Considered as one of the best works of Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment evokes major issues that pertain to crime, murder, suicide, redemption, poverty, religion, and insanity, among other themes. With the murder of Alyona Ivanovna, and her sister Lizaveta, by Rodion Raskolnikov –Royda –, speculations run all over to who has killed the old pawnbroker and her sister.
There are different activities that unfold in the novel like: the proposal and decline of marriage to Avdotya Romanovna – Dounia – by Pyotr Petrovitch –Luzhin –; the death of Marmeladov (the alcoholic) Marfa Petrovna, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, and Katerina Ivanovna (as well as their insanity); the confrontation of Royda by the detective lawyer Porfiry Petrovitch about his crime; the conviction of Nikolay of committing murder; the suicide of Svidrigailov; the marriage between Dounia and Razumihin; the confession of Rodion to murder and his arrest, and the deep love between Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladov –Sonia – and Royda.
Fyodor Dostoevsky Overview of Crime and Punishment by Ndiritu Wahome
Royda is a young man, who has dropped out of the university. He spends all his time in his small room thinking and starving himself. He considers himself as an extraordinary man of great genius as Napoleon, as a result, he murders an old pawnbroker Alyona Ivanovna, and her sister Lizaveta with an axe and steals a pulse and trinkets, which he hides under a stone in Voznesensky Prospect.
After the crime he suffers greatly both physically and emotionally, like one who has monomania: he undergoes through a hypochondriacal condition. This makes him act strange, and to become physically weak, until he is bedridden with his friend Razumihin taking care of him. He learns, from a letter sent to him, that his mother Pulcheria Alexandrovna and his sister Dounia are coming to Petersburg, and that Dounia is to be married to an old rich man Luzhin. This upsets him greatly.
When Luzhin comes to visit him, he chases him out and let him knows that he does not consent to his sister being married by him because of his wealth, so that she can act as a rescuer for her impoverished family. When Dounia comes to see her brother in the company of her mother, she is greatly perturbed at how Royda behaves and looks. He is mentally deranged! He bluntly tells her that he does not agree to her being married to the egoistic Luzhin.
Pulcheria Alexandrovna leaves her son’s room with her daughter and Royda’s friend Razumihin vexed and set off to their apartment that Luzhin has taken for them. She is worried about her son’s condition, and she does not rest until Razumihin brings doctor Zossimov to assure her that he is going to be okay for the night.
Meanwhile, Svidrigailov comes into Petersburg. Though it is rumoured that he has poisoned his wife Marfa Petrovna, and he seeks out Royda to let him know that he is no longer interested in his sister Dounia, who had been a governess in his house when his wife was alive, and that he wishes to leave her a significant amount of money 10,000 roubles before he leaves for abroad, and that to show he is no longer interested in her, he is marrying a young girl in a few days to come, though he needs to speak to Dounia for the very last time.
With the fainting of Royda in the police station, plus his article on crime being published in the Periodical Review, Porfiry Petrovitch suspicion is raised, and he confronts him in his house. He is an exceptionally intelligent man, and sees through Royda’s illness into his ideas on crime. Both of them talk with Royda keeping his guard up, while Porfiry tries his best to get him in a loop and confess the murder.
Finally, Dounia’s marriage proposal to Luzhin is broken, and Razumihin is excited for he has eyes for Dounia. On the other side, things are not so good for Sonia, her stepmother, Katerina Ivanovna, and her siblings, as their father Marmeladov has died. The impoverished family, which is supported by Sonia through prostitution, gets some help from Royda, who gives all his money, after bringing the injured alcoholic Marmeladov to his house after being hit by a cart. Sonia is touched by Royda’s kindness and goes in search of him to invite him for the burial of Marmeladov. This marks the strong bond between the two.
Nikolay, convinced that he killed the old pawnbroker and her sister, goes to confess the crime. This sets Royda free of suspicion, and the detective lawyer Porfiry is baffled, as he holds that the young man is guilty of the crime. In the end, however, Royda confesses his crime after talking to Sonia heartily and lengthy, and he is taken to Siberia, where Sonia follows him. Dounia and Razumihin get married, Katerina Ivanovna becomes mad and dies, and her children are taken to an orphanage with the money that Svidrigailov gives to Sonia before he shoots himself. Pulcheria Alexandrovna dies after her insanity caused by not knowing where her son went to, and Royda and Sonia finally share their love feelings with one another in Siberia where Royda serves 8 years in prison for his crime.
The Idea of Crime according to Rodion Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment by Ndiritu Wahome
Royda fancies himself as a genius, an extraordinary man, like other great men in history like Lycurgus, Solon, Mahomet, Napoleon, Alexander the Great, and Caesar, who had to commit massacres, murder, and mutiny to lead the greater population to liberty. He sees the old pawnbroker as a leech that feeds off the society and must be eliminated for the common good of humanity. His thought is very utilitarian.
When the detective lawyer Porfiry cites his article in the Periodical Review on The Psychology of a Criminal before and after the Crime, that “The perpetration of a crime is always accompanied by illness,” and that “There are certain persons who can… that is, not precisely are able to, but have a perfect right to commit breaches of morality and crimes, and that the law is not for them.” And that, “All men are divided into ‘ordinary’ and ‘extraordinary.’ Ordinary men have to live in submission, have no right to transgress the law, because, don’t you see, they are ordinary. But extraordinary men have a right to commit any crime and to transgress the law in any way, just because they are extraordinary.” Royda offers to explain his theory better.
According to him, “extraordinary’ man has the right… that is not an official right, but an inner right to decide in his own conscience to overstep… certain obstacles, and only in case it is essential for the practical fulfilment of his idea (sometimes, perhaps, of benefit to the whole of humanity). “ This clearly gives us the idea of crime as he sees it. He gives examples of Newton and Kepler, who had to sacrifice many things, including the death of men so as to accomplish their goals. He notes further that all great men must be criminals so that they can break free from common laws that tie the general population in a rut, then form new ones that would see men liberated, therefore allowing the numerical population the right to free thought and to a better life.
For one to accomplish greatness in life, one must be willing to indulge in crime, it not being the end, but rather the means to a greater cause. One must cease to be common, for “men are _in general_ divided by a law of nature into two categories, inferior (ordinary), that is, so to say, material that serves only to reproduce its kind, and men who have the gift or the talent to utter _a new word_.” The means to attain success in life for the individual is to possess a gift or talent that will allow him to rise above common laws, ideologies, and dogmas that lock men in their own self made prisons that perpetuate more harm than a common good.
Ordinary men are “conservative in temperament and law-abiding; they live under control and love to be controlled” for them, it is “Their duty to be controlled, because that’s their vocation, and there is nothing humiliating in it for them.” On the other hand, extra-ordinary men “Transgress the law; they are destroyers or disposed to destruction according to their capacities. The crimes of these men are of course relative and varied; for the most part, they seek in very varied ways the destruction of the present for the sake of the better.” They do not follow common laws that are sometimes set by the State to benefit those in power rather than the citizens. They commit crime consciously, fully aware of the ramifications, so as to attain a desirable outcome. They are not controlled by fear: they have only one goal in mind, to fulfil their desire. This is the major difference between those who are geniuses and achieve greatness in life, and those who never achieve anything significant, but live a life of a common man. Yet the extra-ordinary man must know that his actions have consequences that may lead him to the gutter or worse to the guillotine. His cause, in the end will see him suffer, as in the case of Rodion, as other great men in the past like Lycurgus, who starved himself to death after the laws he made for Sparta were deemed excellent by the oracle in Delphi, or Solon who left Athens after carrying out successful reforms all over the country.