Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Introduction

Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment is one of the landmark novels of modern literature. A probing investigation of the ambiguous, often illusory nature of human existence, the novel examines the effects of guilt on the conscience of the individual through the story of a man whose dubious philosophical ideas compel him to commit a crime. In the character of Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, Dostoevsky created a representative figure of the turbulent political climate of nineteenth-century Russia (Anderson, 1976).

Plot and Major Characters

Crime and Punishment revolves around the character of Raskolnikov, a young man living in St. Petersburg. He belongs to a class of young intellectuals who believe that the oppressive monarchical government of Russia can be undone only through radical and, if necessary, violent political action. An avowed nihilist in his views, Raskolnikov spends most of his time contemplating the vital intellectual and political issues of his age. At the same time, however, he is troubled by more pedestrian concerns; he owes a number of debts, lives in a cramped, filthy apartment, and is under constant pressure from his mother to seek respectable employment. Plagued by these oppressive conditions, Raskolnikov determines to murder and rob a miserly old pawnbroker in order to pay his rent (Bethea, 1981). After weeks of careful planning, he finally kills the woman, convincing himself that he is performing a public good by eliminating a selfish individual from society. His plan encounters its first obstacle, however, when the pawnbroker's simpleminded sister surprises Raskolnikov in the apartment, and he is forced to kill her as well. After narrowly eluding the notice of some visitors to the woman's apartment, Raskolnikov returns home, where he promptly falls asleep.

Shortly after he commits the murders, Raskolnikov's personality begins to undergo a powerful transformation. As he ponders the magnitude of his actions, his arrogance and egotism are supplanted by feelings of confusion and self-doubt. Dostoevsky depicts this gradual change primarily through the protagonist's diverse interactions with other characters. In one scene Raskolnikov verbally abuses Luzhin, the wealthy, hypocritical suitor of Raskolnikov's sister Dounia, threatening him with physical violence. After the death of Marmeladov, a drunkard whose daughter, Sonia, has been forced into a life of prostitution by her family's poverty, Raskolnikov impulsively gives his widow twenty rubles, a gesture that temporarily revitalizes his spirits. One of the most poignant scenes in the novel finds Raskolnikov confessing his crime to Sonia moments after she has read him the story of Lazarus from the New Testament (Busch, 1987). Razhumikin, a former classmate of Raskolnikov's who plays the role of the stable, loyal friend, provides much of the novel's moral ballast. Each of these encounters offers a fresh glimpse into Raskolnikov's evolving psyche as he moves out of his isolation into a state of exposure and vulnerability. In this respect the novel's secondary characters play important roles in elucidating Dostoevsky's major themes.

As the novel unfolds, new, more complicated motivations for the murder begin to reveal ...