Paul and Raskolnikov

I'm in the middle of teaching Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky at the moment, and Raskolnikov, the protagonist, is a divided character; his consciousness is divided against himself. His very name means "schismatic." In the act of murder, he loses the conscious ability to control his own actions; he acts as if in a dreamlike state, a trance. Moreover, almost every character trait he has, he also exemplifies its opposite. He is schism-made-flesh. His best friend, Razumikhin, whose name means "reason," describes his friend:

What can I tell you? I've known Rodion [Raskolnikov] for a year and a half: sullen, gloomy, arrogant, proud; recently (and maybe much earlier) insecure and hypochondriac. Magnaminous and kind. Doesn't like voicing his feelings, and would rather do something cruel than speak his heart out in words. At times, however, he's not hypochondriac at all, but just inhumanly cold and callous, as if there really were two opposite characters in him, changing places with each other. (trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky)

He is cruel and he is kind. He murders, but he is magnaminous. He calculates and he is spontaneous. He gives freely, but takes as well. He often acts without his will. This self-division reminds me of Paul:

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. So then it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. (Romans 7:15-20)

If there is anything that defines Raskolnikov it is that he does not understand his own actions. Crime and Punishment is a crime novel turned on its head in which the murderer tries to figure out his own motives for murder, and those motives are multifarious. He cannot quite figure out why he does what he does. This passage from Paul, moreover, reminds me of the rants throughout C&P when Raskolnikov talks to himself, wavering back and forth, meditating in a stream-of-consciousness manner on his contradictory actions, thoughts, and motives. The difference, though, is that the division is not between will and actions as with Paul, per se (although this is there), but split within divided will and divided action.