en the narrator does find out about the banishment from the college he is furious. But because of the color of his skin he can’t do much about it. Through the rest of his life he strives to find a way he can repay Dr. Bledsoe for his great kindness, but never truly finds the right gift for him. Unlike Roskolnikov, the narrator of Invisible Man defines himself by his fight against the racism and cruelty of those around him. Roskolnikov, on the other hand, fights himself, his own thoughts and theories. He has an internal enemy to defeat. The invisible narrator is totally free and responsible for his acts of, in my opinion, cowardice and plain laziness not to do something about the world around him. Jonathon Baumback sees the narrator “admitting defeat by withdrawing into the mad world of the underground.” As most existentialists do, the narrator resolves to depression and despair because he feels he is responsible for every aspect of his life. He wants no part of the outside world. The only way he will ever resolve his hopelessness is to leave his dark, underground hole and return to the light. “The light is the truth.” And that truth is that the world can be a cruel and heartless place, but we all have to deal with it.Crime and Punishment is a much more obvious existential novel. Dostoevsky gives Roskolnikov an extreme thought process. Roskolnikov’s thought and ideals are what lead him to the predicaments he gets into. As I stated earlier Roskolnikov has two separate personalities. He struggles with them throughout the novel. His extraordinary man theories lead him to believe that he has the right to kill some one because he is superior to them and those he is superior to are just a nuisance to the world. Because he is an existentialist he doesn’t care about the consequences the world will give him. He is responsible for himself. Unlike Invisible Man, the main character in Crime and Punishment h...
