Crime and Punishment Crime and Punishment Crime and Punishment (Pre-reform Russian: ; post-reform ) is a novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. It was first published in the literary journal "The Russian Messenger" in twelve monthly installments during 1866. It was later published in a single volume. It is the second of Dostoevsky's full-length novels following his return from 5 years of exile in Siberia. "Crime and Punishment" is considered the first great novel of his "mature" period of writing. "Crime and Punishment" focuses on the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student in Saint Petersburg who formulates
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