Information about the author:

Abstract:

The article is devoted to the analysis of the character of Porfiry Petrovich. The analysis is based on the lexical pattering of the text created by Dostoevsky in Crime and Punishment by distributing the synonymous words “zhirnyi” (“fat”) and “polnyi” (“full” + “plump”) in it. “Zhirnyi,” which appears in descriptions of “positive” characters (displacing the more expected “polnyi”), shifts the perception of the word “polnyi” to another segment of its semantic field: it is displaced from the reader’s consciousness as related to physical complexion (“plump”) and actualizes the general meaning of completeness (integrity, fulfillment). This shift in meaning is supported by the repeated use of various words in the text with the root “poln-” precisely with the meaning of final completion. From this perspective, the author’s seemingly disjointed, strange, derogatory, and marginalizing descriptions of Porfiry Petrovich gather into a coherent whole. They form a unity that is fully described by the character’s name, which in Russian evokes “the red stone” or “the red stage in stone making” — a phrase with clear and unambiguous significance in alchemical tradition, whose symbols describe the process of human transfiguration and deification in Christianity.

Keywords: Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Porfiry Petrovich, alchemical symbols, the Philosopher’s stone, lexical pattering of the text, emphasizing synonyms.