In the novel, Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky introduces several characters who should be shunned for their actions. Yet, we find ourselves rooting for them once we become familiar with them. Two characters that are awe-inspiring due to Dostoyevsky’s words are Sonia and Raskolnikov. Both of these characters commit “crimes” that one would see as appalling, but Dostoyevsky redeems these characters and brings them to salvation through his diction and delivery of the novel. Raskolnikov is an ex-student who spends most of his days crammed in a “closet sized” room. When Raskolnikov is introduced, the reader sees an “ordinary” man who lives day to day and has very little care in the world besides the obvious debt most grown individuals face. But, in some instances of the novel he begins to seem cynical and unstable on many levels of life. Raskolnikov states, “Crime? What crime?… My killing a …show more content…
Once he encounters Zametov, Luzhin, Svidrigaïlov and so many other revolting characters- the reader begins to root him on. Raskolnikov faces these individuals who continue to commit crimes while he learned swiftly after his first he simply isn’t cut out for the disturbing natures that come with being “extraordinarily Napoleonic”. Raskolnikov gives charity to Sonia’s family and while he initially does not want to deal with Sonia and her “holy foolishness” he goes to her and seeks redemption. He asks her for a cross and she hangs a cypress cross from his neck as he goes to confess of his deeds. Sonia follows him, and while he thinks it’s entirely irrational he finds himself, just as the reader finds him. As the novel comes to a close the reader has rooted Raskolnikov on from the moment he showed us how human he is, how he sinned but “the blood was on his hands”, how he did wrong but, “He did not want to die”. And just like that, seven years in Siberia turns into seven