Crime and Punishment Characters: Full List & Analysis

Who drives the story

Main characters

Rodion Raskolnikov

Impoverished ex-law student who murders a pawnbroker to prove his theory that extraordinary men may step over the law. The theory survives the murder; he barely does—and only Sonya and Siberia bring him back.

Appears in:: Part 1: The Theory and the Axe; Part 2: Fever, and a Detective Who Knows; Part 3: Confession to a Saint; Part 4: The Crossroads and the Fever
Themes:: The extraordinary man and his license to kill; Suffering as the road back; Poverty as moral pressure; Confession and the impossibility of hiding; Resurrection

Sonya

Marmeladov's daughter, a prostitute with a yellow ticket who sustains her family and her faith in God. She reads Lazarus to the murderer, gives him Lizaveta's cross, and follows him to Siberia.

Appears in:: Part 1: The Theory and the Axe; Part 2: Fever, and a Detective Who Knows; Part 3: Confession to a Saint; Part 4: The Crossroads and the Fever
Themes:: The extraordinary man and his license to kill; Suffering as the road back; Poverty as moral pressure; Resurrection

Porfiry Petrovich

The investigator who never accuses, only insinuates, certain from the start. He urges confession as mercy, and his certainty outlasts every alibi.

Appears in:: Part 1: The Theory and the Axe; Part 2: Fever, and a Detective Who Knows; Part 3: Confession to a Saint; Part 4: The Crossroads and the Fever
Themes:: Suffering as the road back; Confession and the impossibility of hiding

Svidrigailov

Dunya's depraved former employer, a man of appetites and sudden generosity, who overhears the confession and holds it as leverage. When Dunya refuses him, he gives away his money and shoots himself.

Appears in:: Part 1: The Theory and the Axe; Part 2: Fever, and a Detective Who Knows; Part 3: Confession to a Saint; Part 4: The Crossroads and the Fever
Themes:: Confession and the impossibility of hiding

Dunya

Raskolnikov's sister, ready to marry the calculating Luzhin to save her family, then breaking the engagement without flinching. She stares down Svidrigailov's pistol-point coercion and marries Razumikhin.

Appears in:: Part 1: The Theory and the Axe; Part 2: Fever, and a Detective Who Knows; Part 3: Confession to a Saint; Part 4: The Crossroads and the Fever
Themes:: The extraordinary man and his license to kill; Poverty as moral pressure; Confession and the impossibility of hiding

Razumikhin

Raskolnikov's loyal, penniless university friend who nurses him through delirium and guards his mother and sister. Steady where Raskolnikov is feverish; he wins Dunya.

Appears in:: Part 2: Fever, and a Detective Who Knows; Part 3: Confession to a Saint; Part 4: The Crossroads and the Fever
Themes:: The extraordinary man and his license to kill

Luzhin

The wealthy lawyer who wants a poor wife grateful forever. Exposed twice—his letter's slander, his planted banknote—he is the theory's petty mirror: stepping over others for advantage.

Appears in:: Part 1: The Theory and the Axe; Part 2: Fever, and a Detective Who Knows; Part 3: Confession to a Saint
Themes:: Poverty as moral pressure

Marmeladov

The drunken ex-official who narrates his own ruin in a tavern and dies under a carriage in his daughter's arms. His confession of needing 'somewhere to go' opens the novel's moral world.

Appears in:: Part 1: The Theory and the Axe; Part 2: Fever, and a Detective Who Knows; Part 4: The Crossroads and the Fever
Themes:: Poverty as moral pressure

Katerina Ivanovna

Marmeladov's consumptive widow, proud and half-mad with hunger and humiliation. Driven out, she forces her children to dance for coins and dies refusing a priest.

Appears in:: Part 1: The Theory and the Axe; Part 2: Fever, and a Detective Who Knows; Part 3: Confession to a Saint
Themes:: The extraordinary man and his license to kill; Suffering as the road back

How they are connected

Key relationships

Rodion Raskolnikov Sonya
The theory survives the murder; he barely does—and only Sonya and Siberia bring him back.
Sonya Marmeladov
Marmeladov's daughter, a prostitute with a yellow ticket who sustains her family and her faith in God.
Svidrigailov Dunya
Dunya's depraved former employer, a man of appetites and sudden generosity, who overhears the confession and holds it as leverage.
Dunya Rodion Raskolnikov
Raskolnikov's sister, ready to marry the calculating Luzhin to save her family, then breaking the engagement without flinching.
Dunya Luzhin
Raskolnikov's sister, ready to marry the calculating Luzhin to save her family, then breaking the engagement without flinching.
Dunya Razumikhin
She stares down Svidrigailov's pistol-point coercion and marries Razumikhin.
Razumikhin Rodion Raskolnikov
Raskolnikov's loyal, penniless university friend who nurses him through delirium and guards his mother and sister.
Katerina Ivanovna Marmeladov
Marmeladov's consumptive widow, proud and half-mad with hunger and humiliation.

Go deeper

Crime and Punishment themes & symbols

The extraordinary man and his license to kill · Suffering as the road back · Poverty as moral pressure · Confession and the impossibility of hiding

Themes explained

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