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- Raskolnikov Quotes
Remarkably, Raskolnikov chooses Sonia, a poor prostitute, to...
- Svidrigailov
Svidrigailov is one of the most enigmatic characters in...
- Dunya
Dunya is Raskolnikov’s sister and shares many of his traits....
- Character List
A former student, Raskolnikov is now destitute, living in a...
- Raskolnikov Quotes
- Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov (“Rodya,” “Rodka”) The protagonist of the novel. A former student, Raskolnikov is now destitute, living in a cramped garret at the top of an apartment building.
- Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladov (“Sonya,” “Sonechka”) Raskolnikov’s love and Marmeladov’s daughter. Sonya is forced to prostitute herself to support herself and the rest of her family.
- Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikov (“Dunya,” “Dunechka”) Raskolnikov’s sister. Dunya is as intelligent, proud, and good-looking as her brother, but she is also moral and compassionate.
- Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov. Dunya’s depraved former employer. Svidrigailov appears to believe, almost until the end of the novel, that he can make Dunya love him.
Crime and Punishment follows the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student in Saint Petersburg who plans to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker, an old woman who stores money and valuable objects in her flat.
Raskolnikov is sentenced to exile in Siberia, accompanied by Sofya Semyonovna, where he experiences a psychological and spiritual rebirth.
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Crime and Punishment, novel by Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky, first published in 1866. His first masterpiece, the novel is a psychological analysis of the poor former student Raskolnikov, whose theory that he is an extraordinary person able to take on the spiritual responsibility of using evil means to achieve humanitarian ends leads him to mur...
Raskolnikov, a former student, lives in poverty and chaos in St. Petersburg. He decides—through contradictory theories, including utilitarian morality and the belief that extraordinary people have the “right to transgress”—to murder Alyona Ivanovna, an elderly pawnbroker. Alyona’s half sister, Lizaveta, arrives while he is rifling through Alyona’s possessions, and he kills her too. In the meantime he befriends an alcoholic man, Marmeladov, whose daughter Sonya has been forced into prostitution to support the family. An old friend, Razumikhin, also enters his life, concerned by his aberrant behaviour. In addition, Raskolnikov’s sister, Dunya, who has left her job as a governess for Svidrigailov because of his improper advances toward her, arrives in St. Petersburg with their mother. Dunya intends to marry a man named Luzhin in order to improve their financial and social position.
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The narrative follows the twists and turns of Raskolnikov’s emotions and elaborates his struggle with his conscience and the tightening noose of suspicion. He is ill through most of the story, and he angrily rejects his family’s and Razumikhin’s attempts to help him. When Marmeladov is run over by a carriage and dies, Raskolnikov gives Sonya and the family money for his funeral. He forbids Dunya to marry the pompous Luzhin, who offends Dunya to the point that she breaks off the engagement. Raskolnikov repeatedly visits Sonya, but he behaves in such an unhinged manner that she is frightened. When it seems that Porfiry, who is investigating the murder, is on the point of charging Raskolnikov, another man confesses. At a memorial dinner for Marmeladov, Luzhin falsely accuses Sonya of stealing from him, and Raskolnikov explains why he would do such a thing. Later he tells Sonya that he murdered the two women. Svidrigailov overhears the confession and subsequently uses that knowledge to try to blackmail Dunya into accepting him, but, when it becomes clear that she will never love him, he kills himself.
The narrative’s feverish compelling tone and its moving depiction of the recovery of a diseased spirit contributed to its status as a masterpiece. The novel also offers remarkable psychological portraits of the alcoholic Marmeladov and of the vicious amoralist Svidrigailov. Razumikhin exemplifies Dostoyevsky’s conviction that slow, steady, hard wor...
Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov. The novel’s protagonist, Raskolnikov murders Lizaveta and the old woman and spends the rest of the book coming to terms with his crime and with the touches of madness that follow. It is never clear… read analysis of Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov.
Rodion Raskolnikov, fictional character who is the protagonist of the novel Crime and Punishment (1866) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. An impoverished student who murders a pawnbroker and her stepsister, Raskolnikov embodies the author’s belief that salvation is possible only through.
