Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment (???????????? ? ?????????) is a novel written in 1866 by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Plot

The novel portrays the haphazardly planned murder of a miserly, aged pawnbroker and her younger sister by a destitute Saint Petersburg student named Raskolnikov, and the emotional, mental, and physical effects that follow.

Related Topics:
Pawnbroker - Saint Petersburg - Raskolnikov

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After falling ill with fever and lying bedridden for days, Raskolnikov is overcome with paranoia and begins to imagine that everyone he meets suspects him of the murder; the knowledge of his crime eventually drives him mad. Along the way, however, he meets the prostitute Sofya Semyonovna, with whom he falls in love. Dostoevsky uses this relationship as an allegory of God's love for fallen humanity, and that love's redemptive power: but only after Raskolnikov has confessed to the murder and been sent to imprisonment in Siberia.

Related Topics:
Paranoia - Siberia

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Apart from Raskolnikov's fate, the novel, with its long and diverse list of characters, deals with themes including charity, family life, atheism, alcoholism, and Russian revolutionary activity, with Dostoevsky highly critical of contemporary Russian society. Although Dostoevsky rejected socialism, the novel also appears to be critical of the capitalism that was making its way into Russian society at that time.

Related Topics:
Charity - Family life - Atheism - Alcoholism - Russian revolutionary activity - Socialism - Capitalism

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Raskolnikov believed that he was a "superhuman," that he could justifiably perform a despicable act—the killing of the money lender—if it led to him being able to do a lot of good. Throughout the book there are examples: he mentions Napoleon many times, thinking that for all the blood he spilled, he did good. Raskolnikov believed that he could transcend this moral boundary by killing the money lender, gaining her money, and using it to do good. He argued that had Newton or Kepler had to kill one or even a hundred men in order to enlighten humanity with their laws and ideas, it would be worth it.

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Raskolnikov's real punishment is not the labour camp he is condemned to, but the torment he endures throughout the novel. This torment manifests itself in the aforementioned paranoia, as well as his progressive belief that he is not a "superhuman", as he could not cope with what he had done.

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See also: Russian literature.

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