Crime and Punishment Second Reaction

I feel like I understand Crime and Punishment a little bit more than I did two weeks ago. So far, I see that there has been a constant theme of poverty and desperation. In my last reading, it was Marmeladov’s family in ridiculous poverty and taking measures that are not proper to make money – sending Sonia into prostitution. In this week’s reading, I saw that Raskolnikov’s family is doing the same with Raskolnikov’s sister, Dounia. Her mom is having her marry a man, Luzhin, within 24 hours of getting the proposal, all to be able to pay off debt and send money to Raskolnikov because he has none of his own and cannot teach. Raskolnikov’s mom lets him know of his sister’s marriage through a letter. This letter brought Raskolnikov pain because he believes it is completely wrong for his sister to do that and he knows that it is his mom pushing this because he knows Dounia would never have done something of the sort out of her own will. Another thing I noticed in the reading this week is that we are once again reminded that Raskolnikov is actually good on the inside, because he once again gives his money, of which he barely has, to help someone else out; he gave his money to a cop to take the girl back home in a cab and pay for the cab. This is another reminder that Raskolnikov is actually good on the inside and cares for others, as he did with Marmeladov in the past reading.