Keri's term paper

 Dostoyevsky illustrates in "Crime and Punishment" that guilt can have a damaging effect on mental stability through Raskolnikov's journey after having committed his crime. Raskolnikov goes through many a mental stage to cope with this guilt. He goes back and forth on whether or not he should confess, he suffers from a mad fever, and he confesses to the police at the end which can be viewed as an act of attempted redemption.
 First and foremost, a possible definition of guilt can be: an emotion that people feel when they believe they have done something regretful. It is an "internal state" (Krauss Whitbourne, A Definitive Guide to Guilt). According to psychologytoday.com, there are five types of guilt that a person can experience. These are "Guilt for something you did", "Guilt for something you did not do but want to", "Guilt for something you think you did", "Guilt that you did not do enough to help someone", and "Guilt that you are doing better than someone else" (Krauss Whitbourne, A Definitive Guide to Guilt). This emotion can, oftentimes, restrict a person's feeling of freedom and time. It can also have an effect on a person's behavior. Some of these effects include "trying hard to make things right by overworking and over-giving in an attempt to make everyone happy", "Ignoring your needs and desires in order to avoid upsetting others", "Becoming overly sensitive to making right decisions in your personal actions, choice of words and decisions", "Becoming fearful of doing or saying something wrong to the point where you give in and choose to stay within the status quo", "Lacking decision-making skills since you always want to make the "right" choice", "Creating self-denial by always putting other people first", "Becoming emotionally closed off and only able to see the negative aspects of life", "Using the discomfort of guilt to motivate you to change things in your life to eliminate the guilt", "Using guilt as a mask for your low self-esteem", and "Making irrational decisions based on the guilt" (Therapists.com, Guilt and Shame).
After Raskolnikov commits the murder, he immediately drives himself mad with illness. He is unconscious and spends a lot of time sleeping. Guilt has been proven to affect a person's health. In a similar field, Depression and other emotions of this sort can cause a person to sleep constantly in order to avoid dealing with these emotions. For these reasons, It was obvious to me that Raskolnikov suffered from guilt.  Raskolnikov was constantly in an unconscious state.
Guilt can cause a fever like that seen in "Crime and Punishment". It can also cause more severe illnesses. This is due to the amygdala which is the part of the brain that associates emotions with occurrences in a person's life. People can then know that guilt is what is causing their sudden madness.
Guilt can also affect a person physically. An example of this would be avoiding direct eye contact with someone. Another example could be perspiring frequently and avoiding social scenes. Raskolnikov does almost all of these things which shows readers just how guilty he feels.
 Dostoyevsky goes even further to demonstrate  Raskolnikov's journey after having committed his crime. The guilt he feels after his crime goes to show how debilitating guilt is. The part of this novel that showed just how guilty Raskolnikov felt was when Raskolnikov was present when others were discussing the crime he committed. The people blamed someone else in this conversation. This ultimately leads to an intense discussion both in Raskolnikov's house and in Raskolnikov's head. A riveting debate ensues in both places. The other people discuss who could have committed the crime while Raskolnikov debates whether or not he should confess that he was the one who committed the crime. He drives himself crazy and even mad while continuing to fall unconscious. Since the others in his apartment do not know that Rasklnikov is the culprit, they do not take his constant falling unconscious as a sign of guilt. In their minds, his illness is inexplicable. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it.
 However, if it is known that someone has done something wrong, it is oftentimes transparent from an aerial perspective.
After Raskolnikov commits the murder, he immediately drives himself mad with illness. Even if other people do not know, the kind of illness that Raskolnikov has should send anyone red flags. Sleeping all of the time shows guilt or even sadness so it should be looked into. If they had looked into Raskolnikov's case from a different perspective, they would have seen that Raskolnikov has the worst kind of guilt- the kind that comes from killing someone. If the others had looked into it further, they would have known that this illness is not just a small cold or a random occurrence, it is significant both health wise and mental state wise. The doctor was clearly mistaken when he assumed that Raskolnikov's ailments were due to  general sickness. The doctor did not look into the possibility that Raskolnikov may have Antisocial Personality Disorder, a disorder where a person does not have any regard for committing criminal acts. Although he did feel remorse afterwards, he did not concern himself with whether or not he should commit the crime. This reiterates how transparent guilt can be.
 Dostoyevsky demonstrates in "Crime and Punishment" that another effect of guilt is heavy drinking since the person's mental stability is not necessarily in check after having committed a crime. The guilt he feels after his crime makes Raskolnikov feel as if he needs to drink and sleep to make himself forget about what he did and the repercussions that come with it. As seen by Raskolnikov's actions, sleeping and drinking heavily can be used as outlets to forget about guilt since it is so unpleasant in people's minds.
As mentioned, Guilt has been shown to cause such behavior. It makes sense in human nature since people tend to use defense mechanisms to make themselves feel better about whatever it is they did.  This can, oftentimes,  change a person's behavior. Drinking oftentimes makes people forget about their daily lives so it is often used as a kind of defense mechanism. Another kind of defense mechanism used would be cautious behavior. They can comfort themselves in the fact that they are not doing anything illegal in the current moment. In this way, when someone has done something wrong, it is oftentimes transparent from an aerial perspective whether that be through heavy drinking or extremely cautious behavior.
After Raskolnikov commits the murder, he immediately drives himself mad with illness. He is unconscious and spends a lot of time sleeping. He essentially overcompensates which could also be seen as a defense mechanism. This would be called repression. Raskolnikov represses his feelings by sleeping and falling unconscious. He also begins to drink a lot to forget. He puts himself in these kinds of settings where he witnesses debauchery since others are probably attempting to do the same thing as him. This is probably a cause of alcoholism. Another defense mechanism that Raskolnikov uses is projection. He randomly finds himself angry at others when he really should be angry with himself. This is projection since when one is worried about something about themselves, they project it onto someone else. Raskolnikov is worried that someone will suspect that he committed the crime, he gets worried and angry when he overhears his colleagues speaking about it. He projects this worry and anger onto his colleagues since he wants to try to do anything he can to keep from being discovered until he decides whether or not to confess.  In this way, guilt has been proven to affect a person's health. In a similar field, depression and other emotions of this sort can also cause repression in that a person sleeps constantly in order to avoid dealing with these emotions. For these reasons, it was obvious to all readers that Raskolnikov suffered from guilt. This further reiterates how transparent guilt can be.
 All of these instances represent defense mechanisms and how they work to relieve people from the guilt they feel. It also provides a comment on how desperate people are to relieve themselves from unpleasant aspects of their personalities. It shows why people in our society need outlets to get away from their struggles since otherwise, it is too hard to deal with.
Ultimately, there are ways to deal with guilt that do not require forgetting about what you are dealing with. Psychcentral.com gives advice on how to deal with guilt. According to this website, the first step is to "Recognize the guilt you have and its purpose" (Grohol, 5 Tips For Dealing With Guilt). This can help by making the person conscious of what is making them feel guilty. Identification is the first step. If Raskolnikov had openly recognized that his illness and drinking were a direct result of the guilt he felt, he would have been better off. The second step is to "Make amends or changes sooner rather than later" (Grohol, 5 Tips For Dealing With Guilt). This makes sense since letting a feeling linger can only make your guilt grow stronger due to the time it spends festering in one's mind. If Raskolnikov had confessed or even changed his indifferent attitudes towards everything, he would not have suffered nearly as much.  The third step is to "Accept you did something wrong, but move on" (Grohol, 5 Tips For Dealing With Guilt). One knows that they did something wrong but there comes a point where, in order for the person to stop bothering themselves with it, they have to accept the cards they have been dealt and move on with their life. The major error Raskolnikov made was not confessing earlier therefore, he did not accept what he did early enough. He did not move on since his entire days were spent predicating on whether or not he should have confessed. He should have just confessed and dealt with the consequences. The fourth step is "Learning from our behaviors"(Grohol, 5 Tips For Dealing With Guilt). One must accept what they have done and move on but they cannot do this effectively if they do not learn from their mistakes. If one learns from their mistakes, it is possible that they will not have to feel the same kind of guilt. Since most of the book is taken up by Raskolnikov's decision about confessing, readers do not really get to see if Raskolnikov learns from his mistakes. Readers do not get to see whether or not he commits another crime. Readers do not even get to see whether his next crime, if it happens, was trivial or as horrible as his first. Readers can only hope that Raskolnikov learns from his mistakes and does not commit another crime like the one he did. He should learn from all of the trauma that his guilt caused himself. Lastly, the fifth step is to realize that "Perfection does not exist in anyone" (Grohol, 5 Tips For Dealing With Guilt). Nobody is perfect. Everyone has done something in their lives that they regret. In this way, guilt is relatable. Raskolnikov's crime, on the other hand, is different. Since he killed someone, it is not a great idea to relate to others about it. No one is perfect but not many have killed another person before. So in conclusion, guilt is a very difficult aspect of life that all people are forced to deal with at some point. Dostoyevsky provides a commentary on this ever present part of our lives. Since guilt is a huge aspect of our lives, people may wonder if it is even possible to redeem oneself from guilt. It is possible to free oneself of this guilt and to change. After some time has gone by and punishments have been administered, it is possible to become a better person. One just needs to learn from their mistakes and truly make an active effort to change their morals and ideals.