Crime and Punishment his initial version remains a matter of speculation. According to Joseph Frank, "one possibility is that his protagonist began to develop beyond the boundaries in which he had first been conceived". The notebooks indicate that Dostoevsky became aware of the emergence of new aspects of Raskolnikov's character as the plot developed, and he structured the novel in conformity with this "metamorphosis". The final version of "Crime and Punishment" came into being only when, in November 1865, Dostoevsky decided to recast his novel in the third person. This shift was the culmination of a long struggle, present through all the early
Crime and Punishment causing a rift with his family. Luzhin is discredited, but Sonya is traumatized, and she runs out of the apartment. Raskolnikov follows her. Back at her room, Raskolnikov draws Sonya's attention to the ease with which Luzhin could have ruined her, and consequently the children as well. But it is only a prelude to his confession that he is the murderer of the old woman and Lizaveta. Painfully, he tries to explain his abstract motives for the crime to the uncomprehending Sonya. She is horrified, not just at the crime, but at his own self-torture, and tells him that he