Everyone
allows their personal desires to get the best of them. Humans are selfish by
nature. This is prominent in the novel Crime
and Punishment. The main character, Ras, allows his inner most desires to
control his actions. He does not stop to think about how it could affect other
or even himself. In reality, his actions affect himself the most in a negative
way rather than the positive way that he had hoped it would. This goes to show
that humans act upon impulse based on their desires to get what they want.
Money is a huge driving factor for
everyone especially for those who do not have money such as Ras, in Crime and Punishment. However, it just
pushes people like Ras to act on their impulses to get something they desire. At
the start of the novel he is described as wearing tattered clothing and rags,
things such that the poor would wear. In actuality, Ras is poor which is why it
is not a big deal that he is wearing such clothing however he is in dire need
of money so he pawns off some of his trinkets to a pawnshop. Pawning off goods
is not such a bad deed-- even though his responsibilities are to work and earn
an honest living-- especially if it is compared to what he starts to
contemplate doing, which is murder. His one desire that is prominent in the
beginning of the novel is to murder the Pawnshop lady and take her goods
however it was not all about money. He hated the lady with a burning passion
and learns that others do too. It takes several of chapters until he settles
this internal conflict of whether or not he should kill her but he finally
follows his personal desires and kills the lady. Once she is dead he rummages
through her belongings and snatches some money and some trinkets. However he
had left the door opened and the Pawnshop lady’s sister entered and he
slaughtered her just as mercilessly. He had allowed his
yearnings of committing a crime to easily obtain money get the best of him and
murdered two people.
After committing such a crime, Ras
starts to feel horrible about it that he sleeps fitfully for several of nights.
It would be morally correct to attempt to correct such a horrid mistake by
confessing your sins or crimes to the proper authority however his fear
prevented him from doing so. With his fear not allowing him to come clean, his
conscience constantly attacks his mind, weakening it causing him to go mad in
the eyes of some. That is what the conscience is for to remind you constantly
that you have done something wrong. It is your moral obligation to listen to
your conscience and right a wrong you have done. However, Ras was too preoccupied
with trying to protect himself from punishment to obey his conscience.
Many things have happened as Ras
tries to fight with his conscience and one of them is that his mother announced
that his sister, Dun, is getting married to a government worker named, Luz.
Normally, if one hears that their sister is getting married one is usually
excited and tries to like whomever their sister is marrying. For Ras, that was
not the case. Due to his hatred of Luz after their confrontation in the Café
which almost caused Ras to confess his murder and his love for his sister, or
at least his attempt to show such love, he tries to break off their marriage.
He is successful in breaking off the marriage however it was not the right
thing to do because Ras had his own ulterior motives for the break-up. He acted
in a way to rid himself of any threats and since his meeting with Luz at the Café,
he saw him as an active threat.
Why do humans act upon impulse like
Ras has done? It is quite simple. Due to the fact that something such as “impulse”
is the most primal of all instincts that humans have not lost, humans act upon
such an instinct to protect themselves and obtain their raw desires. One can
classify the actions taken by Ras to be savagely and selfish but one must also
understand that he is human and humans are still animals. They will continually
try to get whatever they want without yet thinking about the consequences.
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