Crime and Punishment the two halves of the novel, as David Bethea has argued, is organized according to a mirror-like principle, whereby the "left" half of the novel reflects the "right" half. The seventh part of the novel, the Epilogue, has attracted much attention and controversy. Some of Dostoevsky's critics have criticized the novel's final pages as superfluous, anti-climactic, unworthy of the rest of the work, while others have defended it, offering various schemes that they claim prove its inevitability and necessity. Steven Cassedy argues that "Crime and Punishment" "is formally two distinct but closely related, things, namely a particular type of tragedy
Daṇḍa (Hindu punishment) The furniture of a woman, who disrespected her husband who is a drunkard or diseased, could be taken. An official, who is supposed to administer public affairs, but is also corrupted by wealth and has disrupted the business of another could have property taken. The entire property of a person, who is not a Brahmin, could be taken if that person had unintentionally committed a crime. There are some very notable differences between the way ancient punishment was to be administered and how modern punishment is administered in Hindu societies. If a criminal were to confess to a crime, he