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Fyodor Dostoevsky is one of the most prolific writers in Russia’s history. He is best known for his works that criticized the state of the Russia he lived in. He focused mostly on the social, economic, humanitarian, and political factors of the time period he was in. When he wrote one of his more famous novels, Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky was in late 1860’s  St. Petersburg. Czar Alexander II had just come into power at this time after the Crimean War, and he was a liberal man whom began reforms in the government, military, judiciary, and education (“History of St. Petersburg”, 2001). His reforms called for twenty-three million serfs to be emancipated while St. Petersburg was a prominent economic center, which resulted in complete havoc and poverty. Thousands of people were sent to prison in Siberia during this turbulent time (“Crime and Punishment Setting”, 2008). Ironically, Dostoevsky himself spent some time exiled to Siberia after being in the military. In his novel, Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky portrays a character who isolates himself from the society around him (late 1860’s St. Petersburg) and performs both acts of extreme cruelty — killing two innocent women — and others of great love, which presents to the reader an intense inner and outer conflict. This is Raskolnikov. Dostoevsky poses a question on the goodness of humanity, mental stability, and being an outcast of a strict society can lead to through this character. Dostoevsky makes use of psychology in Freud’s teachings, research, sociopaths, and humanity’s “dark thoughts” to indirectly explain the protagonist’s actions. Raskolnikov, having been raised in very rough, violent, and poor conditions, did consider himself a hero by “eliminating” Alianova and Lizaveta, yet he regretted and feared the consequences because there was a very humane side to him which knew, morally, killing two innocent women was extremely wrong and there would be grave consequences to face.

Raskolnikov, the protagonist yet “bad guy” of Crime and Punishment, is a young man who is a complete outcast, rejected from society out of his own will. He decided to isolate himself from his surroundings and live in a disgusting, old, one bed room apartment all on his own mind. Just from that, one can immediately pick up that Raskolnikov is not entirely “normal”. He is a very contradicting person that has the reader completely confused and not knowing which side to pick since the very first page of the novel. The bad thing about Raskolnikov is that he secretly kills two entirely innocent women, Alianova and Lizaveta, with an ax. The reason behind this is dumbfounding — Alianova did not belong on the world anymore, she was a waste of space and time. This presents many mental problems that Raskolnikov has which will be looked at more in depth further on. There is an entire opposite flip side to Raskolnikov, though. At heart, he is actually very generous. This is what throws every single reader off about this character. Throughout the novel, Raskolnikov performs several good deeds that prove he does have good intentions. These two sides of Raskolnikov present an argument that only the psychology of his character explain.