Plot Summary
At the start of Crime and Punishment, Porfiry, a police investigator, questions
Raskolnikov about his whereabouts in the days prior to the murder of an old pawnbroker
to whom Raskolnikov had pawned his family’s jewelry. Porfiry tells Raskolnikov that
although he is not being charged with any crimes, he hopes that Raskolnikov’s testimony
will aid the investigation. During the interrogation, we learn that Raskolnikov is a former
student who “thinks” rather than works and, therefore, lives in poverty. Porfiry brings up
an article that Raskolnikov published in which he argues that men are either “ordinary” or
“extraordinary,” and that the latter should be exempt from punishment for crimes when
their actions are performed in order to “benefit the whole of humanity.”
The action of the play shifts from the present to the past as Raskolnikov relives the events
of the previous days during the interrogation. In the first of these flashbacks, Sonia, a
devout young woman, visits Raskolnikov to thank him for bringing her dying alcoholic
father, Marmeladov, to her family’s house rather than leave him on the street to die.
Knowing that she has been forced to prostitute herself in order to support the family and
her father’s drinking habit, Raskolnikov asks what she will do now that her father has
died. When Sonia says that she must continue selling her body for her family’s sake,
Raskolnikov questions how she can continue to make such sacrifices and yet still trust in
God. Sonia notices Raskolnikov’s poverty—which are apparent in his living
conditions—and wonders why Raskolnikov gave up his entire savings to pay for
Marmeladov’s funeral.
In other flashbacks, a self-loathing Marmeladov tells Raskolnikov how Sonia provided
him with money and how he suffers from the fact that she gave it to him without
reproach.
Also in flashbacks, Raskolnikov, in desperation, pawns his father’s watch to Alyona
Ivanova, a heartless and unfair old pawnbroker, for much less than it is worth. She also
charges him an exorbitant interest. Her good-natured, simpleton sister Lizaveta confesses
to Raskolnikov that she will sneak out of the house to visit a friend (who turns out to be
Sonia), and Raskolnikov takes her absence as his opportunity to murder Alyona Ivanova.
Raskolnikov believes that he is an “extraordinary” man and that the murder is justifiable
because he will use her money to help the poor. Unfortunately, Lizaveta returns home
during the brutal axing of her sister, and in the heat of the moment, Raskolnikov murders
her as well.
In the present, Raskolnikov visits Porfiry who is still trying to solve the murders. Porfiry
questions Raskolnikov about his article in more depth, especially the idea that
“extraordinary” men, such as Napoleon, whom Raskolnikov cites as an example, literally
get away with murder and are justified in doing so. Porfiry inquires as to whether these
men have consciences and suffer for their crimes and Raskolnikov replies, “Pain and
suffering are inevitable for a person with intellect and heart.”
