page_title: Crime and Punishment
section_title: Summary
hierarchical_section_title: Crime and Punishment / Summary
context_page_description: Crime and Punishment is a novel by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. It was the first great novel of his mature period.
  It was first published in the literary journal The Russian Messenger in 12 monthly series in 1866. It was later published in a single volume. It is the second of Dostoevsky's novels, written after he returned from his punishment.
context_section_description: Raskolnikov is a mentally insecure student who has stopped going to university. He lives in a very small, rented room in Saint Petersburg. He does not let anyone help him, not even his friend Razumihin. He plans to kill and steal money from an old pawnbroker and moneylender, Alyona Ivanovna, but it is not clear why he wants to kill her yet. While he is thinking about this plan, Raskolnikov meets Semyon Zakharovich Marmeladov, a sad drunkard who recently spent all of his poor family's money on drinking. He also gets a letter from his mother. His mother says that she will soon visit St. Petersburg. She writes about his sister's sudden engagement, saying that they will talk about it when they arrive.
  After thinking, Raskolnikov goes to Alyona Ivanovna's apartment. There, he murders her with an axe. Her quiet half-sister, Lizaveta, comes inside. Surprised, Raskolnikov quickly kills her, too. Frightened by what he has done, he leaves most of Alyona Ivanovna's wealth behind, only stealing a few things and a small purse. He then runs away without being seen by anybody.
  After his murder, Raskolnikov is filled with worry. He hides the things he stole under a rock and tries to clean away the blood from his clothes. After a short visit to his friend Razumihin, he becomes sick with a fever and seems to wish to betray himself. Whenever anyone speaks of the murder of the pawnbroker, he acts strangely.
caption: Raskolnikov and Marmeladov's meeting
exif: {"Image Make": "HP", "Image Model": "HP ScanJet 3770", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "200", "Image YResolution": "200", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2007:12:16 15:54:14", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ReferenceBlackWhite": "[0, 255, 128, 255, 128, 255]", "Image ExifOffset": "276", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1054", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5122", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:12:15 01:18:22", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "906", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1100", "EXIF Saturation": "4832", "EXIF Sharpness": "4848", "EXIF DeviceSettingDescription": "[1, 0, 19, 0, 32, 32, 32, 48, 65, 48, 32, 32, 32, 55, 65, 48, 32, 32, 32, 56, ... ]"}