Crime and Punishment
One of the world’s greatest novels, Crime and Punishment is the story of a murder and its consequences—an unparalleled tale of suspense set in the midst of nineteenth-century Russia’s troubled transition to the modern age.
In the slums of czarist St. Petersburg lives young Raskolnikov, a sensitive, intellectual student. The poverty he has always known drives him to believe that he is exempt from moral law. But when he puts this belief to the test, he suffers unbearably. Crime and punishment, the novel reminds us, grow from the same seed.
“No other novelist,” wrote Irving Howe of Dostoyevsky, “has dramatized so powerfully the values and dangers, the uses and corruptions of systematized thought.” And Friedrich Nietzsche called him “the only psychologist I have anything to learn from.”
With an Introduction by Leonard J. Stanton and James D. Hardy Jr.
and an Afterword by Robin Feuer Miller
534 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1,1866
This edition
- Format
-
534 pages, Mass Market Paperback
- Published
-
March 7, 2006 by Signet
- ISBN
-
9780451530066
- ASIN
-
0451530063
- Language
-
English
-
Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov
Raskolnikov is the protagonist, and the action is focalized primarily from his perspective. Despite its name, the novel does not so much deal with the crime and its formal punishment, as with Raskolnikovs internal struggle (The book shows that his p...
-
Porfiry Petrovich
Porfiry Petrovich (Порфирий Петрович) – The detective in charge of solving the murders of Lizaveta and Alyona Ivanovna, who, along with Sonya, guides Raskolnikov towards confession. Unlike Sonya, however, Porfiry does this through psychological games. Des...
-
Sofia Semyonovna Marmeladova
Sofia Semyonovna Marmeladova (Russian: Софья Семёновна Мармеладова), variously called Sonia (Sonya) and Sonechka, is the daughter of a drunk, Semyon Zakharovich Marmeladov, whom Raskolnikov meets in a tavern at the beginning of the novel, and who, Raskoln...
-
Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikova
Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikova (Авдотья Романовна Раскольникова) – Raskolnikovs strong willed and self-sacrificial sister, called Dunya, Dounia or Dunechka for short. She initially plans to marry the wealthy, yet smug and self-possessed, Luzhin, to ...
-
Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov
Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigaïlov (Аркадий Иванович Свидригайлов) – Sensual, depraved, and wealthy former employer and current pursuer of Dunya, Svidrigaïlov is suspected of multiple acts of murder, and overhears Raskolnikovs confessions to Sonya. With ...
-
Dmitri Prokofich Razumikhin
Dmitri Prokofich Razumikhin (Дмитрий Прокофьич Разумихин) – Raskolnikovs loyal friend. In terms of Razumikhins contribution to Dostoevskys anti-radical thematics, he is intended to represent something of a reconciliation of the pervasive...
About the author
Works, such as the novels Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880), of Russian writer Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky or Dostoevski combine religious mysticism with profound psychological insight.
Very influential writings of Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin included Problems of Dostoyevsky's Works (1929),
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky composed short stories, essays, and journals. His literature explores humans in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmospheres of 19th-century and engages with a variety of philosophies and themes. People most acclaimed his Demons(1872) .
Many literary critics rate him of the greatest of world literature and consider multiple highly influential masterpieces. They consider his Notes from Underground of the first existentialist literature. He also well acts as a philosopher and theologian.
(Russian: Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский) (see also Fiodor Dostoïevski)
