the last Crime and Punishment assignment
Thirteen Ways of Looking at Raskolnikov
I.
Lurking alone among people,
St. Petersburg.
A young man under the church bells,
Raskolnikov.
II.
To kill or not to kill
An axe or a knife
Tomorrow or tonight-
Raskolnikov’s mind.
III.
Kill the mare, kill the rogue.
“Oh, my handsome soldier,
Don’t beat me for nothing”
My dear Rodya, don’t beat me for nothing.
IV.
He leaves the sufferers riches;
Leaves the rich, death.
How kind you are, Rodya, how cruel.
V.
Raskolnikov, you have bled
Enough. End it all,
For me.
VI.
There is no escaping
Raskolnikov, you can’t run.
A broken-winged butterfly.
…You can’t run.
VII.
To drink, to suffer,
To love, be loved,
To live to die.
Why do we hope, Raskolnikov?
VIII.
Two peas in a pod, Raskolnikov.
We are our own downfall.
Heading to America, with a bullet in my head.
IX.
On the bridge, a woman standing;
Over the rail she went.
Raskolnikov, the savior of the suffering,
Walks on.
X.
Gone to waste in the wasteland.
Don’t leave, my Rodya,
Stay with me, I’ll stay with you,
In the frozen wasteland.
XI.
“…he is not capable of love?”
Raskolnikov, you must believe in me.
“He loves no one and perhaps he never will.”
I believe in you.
XII.
I, Raskolnikov, am a Great Man.
I stand tall beside Napoleon, I march
Alongside Alexander the Great.
I am a Great Man, a powerless Great Man.
XIII.
Of fear and alienation,
In him it ceases to haunt.
Rodya shovels the snow away,
To be replaced by many, many more.
I made an allusion to Hamlet because the characters and themes related so well to it. Raskonikov and Rodya are the same person. The second name is more personal and is mostly used by his mother.
I tried to come up with a haiku, it didn't work out. It's suppose to be "imagism" which is using an object through out the poem and to perceive it through different perspectives and positions/settings. It was hard to try to convert something abstract like suffering and psychological mental damage into concrete imagery. I don't know if it's good or not, my writing seems to have gotten worse.
I.
Lurking alone among people,
St. Petersburg.
A young man under the church bells,
Raskolnikov.
II.
To kill or not to kill
An axe or a knife
Tomorrow or tonight-
Raskolnikov’s mind.
III.
Kill the mare, kill the rogue.
“Oh, my handsome soldier,
Don’t beat me for nothing”
My dear Rodya, don’t beat me for nothing.
IV.
He leaves the sufferers riches;
Leaves the rich, death.
How kind you are, Rodya, how cruel.
V.
Raskolnikov, you have bled
Enough. End it all,
For me.
VI.
There is no escaping
Raskolnikov, you can’t run.
A broken-winged butterfly.
…You can’t run.
VII.
To drink, to suffer,
To love, be loved,
To live to die.
Why do we hope, Raskolnikov?
VIII.
Two peas in a pod, Raskolnikov.
We are our own downfall.
Heading to America, with a bullet in my head.
IX.
On the bridge, a woman standing;
Over the rail she went.
Raskolnikov, the savior of the suffering,
Walks on.
X.
Gone to waste in the wasteland.
Don’t leave, my Rodya,
Stay with me, I’ll stay with you,
In the frozen wasteland.
XI.
“…he is not capable of love?”
Raskolnikov, you must believe in me.
“He loves no one and perhaps he never will.”
I believe in you.
XII.
I, Raskolnikov, am a Great Man.
I stand tall beside Napoleon, I march
Alongside Alexander the Great.
I am a Great Man, a powerless Great Man.
XIII.
Of fear and alienation,
In him it ceases to haunt.
Rodya shovels the snow away,
To be replaced by many, many more.
I made an allusion to Hamlet because the characters and themes related so well to it. Raskonikov and Rodya are the same person. The second name is more personal and is mostly used by his mother.
I tried to come up with a haiku, it didn't work out. It's suppose to be "imagism" which is using an object through out the poem and to perceive it through different perspectives and positions/settings. It was hard to try to convert something abstract like suffering and psychological mental damage into concrete imagery. I don't know if it's good or not, my writing seems to have gotten worse.