crime and punishment book report

Crime and Punishment

Fyodor dostoevsky, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Crime and Punishment opens in 1860s St. Petersburg, where Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov , an impoverished former student, has come psychologically unhinged. He wanders about the city, barely eats, and hatches a vague plan he wishes to “test” one afternoon. He goes to the apartment of an old pawnbroker , who lives with her sister Lizaveta , and pawns his father’s watch. Upon leaving, he repeats to himself his intentions: he will murder the old crone and rob her.

Raskolnikov meets a drunk named Marmeladov , who tells of his troubles and his daughter Sonya , a prostitute. Raskolnikov receives a letter from his mother Pulcheria , who reports that his sister Dunya , once a governess working for the Svidrigailov family, has been courted by Mr. Svidrigailov , fired by Mrs. Marfa Svidrigailov , exonerated publically by the same woman, and then proposed to by a government official named Luzhin . Pulcheria notes that Raskolnikov will soon have a chance to meet Luzhin in Petersburg. After walking through the Haymarket , he overhears Lizaveta in conversation, and it is revealed she will leave the apartment for a brief time the following day. He decides that fate has intervened: he must go through with his plan.

He kills the pawnbroker, attempts to rob her, and kills Lizaveta when she walks unexpectedly into the room. Two men come upstairs hoping to do business with the old woman; they see the door is locked from the inside and go to fetch the caretaker. Raskolnikov runs out and ducks into an apartment being painted by two workers, Mikolai (or Nikolai) and Mitka , who have just had a fight and run outside themselves.

The rest of the novel charts Raskolnikov’s reaction to his crime, and his relationship with friends, family, and a police investigator named Porfiry , who is put on the case. Raskolnikov hurries to conceal evidence, buries some of the old woman’s items under a rock in an abandoned yard, and finds he has been summoned to the police headquarters because of an unrelated dispute with his landlord. He faints in the station when the police begin discussing the murders. His friend Razumikhin appears later, vowing to help Raskolnikov, whom he fears is sick. Later, when Luzhin visits Raskolnikov, Raskolnikov says that he will not permit Luzhin to marry his sister. Raskolnikov has a strange conversation with Zamyotov , the police-station clerk, describing how he would have murdered the two women. He later finds Marmeladov crushed under the wheels of a wagon, and gives a significant amount of money to Katerina , his widow, for the funeral and a feast.

Pulcheria and Dunya arrive in Petersburg and are terrified at Raskolnikov’s appearance—they fear he might be going insane. Raskolnikov meets with Porfiry, who tricks him into confessing that he visited the pawnbroker’s apartment on the day of the murders. Svidrigailov arrives and speaks with Raskolnikov, claiming that his love for Dunya was genuine, and that he now lives in the same apartment building as Sonya. Luzhin meets with Raskolnikov, Pulcheria, and Dunya, attempting to settle his marriage to Dunya, but in doing so Luzhin so insults Dunya that the engagement is broken off.

Raskolnikov meets with Sonya and asks her to read him the story of Lazarus , a man Jesus raised from the dead. Raskolnikov goes to Porfiry’s office alone, and the investigator uses a series of circuitous techniques to enrage Raskolnikov, who begs either to be charged with a crime or set free. Porfiry says he has a surprise for Raskolnikov—a witness who claims to know the true murderer. Porfiry opens the door and Mikolai the painter stumbles in, confessing to the crimes and confusing Porfiry and Raskolnikov. The latter is permitted to leave, with Porfiry’s promise that the two will speak again soon.

Luzhin attends Marmeladov’s funeral banquet and announces that Sonya has stolen 100 roubles from him; his roommate Lebezyatnikov reveals that Luzhin has planted the money on Sonya in order to appear gracious when he “forgives” her. Luzhin is run out of the house. The uproar causes Amalia , Katerina’s landlady, to kick her out of the apartment, and Katerina goes outside with the children, begs in the street, falls ill with delirium, and later dies.

Meanwhile Raskolnikov visits Sonya again and confesses to her that he has murdered Lizaveta and the old crone. Sonya is shocked but vows to protect him. Raskolnikov runs into Svidrigailov, who lets on that he has heard Raskolnikov’s confession through the wall adjoining his and Sonya’s apartment. He intends to use this information to blackmail Raskolnikov into enabling his marriage to Dunya.

Raskolnikov passes several days in a fog and is visited by Porfiry, who says he knows that Raskolnikov is the killer. Porfiry gives Raskolnikov two days to mull over his options, but he encourages Raskolnikov to confess in order to receive a lighter sentence. Raskolnikov meets with Svidrigailov, who announces his intentions with Dunya; Raskolnikov wishes to protect his sister, but she meets secretly with Svidrigailov, who attempts to rape her. Dunya has brought a gun and shoots Svidrigailov, narrowly missing. She says she will never run away with him, and he lets her go. Svidrigailov later kills himself out of despair.

Raskolnikov confesses his guilt to this sister but not to his mother, to whom he bids an ambiguous farewell. Dunya encourages Raskolnikov to repent for his crime. Raskolnikov goes to the police station and confesses to Gunpowder, the assistant to Nikodim the police chief.

In the Epilogue, it is revealed that Raskolnikov has been sentenced to eight years’ hard labor. Sonya goes to Siberia with him and writes to Petersburg of his activities. Razumikhin marries Dunya and Pulcheria dies in a fit of delirium.

In the prison camp Raskolnikov slowly comes to terms with his guilt and recognizes that Sonya’s love for him is absolute. After opening Sonya’s copy of the Gospels, he vows to rehabilitate himself. The narrator implies that Raskolnikov eventually succeeds in this, though the process is a difficult one and saved for another story.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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Historical Context

Crime and punishment, by fyodor dostoevsky.

'Crime and Punishment' was written during Russia's most potent literary period, with significant ideological conflicts provoking insightful literature.

Article written by Israel Njoku

Degree in M.C.M with focus on Literature from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s ‘ Crime and Punishment ‘ reflected his passionate response to the infiltration of ideas he deemed dangerous from Western Europe into Russia. Although he went to prison for being part of a radical intellectual group in Russia, the prison experience deeply affected his outlook on life and he located genuine progress this time with traditional Slavic values of brotherhood, rather than Western individualism and subsequent nihilism.

Historical and Cultural Background

‘Crime and Punishment’ was conceived as a philosophical response to the radical ideas Dostoevsky comes back to witness within the St. Petersburg Russian society after his return from prison. A number of intellectuals had rejected conventional morality and important traditional institutions in favor of a rational egoist, socialist utopian, and utilitarian philosophy. 

Nihilistic in outlook, these new radicals held ideas that Dostoevsky was fundamentally in opposition to, given his own subscription to the legality of the monarchy, the Russian Orthodox church, and other relics of the old and traditional Russian institutions that the new radicals sought to abolish. Dostoevsky wrote ‘Crime and Punishment’ partly to show how defective these ideas were.

Publication History

The idea for “ Crime and Punishment ” first came to Dostoevsky in a raw and vague form when he was in prison in Siberia. By the time of his release during his time abroad in an effort to escape his creditors in July 1865, Dostoevsky had already put in place plans to develop this idea of a psychological account of crime into a novel. 

At about the same time he also began work on the scourge of drunkenness in society titled “ The Drunkards “. Dostoevsky eventually discarded his first draft of the novel that intended to explore a psychological account of crime in favor of incorporating the story of “ The Drunkards “—  namely the plot involving Marmeladov and Sonia-while also shifting the point of view from the first-person confessions of an imprisoned narrator to a third-person view.

The new version saw changes in the supposed motivations for Raskolnikov’s crime, as well as the role of characters like Sonia.  In a letter he wrote to his friend, Baron Vrangel, in 1865, he admitted he wasn’t pleased with the form this earlier version took and so was writing according to a new form and plan that had captivated him. 

“ Crime and Punishment ” was published in a serialized version in the “ Russian Herald”   from January to October of 1866. It was translated into English in 1886 to mixed critical reaction. While some praised the work as one of the extraordinary excellence others described it as incoherent and inartistic.

‘Crime and Punishment’ forms the first of the five major works for which Dostoevsky is mostly known and heralded. ‘Crime and Punishment’ has remained the most widely known Russian novel to this day. It has captured the attention of a large and intrigued readership since the time of its appearance and has continued to form part of the curriculum of numerous college and university courses not only as part of education on Russian literature, but also as regards Russian history and culture and that of Europe as a whole. 

The novel is an enduring classic of not just literature but psychology and sociology, with Dostoevsky’s piercing insight into the human psyche and the poverty within Russia’s lower classes forming a valuable contribution to contemporary psychology and sociology. The novel was among the pioneers of literary realism in an era where romanticism was a mainstay in literature. 

What inspired ‘Crime and Punishment’ ?

The idea for ‘ Crime and Punishment’ first came to Dostoevsky while he was in prison in Siberia due to his encounters with criminals. However, the advent of ideologies like nihilism, rational egoism, and utilitarianism also inspired the book.

When was ‘Crime and Punishment’ Published?

As is standard for its time, ‘Crime and Punishment’ was first published serially in twelve monthly installments in the literary journal, ‘The Russian Herald ‘, in 1866.

What time period did ‘ Crime and Punishment’ take place in?

Dostoevsky set the novel around his own contemporary period, during the 1860s in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg. Russia had just exited its isolationist phase and was on a rapid modernization phase.

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About Israel Njoku

Israel loves to delve into rigorous analysis of themes with broader implications. As a passionate book lover and reviewer, Israel aims to contribute meaningful insights into broader discussions.

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