Motifs

In Crime and Punishment, there are several notable motifs throughout the novel that really reinforce the themes that Fyodor Dostoevsky wanted his readers to understand. One of those motifs is the cross bore. Just as Jesus Christ had to bear his cross, Dostoevsky wants his characters to do the same. Through the majority of the novel, Raskolnikov is trying to avoid being caught and exposed by the detectives that are on his case. No matter how hard he tried, he had to face the inevitable fact that he would eventually be punished for his crime. So, instead of hiding from the law, Raskolnikov gets some advice from his friend Sonya who tells him to turn himself in to the police and bear the cross which is his crime and punishment. Raskolnikov also continually talks about the right to kill. He even wrote an article for a newspaper that explained his reasoning on the matter right before he committed the murders. He feels very passionately that some people just do not deserve to be alive due to the way they act or how important they are. So, Raskolnikov uses this idea throughout the novel to justify to himself for killing the two ladies.