CP+Discussion+Question+2

T. McClanahan, D. Domurat, P. Pham, C. Avella What role does chance play in the development of the novel? In which scenes does coincidence figure heavily in the outcome? Is Dostoyevsky interfering too much with the natural course of events in order to move his story along, or is he making a point about the randomness of life, free will, and divine intervention?

Chance is most often found in situations where Rodya's more compassionate side comes out, as he has not time to plan ahead as his intellectual side would want to do. For example, when he sees the young girl being followed down the street and stops to help, or when he stops to help the man who's been hit by the street cart (who turns out to be his friend Marmeladov), these are random, chanve occurrences, and Rodya reacts compassionately, though later regretting it after trying to rationalize everything. Also, there are some things that don't go to planned during the murder, such as the painters and the pawners being there, as well as Lizaveta showing up after Alyona is dead, that cause Rodya to act differently or make different decisions that maybe he would have if they had not shown up (like not killing Lizaveta). Dostoevsky has to have things appear random in the story because, in essence, life is a bunch of random events strung together to appear planned, and there are many parts of life that simply cannot be planned. Spontaneous actions usually only come from the unexpected, and randomness is impossible to predict. Free will, however much we want to tell ourselves that we have complete free will, is not what controls our lives, but netiher is divine intervention. It's merely coincidence.

"...he had noticed a woman who was also walking along the street, about twenty steps ahead of him. At first he had paid no more attention to her than to any of the objects that flickered before his gaze...Raskolnikov lost his temper. Suddenly he wanted to insult this fat dandy in some way." (page 44-45) This is the scene where Rodya notices the drunk, young girl walking down the street being followed by the older, stocky man.

"panic was taking hold of him more and more, especially after this, the second and quite unexpected murder. He wanted to run away from there as quickly as possible." (page 76) This scene is right after killing Lizaveta after she walked in Alyona's house while Rodya was still in the house.