senior quote

"Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling in love. "
Albert Einstein

"Evangelizing" oedipus rex

So I'm mostly taking what i learned from the friday class discussion. We discussed that fate is man's replacement for God. Instead of a divine plan for his life, Oedipus is focused on escaping his doomed 'fate'. He thinks that the gods are against him since his life is set for misery. When trying to escape this fate of his, he makes it come to pass. He marries his mother and kills his father.
Also, sin cannot go unpunished. As we have discussed in Crime and Punishment, man is not above sin. So it therefore comes back to get you. This is seen in Oedipus Rex since Oedipus kills his father Laius, even though he didn't know it was his father at the time, he lays with his mother. Even though he was not aware of those he was committing the sin with, it was still a sin. Therefore, he is punished and is a doomed man. He must decline his position as king and he blinds himself.
Anger is a third aspect. This is what ultimately brings about his doom. He gets mad at the man on the road-Laius- and murders him. He then is angry upon hearing of a murder in his province, and says that he must be found and punished. But this murderer was himself all along, so he brought about his own destruction. Then, he is angry that his 'fate' came true so he stabs his eyes, leaving him blind forever.
The shepherd is a biblical symbol. This is because in Oedipus Rex, the shepherd saves the baby on the mountain top because it is about to die. Jesus is our shepherd, and he leads us away from sin and harm. He is our savior.

What I took from our guest speaker's discussion---

I was very excited to look more in depth at Crime and Punishment. The favorite thing that i learned about was existentialism and how Raskolnikov embodies that. It was discussed that Doestoevsky showed "living life always making momentary decisions" in his book. This is an element of existentialism. A.K.A. what vices draw them to make decisions. I was also interested to find out that Doestoevsky was an epileptic and had a tortured soul. This better explains why he wrote such a gloomy and psychological novel.
In his deep analysis of the character's souls, Doestoevsky is able to "rip the mask" off of the characters and tie their emotions to those of the audience. The last thing that stood out to me was when our speaker told us an important theme. He said that "what we do on the external comes onto the internal". And this theme is apparent throughout the entire work of Crime and Punishment.

Mere Christianity Quote

"Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive."(115)

Did Raskolnikov truly repent?

I do not believe that Raskolnikov ever truly repented in the novel. He did in fact confess his sin to the police in the last chapter, but that was due to the fact that his theory of being a "superman" failed and he was relieving himself of the sinful burden.

On page 550, Doestovsky writes, "Under his pillow lay the Gospels...He had not opened it yet. Nor did he open it now, but a thought flashed in [Raskolnikov]:'Can her convictions not be my convictions now? Her feelings, her aspirations, at least...'".
The last phrase of the novel is key to understanding that his repentence has not yet occured, but with this future ahead of him it is surely to come. "It might make the subject of a new story- but our present story is ended"(551).