Crime and Punishment
SynopsisPlot
Raskolnikov, an impoverished student tormented by his own nihilism, and the struggle between good and evil, believes he is above the law. Convinced that humanitarian ends justify vile means, he brutally murders an old woman—a pawnbroker whom he regards as "stupid, ailing, greedy…good for nothing." Overwhelmed afterward by feelings of guilt and terror, Raskolnikov confesses to the crime and goes to prison. There he realizes that happiness and redemption can only be achieved through suffering.
Story
About this book
Crime and Punishment was first published in twelve monthly installments in the Russian literary journal The Russian Messenger during 1866. It was the second full-length novel Fyodor Dostoyevsky completed after returning from ten years of exile in Siberia, and it is widely regarded as the first major work of his later period.
The story is set in St. Petersburg and follows Rodion Raskolnikov, a former student living in poverty. He develops a theory that certain extraordinary people stand above ordinary moral law, and to test it, partly hoping to fund future good works, he plans and carries out the murder of a pawnbroker. He compares himself to Napoleon Bonaparte, arguing that great historical figures always acted beyond conventional rules.
Much of the book unfolds as a psychological struggle. Raskolnikov moves between defiance and mounting dread, shadowed by the investigating magistrate Porfiry Petrovich and drawn toward Sonya Marmeladova, a young woman whose own difficult circumstances shape their exchanges. Dostoyevsky builds the narrative around conscience, suffering, and the question of whether a theory can hold once its consequences become real.
