Suffering In Crime And Punishment By Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Crime and Punishment follows Raskolnikov, a peasant, and his psyche as he navigates life the following weeks after murdering two women. With the struggles faced every day in mid-nineteenth century St. Petersburg Russia, those hardships would inevitably seep into Crime and Punishment to shape the characters' lives. Dostoyevsky utilized aspects from everyday life in mid-nineteenth-century Russia to shape Raskolnikov and his setting in a way that would further the themes of insanity and suffering.
Throughout Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov went to hardly any places though one he was at often was his home. Raskolnikov’s room is hardly a home, “[Raskolnikov’s] garret was under the roof of a high, five-storied house and was more like a cupboard

“Without stopping to think, Raskolnikov went down the steps at once. Till that moment he had never been into a tavern, but now he felt giddy and was tormented by a burning thirst”(14). Dostoyevsky’s use of “tormented” signals that Raskolnikov’s want for liquor is harmful, it wouldn’t bring anything good to him. In order to further his point, Dostoyevsky, when Raskolnikov enters the tavern sits at a “[…] sticky little table in a dark and dirty corner[…]”(14-15). Dostoyevsky’s use of “sticky” In reference to only taverns or blood on clothing, which continues to haunt Raskolnikov due to his fear of being found as the murderer, indicates that the tavern, more specifically drinking, is not a positive experience.In the tavern, Marmeladov approaches Raskolnikov at his table, which promotes a negative association with alcohol in the book. When approached, “[Marmeladov’s] face. Bloated from continual drinking, was of a yellow, even greenish, tinge, with swollen eyelids out of which keen reddish eyes gleamed like ___. But there was something very strange in him; there was a light in his eyes as though of intense feeling—perhaps there were even thought and intelligence, but at the same rine there was a gleam of something like madness”(17). Although Raskolnikov himself does not experience the effects of continual drinking he watches it, and hears, from Marmeladov

Frequency of meals for Raskolnikov such as “At these moments he would become conscious that his ideas were sometimes in a tangle and that he was very weak; for two days he had scarcely tasted food”(7). At the beginning of Crime and Punishment this context to Raskolnikov’s life was written, displaying his inability to provide for himself due to lack of funds. Shortly thereafter, passing a tavern he concludes that “[…] longed for a drink of cold beer, and attributed his sudden weakness to the want of food”(14). Because of Raskolnikov’s inability to provide for himself he nearly starts the spiral of alcoholism that is depicted in Marmeladov, his inability to provide to his family. Raskolnikov experiences more than one occasion of lowered restraint in regards to food, “Natasya brought him some food; he ate and drank with appetite, almost with greediness”(551). Food effectively lowers Raskolnikov’s defenses and makes him purely want when having gone without for stretches of time. One such instance from where Raskolnikov’s instincts are displayed rather, what the food represents for Raskolnikov, he “[…]lay for half an hour in such anguish, such an intolerable sensation of infinite terror as he had never experienced before. Suddenly a bright light flashed into his room. Nastasya came in with a candle and a plate of soup. Looking at him carefully and