Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov is the protagonist of Fyodor Dostoevsky's 1866 novel Crime and Punishment, an impoverished former student in Saint Petersburg who murders an elderly pawnbroker and her sister, convinced by his own theory that certain extraordinary individuals are morally entitled to transgress ordinary law for a higher purpose. The novel traces his psychological disintegration in the murder's aftermath, as guilt, paranoia and encounters with characters including the prostitute Sonya Marmeladova and the detective Porfiry Petrovich erode his self-justifying theory and drive him toward confession and eventual spiritual redemption in Siberian exile. Raskolnikov's intense internal monologue and the novel's unflinching study of crime, conscience and punishment made him one of the foundational figures of the modern psychological novel. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
Narrative RoleSourced to the subject's own accountProtagonist and murderer whose psychological unraveling drives the plot 1 Defining TraitSourced to the subject's own accountRationalizes murder through a theory of extraordinary men exempt from ordinary morality, then is consumed by guilt he cannot rationalize away 1 Narrative role (class)Sourced to the subject's own account Connections
Character In
Source Raskolnikov (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
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1. Raskolnikov (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationLead section
Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov is the fictional protagonist of the 1866 novel Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Lead section, name etymology sentence
The name Raskolnikov derives from the Russian raskolnik meaning "schismatic" (traditionally referring to a member of the Old Believer movement).
- Character In: Crime and Punishment
View the Source Frequently Asked Questions
What does the name Raskolnikov mean?
It comes from raskolnik, Russian for schismatic, pointing at his own inner split.
It is built from the Russian word raskolnik, meaning schismatic, traditionally used for a member of the Old Believer movement that split from the Russian Orthodox Church. Dostoevsky's choice of surname points directly at the character's own inner split between conscience and his theory that extraordinary men may transgress ordinary morality. His given name, Rodion, comes from Greek and denotes an inhabitant of Rhodes.
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