The Originals: Crime and Punishment

Book excerpt: Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov, a brilliant yet conflicted student lives in a rented room of a run-down apartment in St. Petersburg. Extremely handsome, proud, and intelligent, Raskolnikov devises a peculiar theory about “intelligent” men being above law. To execute his theory, he contemplates committing a crime. He murders a cynical and an unscrupulous pawnbroker named Alyona Ivanovna and her sister Lizaveta. The act compels Raskolnikov to negotiate and reconcile with his own moral dilemmas. Fyodor Dostoevsky’s incisive psychological analysis of his protagonist goes beyond Raskolnikov’s criminal act, and covers his perilous journey from suffering to redemption. First published in The Russian Messenger in monthly instalments during 1866, Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky’s second novel following his return from exile in Siberia, is a powerful revelation of the human condition. Is crime acceptable in the pursuit of a higher purpose?