Crime and Punishment

Raskolnikov has a theory: a truly great man has the right to step over a corpse if his idea demands it. To test it, he takes an axe to a greedy old pawnbroker, and then, by bad luck, to her gentle sister as well. The police have almost nothing on him, but a patient investigator named Porfiry seems to see straight through him. The book is less a whodunit than a study of what a crime does to the person who commits it, and of the prostitute Sonia, whose faith offers him a way back.

What happens in Crime and Punishment

Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov, a former law student, lives in a cupboard of a room in Petersburg, behind on his rent and barely eating. One hot July evening he pawns his father’s watch with Alyona Ivanovna, an old moneylender, as a rehearsal for a plan he hardly admits to himself. In a tavern he meets the drunken clerk Marmeladov, whose daughter Sonia has become a prostitute to feed his family. A letter from home tells him that his sister Dounia will marry Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin, a well-off man of forty-five, largely to help her brother. When he learns by chance that the pawnbroker will be alone the next evening at seven, he takes an axe and kills her. Her half-sister Lizaveta walks in, and he kills her too. He escapes by luck, hides the purse and trinkets under a stone without ever opening the purse, and falls into a fever. His friend Razumihin nurses him. Luzhin calls and is thrown out. Raskolnikov nearly confesses to the police clerk Zametov, then gives the money his mother sent him to Marmeladov’s widow, Katerina Ivanovna, after Marmeladov is run over by a carriage and dies. His mother and sister arrive. The investigator Porfiry Petrovitch, who has read Raskolnikov’s article on criminals and extraordinary men, draws him into a long game of cat and mouse. Dounia’s former employer Svidrigaïlov comes to town, and a house-painter, Nikolay, falsely confesses to the murders. Dounia breaks with Luzhin, who takes revenge by planting a hundred-rouble note on Sonia; Lebeziatnikov, the young man he is lodging with, exposes him. Raskolnikov confesses the murders to Sonia, who begs him to give himself up. Katerina Ivanovna dies. Porfiry tells Raskolnikov to his face that he is the murderer and urges him to confess. Svidrigaïlov, who overheard the confession, lures Dounia to his rooms; she fires at him, and when she says she can never love him, he lets her go. That night he gives much of his money away, and at dawn he shoots himself in front of a watchman. Raskolnikov kisses the ground in the Hay Market and confesses at the police office. In the Epilogue he is sentenced to eight years of penal servitude in Siberia, where Sonia has followed him, and after long months of pride and illness he finally breaks down at her feet.

Where and when Crime and Punishment happens

Chapter by chapter summary + why it matters

1. 1

   Part One: The Axe

   Raskolnikov visits the pawnbroker Alyona Ivanovna, hears Marmeladov’s confession in a tavern, and reads his mother’s letter about Dounia’s engagement to Luzhin. After a nightmare about peasants beating a mare to death, he gives up his plan, then overhears that Lizaveta will be out at seven the next evening. He takes an axe from the porter’s room, kills the old woman, and kills Lizaveta when she comes back unexpectedly. Two callers try the locked door, and he slips away while they go down for the porter.

   Why it mattersDostoevsky spends most of Part One on the days before the murder, so the crime feels both planned and half an accident. Chance keeps opening doors for Raskolnikov, which lets him tell himself the deed was fated.

2. 2

   Part Two: Fever

   Summoned to the police about a debt, Raskolnikov faints when the officers discuss the murder. He hides the stolen things under a stone, then lies delirious for days while Razumihin cares for him and the painter Nikolay is arrested. He insults Luzhin, taunts Zametov with a near-confession, and goes back to ring the bell at the murder flat. After Marmeladov is run over, Raskolnikov gives his widow money and finds his mother and sister waiting in his room.

   Why it mattersThe punishment in the title begins at once, as fear, sickness and isolation rather than as any sentence from a court. His urge to give himself away is as strong as his urge to hide.

3. 3

   Part Three: The Article

   Raskolnikov orders Dounia to refuse Luzhin, and Razumihin falls in love with her. At Porfiry’s flat the investigator raises Raskolnikov’s article, which argues that extraordinary men have an inner right to overstep the law for the sake of their idea, and asks a question about the painters that may be a trap. A stranger in the street calls Raskolnikov a murderer. After a nightmare in which the old woman laughs at his blows, he wakes to find a man at his bedside who introduces himself as Svidrigaïlov.

   Why it mattersThe theory is spelled out in public, in Raskolnikov’s own careful wording, while privately he calls himself an aesthetic louse. The gap between the idea and the man who tried to live it is the heart of the book.

4. 4

   Part Four: Lazarus

   Svidrigaïlov offers Dounia ten thousand roubles to be rid of Luzhin, and that evening Dounia sends Luzhin away. Raskolnikov leaves his family and goes to Sonia, who at his insistence reads him the raising of Lazarus; in the empty room next door, Svidrigaïlov is listening. The next morning Porfiry presses Raskolnikov hard and hints at a surprise behind a locked door. The interview is cut short when Nikolay bursts in and confesses to the murders.

   Why it mattersThe murderer and the prostitute reading the Gospel together is the novel’s central image of possible rebirth. Nikolay’s false confession throws the case into confusion just when Porfiry seems closest.

5. 5

   Part Five: The Funeral Dinner

   At Katerina Ivanovna’s memorial dinner Luzhin accuses Sonia of stealing a hundred-rouble note, which is found in her pocket. Lebeziatnikov testifies that he saw Luzhin slip it there, and Raskolnikov explains Luzhin’s motive. Raskolnikov then lets Sonia guess that he killed Lizaveta and gives her a tangle of reasons; she tells him to kiss the earth and confess. Katerina Ivanovna, turned out of her lodging, falls in the street and dies in Sonia’s room, and Svidrigaïlov repeats Raskolnikov’s own words to show that he overheard.

   Why it mattersLuzhin’s calculated cruelty makes an ugly mirror for Raskolnikov’s own logic of useful and useless lives. Sonia answers that no one has made her a judge of who should live.

6. 6

   Part Six: Two Ways Out

   Porfiry visits Raskolnikov, tells him plainly that he is the murderer, and gives him a day or two to confess. Svidrigaïlov lures Dounia to his rooms and locks the door; she fires a revolver at him, grazing his head, and the next shot misfires. When she says she can never love him, he gives her the key, and at dawn the next day he shoots himself in the street. Raskolnikov says goodbye to his mother and sister, takes Sonia’s cypress cross, kisses the ground in the Hay Market, and confesses to Ilya Petrovitch at the police office.

   Why it mattersSvidrigaïlov takes the way out Raskolnikov had considered, which makes him the hero’s dark double. Raskolnikov still insists he has done no crime, so his confession comes before any repentance.

7. 7

   Epilogue: Siberia

   Raskolnikov is sentenced to eight years of penal servitude, his mother dies, and Dounia marries Razumihin. In a Siberian prison he stays proud and unrepentant, is hated by the other convicts, and falls ill with a dream of a plague of certainty. One morning by the river he throws himself at Sonia’s feet, and both know that a new life has begun.

   Why it mattersThe narrator presents the ending as the start of another story, the slow renewal of a man, rather than a finished conversion. Readers still argue over whether it is earned.

Characters and how they connect

Character Relationships who connects to whom, and the themes that bind them

Themes in Crime and Punishment what the novel is really about

Symbols & motifs

Important quotes

The ending of Crime and Punishment, explained

Part Six ends with Raskolnikov telling Ilya Petrovitch that he killed the old pawnbroker and her sister Lizaveta with an axe and robbed them. The Epilogue then jumps ahead. At his trial he tells the whole story, and the court, weighing his disordered state of mind, the timing of his confession while Nikolay’s false one had muddled the case, and his past kindnesses, gives him only eight years of penal servitude. His mother dies after half guessing the truth, Dounia marries Razumihin, and Sonia follows him to Siberia with money left her by Svidrigaïlov. In prison he is still not sorry. He thinks his only fault was failing, since great men who succeed are called benefactors, and it is wounded pride that makes him ill. The other convicts, far guiltier men, despise him and adore Sonia. In the hospital he dreams of a plague that makes every person certain that he alone has the truth, until mankind destroys itself. Many readers see in it his own theory spread across the whole world. Soon after, sitting by the river, he suddenly falls at Sonia’s feet, weeping, and they both understand that he loves her and that a new life has begun. That night he holds her New Testament but does not open it. The narrator stresses that this is only the beginning of his renewal, which will cost him great striving and suffering, and belongs to a new story. Readers have long disagreed about this ending. Some find the conversion rushed and too tidy after six parts of doubt. Others argue it is carefully prepared by Sonia, Lazarus and the plague dream, and that it is deliberately left unfinished, since Raskolnikov has not yet repented in words and the book promises seven more years of struggle.

Common misreadings

Test yourself

Flashcards flip, self-grade, and the deck remembers what you know

Raskolnikov is a poor young man in a big Russian city who has stopped going to university. He talks himself into believing that some special people are allowed to break the rules, and he kills a mean old moneylender to prove he is one of them. Her kind sister walks in, and he kills her too. After that he gets sick with fear and guilt, and a clever detective named Porfiry starts to suspect him. A poor young woman named Sonia, who is kind even though her life is hard, becomes the person he trusts. In the end he tells the police what he did and is sent to a prison in Siberia. Sonia goes with him, and slowly he starts to change.

Compare & connect the story universe

Adaptations. Crime and Punishment (1935, Film directed by Josef von Sternberg).

Discussion & essay prompts for class, or your next paper

Key questions students ask

• Why does Raskolnikov kill the pawnbroker in Crime and Punishment
• What is Raskolnikov’s extraordinary man theory
• Who does Raskolnikov confess to in Crime and Punishment
• What is the meaning of the Lazarus story in Crime and Punishment
• Why does Svidrigailov kill himself
• What happens in the Epilogue of Crime and Punishment