synopsis:

'Crime and Punishment' is a tale about one man's attempt to escape the implications of a single dire act of murder. Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov - known as Rodya - is a handsome young student who, in an attempt to save his sister Dounia from marrying just to provide for him, kills a slovenly sixty-year old pawnbroker with a porter's axe. During the killing her sister Lizaveta enters and he murders her too, burying the spoils.

The story follows Rodya as he tries to elude detection at a police summons (he faints) and while another man, Nikolay the painter, is accused. Various other characters come into the equation such as Rodya's student friend Razumihin who fears his mental collapse and Zametov the police clerk who is suspicious of the fainting incident. Episodes that follow include Rodya's return to the department of investigation under Porfiry Petrovitch who tries to trap him psychologically and later lectures him pertinently on the criminal mind. We fear for Rodya and his untenable situation especially after his family receives something of a small fortune from Svidrigailov. Into this melee of strange circumstances comes Sonia - a pale girl from the streets - to whom Rodya confesses his crime. It is then a question of whether he should give himself up and if Dounia will forgive his act of foolishness.

The path of Rodya's life leads through these adventures to an acceptance of religion over individualism.

on this book:

The idea for this book sprang from an idea that had come to Dostoyevsky in prison: an exploration of what he called "the psychological account of a crime." The central ideas would be the radical social ideologies that gripped Russia in the 1860's, particularly Nihilism, which was emerging around the time Dostoevsky was beginning work on what would be 'Crime and Punishment'. (The Nihilists advocated the complete destruction of the social order, without giving any theory of what would replace it).

Dostoevsky's own experimentation with social radicalism and his consequent imprisonment and suffering had a great impact on his voice and on the development of 'Crime and Punishment'. Much of the book's message revolves around his argument that the Western-influenced theories and emphasis on rationalism were not only incompatible with Russian society and history but even dangerous to them.