crowd, just as the officer and the student, with their conversation in the tavern, confirm the assessment mentally given by Rodion Romanovich to the old money-lender, and convince him of the justice of his own plans.

Thus, Rodion Raskolnikov’s nightmare, having the ambiguity and symbolism inherent in dreams, is both an excursion into the hero’s past, a reflection of the struggle that was taking place in the hero’s soul at that moment, and at the same time - a predestination, a kind of plan according to which he is offered act. And only by violating the conditions of this obsessive prophecy, the hero will be able to free himself from the spell and shackles of his demonic theory, so that then, over time, he can come to the true concept and resurrection.

Thus, the close connection of the episodes of the text, where everything is picked up by something, everything is reflected in something, allows us to apply a multi-level interpretation to Crime and Punishment.

1. The first level is historical. The episode with the beating of a horse in Raskolnikov’s dream is traditionally considered an allusion to N. Nekrasov’s poem “About the Weather” (1859).

Under the cruel hand of man

Barely alive, ugly skinny,

The crippled horse is straining,

I'm dragging an unbearable burden.

So she staggered and began

"Well!" - the driver grabbed the log

(The whip seemed not enough for him) -

And he beat her, beat her, beat her!

Legs, somehow spread wide,

All, smoking, settling back,

The horse just sighs deeply

And I looked...(this is how people look)

Submitting to unjust attacks,

He again: on the back, on the sides,

And running forward, over the shoulder blades

And by the crying, meek eyes!

It's all in vain! The nag was standing.

Dostoevsky remembered these poems for the rest of his life; he was amazed by the fact depicted in Nekrasov’s poem to such an extent that he considered it necessary to duplicate what Nekrasov said in his novel.

Dostoevsky, of course, saw similar scenes in reality, if it was necessary to so clearly “refer” to a work of art, then, apparently, not because he was amazed by the facts reflected in it, but because he saw the work itself as some new fact existence that really amazed him. Nekrasov’s perception of a horse trying to move an overwhelming cart, as it were, personifies the suffering and misfortune of this world, its injustice and ruthlessness, moreover, the very existence of this horse, weak and downtrodden - all these are facts of Raskolnikov’s dream about the state of the world. But here’s what actually exists: “... one drunk, who, unknown why and where, was being transported along the street at that time in a huge cart drawn by a huge draft horse.” This cart, in the first pages of the novel Crime and Punishment, seems to have come out of Raskolnikov’s dream.

Thus, only the cart and its dimensions are adequately perceived, but not the load, and not the strength of the horse harnessed to this cart.

The analogue of the horse from Raskolnikov’s dream is Katerina Ivanovna in the novel, falling under the load of her unreal troubles and worries, which are very great and unbearable (especially since God does not take his hand away, and when the end comes, there is always an assistant: Sonya, Raskolnikov, Svidrigailov), and under the burden of troubles and worries she romantically imagined for herself, namely, only from these troubles, insults and sorrows, existing only in her inflamed brain, she, in the end, dies like a “cornered horse.” Katerina Ivanovna exclaims to herself: “The nag has gone!” And, indeed, she rushes about, fights off the horror of life with all her strength, like the nag from Raskolnikov’s dream, but these blows, hitting the living people around her, are often as crushing as the blows of the horses’ hooves that crushed Marmeladov’s chest.

2. The second level is moral. It is revealed when comparing the names of Mikolka from the dream and Nikolai (Mikolai) - the dyer. Raskolnikov rushes at the murderer, Mikolka, screaming. The dyer Nikolka will take upon himself the sin and guilt of the murderer Raskolnikov, protecting him with his unexpected “testimony” at the most terrible moment for him from the torture of Porfiry Petrovich and from a forced confession. At this level, Dostoevsky’s cherished thought is revealed that everyone is to blame for everyone else, that there is only one true attitude towards the sin of one’s neighbor - this is to take his sin upon oneself, to take his crime and guilt upon oneself - at least for a while to bear his burden in order he did not fall into despair from an unbearable burden, but saw a helping hand and the road to resurrection.

3. The third level is allegorical. Here the thought of the second level unfolds and is complemented: not only is everyone to blame for everyone else, but everyone is to blame before everyone else. The torturer and the victim can change places at any time.

In Raskolnikov’s dream, young, well-fed, drunk, cheerful people kill a little horse - in reality, the exhausted and exhausted Marmeladov dies under the hooves of young, strong, well-fed, well-groomed horses. Moreover, his death is no less terrible than the death of a little horse: “His whole chest was distorted, crushed, torn; several ribs on the right side were broken: “On the left side, on the very heart, there was an ominous, large, yellowish-black spot, cruel hoof strike. (...) crushed, pinched in the wheel and dragged, turning, about thirty steps along the pavement.”

4. But the most important level for understanding the meaning of the novel is the fourth level - symbolic; it is at this level that Raskolnikov’s dreams are interconnected into a system. Waking up after a dream about killing a horse, Raskolnikov speaks as if all the blows that fell on the unfortunate horse hurt him.

Perhaps the resolution of this contradiction is in the following words of Raskolnikov: “Why am I!” he continued, bowing again and as if in deep amazement, “after all, I knew that I couldn’t stand this, so why am I still tormented? After all, just yesterday, yesterday, when I went to do this... test, because yesterday I completely understood that I couldn’t stand it... Why am I still doubting it now?

"I studied myself." He really is both a “horse” and a murderer - Mikolka, who demands that the horse harnessed to a cart that is too heavy for him to “gallop.”

The symbol of a rider on a horse is the most famous Christian symbol of the spirit ruling the flesh. It is his spirit, willful and impudent, that is trying to force his nature, his flesh, to do what it cannot, what disgusts it, what it rebels against.

So he will say: “After all, just the thought in reality made me sick and threw me into horror...”.

This is exactly what Porfiry Petrovich will later tell Raskolnikov: “He, let’s say, will lie, that is, a person, a special case, and he will lie perfectly, in the most cunning manner: here, it seems, there would be a triumph, and enjoy the fruits of his wit, and he’ll faint! Yes, in the most interesting, most scandalous place, he’ll faint. Let’s face it, sometimes there’s illness and stuffiness in the rooms, but still, sir! He lied incomparably, but in reality he couldn’t calculate it.”

It is interesting that this idea is about nature, the flesh resisting the demonic spirit, from Dostoevsky - and from Pushkin.

In the poem “What a night, bitter frost...” (1827), the hero is a rider on a horse, a guardsman, a “daring knight”.

He's in a hurry, he's flying to a date.

Desire boils in my chest.

He says: "My horse is dashing,

My faithful horse! Fly like an arrow!

Hurry, hurry... But the horse is zealous

Suddenly he waved his braided mane

I became an IM. In the darkness between the pillars

On an oak crossbar

The corpse was rocking. Rider is harsh

I was ready to rush under it,

But the greyhound horse struggles under the whip,

Snores and snorts and thrashes

Here, as if in a picture, the inner struggle of a person is unfolded, and it is surprising that it is the spirit that prompts a person to sin, to break God’s law, and the flesh is horrified by the sins of the spirit. However, the elders said that the sins of the flesh are safer because they humble a person, show him his weakness, but spiritual sins are truly terrible and disgusting - precisely because they often allow one to be proud of oneself, and, therefore, to get stuck and stuck in this quagmire.