#and when he asks razumikhin why he's so kind and that he can't stand it when he himself also shows the same care in his own way

[kikuism]

i love how raskolnikov's guilt manifests in so many different ways—the feverish deliriums yes but also his insistence in saving a dying marmeladov and providing for his family as though he can somehow compensate for the lives he's taken. how he feels he would be able to suffer easily if he wasn't so loved by those around him.

the way he acknowledges this love despite the absolute wretched state he's in ... 'he's capable of loving deeply' in regards to razumikhin and 'mama, no matter what happens ... will you go on loving me as you do now?' it's like in the barren scorched wasteland of his fevered mind, love is the only thing that's left. i teared up when he visited his mother for the last time.

and his oscillating state of mind in regard to the murder. sometimes he justifies it, that he did it for the greater good, other times he insists it was for his own sake alone, to see whether or not he could take that power in his own hands

throughout the novel raskolnikov grapples with whether he sees the murder as a crime or not and whether he himself feels guilt at his actions or not. at times he is insistent he has done nothing wrong ...

... yet at times he is so assured of his own guilt, what a relief it would be to finally turn himself in and be done with this whole ordeal, to the point where the thought of being found innocent terrifies him. he's feverish and delirious and unable to function and wants nothing more than to end this torment.

there's also an interesting discussion on the effects of the environment, from the suffocating, cramped, squalid living quarters raskolnikov lives in—to the point where someone comments to him that he needs 'air, air, air'—to the poverty crushing down on everyone in petersburg.

was it circumstance that drove raskolnikov to murder? or was it the innate workings of his own mind, this question of whether or not he could take that first step; was he capable of harnessing such power for himself? but both are so inextricably linked that it's impossible to pinpoint from where the impulse arose.

i also noticed an interesting pattern at three crucial moments: at the time of the murder, at a time of guilt, and at the time of confession. these three scenes all contain the element of childlike fear.

lizaveta looks at him with childlike fear right before she is murdered, sonya looks at him with childlike fear hearing his confession, and raskolnikov insists with childlike fear that he is not a murderer. at times of great duress you are reduced to a mere child, still innocent, still protected from the harsh realities of life. fear reduces you to a childlike state, where you aren't in complete control of your faculties. this marks raskolnikov's final confession, spoken clearly and without hesitation, as the return of his rationality and sensibility, showing that he is fully committed to suffer for what he's done.

no matter how he justifies it, raskolnikov knows he has done something irreversible and that he will never be the same.

but at the very end:

“love had resurrected them; the heart of one contained infinite sources of life for the heart of the other.”