Razumikhin

Razumikhin is Raskolnikov's ex-roommate/friend in college. He takes care of Raskolnikov after he murders the two ladies. After he committed the murders, he fell extremely ill and Razumikhin was there to watch over and comfort him. Near the end of the novel he realizes that Raskolnikov is the murderer. He also falls in love with Donya, Raskolnikov's sister.

Dunya

Dunya is the sister of Raskolnikov. Even though he does not realize it, Raskolnikov's family works really hard to provide him with enough money to make it through college. She even decides to marry a rich old man who she is repulsed by just so he would pay for Raskolnikov's college.

Sonya

Sonya is the daughter of a man that Raskolnikov met in a bar. After this man dies, Raskolnikov starts to vist her and talks to her when he needs help dealing with his problems. Eventually, he confesses to heer that he is the murderer of the two old ladies and instead of being taken back, Sonya decides to try to help him. At the end of the novel, Raskolnikov falls in love with her.

Alyona Ivanovna

Alyona Ivanovna is the old lady that is murdered by Raskolnikov. She is a pawnbroker who was very selfish and greedy. She was murdered due to the fact that no one liked her and she more or less stole money from her clients by paying them little to no money for their expensive items. Her half sister, Lizaveta, is the person who watches over her. She is also murdered by Raskolnikov. 

Raskolnikov

Raskolnikov is the protagonist in Crime and Punishment. He is the murderer in the novel. He is very poor and lives in a very small apartment in St. Petersburg. He tries to stay secluded from the rest of the world by studying and reading in his apartment.

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.

Themes

            There are several lessons that Fyodor Dostoevsky wanted his readers to obtain from reading his novel. A murder is a murder. It does not matter how bad the person is, they are still a human being. We see this through Raskolnikov’s actions after the murder. He starts to faint when people talk about the murders around him. He also gets very paranoid that everyone knows that he committed the murders. He starts accusing random people of thinking he is guilty and loses several friendships by doing so. Another theme is kindness. Fyodor Dostoevsky made Raskolnikov a very harsh and angry character who made himself believe that he was right in killing the two old women because he is all together better than them. If he was just kind to people, then he could of avoided this whole ordeal.

Connections

In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, there are several factors that connect back to events and novel in the past. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne shows how hard it is for the Priest to hide his crime due to the amount of guilt he feels for what he did. He comes extremely close to going out in the streets and proclaiming his guilt to everyone. There is not difference in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment when Raskolnikov continually has to run away from situation that he would get in because he felt the burning desire to confess to the murders. Also, just before Dostoevsky was born, there was a terrible ruler in France who was trying to take over Europe. His name was Napoleon Bonaparte. To Dostoevsky, he was just as bad as Hitler is viewed today. He killed ruthlessly. He killed those who he thought were not equal or who did not deserve to like in his opinion. These thoughts are that in the same as Raskolnikov’s. He uses the excuse of cleaning up the streets of bad people who do bad things to other people. He killed just as Napoleon Bonaparte did.

           

Crime and Punishment

Raskolnikov then goes go Sonya's room to seek general guidence.  At this point, Raskolnikov has no where else to go and has a feeling of superiority over people.  He shares his story of how he is going away for a while and he wants Sonys to go with him.  Sonya and Raskolnikov have a strong relationship, especially over the course of the novel.  When she hears the terror and horror of what Raskilnikov did she had little to say about him.  The next day, he goes to visit Porfiry Petrovich at the police station.  They get into a deep conversation and raskolnikov feels like he is being questioned.  Throughout Porfiry’s long speech, Raskolnikovstarts to get annoyed. But after a while, he bursts out wildly, accusing the official of suspecting him and challenging Porfiry either to accuse him outright or to let him be.

Crime and Punishment

      After overhearing the two men discussing Alyona Ivanovna, Raskolnikov decides that by killing that old crone he would be doing the world a favor. When he finally convinces himself that he is going to commit the act of killing the pawnbroker he makes his jacket so that he can easily conceal the axe that he will use to kill Alyona. Raskolnikov then makes his way to her apartment contemplating the act and carefully planning how to commit it. After killing Alyona with the blunt side of the axe he quickly makes his way to the back room to search for anything that he can steal. While digging through the pawnbroker's items he hears someone coming up the stairs, then the young Lizaveta enters the room and is immediately in shock from the horrid scene she sees. Raskolnikov kills Lizaveta with one blow. He flees the crime scene unnoticed and returns to his house where he is struck with immediate guilt and becomes extremely paranoid.
      The days following the incedent Raskolnikov acts extremely strange. He thinks he hears the detective beating his landlady but not one other person in the room saw or heard the same thing. This shows the insanity that the guilt has brought upon him. He becomes convinced that someone will find the Items that he stole so he hides them under the rock. His actions after he commits the act shows the reader the extreme guilt that Raskolnikov feels for what he did.

Crime and Punishment

Meanwhile, Raskolnikov walks into a restaurant with Razimukin.  Razimukin tells him that Porfiry Petrovich and Zamyotov and discovered that they suspect Raskolnikov of the murders, which Razumikhin thought was not right.  There is still a feeling of guilty conscious in raskolnikovs mind, and this is becoming even more evident in insanity.  Razumikhin is the most relieved of all because he tells them about Svidrigailov offering to give Dunya ten thousand rubles, which both women reject immediately.  Raskolnikov suggests that Dunya and her mother stay on in St. Petersburg and proposes that they all go into the publishing business together.  But then Raskolnikov abruptly gets up to leave. He says that he has resolved to disconnect himself from them for a long time and that they must not try to follow him or keep in touch.  This shows how paranoid he is and how mentally he is off course. The rest of the group is dismayed. Razumikhin chases after him, but Raskolnikov sends him back, telling his friend to stay with Pulcheria Alexandrovna and Dunya. Razumikhin realizes here that Raskolnikov is the suspected murderer.
   

Crime and Punishment

       The novel starts off by showing the reader the daily activities of the protagonist Raskolnikov. He was previously a student at the university but is now unemployed. Whenever Raskolnikov goes for a walk around the city the narrator says he is contemplating on committing an act, however the narrator does not clarify what act he is talking about. He then arrives at Alyona Ivanovna's apartment. She is an old pawnbroker who lives with a younger relative named Lizaveta. Alyona is notorious for being a very cheap "Old Crone"and she barely gives Raskolnikov any money for the watch he sells her.
       Next Raskolnikov goes to the tavern where he meets Marmeladov a frequent visiter to the tavern. Raskolnikov and Marmeladov then sit down while Marmeladov proceeds to tell his life story to Raskolnikov. They then depart to go to Marmeladov's house. Upon arrival Raskolnikov realizes how impoverished the family is and feels sorry for them. Before his departure he leaves the family with a small amount of money. This is Ironic in a way because Marmeladov's wife actually comes from a royal heritage yet is so poor that her family must take money from an already poor man to pay the rent.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Throughout Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel Crime and Punishment, it is easy to see how his experiences in his life leading up to writing the novel influenced his writing. First off, the setting of the novel, Russia. This is the city in which the novel takes place and it is Fyodor Dostoyevsky home town. He grew up in a poor family with 6 other siblings in very small quarters. This parallels with the main character, Raskolnikov's, apartment which is can be compared to the size of a closet. Also, his father was a belligerent drunk who continually beat them in his drunken rages. His mother also died when he was at an early age. These two factors both contributed to his the dark overtones that are evident throughout the novel.