Liberty And Faith The Comparison Of The Spiritual Cores Of Dostoevsky’s The Crime And Punishment And Nabokov’s The Despair

‘Liberty and Faith’ have always been an important theme of human spiritual dimension,and it is concerned both by Fyodor Dostoevsky and Vladimir Nabokov.The theme expressed by writers is not staying on the surface or a harmonious coexistence but through applying the projection of a double personality in deep humanity.The authors not only reveal the opposition which is full of conflicts and disputes between liberty and faith,and the tension between conflict and entanglement but also revealed their thinking of the meaning of individual existence on metaphysics which caused by ‘freedom and faith’ and the terrible consequences of modern spiritual crisis.This paper is meant to analyze,compare and explore the implication of Dostoevsky’s The Crime and Punishment and Nabokov’s The Despair applying the method of new criticism and comparative literature parallel research,according to the theories of Nietzsche,Schopenhauer,Sartre,Fromm,Adler,and other modern western philosophers,based on the aspect of individual freedom and metaphysical belief construction,exploring the two authors’ pursuit to freedom and faith.The two authors create different types of double image applying the superman philosophy,attempt to reach the individual value and the rights they own,depriving the hero’s self attribution while giving him extreme freedom,trying to express the complete deny to “solipsism”,showing that the existence of individual needs the support of faith.The heroes in this two works hold different attitudes on religious faith,but the end both affirm that Dostoevsky and Nabokov believe in the existence of the god and emphasize that the individual must derive the religious spirit and the heart out of dilemma in face of suffering and evil,eventually confirming the influence and help of transcendence to individual.This paper draws an innovative conclusion by comparing and analyzing the two works.They have common but different value in the spiritual level.The two works leads the readers to take the path of their own spiritual conversion in the process of continuous questioning and answering the existence of individual,offering the reference and thinking for the contemporary people who are thrown into deep spiritual crisis.