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Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky
Part V: Chapters I–IV
Summary: Chapter I
Luzhin is in his room with Lebezyatnikov, a younger man
who is his roommate. Luzhin now realizes that his engagement with
Dunya is irrecoverably broken. He nurses a deep hatred for Raskolnikov,
and shivers to think of the money that he lost on deposits for their
newlywed home and furnishings. He fantasizes that if he had given
his fiancée and her mother more presents, they would not have broken the
engagement. Meanwhile, he and Lebezyatnikov have been invited to
the memorial dinner that Katerina Ivanovna, who lives in the same building,
is holding for Marmeladov. Lebezyatnikov is a pompous fool, though
Luzhin initially thought of him as a thoughtful young man who could
help him navigate the new political waves of liberalism, radicalism,
and nihilism washing over Russia. Luzhin invites Sonya to his room
and gives the embarrassed girl a ten-ruble note.
Summary: Chapter II
The narrator considers Katerina Ivanovna's reasons for
spending more than half of the money given to them by Raskolnikov
on the memorial banquet and concludes that it is probably because
of her pride. Only Raskolnikov and the lowliest of the tenants,
who behave rudely, attend the affair. Katerina, who claims repeatedly
to be of a “noble, if not aristocratic,” family, hurls insults at
her low-class guests. Meanwhile, she appears increasingly unwell,
coughing up blood during the meal. She ends up fighting with her
landlady while her guests egg her on. In the middle of the fight,
Luzhin appears in the doorway and Katerina rushes to him.
Summary: Chapter III
Luzhin insultingly brushes Katerina aside as she implores
his protection from the landlady. Turning to Sonya, he accuses her
of stealing a one-hundred-ruble note. Sonya denies the theft. Katerina
becomes incensed at the insult to her stepdaughter and starts raving
against Luzhin and the landlady. To prove Sonya's innocence, she
defiantly turns the girl's pockets out and is shocked when a one-hundred-ruble
note falls out. Luzhin magnanimously agrees not to press charges.
To Luzhin's horror, however, Lebezyatnikov appears and declares
that he saw Luzhin place the note in Sonya's pocket earlier. Raskolnikov
then explains that Luzhin was probably trying to embarrass him about
his association with Sonya. Luzhin, faced with the complete ruin
of his plan, tries to extricate himself by maintaining his innocence
and insulting Lebezyatnikov and Raskolnikov. After Luzhin leaves,
the fight between Katerina and the landlady continues. In the end,
the Marmeladovs are evicted.
Summary: Chapter IV
Raskolnikov visits Sonya in her room. He tells her that
her family has been turned out of their building but urges her not
to go to help them. He confesses the murders to her. Sonya responds
with immense pity and promises to support Raskolnikov and not abandon
him. She is astonished when he tells her that his poverty was not the
motive. Rather, he says, “I was ambitious to become another Napoleon;
that was why I committed a murder.” He also confesses that he feels
detached from other people and believed, and perhaps still believes,
in his superiority over most other people. Sonya tells him that
he has been punished for turning away from God. He reiterates that
self-absorption fueled his actions, that he wished to prove that
he was somehow extraordinary and able to transgress the moral codes
that bind ordinary people. Sonya tells him that he must confess
his sins publicly for God to give him peace. At first he resists, but
he soon consents. Sonya promises to come to see him in prison and
support him. She gives him a pendant cross to wear, similar to the
one that she wears, saying that they will both bear their crosses. Just
then, Lebezyatnikov knocks at the door.
Analysis: Chapters I–IV
Luzhin's profoundly materialistic and self-serving nature
is brought to the fore in this section. Obsessed with money and
material objects, he blames Dunya's rejection of him on entirely
material motives, thinking that once she had the inheritance from
Marfa Petrovna, she and her mother no longer needed him. His plan
to frame Sonya solidifies his status as one of the novel's villains.
His ploy is clumsy and mean-spirited, and, although he tries to
maintain his pride, it is clear that he will never regain Dunya's
favor. After this scene, Luzhin disappears from the narrative, never
to return again, since he has played his last cards and been beaten.
Dunya is now completely free to turn her attention to Razumikhin,
the man whose rightness for her has been clear from the start.
Lebezyatnikov functions as a humorous and sarcastic caricature of
the pompous but stupid intellectual, a proverbial emperor with no
clothes. Even as he rushes to Sonya's defense, Lebezyatnikov feels
the need to make little speeches about the ethics of private charity.
In depicting Lebezyatnikov as obsessed with intellectual fads and
unrealistic utopias, Dostoevsky criticizes the actual intellectual currents
that were sweeping Russia in the 1860s, such
as nihilism, and emphasizes how much more profound, albeit equally
misguided, Raskolnikov's theories are.
Katerina Ivanovna appears as a tragic figure, portrayed
in vivid images of coughed-up blood and inflamed cheeks. Her pride,
unlike Raskolnikov's, is deeply pathetic and intertwined with her
poverty. She rails against a world that she believes has unjustly
punished her. Her pride motivates her to spend too much money on
Marmeladov's memorial dinner, even though, with his death, the family
is certain to starve. She sees the dinner as one last chance to
pretend that she truly is “noble, even aristocratic.” Instead, the
event proves to be only one more illustration of the impossibility
of escaping the poverty that surrounds her. The subplot of the Marmeladovs'
unrelenting misfortune provides the reader a broader context for Raskolnikov's
struggle against a society filled with injustice, poverty, anonymity,
and hopelessness.
Raskolnikov's confession to Sonya and his promise to confess
to the police are major developments. At the end of this section, Raskolnikov
seems finally to have started on the path to resolving the torment
that he has felt since the murders. His pride has given way to the
realization that he is not the “superman” that he once fantasized
himself to be. Still, it is important to note that his return to
humanity is not happy; he still thinks of the people around him
as despicable creatures and, understanding himself as part of humanity,
views himself as necessarily despicable. This realization that he is
only human constitutes the first big step toward confession and redemption.
Though true remorse stands a long way off, the simple act of confessing
to Sonya and receiving her sympathy—his first meaningful connection
with another person—helps him break through his alienation from
all of humanity.
These developments occur in tandem with a shift for Raskolnikov
from a theoretical to a realistic understanding of matters. Whereas
he initially justifies the murder of Alyona Ivanovna on the nihilist
grounds of ridding humanity of a parasite, he now admits that his
actions were based less in philosophy than in emotional insecurity:
“All I wanted was to do some daring thing, Sonya; that was my sole
motive!” By committing an exceptional act, by stepping over the
normal bounds of human behavior, he had hoped to prove that he himself
was exceptional. The self-serving nature of his actions, however,
contradicts and undermines the utilitarian and nihilist motives
that he originally professes.
Part V: Chapter V
In some editions, the fifth chapter of Part V is set
as a chapter-long Part VI. In such editions, Crime and Punishment
is divided into seven parts plus an epilogue, rather than the six
parts plus an epilogue into which this SparkNote divides the text.
Summary: Chapter V
Lebezyatnikov informs Sonya that Katerina Ivanovna has
apparently gone mad. Katerina has visited the homes of well-to-do
people, demanding their assistance, and has been violently thrown
out. She has now resolved to become an organ-grinder, is tearing
up her children's clothes, and has sent her children to dance in
the street and beg for charity. She hopes to perform in front of
one of the houses from which she was turned out to shame its inhabitants
and the public. Lebezyatnikov reports that she cries, “People shall
see the children of a noble family beg in the public streets!”
Sonya rushes out to find Katerina. Raskolnikov
goes to his room, where Dunya soon comes to see him. She says that
she has heard from Razumikhin of her brother's “persecution” by
the police and pledges her support. Raskolnikov tells her that he
thinks highly of Razumikhin. After she leaves, Raskolnikov goes
out into the street, where Lebezyatnikov catches up with him and
tells him that Katerina has truly gone mad and may soon be taken
by the police. Lebezyatnikov leads Raskolnikov to Katerina and the
children, around whom a crowd has formed. Katerina looks ghastly.
She is obviously in the throes of her disease; she is animated by
a mad energy, singing, dancing, and beating her children. She tries
to appeal to the sympathies of well-dressed passersby, explaining
that her children are of “noble, nay, even aristocratic family.”
She and the children are all crying. Katerina refuses Sonya's pleas
that she return home. She has a confrontation with a policeman and
coughs up a great deal of blood. She is taken back to their home, where
she is laid on a couch. The policeman, Lebezyatnikov, Raskolnikov,
Sonya, the children, the landlord, the landlady, and some strangers crowd
around her as she dies. She refuses the services of a priest, saying she
has no need for them. She starts having hallucinations. She calls
for Sonya and, in a fit of convulsions, dies. Sonya, sobbing, throws
herself onto the corpse.
Svidrigailov appears and tells Raskolnikov that he will
use a portion of the money that he had promised Dunya to pay for
a funeral and to provide for the children, who will be sent to an
orphanage. He then reveals that he overheard Raskolnikov confessing
the murders to Sonya.
Analysis: Chapter V
This chapter centers on the climax of the Marmeladov subplot,
with the frenzied death of Katerina Ivanovna. The combination of Luzhin's
accusation of Sonya with the family's eviction by their landlady
pushes Katerina over the edge, and she explodes in a frenzy of activity
that culminates in her death. She desperately turns to illusions
of her nobility and fantasies of the rich offering her support. When
the rich treat her as badly as everyone else, however, it is more than
her defenses can take, and she breaks down. In contrast to Raskolnikov,
who accepts the deconstruction of the “superman” identity that he
has envisioned for himself, Katerina defiantly plows through the
reality that her proclaimed nobility is meaningless.
Although Katerina is delusional about the world
around her, her sense of dignity is very real and quite strong.
When her dignity bears the brunt of an intolerable attack, she responds
by singing, dancing, and screaming her outrage against the world.
Even her death, marked by sighs and convulsions, comes in a burst
of activity. The juxtaposition of her grotesque behavior and repeated
claims to nobility accentuates her obstinate refusal to alter her
perception of herself in response to circumstances. Her pathetic
claim to nobility becomes an increasingly angry assertion. On her
deathbed, Katerina irritably refuses the services of a priest, declaring,
“A priest? I am not in need of one. My conscience is free from sin!
And, even were it not, God must forgive me. He knows how I have
suffered!” Believing that her unending and highly visible tribulations
have rendered her a martyr, Katerina believes that not even God
can legitimately find fault with her.
This final portrait of Katerina Ivanovna completes the
picture of the ruined Marmeladovs, a family that includes a drunk
husband trampled to death in the streets, a proud but consumptive
mother reduced to beating her children and begging, and an older
daughter forced into prostitution. Sonya's suffering and devotion
to her family stands out remarkably against this backdrop of utter
despair. She has long understood and accepted her identity and role,
despite the cruel and crushing reality of her life.
Svidrigailov's appearance at Katerina's deathbed
moves the plot in two important directions. First, by offering to
pay for the funeral and provide for Katerina's children, he frees
Sonya from the overwhelming burden of caring for them, just as Razumikhin's
willingness to care for Pulcheria Alexandrovna and Dunya enables
Raskolnikov to separate himself from them without feeling that he
is abandoning them. Second, Svidrigailov draws Raskolnikov into
his web by revealing that he has overheard Raskolnikov's confession
of the murders. He, Sonya, and Raskolnikov himself are now the only
three people who know without a doubt that Raskolnikov is the murderer.
While Sonya uses this knowledge for good—to try to persuade Raskolnikov
to confess—it is unclear what Svidrigailov intends to do with it,
but it is certain to be something much less honorable. Raskolnikov
is losing control of his secret, and his control over events is
about to unravel rapidly as well.
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