Crime and Punishment Lesson Plan

During the assigned chapters for today, Raskolnikov regularly betrays interest in the murders. How does Dostoevsky portray this interest? What do these portrayals suggest about the nature of guilt?

Much of Raskolnikov’s interest in the murders comes either when he’s delirious or when he’s pretending to be delirious. The former demonstrates that Raskolnikov cannot control himself enough to avoid drawing attention to his own guilt, which makes him less powerful and intelligent than he thinks that he is. The latter demonstrates that he likes to play with his accusers in the hopes of demonstrating his intelligence and superiority. Both of these instances show that Raskolnikov...