In my Honors Comp and Lit class I had to read “Crime and Punishment.” At first, I hated it. Then I realized the meaning of the book. Crime and punishment is about a man named, Raskolnikov who is in poverty. He is thinking of ways to get out of poverty though. He gets a thought to kill his pawnower. The first time he had that thought, it made him scared and sick. “What a devil! He cried suddenly and in impatience deserting his duty, he, too, went down hurrying and thumping with his heavy boots on the stairs. The steps died away.” (Chapter 7)
He finally goes through on his thought. He breaks into the pawnbroker’s house and kills her and steals from the dead women. While stealing from her the dead women’s half-sister walks in on the crime scene. He kills her without a thought.
After the killings he becomes mentally ill and guilt overcomes him. After the crime is looked into he denies any blame for it. “If I had done that thing, I should certainly have, that I has seen the workman and the flat.” (Chapter 8)
Even though I have never killed anyone before, I still have personal connections with Raskolnikov. Raskolnikov was in deep poverty and my family and I have had a close friend of ours in poverty. He had to do things that he wasn’t proud of or things he would have done if he wasn’t in poverty. Poverty means, the state of being extremely poor. Poverty to me means that you are so poor that you have to make poor choices to survive.
In 2011, a homeless man named Roman Ostrikov was caught stealing a sausage and some cheese from a supermarket. He hide the goods that were worth about $4.50 under is coat while he paid for a breadstick. He was arrested and sentenced to six months in jail. Clearly the man didn’t want to make harm or steal from the store. He paid for a breadstick to which he could have stolen as well. He had to steal the cheese and sausage because he was hungry. With the little amount of money, he had he used buying the breadstick.
A few years ago, my mom and I went to Wal-Mart. While doing our normal grocery shopping we went into the bakery. However, we got distracted by a family of five quickly eating the bakery goods as the workers weren’t looking. We could tell that they were in need not only was it due to the ragged clothes but because they didn’t care that we were watching them. They weren’t embarrassed at all. They were in need of food and money. As a worker came back they stopped and pretended to shop.
Poverty is real people! Some families live off of $23,021 a year. How can a family live off of that? In 2011, nearly 46.2 million Americans were in poverty. Dropout rates were higher due to low income families.
So to the people who think people who are in poverty make the choice they do because they want to not because they need too, this is for you. Now I’m not telling you that you’re wrong and that everyone in poverty can make the stupidest decisions and get away with it. I’m really not. I do think that some people use it to their advantage and get what they want but not what they need. I just want to inform you about poverty and to start a conversation about it.
Poverty isn’t the easiest thing to deal with. People who are in need can make choices that proves they aren’t truly in need or are in poverty. If a man works all day and has three children at home to feed but goes to the bar instead isn’t truly in poverty. Now that doesn’t mean his children aren’t. If a man who steals food from a market because his family and he are hungry then he’s in poverty. See I’m not saying that everyone’s wrong about poverty, just some.
People who are in poverty don’t make the best choices. Raskolnikov didn’t make a good choice when he was in poverty either. He thought about both outcomes. If he didn’t kill the pawnowner, what that outcome would be, or if he did kill her, what that outcome would be. People who are truly in poverty make the choices they make because they need to, not because they want to.
