Young law student Rodion Raskolnikov lives in poverty in St. Petersburg. In desperation, he sells the last of his valuables, a watch, to an elderly pawnbroker. But what the pawnbroker doesn’t know is that Raskolnikov is rehearsing the crime he has resolved to commit: to rob and murder her. Though the robbery will service his own needs—and that of his family who has sacrificed for him to study—Raskolnikov feels he is righting a wrong committed by the old woman, whom he feels preys on the poor and desolate. When interrupted by the pawnbroker’s sister, he kills her too.

Though he felt justified in killing the pawnbroker, the murder of the sister unravels his rational reasoning, and from there we witness the unraveling of the human psyche. While Raskolnikov worries about being caught, he is consumed with his own emotional turmoil about his desire to confess to relieve himself of his guilt.

First serialized in 1866, Crime and Punishment has become one of the best-known works of Russian literature.

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