Crime and Punishment
Questions
The most common questions about Crime and Punishment, answered from the book.
- What is the summary of Crime and Punishment?Crime and Punishment tells how Raskolnikov, a poor former student from St. Petersburg, kills a pawnbroker and her sister with an ax to test a theory,...
- Who is Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment?Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, whom his mother and sister call Rodya, is the protagonist of the novel: a poor former student from St. Petersburg who...
- Why does Raskolnikov kill the old woman?Raskolnikov kills the pawnbroker Alyona Ivanovna to find out whether he is an extraordinary man, one with the right to overstep the law, but the book...
- What is the theory of the extraordinary man in Crime and Punishment?The theory of the extraordinary man, set out in an article by Raskolnikov, divides people into ordinary ones, who must live in obedience and have no...
- Who is Sonia in Crime and Punishment?Sonia, Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladova, is the daughter of the drunken civil servant Marmeladov. To support her consumptive stepmother and her three...
- Who is Porfiry Petrovich in Crime and Punishment?Porfiry Petrovich is the examining magistrate in charge of the pawnbroker's murder, a relative of Razumikhin's, who surrounds Raskolnikov with...
- Who is Svidrigailov, and why does he kill himself?Svidrigailov is a widowed landowner, Dunya's former employer, who tells Raskolnikov that the two of them are birds of a feather, and who shoots...
- Why Does Raskolnikov Confess?Raskolnikov confesses because he can no longer bear being alone with the crime and with the theory that failed: when he tells Sonia the truth, he...
- What does the name Raskolnikov mean?The surname Raskolnikov comes from raskol, a Russian word meaning split, the same word that names the Great Schism that divided the Russian Orthodox...
- What is the meaning of the dream of the mare in Crime and Punishment?In the dream of the mare, young Raskolnikov sees a drunken peasant beat a mare to death with a whip in front of a laughing crowd, and the boy's...
- Why does Sonia read the resurrection of Lazarus to Raskolnikov?Sonia reads the resurrection of Lazarus because Raskolnikov asks her to, and he chooses this passage from the Gospel of John without saying why: it...
- Does Raskolnikov Repent?According to the Epilogue, no: in the Siberian prison "he did not repent of his crime," and what makes him sick is wounded pride. What changes at the...
- How Does Crime and Punishment End?Crime and Punishment ends in a Siberian prison, with Raskolnikov falling weeping at Sonia's feet beside a river, the two deciding to wait out the...
- Where and when does Crime and Punishment take place?Crime and Punishment takes place in St. Petersburg, then the capital of Russia, in a July of stifling heat in the mid-1860s, and the final stretch...
- What is the main theme of Crime and Punishment?The main theme of Crime and Punishment is what happens to a man who grants himself, for the sake of an idea, the right to kill. The book does not ask...
- Why is the book called Crime and Punishment?The title names the two things the novel asks whether they are one: the crime, which Raskolnikov commits as early as Part One, and the punishment,...
- What does the book Crime and Punishment say?Crime and Punishment says that an idea, however well calculated it may seem, does not give anyone the right to take another person's life, and it...
- Is Crime and Punishment hard to read?Crime and Punishment is not hard to understand, but it is a long novel of ideas, full of Russian names and dense conversations, and it is worth...
- What is the best English translation of Crime and Punishment?There is no official ranking of translators, so the best way to choose is by criteria rather than by a name. The safest criterion is a translation...
- What is the most memorable line in Crime and Punishment?There is no official line, but three from the book itself gather what it asks: "am I a louse, like everyone else, or a man?", "Was it the old woman I...