That's an interesting note about Aristotle. It's actually surprising that Rodion spoke so coherently. I looked into it, and at the time when he was at university, they weren't yet training lawyers and weren't teaching any public speaking skills. And he was generally an introvert, not particularly sociable - so where he developed such eloquence is questionable. I'm not sure if Dostoevsky meant to suggest here an unusually awakened gift of eloquence because he was finally defending someone else. But this monologue really stands in stark contrast to all his other speeches.
Yes, it's quite remarkable, isn't it? It looks like the speech takes him out of himself. Maybe Dostojevski wants to give us a glimpse of what kind of man Raskolnikov could have been? Murdering two innocent women leads to chaos, fear, mental illness etc, whereas being a decent person and a good student could have led to being eloquent and convincing etc. Or maybe D just wants to accentuate the fact that Raskolnikov still has a good side too?
That's an interesting note about Aristotle. It's actually surprising that Rodion spoke so coherently. I looked into it, and at the time when he was at university, they weren't yet training lawyers and weren't teaching any public speaking skills. And he was generally an introvert, not particularly sociable - so where he developed such eloquence is questionable. I'm not sure if Dostoevsky meant to suggest here an unusually awakened gift of eloquence because he was finally defending someone else. But this monologue really stands in stark contrast to all his other speeches.
Yes, it's quite remarkable, isn't it? It looks like the speech takes him out of himself. Maybe Dostojevski wants to give us a glimpse of what kind of man Raskolnikov could have been? Murdering two innocent women leads to chaos, fear, mental illness etc, whereas being a decent person and a good student could have led to being eloquent and convincing etc. Or maybe D just wants to accentuate the fact that Raskolnikov still has a good side too?