Annotated bibliography

Bem, Alfred L. "The Problem of Guilt." Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 1988. 5-9. Print.

The guilt of Raskolnikovs crime caused him to repent. In Dostoevskys earlier novels characters often felt a great deal of guilt even if the initial crime was vague and minute compared to Raskolnikovs murder. This means that the objective crime does not increase or decrease the intensity of guild felt by the transgressor. The initial crime awakens the feeling of guild already present in the unsubconcious mind for a past crime. the concrete crime serves as a surrogate for some crime not openly manifested yet present in the psyche. There is a presence of sinfulness in the human psyche independent of the existence of any concrete crime. The feeling of guild can be present in the psyche unaccompanied by an consciousness of crime. The guild-ridden consciousness often seeks a crime in order to express itself, because it wants to free itself from the intense pressure of metaphysical sinfulness to the more tolerable human consciousness, in which it can express its freedom after the character is punished.