Raskolnikov

Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov is a young former law student in St. Petersburg, living in a bare rented room and trying to keep his pride while he has almost no money. He is clever, restless, and full of theories. He wants life to be big and meaningful, not small and ordinary. At the same time, he is ashamed of needing help and often pushes away the people who care about him. His name hints at a “split,” and he does feel split—between kindness and cold ideas, between love for others and a fierce wish to stand above them.

He carries a bold idea that some people—“extraordinary” people—may step over moral rules for a higher purpose. This idea gives him a hard, bright energy, but it also eats at him. He looks down on “useless” suffering, yet he cannot ignore the misery he sees in the city, or the quiet dignity of those who endure it. He thinks in sharp lines, but his heart blurs them. That tension becomes the engine of his days: proud thoughts, then waves of doubt; big plans, then sickness and fear.

After he commits a terrible act—telegraphed by the book’s very title—his mind turns into a storm. He swings between icy logic and hot guilt. He tells himself he is strong enough to bear it, then trembles at a glance from a stranger. He watches the police with a mix of scorn and panic. He rages against pity, but longs for someone to see the good in him. Sleep brings no rest; waking brings no peace. The city’s heat and noise seem to press on him like a hand on his chest.

What keeps him human, even in his worst moments, is the way he cannot fully kill his compassion. He is drawn to people who suffer with quiet courage—his mother and sister, a kind but broken girl named Sonya, even a worn-down drunk who stumbles toward truth. Around them, Raskolnikov turns softer, more honest, more like the boy he once was. His journey is not a straight line, but you can feel him searching for a way back to being whole: away from cold pride and toward a life where pain is faced, and shared, and maybe changed into something like hope.