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Similes
Part 1, Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—Condemned to Death:
The narrator uses a simile that compares Raskolnikov to a man who has been condemned to death at the end of an important scene in which he decides to murder an elderly pawnbroker. The fact that he feels condemned to death even though he has decided to kill someone else is situationally ironic:
It was only a few more steps to his place. He walked in like a man condemned to death. He was not reasoning about anything, and was totally unable to reason; but he suddenly felt with his whole being that he no longer had any freedom either of mind or of will, and that everything had been suddenly and definitively decided. Of course, even if he had waited years on end for a good opportunity, having his design in mind, he could not have counted with certainty on a more obvious step towards the success of this design than the one that had suddenly presented itself now.
Although he had previously concluded, based on a dream, that he lacked the emotional fortitude to carry out his plan to kill the old woman, a surprising and coincidental encounter on the street reveals to him that the woman’s sister, Lizaveta, will be out of the house in the early evening the following day. He regards this good timing as an act of fate and decides that he must go through with this scheme. At this moment, the narrator describes him, in a simile, as being “like a man condemned to death.” This simile suggests that Raskolnikov is, in some sense, being pulled towards his fate like a prisoner. However, there is also a pointed irony in this choice of simile, as Raskolnikov has not in fact been condemned to death, but rather, has decided to kill another person.
Related Themes:
