Having re-read the book earlier this year, it is unnerving to reflect on how closely life has imitated art in this awful story from Tasmania.
11 Responses to “Crime and punishment”
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horrible
“The judge said the boy displays signs of narcissism, highlighted by a grandiose sense of superiority and a preoccupation with being a success.
He has a tendency towards being exploitative, a lack of empathy and mildly arrogant attitudes, Justice Crawford said.”
Would make a fine Liberal Party leader.
They should teach Othello in Tasmanian schools. He could have gone about this with more class.
But Paul the analogy can only be drawn superficially with the book title and the choice of the axe as weapon. As Ambigulous says it’s a horrible crime, but seems to me more an example of the banality of evil than an opportunity to seriously examine the eternal crime and punishment conundrum which Dostoevsky did so thoroughly and absorbingly.
This delinquent boy has shown nothing of Raskolnikov’s mental anguish and moral dilemma after killing the old pawnbroker for her money to solve his financial problems with the initial rationalisation that he was ridding the world of an evil woman. Narcissism wasn’t part of the literary lexicon of 19th century Russia but certainly Raskolnikov had delusions of grandeur thinking that this murder was justified in pursuit of a higher purpose to which he as a superior being was called to be the instrument of divine justice. Unlike this Tasmanian boy he was tormented by guilt and undone by his crime, ultimately confessed and was punished by exile to Siberia.
Without trivialising the impact of the crime on the young victim I’m more inclined to change the subject and go with CMMC’s comment on the “narcissistic” reference to mention the amorality of some in the Opposition, and I don’t mean Malcolm Turnbull. I was astonished to hear Tony Abbott today claim that government had to accept all of the Opposition proposed amendments to the CPRS if the negotations were to succeed.
Was this simply astonishing ignorance shown by a “national leader” of what the word negotiation means? Or the casuistry of the ex-trainee Jesuit using a speciously misleading argument? I think it demonstrates the moral bankruptcy of this politician and a few others in his party who are bereft of any principles except their right to rule and to win any argument regardless of common sense and of the public good.
It reminds me of the Leopold and Loeb case and the films ‘Compulsion’, ‘Rope’ and ‘Swoon’.
One of the issues we have is that if this boy does have narcissistic or antisocial personality disorder, he’s probably too young to be diagnosed with it, yet is treated as if he is sane.
Nope, not much in common with Dostoevsky. More like an Agatha Christie.
‘Rope’ is chilling but don’t those lads work to commit the “perfect murder” under the misapprehension that it’ll earn plaudits from an older man they idolise?
hmm, this thread reminds me that in 1997 I read The Brothers Karamazov [because it got a mention in The Solid Mandala] and persisted with it, despite being hopelessly out of my depth, because I thought I might want to read it 10 years later and compare my reaction…I must get around to doing that, maybe this summer. The Idiot is my favourite Dostoevsky novel.
Erm, I don’t understand the comparison either.
Toss-up between Crime and Punishment and Brothers Karamazov for me, though I disn’t really appreciate the latter until I read it for the third time.
The girl (whose name escapes me) ripped apart by peasants about three-quarters of the way through The Devils is for me Dostoyevsky’s most chilling scene, though I don’t like the book as a whole much.
Curious as to the background of the story, this report from Hobart’s Mercury newspaper offers a little more context than the NineMSM’s morality tale.
http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2009/10/02/101111_scalesofjustice.html
Which is not to suggest it in any way ameliorates what he did, but I’m not terribly comfortable with journalism masquerading as a morality play aka the NineMSM piece. God knows, none of us lack the ability to impose our own brands of moral indignation.
PC’s recent post
http://stilllifewithcat.blogspot.com/2009/11/um-no.html
looks at the media construction around the co-joined twin surgery – again where the media prescribes the moral universe it is to be played out in.
The area where the boy in question is from, is one of Tasmania’s most socially and economically disadvantaged suburbs.
While the actions are inexcusable, its symptomatic of a society where people are disenfranchised and see little hope or little future for themselves.