Currently, I am reading the psychological crime novel Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky and translated by David Mcduff. The quotation is from the perspective of the protagonist, Rodion Raskolnikov. During this quotation, Raskolnikov sneaks out of his apartment due to a fear of encountering his landlady as he has not paid his rent. Raskolnikov begins to wander through the city lost in his thoughts.
‘I plan to attempt a thing like this, yet I allow that kind of rubbish to scare me!’ he thought with a strange smile…It’s a curious reflection: what are those people most afraid of? Of doing something new, saying a new word on their own that hasn’t been said before- that’s what scares them the most. But I’m rambling. That’s why I never do anything – because I ramble on to myself like that. Or perhaps it’s the other way around; I ramble because I never do anything (p.6).
The significance of this quotation lies in the evident foreshadowing and the introduction to the character. Foreshadowing is apparent in the beginning sentence of this excerpt as it states that he is about to attempt a worse crime than evading his rent. The questioning and rambling of the protagonist aids the readers in understanding the exposition of the character. When the protagonist describes his habit of rambling on I felt I could gain a deeper connection to his emotions.