Extraordinary Men: Bludgeoning Pawnbrokers and Consulting with the Devil

Greg posed an interesting thought in response to my last blog post- "The man who trusts in the Devil is granted divine knowledge and pleasures, while those who are God fearing wallow in mediocrity." This concept reminded me strongly of Dostoyevsky's bulky Crime and Punishment, which I finished over break.  The parallels are irresistible.

 

The protagonist of Dostoyevsky's novel commits the premeditated murder of a rich pawnbroker after sending an article for publication in the Weekly Review. He is driven to kill by the theory that mankind can be divided into two parties- the ordinary and the extraordinary. When the police detective Porfiry discovers the article, Raskolnikov explains: 

"I maintain that if the discoveries of Kepler and Newton could not have been made known except by sacrificing the lives of one, a dozen, a hundred, or more men, Newton would have had the right, would indeed have been in duty bound...to eliminate the dozen or the hundred men for the sake of making his discoveries known to the whole of humanity" (Dostovesky 302).

The core of the theory is that extraordinary men have an inner right to break the law, even to kill, if it furthers an exceptionally new idea. Men like Napoleon, "these benefactors and leaders of humanity were guilty of terrible carnage" (302). So, Raskolnikov chooses the pawnbroker, a louse who takes advantage of the impoverished, and bludgeons her to death with the blunt end of a stolen axe. He intends to use her money and pledges for good. Later in the novel, stricken ill by guilt, he admits that he committed the murder to prove that he was significant. He wanted to be extraordinary- just like Faust wanted to separate himself from the multitude, the common people. And just like Raskolnikov commits a blasphemous sin because of his egoism, Faust makes a pact with the Devil himself. Also, just as in some versions Gretchen's negotiations with God save Faust, it is Sonia's Christianity that salvages Raskolnikov while he is residing in a Siberian prison.

But, what I'm really asking is what Greg suggested in his response to my previous blog post- why do Raskolnikov and Faust believe the only path to greatness transcends morality? In both novels, is the introverted scholar merely an archetype for perpetuating Christian morals?