The indignity of this proposal is, in Raskolnikov’s mind, the last straw that propels him towards murder (although the pawnbroker is in no way responsible). Luzhin seeks to marry Raskolnikov’s sister, taking advantage of the family’s genteel poverty. When we meet him, he is arguing the case for what would now be called “ trickledown economics”. Liberalism in Crime and Punishment is represented by its most negative character, the wealthy businessman, Luzhin (meaning “puddle”). And the anti-liberal message is even stronger.

Balzac’s influence can be seen in the concepts and characters of Crime and Punishment. In his Lettre sur Kiew of 1847, he praised Russia’s absolute power and “so-called despotism” as preferable to France’s “mob rule”. The anti-liberal Balzac became an admirer of Russia. Liberalism became a convenient scapegoat for social problems, especially if it could be presented as an alien (Anglo-Saxon) import.īalzac’s novels, especially Le Pere Goriot (1835), portrayed Paris under the July monarchy as mired in corruption, social climbing and materialism. Widespread disillusion with liberalism emerged in France during the July Monarchy (1830-48) of Louis Philippe, for whom liberalism meant the rule of the self-made rich. Raskolnikov is shown to be a confused hybrid, both reflecting liberal thought and rebelling against it. It reflected a wave of reaction against economic liberalism, not unlike that which has occurred during 2016. One of the first psychological novels, Crime and Punishment is also deeply political. His split personality inspired Stevenson’s story of Jekyll and Hyde. Raskolnikov’s name means “split in two” or “schismatic”. The reader sees how Raskonikov has become desensitised and how his ideas (influenced by his reading of Hegel and Bentham) have unintended consequences. Raskolnikov kills her, too, without a second thought. But during the murder, the victim’s kind and vulnerable sister walks in. Besides, to him the pawnbroker is a “louse” whose murder will be a net benefit to society. He does it partly to prove an idea that he has written about: that exceptional people, like Napoleon, can be above the law. The plot hinges on how, one summer’s day in St Petersurg, a penniless student, Rodion Raskolnikov, murders an old woman pawnbroker. An incredibly influential novel, Crime and Punishment also has a particularly contemporary political significance. It is now 150 years since the publication of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment.

Raskolnikov dostoevsky