Crime and Punishment

Outline

Crime and Punishment (1866) follows Rodion Raskolnikov, a poor former law student in Saint Petersburg who kills an old pawnbroker to prove his theory that extraordinary people may step over moral lines. What follows is not a hunt for the killer but a gripping psychological journey through guilt, fever and fear, as a shrewd investigator closes in and a self-sacrificing young woman named Sonia leads him toward confession and redemption. Fyodor Dostoevsky's masterpiece remains one of the most influential novels ever written.

• Raskolnikov kills a pawnbroker to test his theory that extraordinary people may step over ordinary moral lines.
• The story is less a manhunt than a psychological journey through guilt, fever and fear.
• A shrewd investigator slowly closes in on Raskolnikov, adding pressure to his unravelling mind.
• Sonia, a self-sacrificing young woman, leads him toward confession and redemption.
• The novel suggests the deepest punishment is the one a guilty conscience imposes, not one a court can deliver.

Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881) was a Russian novelist whose works explore the deepest questions of faith, freedom and conscience. Sentenced to death in 1849 for political activity, he was spared at the last moment and spent four years in a Siberian prison camp, an experience that shaped all his later writing. His other great novels include The Idiot, Demons and The Brothers Karamazov.