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.