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Re-reading Crime and Punishment: mis-naming

My recent posts collating contents pages of Russian journals do not, I will admit, make for very exciting reading. They do have a purpose, though, and are going to be appearing for some time. But I do want to continue writing on other subjects, partly so as not to alienate all my readers, and partly for the sake of my own sanity.

So, a belated return to my notes on Crime and Punishment, and today I want to discuss a peculiar feature of the novel: the mis-naming of characters and suggestions of uncertainty about their names and origins. This happens, I think, six times:

  • Razumikhin tells a messenger his name is ‘Vrazumikhin’ (pt 2, ch 3)
  • Katerina Ivanovna twice questions her landlady’s claim to be called ‘Amalia Ivanovna’, and insists that her patronymic is actually ‘Ludvigovna’ (pt 2, ch 7, and pt 5, ch 2)
  • Razumikhin calls Sonia ‘Sofia Ivanovna’ (her true patronymic is ‘Semyonovna’) (pt 3, ch 4)
  • Luzhin calls Razumikhin ‘Rassudkin’ (pt 4, ch 2)
  • Luzhin calls Sonia ‘Sofia Ivanovna’ (pt 5, ch 3).

It’s easy to see a couple of patterns here: the involvement of Luzhin, Razumikhin and Sonia, and attribution of the patronymic ‘Ivanovna’. But  its overall significance is unclear, and as a verbal tick associated with one of the novel’s most positive characters, Razumikhin, and one of the most negative, Luzhin, it is even questionable whether it can have a single meaning. Even the basic idea that the characters involved are not what or who they appear to be seems doubtful, as Razumikhin and Sonia, at least, are two of the most open and transparent characters in the novel.

The mis-naming of Razumikhin appears to be the more straightforward case, as it is connected to his literary antecedents and the etymology of his name. The commentary in the Academy edition complete works of Dostoevsky rightly links Razumikhin to the figure of Rakhmetov in Chernyshevsky’s What is to be Done?, and states, ‘[t]he very surname Razumikhin [razum, denoting reason broadly conceived, and with a spiritual dimension – SJY] also emphasizes the membership of Raskol’nikov’s friend to the circle of democratic students of the 1860s and their characteristically high evaluation of reason, which was opposed to authority’ (Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v 30-i tomakh (Moscow and Leningrad: Nauka, 1972-90), VII, 372).

But although this explanation is given in relation to the ‘Vrazumikhin’ reference (VI, 93), the commentary says nothing about what Razumikhin is doing here (indeed, the commentaries do not deal with the question of mis-naming at all). Is it merely a question of distancing himself from the Chernyshevskian image he projected on his first appearance in the text, and suggesting an extra layer to his character? If so, it seems a bit superfluous; we soon realize that this ardent, excitable, heavy-drinking figure only superficially resembles his cardboard cut-out prototype, and hardly need this signal. The changes in meaning introduced by the addition of the ‘v’ — vrazumliat’, to make understand, and vraz, immediately — may suggest that he sees himself as representing a more active principle, but again I’m not convinced that’s all there is to it. One can in any case suggest that Razumikhin while gives himself a more complex definition via his name, Luzhin does the opposite; calling him ‘Rassudkin’ (from rassudok, denoting a narrower and more mechanical form of reason abstracted from spiritual principles) oversimplifies his character and indicates that Luzhin sees the world, and other people, in black-and-white terms.

This is already very far from being an adequate interpretation, but the fact that it is these two characters who also mis-name Sonia makes matters even more complicated. The attribution of the wrong patronymic to Sonia is in itself fairly comprehensible, as it relates to the question of parentage. This is made clear by Katerina Ivanovna’s hysterical denial that her German landlady can also be an ‘Ivanovna’; as Katerina becomes more and more obsessed by her own genteel origins, she cannot countenance Amalia having the same patronymic, as it would imply social (not to mention ethnic) equivalence.

Katerina’s father looms large over the funeral scene, to the extent that the deceased, Semyon Zakharych Marmeladov, is almost erased from the picture. The mis-naming of Sonia contributes to this; immediately after his death, Razumikhin’s and Luzhin’s mistakes question Marmeladov’s claim to fatherhood, undermine his identity, and deny his capacity to live on in the image of his child. Sonia, meanwhile, is doubly orphaned; her father may have abdicated his responsibilities for her whilst alive, but the name change denies her a father altogether. Moreover, as she is endowed with the same patronymic as her stepmother, the possibility of a mother-daughter relationship is also questioned, and Sonia, in her role as provider for the family, becomes Katerina’s sister. This proves to be the first part of her journey, and by the end of the novel, she becomes mother to the convicts: ‘Matushka [little mother], Sofia Semyonovna, you’re our mother’ (epilogue, ch. 2).

But again, this does not tell the whole story, particularly in relation to the roles of the men who call Sonia ‘Ivanovna’. There is a different emphasis in the two incidents, although in both cases the suggestion is that she is not who she appears to be. But if Razumikhin’s error implies that she is more than the prostitute daughter of a destitute drunk, Luzhin’s action (am I wrong in thinking that both his acts of mis-naming feel deliberate?) positions her as a dissembler, suggesting she is not the genuinely grieving daughter of a respectable family brought on hard times – how can she be if she isn’t really Marmeladov’s daughter? – which sets her up for his accusation of theft.

So in addition to broadening out the theme of family relationships, the incidents with Sonia also reveal Luzhin’s and Razumikhin’s characters, opposing world views and motives. But these seem to be very separate issues, while the interconnection of the three characters involved suggests otherwise. Names in Dostoevsky are always significant, so surely mis-naming has to be equally important.  Is there something else going on here, and if so, what? Answers on a postcard please.

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