Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Crime and Punishment
49 chapters
Raskolnikov, a student in Petersburg who has stopped attending and stopped eating, has worked out that extraordinary men are permitted to step over the law, and that killing a pawnbroker would prove he is one. He is right about almost nothing that follows, and the police inspector Porfiry is patient enough to wait for him to notice.
About the book
First published in 1866, Crime and Punishment centres on Rodion Raskolnikov, a former student living in severe poverty in St Petersburg. Proud, isolated and intellectually restless, he develops a theory dividing ordinary people from rare individuals who may be entitled to transgress moral rules for a greater purpose. Dostoyevsky follows the pressure this idea places on Raskolnikov’s mind and relationships. Around him are people facing debt, exploitation, family obligation and compromised choices. The novel combines psychological intensity with questions about responsibility, suffering, pride and whether abstract theories can survive contact with other human beings.
Characters
Rodion Raskolnikov — Protagonist
An impoverished former student whose severe moral theory places him under intense psychological strain.
Sofya Marmeladova — Marmeladov’s daughter
A young woman driven by family poverty whose compassion becomes important to Raskolnikov.
Porfiry Petrovich — Investigating magistrate
A perceptive magistrate whose conversations with Raskolnikov become a contest of psychology.
Dunya Raskolnikova — Raskolnikov’s sister
Raskolnikov’s determined sister, prepared to make difficult choices for her family’s security.
Dmitri Razumikhin — Raskolnikov’s friend
A loyal and energetic former student who supports Raskolnikov and grows close to his family.
Arkady Svidrigailov — Dunya’s former employer
A wealthy and morally ambiguous man whose interest in Dunya brings him into the family’s affairs.
Pyotr Luzhin — Dunya’s fiancé
An ambitious lawyer engaged to Dunya who expects gratitude and dependence within marriage.
About the author
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) was a Russian novelist who wrote about guilt, faith and freedom as though a person's whole life could turn on an argument. Arrested at twenty-seven for belonging to a circle of liberal intellectuals, he was subjected to a mock execution and then sent to a Siberian prison camp for four years — an experience that rebuilt his politics and his religion and never left his fiction. His novels give ideas to people rather than to essays, which is why his murderers, gamblers and saints argue their positions so well. The major works are Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Demons and The Brothers Karamazov.