Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment: A Reader's Guide - Hardcover

by Deborah a. Martinsen (Author)

Crime and Punishment: A Reader's Guide focuses on narrative strategy, psychology,

and ideology. Martinsen demonstrates how Dostoevsky fi rst plunges the reader

into Raskolnikov's fevered brain, creating sympathy for him, and she explains why

most readers root for him to get away from the scene of the crime. Dostoevsky

subsequently provides outsider perspectives on Raskolnikov's thinking, effecting a

conversion in reader sympathy. By examining the multiple justifi cations for murder

Raskolnikov gives as he confesses to Sonya, Dostoevsky debunks rationality-based

theories. Finally, the question of why Raskolnikov and others, including the reader,

focus on the murder of the pawnbroker and forget the unintended murder of

Lizaveta reveals a narrative strategy based on shame and guilt.

Author Biography

Deborah A. Martinsen was Associate Dean of Alumni Education and Adjunct Professor of Russian and Comparative Literature, Columbia University. Past president of the International Dostoevsky Society and former executive secretary of the North American Dostoevsky Society, Martinsen is the author of Surprised by Shame: Dostoevsky's Liars and Narrative Exposure (Ohio, 2003) and co-editor of Dostoevsky in Context (Oxford, 2015).