Crime and Punishment

Fyodor M. Dostoevsky 1866

classic of literature.

• Crime

• Realism

What is it about?

In Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky presents a detective novel with psychological sophistication, which has become one of the most important works of Russian realism.

Crime and Punishment Is it possible to commit the perfect crime? Is there such a thing as "justified murder", which costs one person's life but helps many others? Can human conscience be silenced with rational reflections? These are the questions that Fedor M. Dostoevsky seeks to answer with his novel Crime and Punishment.

The most well-known and appreciated work of the Russian author presents a masterfully constructed police story: the murder of an old moneylender at the hands of the student Raskolnikov and the pang of conscience that overwhelms him afterwards. Raskolnikov believes he is some kind of superman, compares himself with Napoleon and seeks to justify his actions with rational arguments. But, after committing the murder, his bad conscience drags him little by little towards an overwhelming despair. Sonia, the virtuous prostitute, will finally convince him to confess his guilt and start a new life. Respecting the rules of Russian realism, Dostoevsky describes the social misery that exists in the streets of Saint Petersburg. With simple and captivating language, he wrote the best detective novel of all time, according to writer Thomas Mann, and, at the same time, presents an interesting psychological study that illuminates the darker sides of a murderer's mind.

Fundamental ideas

• Crime and Punishment is the most famous novel by Russian author Fedor M. Dostoevsky.

• The author manages to link the tension of the police novel with a style that is artistic and mystical-philosophical.

• Dostoevsky allows the reader to access the psyche of the main character, while offering a realistic image of St. Petersburg at the time.

• The student Raskolnikov murders an old money-lender that he hates.

• Raskolnikov believes that a man who feels called to do bigger things can go over corpses to achieve his goal. The murder is a practical test to prove this thesis.

• However, Raskolnikov is haunted by his conscience: more and more frequently, he falls into feverish delusions, has nightmares and fears being caught by the police.

• In front of other people, the murderer behaves generously: he defends his sister Dunia and gives all his money to the poor Marmeladov family.

• Sonia, the daughter of the deceased Mr. Marmeladov, must resort to prostitution to be able to support the family.

• She is the only one Raskolnikov can trust. He ends up confiding his crime to her and, encouraged by the girl, he turns himself in to the police.

• Sonia follows Raskolnikov in his exile to Siberia and they fall in love.

• The novel was an immediate success and has been taken to the cinema, radio and theater on various occasions.

Crime and Punishment Characters.

The actions and thoughts of the characters in the novel Crime and Punishment are precious elaborations typical of a master of psychology. The great range of personalities that he presents to us, walks us through diverse emotions that derive from the character of each one of them. So we see that there are submissive, dedicated, loving, helpful or cunning people; highlighting the personality of the protagonist who exhibits bipolar, or dual behavior.

Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov: Protagonist of Crime and Punishment. He abandoned his studies due to his economic precariousness. He lives in a rented room in a neighborhood of Saint Petersburg. After killing the usurer, he realizes that he does not have enough coldness not to let himself be possessed by the feeling of guilt. He starts making mistakes and ends up making himself suspicious. Although there is no proof. The prosecutor convinces him to plead guilty.

Sonia Semiónovna Marmeládova: eighteen-year-old girl. Her father dies and she becomes a prostitute to help her brothers and her stepmother Katerina Ivánova Marmeládova.

Avdotia Romanovna Raskolnikova (Dunya): Rodion's sister. In order to save the family from misery, she is willing to sacrifice herself by marrying a man she does not love.

Katerina Ivánovna Marmeládova: is Sonia's stepmother.

Porfirio Pétrovich: he is the official in charge of the case of the murdered usurer. Talking with Raskolnikov discovers that he is the murderer. He tells him in a private conversation and despite not having the evidence, he urges Rodion to turn himself in.

Arcadius Ivanovich Svidrigailov: evil by nature. He is a wicked character. He was charged with raping a blind, deaf-mute girl and torturing a servant. In addition, to complete the picture of this man's perversion, he is also attributed to the poisoning of his wife. He is Dunia's suitor.

Marta Petrovna Svidrigáilova: she was murdered, supposedly, by her husband Arcadio Svidrigáilov who is visited by the spirit of the deceased.

Dimitri Prokófich Razumikhin: Rodion's fellow student. He is affable, proactive and generous. He marries Dunia, the protagonist's sister.

Pulkeria Aleksándrovna Raskolnikova: Raskolnikov's mother, widow and sacrificed for her children.

Piotr Petrovich Luzhin: is a wealthy businessman who is a Dunya suitor, he suffers from delusions of grandeur. Dunya doesn't love him.

Summary

The poor student.

Saint Petersburg, a hot July morning. Former law student Rodion Raskolnikov leaves his tiny, ramshackle apartment. He doesn't really have much more than a closet. Raskolnikov is burdened with gloomy thoughts. He tries to avoid everyone he comes across. He plans to commit a terrible act, which makes him feel bad. Two voices in his head speak to him. Should I do it or not? He walks through the dirty and stinking streets of the city until his steps lead him to the house of the old money-lender Aliona Ivanovna. With mistrust and hypersensitivity, he observes every detail of the portico and the woman's house. The mischievous and stubborn pawnbroker only wants to give him one ruble for his watch, despite the fact that he expected to get at least four. However, he avoids arguing with the old woman and leaves with the money she offers him.

A friendly drunkard.

Despite his shyness, Raskolnikov enters a tavern. A lousy drunk speaks to him. His name is Marmeladov. He tells Raskolnikov and his mocking listeners his sad life story: Shortly after his wedding, he started drinking and was fired from all his jobs because he couldn't put down the bottle. His wife forced their eldest daughter into prostitution so that the family would have something to eat. A few days ago, Marmeladov got a good job and managed to raise enough money for his wife and children, but that same night he took the money and spent it on alcohol. He has now been missing from home for five days. Raskolnikov takes the cute drunk home.

The nightmare.

After a restless night, Raskolnikov receives a letter from his mother. She informs him that her sister Dunia will marry the counselor Lujín. Raskolnikov is not very happy with the idea, because he believes that his sister is selling herself to a rich man whom she does not love, only for material reasons. He goes back to bed and wakes up shortly after drenched in sweat. He had a terrible nightmare: he dreamed that, as a child, he had to see how a pair of drunken peasants beat a horse to death. Later, on her way to the market, she overhears that the pawnbroker's sister is not coming to visit her the next night. Then a glimmer of hope appears with this unique opportunity.

The crime.

After a long and tiring sleep, Raskolnikov wakes up the next night and sets off to execute his plan. He is going to murder the moneylender and steal her money, but he doesn't want his feelings to overwhelm him, instead he wants to act logically and rationally. After all, for him, the murder of this person, whom he considers a wretched crab, is not a crime. He goes to the house of the old woman, who wins him the entrance. As the woman peers at the silver cigarette case Raskolnikov has given her, he pulls out the ax he has brought and kills the woman. Between nervous and content, he takes the key to the chest that is in the next room from the dead woman. In it, he finds various gold chains, watches, and other pawned items. At that moment, he hears footsteps: Lizabeta, the dead woman's sister, enters the room. Raskolnikov throws himself on her and kills her too. Now yes, he panics and escapes through the window.

Nervous fever.

Raskolnikov spends the night in a kind of delirium. The next morning, the servant hands him a summons from the police. Raskolnikov is in shock, and the reason for the summons is not explained. Despite his rising fever, he makes his way to the police station. When one of the policemen mentions the murder of the pawnbroker in passing, Raskolnikov can no longer contain himself and faints. When he comes to, the uniformed officers ask him suspiciously what he did the day before, but after a while, they let him go. After making sure that his room was not searched, Raskolnikov takes his loot and hides it under a stone. Back at his apartment, he falls into a delirium. Four days later, he wakes up from his fever to find an old fellow student, Rasumijín, who has been taking care of him all this time. Rasumijín gives him 35 rubles that his mother sent him. When Dr. Sosimov visits the patient, he comments on the murder of the pawnbroker: the police seem to suspect a painter who was doing work in the apartment.

Marmeladov's death.

Raskolnikov walks around the city deep in thought. On her way home, she passes the pawnbroker's apartment and sees a crowd. A man was hit by a car. It's Marmeladov, the old drunkard. Raskolnikov helps the wounded man return home, who finally dies in the arms of his daughter Sonia. Raskolnikov is moved. He gives the family the money he received from his mother to use for the burial and to buy food. When he finally returns home accompanied by Rasumijín, his mother and sister Dunia are waiting for him. Raskolnikov faints again. After coming to, he behaves very rudely towards his guests. In addition, he demands that his sister annul the engagement with Lujín. Rasumijín, who has secretly fallen in love with Dunia, accompanies the two women home.

“If I am so afraid now, what will happen if I really commit the crime”?

The next day, Rasumijín shows up at Dunia and her mother's house. Together they go to Raskolnikov's house and decide that Raskolnikov, Rasumikhin and Dunya will meet Lujin, although he only wants to meet Dunya. Suddenly, a young girl enters the room: with difficulty Raskolnikov recognizes Sonia, Marmeladov's daughter. He feels a bit embarrassed, but Sonia invites him to participate in her father's funeral. When they all leave the house together, Raskolnikov promises to attend the funeral.

The ordinary and the extraordinary.

Together with Rasumikhin, Raskolnikov goes to the police station. Petrovich, the commissioner investigating the death of the pawnbroker, returns to Raskolnikov a garment he had left at the pawnbroker's house. The conversation is loaded with mistrust.

“When someone is extremely poor, they no longer run with a stick. They sweep it with a broom out of human society, so it's just an insult."

Petrovich mentions a newspaper article that Raskolnikov wrote some time ago: in it, he considers that society can be divided into two classes: ordinary people and extraordinary people. Ordinary people must always abide by the law and the law, while extraordinary people have the possibility of transgressing the law – and even murder – if it makes their great ideas survive.

An immoral offer.

Back in his room, Raskolnikov falls into a restless, feverish sleep. She dreams of crime, only, in her nightmare, the old woman does not want to die. Every time he raises the ax to strike, the woman taunts him more and more. Raskolnikov wakes up abruptly. A stranger is standing at the foot of her bed, introducing himself as Arkady Svidrigailov. He tells her that Dunia worked in his house as a housekeeper and that he had fallen in love with her. When his wife found out, she fired Dunia without hesitation.

"When a person is sick, his dreams usually have an unusual plasticity and clarity and are characterized by their extraordinary similarity to reality."

Svidrigailov tried his best to prove that Dunya was not guilty, for which his wife apologized in every possible way and has treated her very kindly ever since. But now his wife has passed away and left Dunia 3,000 rubles. Svidrigailov wants Dunia to annul her engagement with Lujín and offers her 10,000 rubles in exchange. Raskolnikov wants to communicate the extraordinary offer to his sister during the meeting with Lujín.

Lazarus awakening.

The meeting is catastrophic: Lujín is furious to see that Raskolnikov is part of the group. In an argument, Lujín offends his fiancée and Dunia cancels the engagement. Finally, Raskolnikov leaves and goes to Sonia's house. She is surprised to see him. He looks at her and cannot explain how the girl has been able to endure poverty and dishonor for so long. When she tells him that she believes in God and that he gives her strength, Raskolnikov scoffs; but then he discovers a copy of the New Testament and asks Sonia to read him the awakening of Lazarus. Sonia is reluctant at first, but then she looks up the passage and reads it out loud.

“Oh, God!” he exclaimed. Will I really take the axe? Am I really going to hit her over the head and smash her skull to pieces…”?

Reading becomes a key moment for both of them: when Sonia finishes reading the last lines, Raskolnikov confesses that he has abandoned his family. The next day, she wants to go back to tell him who her friend Lizabeta's murderer is. He says goodbye to a stunned Sonia and does not notice that Sonia's neighbor, who is none other than Svidrigailov, has heard the entire conversation and is curiously awaiting the continuation.

Blame.

The next morning, Raskolnikov goes to the police station to officially request that the garment that had been left at the pawnbroker's house be returned to him. Petrovich again tries to set him up. It is clear that he suspects what Raskolnikov is carrying on his conscience. Suddenly, the painter suspected of the crime bursts in and claims to be the murderer.

"The question was: does disease engender crime or is crime itself the one that, by its special nature, is always accompanied by a kind of disease"?

The funeral treat for Marmeladov is a sad spectacle. Lujín appears and accuses Sonia of having stolen 100 rubles from him. Luckily, his roommate reveals that this accusation is just an attempt by Lujín to embarrass Sonia and play a trick on Raskolnikov.

"Blood was gushing from his head as if a glass had been dropped, and his body was rolling on his back."

When the funeral turns into chaos, Sonia and Raskolnikov head to Sonia's house. Here, Raskolnikov confesses his crime and the ideas that led him to commit it: he believed that, if you are a great man, it is possible to prevail over your conscience if you commit a crime that would help others or yourself, for example, if you used the lender's money to a good end. Sonia is surprised, but, in view of Raskolnikov's guilty conscience, she swears that she will not abandon him. He convinces him to turn himself in to the police to assuage his guilt, but Raskolnikov doesn't want to end up in exile in Siberia.

"Yes, I got blood on me... I'm all bloody," Raskolnikov replied with a particular expression.

Sonia's mother seems to have gone crazy after the chaotic funeral. Sonia and Raskolnikov find her on the streets of Saint Petersburg, where she urges her children to beg. He dies in Sonia's arms, completely exhausted after a fall. Svidrigailov hints that he has heard Raskolnikov's confession. This drives Raskolnikov almost to madness. After visiting his mother and Dunia for the last time, to whom he confesses the crime, he returns to Sonia's house. She hands him a crucifix, so that he will have enough strength during his confession. Raskolnikov leaves without saying goodbye. Reeling and racked with fever, he heads to the police station, where he turns himself in.

Epilogue.

Siberia. Raskolnikov has already spent a year in jail. Since he came forward of his own free will and there were other extenuating circumstances that showed his good heart, the punishment was light: eight years with light hard labor. Sonia has followed him to Siberia and lives near the jail. His sister Dunia and his friend Rasumijín got married. Raskolnikov feels isolated and the other prisoners don't like him. But finally, the day comes when he understands his crime and repents. Now he is capable of loving Sonia, his savior angel. They both start a new life.

About the Author.

Fedor M. Dostoevsky was born on November 11, 1821, as the second of eight children, in a hospital for the poor in Moscow. He spent his childhood and youth in conditions of extreme poverty and, in 1838, he entered the St. Petersburg Military Academy with his brother, where his literary talent began to be glimpsed. Upon completion of his studies in 1843, Dostoevsky obtained a position in the Ministry of War, but he did not stay for long: a year later he resigned, despite his enormous financial problems. His goal was to become a writer. His first work, the epistolary novel The Poor (1846), brought him fame overnight. His intensive work on other works and the fear of failure caused his first epileptic seizures. In 1849 he was sentenced to death for belonging to Petrachevski's revolutionary circle, a kind of secret political alliance. Literally at the last second and already on the gallows, the tsar pardoned him and commuted his sentence to four years of hard labor and another four years of military service. During this time in Siberia, Dostoevsky converted to Christianity. In 1854, he met Maria Dimitrievna, whom he married. After finishing his military service, in 1859, he returned to Moscow. That same year his novel Stepanchikovo and its Inhabitants appeared. Memories of a funeral home, is a description of his exile in Siberia, which was published in 1861, in Vremja, a magazine founded by the author. During the following year, he made his first trip to Europe and a year later, his second. After his third trip to Europe, in 1866, he published the novel Crime and Punishment in the Russkij Wjestnik magazine. The player appeared the same year. Until 1871, he traveled through Europe fleeing from his creditors and stopped in Florence, where he wrote his novel The Idiot. The Demons (1871) and The Karamasov Brothers (1879) became huge hits. On February 9, 1881, Dostoevsky died in Saint Petersburg, a victim of his epilepsy and chronic lung problems.