Paper Summary:

This paper analyzes the portrayal of prostitutes as morally upright in comparison to their murderous counterparts in the novels "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoevsky and "Oliver Twist" by Charles Dickens. The paper discusses the characters of the prostitutes in these novels and discusses their relationships to the events that occur. It particularly focuses on the innocent portrayal of these women.

From the Paper:

"In society the figure of the prostitute is generally seen as that of a sinner. In both Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, however, that categorization is resisted through the representation of the motivations of the prostitute in relation to the character who commits the ultimate sin, that of taking another person's life. In Crime and Punishment, for instance, Sonya Semenova might be a prostitute, but it is not a vocation she happily embraces, because she was driven to it by economic necessity. In fact, the figure of Sonya is essentially Christ-like, in that she persuades Raskolnikov, the murderer, to confess his sin so he can achieve peace within himself. And when he is exiled to Siberia as punishment, she travels along with him to help him bear his metaphorical cross. In that way, she becomes a figure of redemption for him, though she is a prostitute and morally condemned by society for it. Similarly, in Oliver Twist, the prostitute Nancy's redeeming quality lies in her attempt to help Oliver by revealing pertinent information about Monks to Dr. Losberne and Rose Maylie. She does this at the cost of her own safety, and Sikes murders her for her intentions of doing what is right, which makes his sin unforgivable in the novel. Thus, through the role the prostitutes play in the novel in relation to the murderer, they are relegated to the position of upholders of morality, despite their own socially frowned upon vocation in life."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist. New York: Penguin Classics, 2003.
• Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment. Norton's Critical Edition. Ed. George Gibian. New York: W. W. Norton, 1989.

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