Resumo de Crime And Punishment

?Crime and Punishment? is an amazing work, filled with tangible tension, fascinating glimpses into the human mind, and so well written that a lack of empathy with the protagonist, Raskolnikov is impossible. It also contains numerous interesting philosophical ideas. Raskolnikov is a young student living in the St. Petersburg of 150 years ago. Short of money and dissatisfied and demoralised with life, he decides it is his fate to kill a miserly old pawnbroker. He has heard her described as a women who the world would be better off without, but sees that no-one else will actually do anything about her, and feels it is his duty to carry out the deed. After careful planning he takes an axe, and enters her apartment while her sister is out. However, despite all his careful planning, and certainty that since the killing is not one of passion but of necessity he will remain calm afterwards, he panics after the murder, and when her sister returns he kills her also, then runs out with hardly any stolen money or artefacts. After the murder he is struck with illness, and retires to his tiny cupboard of a room in a delirious fever. While Raskolnikov is in this fever his friend Razumihin tracks him down and looks after him. During the illness his mother and sister also arrive, his sister having accepted the proposal of an official, a match which Raskolnikov is very much against since he feels the official is taking advantage of the family?s poverty. As the illness gradually passes Raskolnikov intentionally offends Luzhin, the suitor, who?s reaction to the offence convinces Raskolnikov?s sister that she shouldn?t marry him. He then enters a suspenseful game of cat and mouse with the police inspectors investigating the murder. As one of the old woman?s customers, the only one to not yet have come forward to claim his items, Raskolnikov feels he must be one of their prime suspects, but is anxious not to make any mistakes that would convict him. Still intermittently delirious, Raskolnikov can never be entirely sure what he has said, or what has been said to him, and the police take full advantage of this, at times assuring him he is not a suspect, and at other times making leering comments hinting that they know everything. It is this period which is the real punishment for Raskolnikov. Sorely tempted to jump off a bridge into the river and escape the intolerable situation, he is forced to return to normality by the death of an old official he had once lent money too and helped home. Having already met the official?s daughter he becomes attached to her, and confesses to her his crime. She is horror struck, but when he confesses to the police and is sent to a labour camp in Siberia she follows him. In the labour camp he is like a block of stone and seems not to care where he is, earning him the enmity of the other prisoners, but eventually, through the love of the official?s daughter, he escapes his apathy. Meanwhile his friend Razumihin has obeyed his instructions to look after his family, and married Raskolnikov?s sister. In this novel Dostoevsky convincingly creates a human psyche with all its emotions and thoughts, and sets it against an exciting murder mystery background.

Resumos Relacionados