Dane Stewart’s Reviews > Crime and Punishment > Status Update

After losing Sonya and possibly dealing with the guilt of killing Marfa, Svid is tormented beyond belief, wandering the cold rainy streets in the middle of the night, paying visits to give away all his money to others. This is a strong parallel to Rodya’s insanity. Earlier, someone mentioned that Rodya will either “put a bullet in his head or hard labor” Here, Svid does the former, so will Rodya do the latter?

Svidrigailov gives us the first, full examination of Rodya from a third person perspective. Dostoevsky basically lays it all out, saying this is objectively Rodya. This is how other people see him without knowing the ins and outs of his mind. Up until this point we all have our own view of Rodya because the whole book has been from his perspective. Now we can compare our idea of Rodya to a third party’s.

So we finally get an official accusation from Porfiry. Rodya’s reaction isn’t what I expected. He just sits there and takes it on the chin, as opposed to freaking out and playing mad. Perhaps his recent confession to Sonya has changed how he feels about it. I’m wondering if Porfiry is yet still playing mind games, or if he actually found the stone that Rodya buried the loot under

Katerina has officially lost her mind and dies. This whole situation is awful. The children are dressed in heinous costumes, dancing and singing while crying. Sonya, having just suffered the loss of her father and recently acquiring Rodya’s burden of guilt, now has to witness the chaotic final moments of her step-mother’s life. That’s rough. With Svidrigailov here, the stage is now set for the finale.

The memorial meal was a nightmare. We get to see Katerina in action. We see how much she cares about being perceived as “noble” and of high stature. However, when she looks around the room, sees no one of the same nature. Nobody really behaves at this event. We’ll see soon about the situation with Pyotr and Sonya, and how Rodya feels about it.

Pyotr has been rejected by Dunya and has found his next project. He has his eyes set on Sonya, yet another destitute girl that can be dependent on him. I hope Rodya gets in the middle of this one too lol.

The mind games to end part 4 were intense. I was constantly flipping back and forth on whether I thought Porfiry knew it was Rodya. I still don’t know. I feel for Rodya going crazy. I understand how he could be paranoid and think that they’re just toying with him. But part of me wants to think that Porfiry truly is unsure and is just tormenting him. Interested to see where things go w the confession from Nikolai

Once again, we see that things look like they might turn out alright, with Razumikhins publishing idea … and once again we see Rodya self sabotage and isolate himself from the family. He needs somebody to share his guilt with. Will he go to Svidrigailov? Maybe Sonya?

Rodya is starting to piece together how Svidrigailov can be useful to him. He’s just found out that he is capable of covering up crimes with his status and money (he’s interested in befriending him to cover up his own crime), and is piecing together that Svidrigailov is going through the same madness symptoms that he has been (most likely from killing Marfa)

We just saw Pyotr’s true colors. When Rodya bickered with him earlier in the story, I thought he was throwing away his future of marrying into a rich family and being able to live well off. Now, we can see that he was right. Pyotr really is as self absorbed as Rodya accused him for being. Dunya dodged a bullet.