Dostoevsky wrote about crime, but not only crime: He also wrote about punishment. As Wasoliek suggests, Raskolnikov doesn’t flee the crime, or try to cover it. He seems instead to flee toward it, regularly leaving clues, nearly confessing, reviving Porfiry’s investigation when it is flagging. Is this masochism? Is it repentance? Wasoliek argues that Rasknikov needs to fail in order to succeed. He murders to prove himself a bronze man, a Napoleon who transcends the normal rules. With that motivation,... Read more

Edward Wasiolek argues that from the time Dostoevsky wrote Notes from Underground , he had worked out a metaphysical outlook that centered on the dialectics of human freedom, free will and society, and nihilism. What he lacked was a plot to go with his metaphysic, but he found the plot by focusing on crime: “What is a criminal for Dostoevsky? He is someone who has broken a law and thus put himself outside of society. Every society draws a narrow... Read more

Dostoevsky is sometimes accused of being an indifferent artist. As long as it sprawls, it must be good. Several essays in Richard Peace’s collection, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment: A Casebook (Casebooks in Criticism) , prove the opposite. I give only a few highlights. Several point to the parallels between Raskolnikov’s visits to the pawnbroker who will be his victim and his later visits to Sonya, the young prostitute with whom he is in love. In both cases, he makes... Read more

Dostoevsky is sometimes accused of being an indifferent artist. As long as it sprawls, it must be good. Several essays in Richard Peace’s collection, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment: A Casebook (Casebooks in Criticism) , prove the opposite. I give only a few highlights. Several point to the parallels between Raskolnikov’s visits to the pawnbroker who will be his victim and his later visits to Sonya, the young prostitute with whom he is in love. In both cases, he makes... Read more