A theory tested by life
Examine how Crime and Punishment turns Raskolnikov’s theory of extraordinary people into a lived experiment with unforeseen consequences.
An original introduction. This guide accompanies the work; it is neither the complete text nor a translation.
Situating the text
Serialized in The Russian Messenger in 1866 and revised for the book edition of 1867, the novel responds to debates about utilitarian calculation, poverty and the radical “new people” celebrated by Chernyshevsky. Its much-discussed epilogue sketches a slow resurrection through love rather than a completed conversion. Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished former student in Saint Petersburg, kills an old pawnbroker and then, unplanned, her sister Lizaveta. The novel follows his fever, his duel of wits with the investigator Porfiry Petrovich and his bond with Sonya Marmeladova, up to his confession and his sentence to penal servitude in Siberia.
Following the arguments
Extraordinary people : Raskolnikov’s article claims that a Napoleon may step over moral law for the sake of an idea, a theory the novel tests through its consequences. Arithmetic of murder : A student overheard in a tavern argues that killing one harmful old woman would save a hundred lives, turning ethics into simple arithmetic. Lazarus : Sonya’s reading of the raising of Lazarus and her call to confess open a path that the theory cannot account for.
Continuing the reading
Follow Raskolnikov’s reasons for the murder as they shift from chapter to chapter, and compare his published article with what he actually lives through. Serialized in The Russian Messenger in 1866 and revised for the book edition of 1867, the novel responds to debates about utilitarian calculation, poverty and the radical “new people” celebrated by Chernyshevsky. Its much-discussed epilogue sketches a slow resurrection through love rather than a completed conversion.
The novel answers Raskolnikov less by argument than by showing what his idea does to him and to the people around him.
Your turn to think.
- Which reasons does Raskolnikov give for the murder, and how do they change over the novel?
- What roles do Sonya and Porfiry Petrovich play on his way toward confession?
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