Crime and Punishment

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Crime and Punishment

• By Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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• Dostoevskys own troubled home life enabled him
  to
• Portray characters who are emotionally and
  spiritually downtrodden.
• Portray characters who epitomize the traditional
  Christian conflict between the body and the
  spirit.

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• Troubled Family Life
• Dostoevsky believed his father to have been
  murdered by his own serfs!
• This belief led him to be obsessed with murder,
  the primary subject of Crime and Punishment
  (1866).

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Dostoevsky looks for stability in his mother A
Christian woman well versed in the Old and New
Testaments. She used the Bible to teach him
how to read and write. Dostoyevsky and his
brother relied on their mothers compassion and
gentle spirit when their fathers temper struck.
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Trouble with his politics Dostoevsky was
arrested for his involvement in a radical
Socialist group. He was condemned to be shot.
As he stood in front of the firing squad, he
learned that his life would be spared.
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Time in prison In prison, the writer underwent a
profound spiritual and philosophical
transformation. His intense study of the New
Testament, the only book the prisoners were
allowed to read, contributed to his rejection of
his earlier liberal political views. He
developed the conviction that redemption is
possible only through suffering and faith, a
belief which informed his later work.
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After imprisonment He was forced to serve as a
soldier in a Siberian garrison for an additional
five years.
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What you need to know for the quizzes and tests-

• Themes
• Redemption comes from suffering. A man must fall
  to bring about his redemption (resurrection).
• An individual is doomed in isolation until he
  embraces this responsibility to community and
  humanity.
• After suffering, love redeems all wrongs.

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• Character Schism
• Raskolnikovs duality
• He believes he is the intellectually superior
  character whose actions actually lack
  spirituality.
• He believes his actions are morally sound, and he
  believes he acts out of responsibility for his
  community.