From among the many themes of Cankar’s Vienna period socio-criticalprose that depicts the lowest social depths we shall address that of murder committed by one of the poor. In three sketches or novellas from the collection Za križem, Cankar tells of a poor man who kills a rich one out of envy and revenge, or out of the idea that by murdering a bad “unnecessary” person he will somehow save the life of another poor person. The theme of murder “through conscience” in the sense of a guiltless
crime is also employed in Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Through detailed thematic and compositionalanalysis of these works we shallrevealthe way that the two authors dealwith the thematic, existential, psychologicaland formalaspects of these themes.
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