In his novel Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky uses nightmares to develop the story of Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov, the depraved sensualist, until the conclusion, in which he fully accepts his terrible situation and its inevitable outcome. Svidrigailov serves as a foil to Raskolnikov and represents what the young student could become if he continued to transgress the moral line. Dostoevsky develops this theme through the use of Svidrigailov's three nightmares, each of which shows that no one can continually ignore the moral law without suffering grave consequences. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay These three nightmares directly follow a meeting between Svidrigailov and Dounia, the only woman Svidrigailov has ever truly loved. Svidrigailov locks Dounia in a room and fixes her with a lewd look. In self-defense, Dounia pulls out a gun and shoots three times. She is a skilled marksman but purposely misses with every bullet. Dounia's display of mercy, her reluctance to cross the moral line, has a profound effect on Svidrigailov, who feels "a weight... fallen from his heart,... liberation from another, darker and more bitter feeling " (458-459). Svidrigailov is so moved by Dounia's example that he temporarily suppresses her inclination to immorality, giving her the key to the room and urging her to quickly move away from him. To Dounia "there seemed a terrible meaning in the tone of that 'hurry up,'" because she could not be sure how long morality, manifested in the desire to be sincerely loved by her, would triumph over his other impulses - such as his desire to impose himself on her - who contend with "the terrible, silent struggle in her heart" (459). Svidrigailov, in this rare state of morality when he leaves Dounia, walks into the stormy St. Petersburg night, and eventually settles down for the night in the inhospitable hotel room where he will have his three nightmares. The hotel room is cramped, dirty, sparsely furnished and unpleasant. The room can easily be described in the same words used to describe Raskolnikov's attic, "more like a closet than a room" (1). This similarity, combined with the fact that "[Svidrigailov begins] to have a fever" shortly after arriving in his room, serves to further emphasize the similarity between Svidrigailov's and Raskolnikov's situations (465). In the first dream, Svidrigailov is awakened from sleep by a little mouse running across his bed, under the sheets and inside the bed linen. Svidrigailov struggles to grab the mouse, but only manages to do so temporarily before it escapes his grasp again. Svidrigailov finally wakes up, muttering, “How disgusting” (467). The rodent, which disgusts Svidrigailov with its tiny dirty feet crawling across his skin, symbolizes Svidrigailov's equally disgusting lasciviousness, which is enough to make someone's skin crawl. Although Svidrigailov, because of Dounia, has temporarily suppressed his obscenity, he is well aware that in this vice "there is something permanent, truly based on nature and not on fantasy, something present in the blood like an ever-burning ember" ( 434). This dream reminds Svidrigailov that no matter how hard he struggles, he will inevitably return to his old habits. Svidrigailov's second dream stands in stark contrast to the rest of the novel in terms of the imagery employed by Dostoevsky. Up to this point and thereafter, Dostoevsky uses only drab grays and sickly yellows to describe the squalor of the St. Petersburg hay market. However, in Svidrigailov's second dream, Dostoevsky writes about aidyllic country cottage, covered in fragrant flowers, on a warm and beautiful Trinity Day. Svidrigailov finds himself inside this cottage, standing next to "bouquets of tender, white, strongly scented daffodils leaning over their long, thick, bright green stems" (468).Svidrigailov is "reluctant to move away from the [daffodils ]", the flowers named after a man who met his death due to his extreme self-centeredness. Svidrigailov eventually forces himself to climb the stairs and enter a room strewn with flowers and hay with a small coffin in the center. Dostoevsky mentions the coffin "was covered with white silk and edged with a thick white frill; garlands of flowers surrounded it on all sides", using the white color and floral imagery to symbolize the purity stolen from the girl who, in a white muslin dressed, lies among the flowers in the coffin (468). This girl, in stark contrast to the innocence her surroundings imply she should have, wears a "smile on pale lips of unchildish misery... She [is] only fourteen, but her heart... [he had been] crushed by an insult that had smeared that angel of purity with undeserved disgrace" (468). Svidrigailov, looking at the girl he had drowned, is acutely aware of his role in this tragedy. Not wanting to dwell any longer in misery and guilt, Svidrigailov throws open a window, allowing the wind to whip furiously at his face and chest, awakening and, he hopes, preventing more painful nightmares. Svidrigailov is determined to leave the hotel, go to the park, and "chooses there a large rain-soaked bush" under which he will kill himself (469). However, he is prevented from leaving by "a little girl, no older than five, shaking and crying, her clothes as wet as soggy flannel" (469). Moved to pity by such a pathetic sight, Svidrigailov takes the girl to his room, takes off her soaked clothes and puts her to bed. However, once in bed, the girl undergoes a strange transformation. The blush of her cheeks "[seems] coarser and brighter than the rosy cheeks of childhood,… like the blush resulting from drinking… Her crimson lips [become] warm and bright" (470). Dostoevsky's use of red imagery suggests that the girl possesses a sexuality that would more appropriately be found in a prostitute, to which the girl bears a resemblance that Svidrigailov begins to see after noticing something "shameless, defiant in that face completely unchildish. depravity." , it was the face of a prostitute. Both eyes opened wide, laughed, inviting him" (470). Svidrigailov is disgusted by the depravity he sees in this girl; although usually "the monstrous difference in age and development excites [his] sensuality", seeing a girl of five years in such a state also inspires revulsion in Svidrigailov (444). awake just as he tries to hit the girl, he forces Svidrigailov to face the consequences of his actions, which every young life he touches is stripped of its innocence and pushed into depravity Svidrigailov, now fully awake, sits in his hotel room and seeks in vain to grasp the flies circling around him. However, "realizing that [he is] engaged in this interesting pursuit, [he begins]", for life [has] an uncanny resemblance to the first of his dreams, in which he grasped without success a mouse that tried to nibble his calf. Realizing the truth in his dreams, he is filled with horror at his own depravity. Svidrigailov, who had once said:.