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Crime and Punishment

 Fyodor Dostoevsky
 

Key Facts

 
full title  · Crime and Punishment
 
author  · Fyodor Dostoevsky
 
type of work  · Novel
 
genre  · Psychological drama
 
language  · Russian
 
time and place written  · 1865–1866, St. Petersburg, Russia
 
date of first publication  · 1866; appeared serially in The Russian Messenger before being published in book form in 1867
 
publisher  · The serial edition was published by the editor of The Russian Messenger, Mikhail Katkov; the two-volume book version was published by Bazanov.
 
narrator  · Third-person omniscient
 
climax  · Raskolnikov's confession in Part VI, Chapter VIII
 
protagonist  · Raskolnikov
 
antagonists  · Luzhin, Porfiry Petrovich, Svidrigailov, Raskolnikov's conscience
 
settings (time)  · 1860s
 
settings (place)  · St. Petersburg and a prison in Siberia
 
point of view  · The story is told primarily from the point of view of Raskolnikov but occasionally switches to the perspective of Svidrigailov, Razumikhin, and Dunya.
 
falling action  · The Epilogue, in which Raskolnikov, imprisoned in Siberia, discovers that he loves Sonya
 
tense  · Past
 
foreshadowing  · In Part I, Chapter I, when Raskolnikov rehearses the murder of the pawnbroker; throughout the rest of the novel, whenever Raskolnikov considers confessing
 
tones  · Tragic, emotional, melodramatic, critical, despairing, fatalistic, confessional
 
themes  · Alienation from society, the psychology of crime and punishment, religious redemption, the importance of family, nihilism, the “superman”
 
motifs  · Poverty
 
symbols  · The city as a symbol of Raskolnikov's internal state; the cross as a symbol of religious redemption
 
 
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