Crime and Punishment & Other Great Novels of Dostoevsky

Overview

Plot Summary ⚠️ Spoilers

Characters

• Rodion Raskolnikov
  The impoverished former student at the center of Crime and Punishment; he murders Alyona and Lizaveta to test his theory of extraordinary transgression. His collapse, confession, and beginning of renewal shape the novel’s moral arc.
• Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladov
  Sonia is Marmeladov’s self-sacrificing daughter, forced into prostitution to support her family. Her faith, compassion, and insistence on confession guide Raskolnikov toward suffering and repentance.
• Dmitri Razumihin
  Raskolnikov’s loyal friend, practical caretaker, and eventual protector of Pulcheria and Dounia. His generosity and steadiness contrast Raskolnikov’s isolation.
• Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikova
  Dounia is Raskolnikov’s proud sister, willing to sacrifice herself through marriage to Luzhin until she rejects him. She later resists Svidrigaïlov’s coercion and marries Razumihin.
• Pulcheria Alexandrovna Raskolnikova
  Raskolnikov’s devoted mother, whose hopes and anxieties intensify his sense of guilt and obligation. After his conviction, she declines into delusion and dies.
• Porfiry Petrovitch
  The investigator in Crime and Punishment who uses psychological pressure rather than immediate arrest. He becomes convinced of Raskolnikov’s guilt and urges voluntary confession.
• Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigaïlov
  Dounia’s former employer and Raskolnikov’s corrupt double, drawn to vice, secrecy, and power. He overhears Raskolnikov’s confession, tries to coerce Dounia, then gives money to Sonia and the children before suicide.
• Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin
  Dounia’s calculating fiancé in Crime and Punishment, who wants a grateful, dependent wife. After being rejected, he tries to frame Sonia for theft and is exposed.
• Semyon Marmeladov
  A drunken former clerk whose confession introduces Raskolnikov to Sonia’s suffering family. His death under a carriage draws Raskolnikov further into the Marmeladovs’ lives.
• Katerina Ivanovna Marmeladova
  Marmeladov’s proud, consumptive widow, driven by poverty and humiliation into desperate scenes. Her death leaves Sonia and the children dependent on outside help.
• Alyona Ivanovna
  The pawnbroker murdered by Raskolnikov, whose apartment he scouts and robs. She is the target of his theory-driven crime.
• Lizaveta Ivanovna
  Alyona’s gentle sister and Sonia’s acquaintance, killed unexpectedly by Raskolnikov. Her murder becomes the unplanned moral weight that haunts him.
• Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov
  The debauched father in The Brothers Karamazov, whose greed, sensuality, and neglect poison his household. His murder drives the investigation, trial, and moral crises of his sons.
• Dmitri Fyodorovich Karamazov
  The eldest Karamazov brother, passionate, impulsive, and torn between sensuality and honor. He is wrongly convicted of murdering his father after threats, jealousy, and circumstantial evidence make him appear guilty.
• Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov
  The intellectual Karamazov brother who wrestles with God, suffering, and the idea that all is lawful. His ideas influence Smerdyakov, and his knowledge of the truth drives him into fever and hallucination.
• Alexey Fyodorovich Karamazov
  Alyosha is the youngest Karamazov brother, Zossima’s disciple, and the novel’s moral mediator. He moves among family scandal, suffering children, and spiritual trial while trying to answer hatred with love.
• Elder Zossima
  Alyosha’s spiritual elder, whose teachings emphasize universal responsibility, humility, active love, and repentance. His death first shakes and then renews Alyosha’s vocation.
• Pavel Smerdyakov
  Fyodor’s servant and possible illegitimate son, raised by Grigory and Marfa. He murders Fyodor, frames Dmitri, returns the stolen money to Ivan, and kills himself.
• Agrafena Alexandrovna Grushenka
  The woman loved by both Dmitri and Fyodor Karamazov. Her rejection of her former Polish lover and love for Dmitri transform him, while her testimony and jealousy shape the trial’s emotional stakes.
• Katerina Ivanovna Verkhovtseva
  Dmitri’s former fiancée, proud, wounded, and torn between sacrifice and revenge. Her testimony first helps Dmitri, then her production of his incriminating letter devastates his defense.
• Madame Hohlakov
  A nervous, talkative society widow in The Brothers Karamazov. Her household connects Alyosha with Lise, Katerina, and the town’s gossip about Dmitri’s trial.
• Lise Hohlakov
  Madame Hohlakov’s daughter, first teasingly attached to Alyosha and later feverish, cruel, and self-destructive. Her scenes expose a darker spiritual crisis parallel to the Karamazov turmoil.
• Captain Nikolay Ilyich Snegiryov
  The impoverished officer humiliated by Dmitri and father of Ilyusha. His pride, poverty, and desperate love for his family become one of Alyosha’s chief lessons in compassion.
• Ilyusha Snegiryov
  Captain Snegiryov’s sick son, whose loyalty to his father leads to conflict with schoolboys. His suffering and death gather Alyosha and the boys into a community of remembrance.
• Kolya Krassotkin
  A brilliant, vain schoolboy who reconciles with Ilyusha through the dog Zhutchka. Alyosha’s friendship helps redirect Kolya’s precocity toward humility and love.
• Rakitin
  A cynical seminarian in The Brothers Karamazov, jealous, opportunistic, and often eager to expose or exploit others. He tries to profit from scandal and from Alyosha’s crisis.
• Prince Lev Myshkin
  The compassionate epileptic hero of The Idiot, whose innocence and pity unsettle Petersburg society. His divided attachment to Nastasia and Aglaya ends in tragedy and his relapse into helpless illness.
• Nastasia Philipovna
  A proud, wounded woman exploited by Totski and pursued by Rogojin, Gania, and Myshkin. Her oscillation between self-condemnation and defiance drives the novel’s central catastrophe.
• Parfen Rogojin
  A wealthy, feverishly jealous suitor obsessed with Nastasia Philipovna. His bond with Myshkin mixes brotherhood and rivalry, ending in Nastasia’s murder and his sentence to Siberia.
• Aglaya Epanchin
  The youngest Epanchin daughter, proud, mocking, and romantically drawn to Myshkin. Her confrontation with Nastasia exposes jealousy and breaks her relationship with the prince.
• Lizabetha Prokofievna Epanchin
  The sharp, impulsive Epanchin matriarch. She alternately defends, scolds, and rejects Myshkin while trying to protect her daughters’ futures.
• General Ivan Fedorovich Epanchin
  The wealthy official who first receives Myshkin in Petersburg. His household becomes the social center through which Myshkin meets Aglaya, Gania, and Nastasia’s circle.
• Gavrila Ardalionovich Ivolgin
  Gania is an ambitious clerk tempted to marry Nastasia for money and status. His humiliation over the burning money and his later schemes around Aglaya reveal his pride and insecurity.
• General Ardalion Ivolgin
  Gania’s father, a degraded, boastful general prone to lies and pathetic grandeur. His decline and stroke deepen the Ivolgin family’s shame and pathos.
• Colia Ivolgin
  Gania’s younger brother and one of Myshkin’s most loyal young friends. He moves between households, carries messages, and responds to tragedy with growing maturity.
• Lebedeff
  A gossipy, scheming clerk in The Idiot who lodges Myshkin at Pavlovsk. His family, intrigues, and opportunism repeatedly entangle the prince.
• Hippolyte Terentyev
  A consumptive youth whose bitterness, confession, and failed suicide unsettle Myshkin’s circle. His reflections on death and meaning intensify the novel’s spiritual tension.
• Evgenie Pavlovitch Radomsky
  A polished officer connected to the Epanchins and considered as a suitor for Aglaya. He later helps arrange Myshkin’s return to Switzerland after the catastrophe.
• Afanasy Ivanovich Totski
  Nastasia’s former guardian and exploiter, whose wish to rid himself of responsibility initiates the marriage scheme with Gania. His past defines Nastasia’s sense of dishonor.
• Underground Man
  The unnamed narrator of Notes from Underground, a spiteful former civil servant trapped in overconsciousness, inertia, and self-laceration. His philosophy of irrational freedom is dramatized through humiliations and his cruelty to Liza.
• Liza
  The young prostitute in Notes from Underground whom the narrator first tries to awaken morally and then humiliates. Her silent rejection of his money exposes his inability to love without domination.
• Apollon
  The Underground Man’s contemptuous servant, whose implacable dignity provokes his master’s rage. Their wage dispute becomes a humiliating prelude to Liza’s visit.
• Zverkov
  The successful former schoolmate whose farewell dinner humiliates the Underground Man. His patronizing ease crystallizes the narrator’s envy and resentment.
• Simonov
  A former schoolmate of the Underground Man who reluctantly admits him to Zverkov’s dinner. He lends the money that enables the narrator’s degrading pursuit to Olympia.
• Alexis Ivanovitch
  The narrator of The Gambler, a tutor consumed by love for Polina and by roulette. His spectacular winnings cannot save him from pride, compulsion, and decline.
• Polina Alexandrovna
  The General’s step-daughter and Alexis’s obsession in The Gambler. Proud and indebted, she uses Alexis yet later reveals a wounded dependence on him before rejecting his money.
• The General
  Alexis’s employer in The Gambler, ruined by debt, social ambition, and love for Mlle. Blanche. His hopes depend on his mother’s death and collapse when she arrives alive and gambles away her fortune.
• Antonida Vassilievna Tarassevitcha
  The formidable Grandmother in The Gambler, whose unexpected arrival overturns everyone’s inheritance schemes. Her roulette obsession destroys the fortune others were waiting to inherit.
• Monsieur de Griers
  The French creditor and adviser tied to the General and Polina. His self-serving departure exposes the financial and emotional trap around Polina.
• Mlle. Blanche de Cominges
  A calculating adventuress who courts the General while watching his prospects. She later spends Alexis’s winnings in Paris and marries the General for advantage.
• Mr. Astley
  The reserved Englishman who loves Polina and repeatedly behaves with quiet honor. He shelters her, aids the Grandmother, and later tells Alexis that Polina once loved him.
• Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky
  The aging liberal intellectual in Demons, dependent on Varvara and theatrical about his significance. His humiliations end in a final wandering, spiritual awakening, and death.
• Varvara Petrovna Stavrogina
  The wealthy matriarch who supports Stepan and tries to manage her son Nikolay’s reputation. Her pride and authority are broken by the scandals and Stavrogin’s suicide.
• Nikolay Stavrogin
  Varvara’s magnetic, morally paralyzed son in Demons. His secret marriage, passivity before murder, entanglement with Liza and Dasha, and final suicide anchor the novel’s darkest conflicts.
• Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky
  Stepan’s son and the manipulative revolutionary organizer of Demons. He exploits gossip, ideology, crime, and weakness to bind his group through murder before fleeing.
• Ivan Shatov
  A former revolutionary who turns toward Russian faith and peoplehood. His desire to leave the conspiracy and begin anew with his wife makes him Pyotr’s target, and he is murdered by the cell.
• Alexei Kirillov
  An engineer whose philosophy centers on conquering fear through suicide and becoming a man-god. Pyotr exploits his planned suicide to cover Shatov’s murder.
• Lizaveta Nikolaevna Tushina
  Liza is the passionate young woman drawn to Stavrogin while engaged to Mavriky. After spending a night with Stavrogin and learning of the Lebyadkins’ murders, she is attacked by a mob.
• Darya Pavlovna Shatova
  Dasha is Varvara’s protégée and Shatov’s sister, quietly devoted to Stavrogin. He asks her to accompany him abroad as a nurse, but she arrives only to find his suicide.
• Marya Timofyevna Lebyadkina
  Captain Lebyadkin’s lame, abused sister and Stavrogin’s secret wife. Her murder becomes one of the central crimes that reveals Stavrogin’s moral passivity.
• Captain Ignat Lebyadkin
  Marya’s drunken, abusive brother, who uses her and Stavrogin’s secret for money. He is murdered with Marya during the fires.
• Fedka the Convict
  An escaped criminal in Demons, connected to Pyotr’s and Stavrogin’s darker possibilities. He commits or is linked to major crimes before being found murdered.
• Yulia Mihailovna von Lembke
  The governor’s ambitious wife, eager to influence youth and society. Her vanity and trust in Pyotr help enable the fête’s collapse and the town’s unrest.
• Andrey Antonovich von Lembke
  The anxious governor manipulated by Pyotr and undermined by his own instability. His mishandling of unrest and public breakdown signal the failure of official order.
• Liputin
  A malicious gossip and member of Pyotr’s revolutionary circle. He helps spread scandal, participates in the conspiracy, and panics after Shatov’s murder.
• Lyamshin
  A pianist, mimic, and conspirator in Demons. His buffoonery feeds public disorder, and his later confession exposes Pyotr’s network.
• Virginsky
  A gentle radical whose home hosts the conspiratorial meeting. He protests Shatov’s murder as wrong but still becomes implicated in it.
• Shigalov
  The theorist of Pyotr’s circle, proposing a system in which one-tenth rule and nine-tenths submit. His doctrine reveals the authoritarian core beneath revolutionary rhetoric.
• Karmazinov
  A famous writer courted by Yulia and mocked by the unfolding chaos. His vain farewell reading at the fête helps turn the event into farce.
• Sofya Matveyevna Ulitin
  The gospel-seller who accompanies and nurses Stepan Trofimovich during his final wandering. Her humble faith helps frame his last spiritual turn.
• Narrator of Demons
  The provincial chronicler who observes Stepan, Varvara, Stavrogin, and the town’s collapse. His perspective organizes the scandals, rumors, and revelations of Demons.

Themes