Leena Chang

5/21/18
1st Period Edelman

(Pretty much a metal album I’m trying to write about the book Crime and Punishment. Might compose
some guitar riffs at the end if I have time, although I don’t play guitar I know how to read some guitar
notes lol)
(There’s so much metaphors that nobody knows it’s even about the book until I put in the interpretations,
etc)

I’m not finished yet, though. I’m still working on it.

Lyrics: Double edged inversion (сверхчеловек)1

Last night is reduced to a blur in my distorted mind
Contortionists occupy the mortal coil
I am feverish within the recesses of my trappings and bedsheets
I smell the prophecy soaking through my clothes. I am blind.

Walking backwards with a target on my back

How long I can keep this up without anybody seeing only time will tell

For what I’ve done I should be in Hell

I am a power greater than God itself

I am bound to a cycle of megalomaniacal denial2
I am the abortionist of my conscience under scornful pride
I am the coagulated strain of the anti-society

Pressing fingers into temples - for religion and conscience is a migraine

And I was never one to give into the cancer of anti-sociopaths
Let myself, the disease, consume this disease, or myself

“The old woman was only a symptom of my illness… I wanted to overstep all restrictions as quickly as
possible… I killed not a human being but a principle!” (p.233)
(Could also be Raskolnikov’s evident hatred for the pawnbroker seconds before he killed her)

1
Translation: superman
2
This is because in my opinion, Raskolnikov is suffering from megalomania (for more information go to
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalomania​) and his crime was a result of his incorrect beliefs that he is
above everyone (just a personal opinion but I felt it would be important.
 (He felt killing her was an only option)
(I feel Raskolnikov might be schizophrenic on so many levels. I made sure to mention that a bit in my
writing)

Lyrics: ​наказание в виде преступления3

Contortionists are invading my bloodstream.
My head is a heat wave, my eyes catch in a loop of psychosis.
She was my principle, the matrix for asepsis to my mental state
Or a brutalized finality too much for my scattered soul

There’s a space between the cracks of my being

As overlooked as the wound in the side of God
There’s a space behind the paper to wall up my convictions
My sense of reasoning descends to atrophy

Demonize my faith, I am disciple no more

(A dark and tormenting idea was beginning to rear its head)
And I have converged with reality
(The idea that he was going out of his mind)

Your God will never understand what I have done.

Descent into the maelström precedes the path of the hatchet
Skepticism incites compulsive urge to violence
Protagonist turned antagonist succumbs under this virulent strain of the anti-society

Anathema has violated my bloodstream.

My head is a heat wave, my guts churn in acid -- symptoms of an incurable mental state
These days I’m so erratic. Catalepsy breathes down the back of my neck.

My main suggestion would be to take us into the thoughts if what he is contemplating and/or responding
to-- his mental suffering and confusion comes across well, but let the audience see some of what he is
seeing in his mind as he walks the streets and sees the poor suffering, the rich using the poor, etc

Lyrics: Untitled (fix that later)4

Two opposing sides are now left in the Malebolge5

3
Translation: Punishment in the form of crime (since the book is originally written in Russian, why not
incorporate that into my writing)
4
The reason I
5
“Two opposing side” - the rich and the poor; “Malebolge” - the pits of Hell
 From the societal dregs a nation of lost souls6 descend the first ring of the Canto XII7
While the infernal Overlord, the Gluttons8, displaces Geryon and Dis9
The tide has turned, blessed are the ones that reside in the abyss10

6
“A nation of lost souls” - Inferno (Dante)
7
​https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(Dante)#Seventh_Circle_(Violence)​ Poverty begets crime, including
crime against neighbors.
8
Another reference to Dante’s ​Inferno. ​By “glutton,” I don’t mean someone who literally eats too much,
but the rich who takes everything for themselves and seeks to exploit the poor and needy, as expressed
in ​Crime and Punishment ​(although I guess rich people are more likely to overeat than the poor).
9
In Dante’s ​Inferno, ​Geryon and Dis (another word for Hades) are ones who rule over the damned. Their
roles are pretty much to punish the poor. In ​Crime and Punishment, ​the
10
In the book, the crimes committed by the rich are in ways worse than the ones committed by the poor,
because unlike the poor, the rich have more on their plates and therefore tend to take things for granted.
When the rich commit crimes, it’s not out of ​need,​ but of ​want. ​For example, when Svidrigailov attempts to
exploit Dunya, it was not out of need, but of want (he