“Crime and Punishment” by Dostoevsky in a brief summary
Poor district of Petersburg 60’s. XIX century, adjacent to the Haymarket and the Catherine Canal. Summer evening. Former student Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov leaves his closet in the attic and assigns to the old woman the interest-bearing Alena Ivanovna, who is preparing to kill, the last valuable thing. On the way back, he goes into one of the cheap taverns, where he accidentally gets acquainted with the drunk, lost official Marmeladov. He tells how consumption, poverty and drunkenness of his husband pushed his wife, Katerina Ivanovna, to a cruel deed – to send his daughter from Sonya’s first marriage to earn a living on the panel.
The next morning Raskolnikov received from the province a letter from his mother describing the troubles carried over by his younger sister Dunya in the house of the depraved landowner Svidrigailov. He learns about the imminent arrival of his mother and sister in St. Petersburg in connection with the planned marriage of Duni. The
And yet Raskolnikov kills with an ax not only the “ugly old woman”, but also her kind, gentle sister Lizaveta, unexpectedly returned to the apartment. Miraculously gone unnoticed, he hides the stolen in a random place, without even appreciating its value.
Soon, Raskolnikov with horror discovers alienation among himself and others. Ill with the experience, he, however, is not able to reject the cares of his companion at the University of Razumikhin, which
Luzhin, who came on a visit, was shocked by the squalor of the hero’s room; their conversation turns into a quarrel and ends with a break. Especially Raskolnikov touches the closeness of practical conclusions from Luzhin’s “rational egoism” and his own “theory”: “people can be cut…”
Wandering around Petersburg, a sick young man suffers from his alienation with the world and is ready to confess to a crime before the authorities, as he sees a man crushed by a coach. It’s Marmalade. Out of compassion, Raskolnikov spends the last money on the dying person: they are transferred to the house, they call the doctor. Rodion gets acquainted with Katerina Ivanovna and Sonia, saying good-bye to her father in an inappropriately bright attire of a prostitute. Thanks to a good cause, the hero briefly felt a generality with people. However, having met his mother and sister at his apartment, he suddenly realizes himself to be “dead” for their love and rudely drives them away. He again is lonely, but he has the hope of getting closer to the “absolute” Sonia’s commandment, as he is, “transgressed”.
Cares about relatives Raskolnikov takes Razumihin, almost at first glance fell in love with the beautiful Dunya. Meanwhile, the insulted Luzhin puts the bride in front of a choice: either he or a brother.
In order to find out about the fate of the things put in the dead, and in fact – to dispel the suspicions of some acquaintances, Rodion himself asks for a meeting with Porfiry Petrovich, an investigator in the case of the murder of an old woman of interest. The latter recalls Raskolnikov’s article “On Crime,” recently published in the newspaper, suggesting that the author explain his “theory” about “two categories of people.” It turns out that the “ordinary” majority is just a material for the reproduction of their own kind, that it needs a strict moral law and is obliged to be obedient. They are “trembling creatures.” “Actually people” have a different nature, possessing the gift of a “new word”, they destroy the present in the name of the best, even if it is necessary to “step over” through previously established for the “lower” Most moral standards, for example, shed other people’s blood. These “criminals” then become “new legislators”. Thus, without recognizing the biblical commandments, Raskolnikov “permits” “the right to have” – ”blood on conscience”. Clever and penetrating Porphyry unravels the hero of the ideological assassin, pretending to be the new Napoleon. However, the investigator has no evidence against Rodion – and he lets go of the young man in the hope that good nature will win in him the delusions of the mind and lead him to confession in the deed. Clever and penetrating Porphyry unravels the hero of the ideological assassin, pretending to be the new Napoleon. However, the investigator has no evidence against Rodion – and he lets go of the young man in the hope that good nature will win in him the delusions of the mind and lead him to confession in the deed. Clever and penetrating Porphyry unravels the hero of the ideological assassin, pretending to be the new Napoleon. However, the investigator has no evidence against Rodion – and he lets go of the young man in the hope that good nature will win in him the delusions of the mind and lead him to confession in the deed.
Indeed, the hero becomes more and more convinced that he made a mistake in himself: “The real ruler is smashing Toulon, he is massacring in Paris, forgets the army in Egypt, spends half a million people in the Moscow campaign,” and he, Raskolnikov, suffers because of “vulgarity” and ” meanness “of a single murder. Clearly, he “trembling creature”: even after killing, “did not cross” through the moral law. The motives of the crime themselves are twofold in the hero’s mind: this is a test of oneself for the “highest category,” and the act of “justice”, according to revolutionary-socialist doctrines, conveying the property of “predators” to their victims.
Svidrigailov, who came after Dunya to Petersburg, apparently guilty of the recent death of his wife, gets to know Raskolnikov and remarks that they are “one field of berries”, although the latter did not completely defeat Schiller. With all aversion to the offender, Rodion’s sisters are attracted by his apparent ability to enjoy life, despite the crimes committed.
During lunch in cheap rooms, where Luzhin from the economy settled Dunya with his mother, there is a decisive explanation. Luzhin is convicted of slandering Raskolnikov and Sonya, who allegedly gave money for the low-cost services, selflessly collected by a poor mother for his studies. The relatives are convinced of the purity and nobility of the young man and sympathize with Sonya’s fate. Exiled in disgrace, Luzhin is looking for a way to discredit Raskolnikov in the eyes of his sister and mother.
The latter in the meantime, once again feeling an excruciating alienation from relatives, comes to Sonia. In her, “transgressed” the commandment “Do not commit adultery,” he seeks salvation from unbearable loneliness. But Sonya herself is not alone. She sacrificed herself for the sake of others, not others for herself, as her interlocutor. Love and compassion for loved ones, faith in God’s compassion never left her. She reads to Rodion the gospel lines about Christ’s resurrection of Lazarus, hoping for a miracle and in his life. The hero fails to captivate the girl with the “Napoleonic” idea of power over “the whole anthill”.
Tortured at the same time by fear and desire to expose, Raskolnikov again comes to Porfiry, as if worrying about his mortgage. It seems to be an abstract conversation about the psychology of criminals in the end brings the young man to a nervous breakdown, and he almost gives himself out to the investigator. Saves his unexpected for all recognition in the murder of the painter painter Mikolka.
In the entrance room of the Marmeladovs a wake was arranged for her husband and father, during which Katerina Ivanovna, in a fit of painful pride, insults the landlady of the apartment. She tells her to move with the children immediately. Suddenly, Luzhin, who lives in the same house, enters and accuses Sonya of stealing the hundred-ruble note. The “guilt” of the girl is proved: money is found in the pocket of her apron. Now, in the eyes of others, she is also a thief. But suddenly there is a witness that Luzhin himself imperceptibly slipped Sonia a piece of paper. The slanderer is embarrassed, and Raskolnikov explains to the present the reasons for his deed: having humiliated Dona’s brother and Sonya in the eyes of Dunya, he expected to return the location of the bride.
Rodion and Sonya go to her apartment where the hero confesses to the girl in the murder of the old woman and Lizaveta. She pities him for the moral torment for which he has condemned himself, and proposes to atone for guilt by voluntary confession and hard labor. Raskolnikov laments only about what turned out to be a “trembling creature,” with a conscience and the need for human love. “I will still fight,” he disagrees with Sonya.
Meanwhile, Katerina Ivanovna with the children is on the street. Her throat bleeding begins, and she dies, giving up the services of a priest. Present here Svidrigailov undertakes to pay a funeral and provide children and Sonya.
At home, Raskolnikov finds Porfiry, who persuades the young man to be guilty: “theory”, which denies the absolute law of morality, rejects the only source of life – God, the creator of the one humanity by nature – and thereby condemns his captive to death. “You need air now, air, air!” Porphyry does not believe in the guilt of Mikolka, who “accepted suffering” according to the primordial people’s need: to atone for the sin of inconsistency with the ideal-the Christ.
But Raskolnikov still hopes to “step” and morality. Before him is Svidrigailov’s example. Their meeting in the tavern reveals to the hero a sad truth: the life of this “insignificant villain” is empty and burdensome for him.
Reciprocity of Dunya is the only hope for Svidrigailov to return to the source of being. Convinced of her irrevocable dislike for herself during a violent conversation in his apartment, he shoots in a few hours.
Meanwhile, Raskolnikov, driven by the lack of “air”, says goodbye to his family and Sonya before the recognition. He is still convinced of the fidelity of the “theory” and is full of contempt for himself. However, at the insistence of Sonya, before the eyes of the people, he repentantly kisses the land before which he “sinned”. In the police office, he learns of the suicide of Svidrigailov and makes an official confession.
Raskolnikov is in Siberia, in a convict prison. Mother died of grief, Dunya married Razumikhin. Sonya settled near Raskolnikov and visited the hero, patiently demolishing his gloom and indifference. The nightmare of alienation continues here: convicts from the common people hate it as “atheist.” On the contrary, they treat Sonia with tenderness and love. Once in the prison hospital, Rodion sees a dream resembling paintings from the Apocalypse: mysterious “Trichina”, settling in people, generate in everyone a fanatical conviction of their own rightness and intolerance of the “truths” of others. “People killed each other in meaningless malice,” until the whole human race was exterminated, except for a few “pure and chosen.” He finally reveals that the pride of the mind leads to hatred and destruction, and the humility of the heart – to unity in love and to the fullness of life. In him, “infinite love” awakens to Sonya. On the threshold of “resurrection into a new life,” Raskolnikov takes the Gospel into his hands.
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