Crime and Punishment

This 1866 novel is Dostoevsky's great fictional study of the criminal mind, in the character of the student Raskolnikov, who murders an aged pawnbroker. Initially, Raskolnikov believes that the killing was entirely justified, but as the novel proceeds he becomes tortured by his guilt, and begins to question all his most passionately held beliefs. Eventually, while the wily police inspector Porfiry Petrovich simply waits, Raskolnikov--prompted by Sonia, a prostitute who is devoted to him--breaks down and confesses. Despite its bleak subject matter, the novel holds out the possibility of redemption; it is also an indictment of the social conditions in which the action unfolds.