Crime and Punishment

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1866

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

Download PDF

Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

The City of Saint Petersburg

When Dostoevsky wrote Crime and Punishment, its setting, Saint Petersburg, was the capital of Russia and the country’s administrative and cultural center. However, the city presented in the novel is not one of lavish households and important buildings. Instead, Dostoevsky focuses on its dark, filthy underbelly, filled with petty criminals, prostitutes, and alcoholics caught in cycles of degradation and reflecting the filthy morality of the world.

Raskolnikov navigates the city without thinking. He takes long, aimless walks, because his poverty prevents him from being anywhere comfortable—those places tend to cost money. The chaotic, cluttered streets he sees echo the chaotic, cluttered thoughts that plague his mind. Raskolnikov—a young, intelligent student from the provinces—is driven close to insanity by his miserable city life. Saint Petersburg becomes a physical representation of his suffering.

Get access to this full Study Guide and much more!

8,800+ In-Depth Study Guides
4,700+ Quick-Read Plot Summaries
Downloadable PDFs

Raskolnikov’s Saint Petersburg is filled with prejudice, inequality, and poverty. Confused, anxious figures stumble through the streets unable to make sense of their environment. Saint Petersburg is never the right temperature, never smells right, has constant deafening and terrifying noises, and generally seems inhospitable to human life—so much so that one of the few passers-by Raskolnikov notices during his perambulations is a woman trying to commit suicide. Yet people are drawn to the city, which despite its stresses, represents the only way to move upward. Raskolnikov and Razumikhin’s university is there, as are job opportunities for men like Porfiry—and, of course, for women like Sonia. The duality of the city symbolizes the cycles and conflicts which plague every character.

Crosses

The cross is an unmistakably Christian symbol that recurs frequently in the novel and refers to the Christian doctrines that the crucifixion of Jesus redeemed the sins of mankind and that the cross symbolizes the role of suffering in seeking forgiveness.

Raskolnikov does not believe in God, but his journey toward redemption involves a cross. Sonia offers him a wooden cross that belonged to Lizaveta, one of the women he murdered. Raskolnikov refuses to put this cross on until he feels ready to confess. Accepting this cross symbolizes his willingness to be guided by Sonia and her faith to the path to forgiveness that she and religion offer. He wants to be redeemed, he wants to be loved, and he sees something resembling optimism in the future.

Get access to this full Study Guide and much more!

8,800+ In-Depth Study Guides
4,700+ Quick-Read Plot Summaries
Downloadable PDFs

Sonia, a devout woman, takes series the symbols of her religion. The cross for her means hope that a benevolent God provides meaning to her suffering. This is why when she wants to rehabilitate Raskolnikov, she tells him to seek out a crossroad and prostrate himself there to beg forgiveness. This large geographic cross is the locus of public shaming—akin in some part to the mockery Jesus undergoes as he walks to the site of his crucifixion carrying the cross he will be nailed to. Raskolnikov does as she asks, and the cross becomes so powerful a symbol of redemption that it transcends belief.

Raskolnikov’s Apartment

Raskolnikov lives in a tiny, dark apartment that he hates—a dilapidated, filthy place that symbolizes Raskolnikov’s fractured mind and walls him off from the world. Raskolnikov believes that he is an extraordinary man one moment and considers himself wretched the next. His apartment expresses his self-loathing. Raskolnikov does not believe that he deserves a good life, so inflicts the horrible living conditions on himself as punishment.

The Story of Lazarus

Sonia reads the New Testament story of Lazarus, the man whom Jesus resurrects, to Raskolnikov during one of their conversations. Raskolnikov deeply connects to the story’s symbolism: a return from a hopeless situation. Raskolnikov wants to believe that he too can be brought back to life even though he has tried to kill off his own humanity by committing murder. Later, in his prison cell, Raskolnikov clings to Sonia’s copy of the New Testament for the optimism it provides. Raskolnikov will never be religious, but he derives comfort from its promise of redemption.