Who Am I?

Identity is curious and elusive. I do not claim to have a handle on it. We all want to say we have identity and know who we ourselves are, but how many of us can indicate our own identity and how might we go about doing so? Last night I went to a lecture by Stanley Hauerwas. He explained more eloquently than I shall attempt here: we get to know him through other people’s narratives about him; we learn who he is by discovering other people’s relationships with him. Conversely, we likely learn less about who he really is by hearing himself talk about himself. This may be an analog to the issue of identity. A person’s identity may be located by discovering a person’s relationships. Nietzsche furthers this point: “we are unknown, we knowers, to ourselves…of necessity we remain strangers to ourselves, we understand ourselves not, in ourselves we are bound to be mistaken, for each of us holds good to all eternity the motto ‘each is the farthest away from himself,’ as far as ourselves are concerned we are not knowers.”

This may become clearer (or muddled further) with an example. Who is Raskolnikov? This question may be answered by saying, “he’s a muderer in one of Dostoevsky’s novels.” But who is it who is the muderer? And who was he before he murdered? And was he who was previous to murdering altered by murdering? (These questions may be answered in part by his dream in the first tenth of the story) Setting aside these such questions, we may then ask, as many people have done, “why did he murder?” This question strikes me as hilarious because so much ink has been spilled on that question, when actually it cannot be answered even by Dostoevsky. He explained definitively in a letter to his publisher why the student killed the old lady, and in a letter to a friend he said he is not sure why Raskolnikov killed the old “louse.” I assume Dostoevsky’s letter to his friend was a bit more honest. What does this have to do with identity? In relation to the aforementioned process of discerning identity in Hauerwas’ lecture, it has quite a lot to do with identity. Perhaps, one reason even Dostoevsky did not know why precisely Raskolnikov killed the old lady is because we meet Raskolnikov not long before he commits the crime and thereby have little resources for discerning who Raskolnikov is via relationships with other people. All we have is a rather isolated person who mumbles to himself and remains distant from other people even in conversations. This of course is indicative, but it is not what we need to acquire who he is exactly other than an isolated maunderer who is tortured by his economic situation among other things - Raskolnikov’s solitary entry may be modernity’s influence on Dostoevsky.

We have the Narrator’s narrative in relationship to Raskolnikov, which I originally thought might be needed in this conversation due to Raskolnikov’s origin being in the Narrator, which I thought might be analogous to God’s relationship to Augustine as indicated in Augustine’s Confessions. However, the Narrator does not posses an ultimate perspective on Raskolnikov as does God in relation to Augustine, for the Narrator (or creator of the Narrator, Dostoevsky) confesses ignorance as indicated in his letter to a friend. So as Hauerwas indicated last night, we are ultimately understood according to and within God’s narrative about us, but this is not analogous to the Narrator in relationship to Raskolnikov. Therefore, though the Narrator may be included in the many relationships with Raskolnikov, it is not required, so the Narrator need not be included in this discussion.

Ironically, there are many relationships throughout the story, though Raskolnikov is radically isolated. Two crucial relationships in the story, which may give insight into the identity of Raskolnikov, are Raskolnikov’s relationships with Razumikhin and Sonya. Razumikhin’s relationship with Raskolnikov is primary in the first portion of the story. Razumikhin is a voice of reason and mostly a good influence on Raskolnikov. Razumikhin is a faithful friend but to a narcissistic axe murderer. Did Razumikhin go wrong? Probably not because Razumikhin does not come into relationship with Raskolnikov in any prominent way until after the murder, and even when Razumikhin is prominent Raskolnikov remains rather distant from Razumikhin, especially considering Razumikhin is one of Raskolnikov’s only real friends at the time. This relationship may not be as helpful in identifying Raskolnikov, for Raskolnikov insulates himself in this relationship - though that’s a start.

It’s difficult to determine when precisely (good job Dostoevsky) Razumikhin drifts from primary to secondary friend, and somewhere along the way Sonya drifts into being a primary friend to Raskolnikov. This is crucial, for though Razumikhin is a portrayed as a mostly good person Sonya does something more. She is a prostitute that her family might not starve to death after her father died and left her mother with several children to feed. Thus, Sonya is at the bottom of the social latter, but she is somehow simultaneously a selfless saint who serves her family relentlessly. When she drifts into becoming a primary friend and confidant to Raskolnikov, we find her to be a penetrating voice of mercy and truth. She immediately empathizes with Raskolnikov’s burden when he confesses his crime to her, but she requires that he confess to the publicly. He refuses at first. Thus, we see need for confession, and his denial of that fact. Raskolnikov is thoroughly insulated, but then he melts and falls to Sonya’s feet. A murderer forgiven by a prostitute. A prostitute who urges confession and repentance. A dead man resurrected through confession and repentance. These snippets are merely snippets, but they may at least suggest the potential for discovering the identity of Raskolnikov by way of relationships with other people.

Unfortunately for us, we may never really see a clear picture of Raskolnikov because the narrator of Raskolnikov focused so exclusively on Raskolnikov - a rather individualistic, modern, way of seeking to thoroughly show who he is, which ironically does the opposite. But the isolation seems to be a correct diagnostic; the isolation should be expected to intensify after Raskolnikov murders. We know lots of what Raskolnikov thinks and does, but we know little of who is the one who is thinking and doing. When he confesses at the end, we get a glimmer of hope that maybe he will one day enter into vital relationships, vital relationships which may then reveal who this Raskolnikov fellow is. But the epilogue only suggests such a thing.

It seems then that, when we social creatures drift away from relationships, we may in fact lose ourselves. We may drift into evanescence, practically invisible to others and thereby to ourselves. “Who is Raskolnikov?” may be answered in the negative. We do not precisely know who he is. He thinks and does things, but we do not know who is doing the thinking and the doing. But this negative answer may provide at least some indication in favor of the converse. Relationships, other people’s narratives about “me,” may in fact provide a glimpse of “who” I am.