From Beauty to Beast

Katherine Ivanovna grew up in a beautiful home with money and authority. She gave it up for a man who turned into a drunk bastard. The ways in which her life changed drastically and went from beautiful and joyful to ugly and terrible is just one example of how Dosoyevsky uses aesthetics. He tends to take beautiful things and either turn them ugly, or place them in an area that is unworthy of them and knows no beauty. Katherine Ivanovna resents the fact that, "she had been brought up in a 'noble, one might say an aristocratic home, a colonel's home; and what she had been groomed for was not to scrub floors with her own hands or to launder her children's rags at night." Growing up she was used to beautiful things and being surrounded by people of authority and manners. Now, on the day of her husband's funeral, she was surrounded by "a shabby little clerk in a greasy jacket, with blackheads and a repulsive odor, who said nothing; a deaf and almost totally blind old man" and also, "some drunken former lieutenant also showed up, with the loudest, most unpleasant laugh and without a vest" among others. She refers to her guests as sluts and clowns.

Not only is she surrounded by an ugly environment and ugly people, but she herself has become far from beautiful. It was not unusual for Katherine Ivanovna to end up in "an unbearable coughing fit that lasted five minutes." This occurred at her dinner party and when she managed to stop coughing, " There was some blood on her dress, and drops of sweat stood out on her forehead. She silently showed Raskolnikov the blood." When Raskolnikov first sees Katherine Ivanovna, he describes her as a delicately built woman, fairly tall and well proportioned, with still attractive dark brown hair." However, he then notes that, " she had grown terribly thin, and her cheeks had turned red as though with stain...lips parched, her breath coming in broken and irregular gasps." It is safe to say that this women use to be fair and pretty but the ugly lifestyle and environment she has unfortunately inhibited gave her beauty no chance of existence and soon turned her ugly not only in appearance but in health and attitude, for she screams at her husband and children constantly. It is hard to hold on to any beauty you have when you are living in the ugliness of poverty.

chemsford.