Given what you have read thus far about Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment (at least up to the conclusion of Part Four), what is the motivation—or group of motivations—behind his murder of the pawnbroker and her sister. What does this tell us about Rasko

Motivations of Raskolnikov to Kill the Pawnbroker and Her Sister in the Crime and Punishment ' by Dostoyevsky

Fyodor Dostoyevsky is one of the most famous and popular Russian , who , along with Tolstoy , became a symbol of Russian literature in the West . Two of his books : Idiot ' and Crime and Punishment gained outstanding renown for their deep moral insights and profound psychological analysis of human nature . Crime and Punishment ' is in a way a detective story , but in it Dostoyevsky concentrated not on the plot intricacies , but on ethical problems of revenge , murder

, social differences and man 's weaknesses . This aims to investigate only one aspect of Dostoyevsky 's magnificent book : namely on reasons which lead Radion Raskolnikov to a decision to kill a woman-pawnbroker and her sister . The attempts to understand the motifs which stood behind both murders including social , psychological , nihilistic and revolutionary ones . The final purpose of the is to prove , that out of all motifs , the idea of a superman ' was a decisive factor for Raskolnikov

The personality of Raskolnikov was rather typical for mid-XIX century Russia , and , perhaps , typical to all countries in all times . He is a young man , who has been expelled from the university for his inability to pay for education . He lives alone in a huge city of Saint Petersburg the capital of the Russian Empire , but he was not born there . He comes from a province , and he has a mother living there with her daughter - Raskolnikov 's sister . Out of poverty Raskolnikov had to pledge almost all of his valuable property , including his father 's watch . So , at the beginning of the novel , the reader finds Raskolnikov in a very miserable state

Poverty makes the first group of Raskolnikov 's motifs - social motifs Not only Raskolnikov is poor , he is a part of social bottom , a back side of a big city . Raskolnikov is surrounded by people , who have to survive inside an indifferent and inhuman capitalist society , and social injustice is embodied in the figure of Sonya Marmeladova -a virtuous kind-hearted girl , who is forced to prostitution , because she has no other way to support her old father and her brother . On the other hand he sees how unworthy people swim in luxury making money from sufferings of others . The pawnbroker is not the richest of all , but she stands most close to Raskolnikov in the social pyramid , and moreover , he has personal reasons to hate her as his creditor . The greediness of a pawnbroker is so disgusting , that she becomes an embodiment of social evil for Raskolnikov . Actually , she does not excite readers pity because Dostoyevsky depicted her as an allegory of the most vicious acquisitiveness . She even has no idea how to waste the money she makes but she still continues to bleed her clients dry "Here , sir : as we say ten copecks the rouble a month , so I must take fifteen copecks from a rouble and a half for the month in...