Crime and Punishment to recognize the symbolic possibilities of city life and imagery drawn from the city. I. F. I. Evnin regards "Crime and Punishment" as the first great Russian novel "in which the climactic moments of the action are played out in dirty taverns, on the street, in the sordid back rooms of the poor". Dostoevsky's Petersburg is the city of unrelieved poverty; "magnificence has no place in it, because magnificence is external, formal abstract, cold". Dostoevsky connects the city's problems to Raskolnikov's thoughts and subsequent actions. The crowded streets and squares, the shabby houses and taverns, the noise and stench, all
Crime and Punishment sentences of different length for different characters. Those who use artificial language—Luzhin, for example—are identified as unattractive people. Mrs. Marmeladov's disintegrating mind is reflected in her language. In the original Russian text, the names of the major characters have something of a double meaning, but in translation the subtlety of the Russian language is predominantly lost due to differences in language structure and culture. For example, the original Russian title ("Преступление и наказание") is not the direct equivalent to the English "Crime and Punishment". "Преступление" ("Prestupléniye") is literally translated as 'a stepping across'. The physical image of crime as crossing