Mary Magdalen of Dostoevskys Notes from Underground Essay -- Notes Fr

Not for this I was born and then raised up. uninformed was I with such need.I once prayed to God, I was faithful.I once had a soul that knew peace.-from Fallen, a Russian brothel song (Bernstein, 169)Prostitutes, women who sell their bodies for money, subscribe been frowned upon since antiquity by most members of society. However, from as early as Rahab, the Whore of Jericho in the Old Testament who helped Joshua and his men regain the Promised Land, prostitutes have been portrayed as not only as sinners with the possibility of redemption, but women who lead men to salvation as well. This trend was particularly taken up in nineteenth-century Russian literature Elevated into powerful literary symbols by authors like Dostoevsky, Tolstoy..., prostitutes became female archetypes who either disillusioned the men with whom they associated or raised them to a higher flavourless of being (11). Dostoevsky uses this idea of a saintly prostitute repeatedly in his works. The archetype that Ber nstein claims he creates in based on the image of bloody shame Magdalen from the late Testament, the celebrated reformed prostitute who devotes her life to Christ. Crime and Punishments Sonya Marmeladova, of whom Notes from Undergrounds Liza is a prototype, performs the federal agency of the penitent sinner who leads the way to salvation the saintly prostitute bloody shame Magdalen. Despite common belief, Mary Magdalen is never referred to as a reformed prostitute in the four Gospels of the New Testament, though her actual role is just as pertinent to Dostoevskys writing. In spite of the Gospels tendencies to conflict with each other, they agree on four aspects of the Magdalens life. First of all, she is one of Jesus Christs female followers who is present at ... ...r ones sins and the perpetual chance of salvation. Works Cited Bernstein, Laurie. Sonias Daughters Prostitutes and Their Regulation in Imperial Russia. Berkeley University of California Press, 1995. Conradi, Peter. M odern Novelists Fyodor Dostoevsky. New York St. Martins Press, 1988. Dostoevsky, Fyodor M. Crime and Punishment. Trans. Jessie Coulson. Ed. George Gibian. New York W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1989. Dostoevsky, Fyodor M. Notes from Underground. Trans. Andrew R. MacAndrew. New York Penguin Books, 1961. Haskins, Susan. Mary Magdalen Myth and Metaphor. London Harcourt Brace & Company, 1993. Malvern, Marjorie M. Venus in Sackcloth The Magdalens Origins and Metamorphoses. Carbondale Southern Illinois University Press, 1975. Wasiolek, Edward. Dostoevsky The Major Fiction. Cambridge, MA The M.I.T. Press, 1964.