Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

i'm slowly making my way through this book (my current goal is at least one chapter a day) and both to help myself understand the book and to give it a deeper look since it's one of the most lauded classics, ive decided to take some note/annotations on it. text in italics are quotes i've taken down for no other reason than i wanted to quote them. text in bold are parts of the book i'm making notes/annotations on. don't expect notes for every single chapter; i only annotate when i have something to say.

Part I, Chapter 4 (2/19/2025)

Oh, in cases like that we suppress our moral sensibilities; our freedom, our peace of mind, even our conscience, all of it, all of it goes to the secondhand market. Let my life go to hang, we say, just as long as those dear, beloved creatures of mine are happy.

'Are you completely aware of the size of the sacrifice you're making? Is it right? Is it being made under duress? Will it do any good? Is it sensible? Do you realize, Dunechka, that Sonechka's fate is in no way any uglier than the one you're contemplating with Mr Luzhin? “There can't be any love between them,” mother writes. But what if it's not only love, but also respect that there can't be; what if, instead, there's revulsion, contempt, loathing, what then? And what if it then turns out that once again it's necessary to “keep oneself clean”? Am I right? Do you realize, do you realize what that kind of cleanliness involves? Do you realize that the Luzhin kind of cleanliness is just the same as Sonechka's cleanliness, and perhaps even worse, even more filthy and more vile, because you, Dunechka, can still count on a surplus of comfort, while over there it's quite simply a question of staving off death by starvation! “It's expensive, expensive, that kind of cleanliness, Dunechka!” Well, and what if your strength isn't up to it, what if you wish you'd never done it? Think of the hurt, the sadness, the cursing, the tears, hidden from everyone, because you're not Marfa Petrovna, are you? And what do you think mother will feel like then? I mean, even now she's uneasy, she's worried; but what about when she sees it all clearly for what it is? And what do you think I'll feel like?… Have the two of you ever really stopped to think about me? I don't want your sacrifice, Dunechka, I don't want it, mother! It won't take place while I'm alive, it won't, it won't! I won't accept it!’

so he's not actually worried about whether his sister will be happy in her marriage but more about how it will affect him. self centered enough that her 'sacrifice' he takes as an insult almost but he hides it by saying he won't let her sacrifice herself for him for her own well-being, not because he resentful that somone else is cleaning up his mess.

'‘Listen, hey!’ he shouted after the man with the long moustache.

The latter turned round.

‘Stop it! What's it to you? Forget about it! Let him have his bit of fun.’ (He pointed at the man-about-town.) ‘What's it to you?’

The policeman failed to comprehend, and stared at him. Raskolnikov burst out laughing.'

so he's definitely mentally ill. some archaic depiction of bipolar disorder? still depicted like that nowadays where it's boiled down to people changing their minds/having mood swings abruptly but i can't imagine the view was better back then. or maybe Dos. is just portraying him as a catch-all 'crazy' by having him seem unstable by changing his mind so quickly.

Part I, Chapter 5 (2/19/2025)

‘Hm… Razumikhin,’ he suddenly said very calmly, as though he had reached some final decision. ‘I'm going to see Razumikhin, of course I am… only – not right now… I'll go and see him the day after it, when it's all over and everything's begun anew…’

And suddenly he came to his senses.

‘After that?’ he exclaimed, leaping up from the bench. ‘Is that going to happen? Is it really going to happen?’

he talks about his desire to commit a crime almost as if he's not responsible for it. like someone else is going to force it upon him, like he has no control over whether or not it happens even when he would be the one taking the action.

'‘That's the end of her!’ people shouted in the crowd.

‘She ought to have galloped.’

‘She belongs to me!’ Mikolka shouted, holding the crowbar, his eyes bloodshot. He stood there looking as though he were sorry there was no creature left to beat.'

‘Papa! The poor little horse… Why did they… kill it?’ he sobbed, but his breathing was choked, and again those howls escaped from his constricted chest.

‘They're drunk, they're up to mischief, it's none of our business, come on!’ his father said. He flung his arms round his father, but his chest felt so tight, so tight. He felt he wanted to draw breath, to scream, and woke up.'

excellent depiction of the bystander effect. its true that they were outnumbered but it's also possible that even if just Ras. father had spoken up they might've come to their senses. but his father continuously says it 'isn't their business' as if it washes them clean of all culpability of stopping evil even as they witness it. it has nothing to do with them so there's no stain on their soul for not doing anything to stop. it also shows that at least one point in time Ras. had a conscience and a good heart and combined with the fact that he still has moments of empathy in the present day shows that the most likely reason he's says and acts as he does is because of severe untreated mental illness.

Part I, Chapter 6 (2/20/2025)

‘If you'll permit me, I'd like to ask you a serious question,’ the student said, growing excited. ‘I was joking just now, of course, but look: on the one hand you have a nasty, stupid, worthless, meaningless, sick old woman who's no use to anyone and is, indeed, actually harmful to people, who doesn't even know herself why she's alive, and who's going to kick the bucket of her own accord tomorrow. Do you get my meaning? Do you?’

‘Yes, I think I do,’ the officer replied, fixing his eyes on his excited companion.

‘Listen to this, then. There, on the other hand you have young, fresh energies that are going to waste for want of backing – thousands of people are involved, and it's happening everywhere! A hundred, a thousand good deeds and undertakings that could be arranged and expedited with that old woman's money, which is doomed to go to a monastery! Hundreds, possibly even thousands of lives that could be set on the right road; dozens of families saved from poverty, breakup, ruin, depravity, the venereal hospitals – and all of that with her money. If one were to kill her and take her money, in order with its help to devote oneself to the service of all mankind and the common cause: what do you think – wouldn't one petty little crime like that be atoned for by all those thousands of good deeds? Instead of one life – thousands of lives rescued from corruption and decay. One death to a hundred lives – I mean, there's arithmetic for you!

well if this isn't just extremely relevant today. the wealthy hoarding their money when it could help so many people are a plague and their greed causes people to hate them to the point of wishing their death, but their soul is so corrupted by greed they just don't care.

But now this latest day, which had dawned so unexpectedly and had decided everything, acted on him in an almost entirely mechanical fashion: as though someone had taken him by the hand and pulled him along behind him, inexorably, blindly, with unnatural force, countenancing no objections. As though a corner of his clothing had got caught in the flywheel of a machine, and he was beginning to be drawn into it.

again as if he has no culpability, as if he's being forced into it.

Part II, Chapter 1 (2/21/2025)

‘Some bits of torn canvas can't possibly arouse any suspicion; surely not, surely not!’ he repeated, standing in the middle of the room and beginning to look around him again with a focus of attention that was intensified to the point of pain, surveying the floor and all the other parts of the room, in an agony lest he had forgotten something. A certainty that everything, even his memory, even the simple faculty of reason, was deserting him had begun to torment him unendurably. ‘What, is it really beginning now, is this the punishment beginning? Yes, yes, I knew it!’

Part II, Chapter 5 (2/25/2025)

‘How is one to explain it?’ Razumikhin said, rallying to the attack. ‘Why, it may quite readily be explained by the all too deep-rooted lack of effective activity.’

‘Explain yourself more clearly, sir.’

‘Well, it's what your lecturer in world history replied when he was asked why he'd been forging lottery tickets: “Everyone's making themselves better-off by various means, so I wanted to do the same in as short a time as possible.” I don't remember his exact words, but the gist of it was that he wanted it all for nothing, as quickly as possible, without any effort. People have grown accustomed to having everything ready-made for them, they're used to depending on the guidance of others, having everything chewed up for them first. Well, and when the great hour finally struck, they all showed themselves at face value…’

Part III, Chapter 1 (2/28/2025)

‘Do you suppose I'm going on like this because they talk nonsense? Rubbish! I like it when they talk nonsense! Talking nonsense is the sole privilege mankind possesses over the other organisms. It's by talking nonsense that one gets to the truth! I talk nonsense, therefore I'm human. Not one single truth has ever been arrived at without people first having talked a dozen reams of nonsense, even ten dozen reams of it, and that's an honourable thing in its own way; well, but we can't even talk nonsense with our own brains! Talk nonsense to me, by all means, but do it with your own brain, and I shall love you for it. To talk nonsense in one's own way is almost better than to talk a truth that's someone else's; in the first instance you behave like a human being, while in the second you are merely being a parrot! The truth won't go away, but life can be knocked on the head and done in.

‘I say, that Avdotya Romanovna's a delicious little kiddy,’ Zosimov commented, practically licking his lips, as both men emerged on to the street.

probably the NASTIEST way i've heard a man call a woman attractive YUCK

‘Listen,’ he said to Zosimov. ‘You're a wonderful chap, but in addition to all your other rotten qualities you're a lecher, I know you are, and one of the filthiest. You're a weak, nerve-ridden scoundrel, you're unstable, you've run to fat and can't deny yourself anything – and I call that filth, because it leads straight down into the filth. You've grown so soft that I must confess I find it hard to understand how you can still be a good, or even a selfless doctor. You sleep on a feather bed all day (a doctor!), and only get up at night to attend to the odd patient! In three years’ time you won't even be doing that…

GET HIS ASS RAZUMIKHIN

Part III, Chapter 2 (3/1/2025)

'I've known Rodion for one and a half years: he's a morose sort of chap – gloomy, stand-offish and proud; recently (and for all I know not so recently, as well) he's been over-anxious, with a tendency to hypochondria. But sometimes it's not hypochondria at all that he's suffering from, he's simply cold and unfeeling to the point of inhumanity, it's really just as though there were two opposing characters alternating within him. He's sometimes unconscionably short on conversation! It's all: “I've no time, stop bothering me”, yet he just lies there not doing anything. He doesn't mock, yet it's not because he doesn't have enough wit, but rather as though he didn't have enough time for such trivial matters. He doesn't listen to what people say to him. He's never interested in what everyone else is interested in at any given moment. He has a fearfully high opinion of himself, and perhaps not entirely without justification.'

raz. might truly be the only good person in this book because ras. treats him like shit and even HE HIMSELF acknowledges that ras. is not a pleasant person to be around but he still sticks by him?? to the point of taking care of his family, calling a doctor, AND checking on him while he's 'sick'? get you a friend like razumikhin fr

Part III, Chapter 3 (3/2/2025)

‘There – that's what I love him for!’ whispered the forever exaggerating Razumikhin, energetically turning round in his seat. ‘He has these – gestures…’

‘And how well he does it all,’ thought the mother to herself. ‘What noble impulses he has and how simply and with what tact he put an end to that misunderstanding with his sister yesterday – just by stretching out his hand at the right moment and giving her the right kind of look… What beautiful eyes he has, and how handsome his face is!…'

so he has a sort of undeniable charisma that keeps people attached to him even when he's acting awfully towards them. even thought they know him being awful is kind of his natural state he still has a sort of magnetism to him, or at the very least a habit of being able to do exactly the right thing at exactly the right time to keep people 'on the hook' and caring about him.

Oh, I could just rush up to him and throw my arms round him, and… cry – but I'm afraid, afraid… Lord, what's got into him?… I mean, even when he talks kindly I'm afraid! But what am I afraid of?…’

but the unease still remains, even from someone like his mother. you can't truly hide who you are or what you've done, even from people who don't even know what you've done or how rotten you truly are.

‘All I wanted to say was that of you, mother, I ask forgiveness,’ he concluded sharply and abruptly.

‘Enough, Rodya. I'm sure that everything you do is wonderful,’ his mother said in relief.

‘Don't be,’ he replied, twisting his mouth into a smile.

‘I seemed to love them so much when they weren't here,’ flashed through his head.

‘Her? Now? Oh yes… you're talking about her! No. Now it's as if it had all happened in another world… and so long ago. And it's as if everything around me were happening somewhere else…’

it's almost as if his family suddenly appearing is causing his guilt to come even more to the surface. his mind is scattered and it's almost a textbook example of an old-timey way of showing 'insanity'

‘She's lying!’ he thought to himself, biting his fingernails in fury. ‘The proud bitch. She doesn't want to admit that she has an ambition to be a benefactress… What arrogance! Oh, these base characters! Even when they love it's as if they hated… Oh, how I… hate them all!’

there is a part of him that's excruciatingly proud. he can't even consider his sister getting married for her own reasons; he extrapolates until he sees no other option but for her to be getting married so she's rich and can give them money and hold it over their (his) head. he's truly a narcissist.

Part III, Chapter 4 (3/3/2025)

‘So that's it!’ Raskolnikov thought. ‘That's how far that idea has worked its way among them! I mean, this man would go to Calvary for my sake, yet even he's thoroughly relieved that it's been cleared up why I kept mentioning those rings when I was delirious! That's the kind of hold it's got on them all!…’

he seems to have abrupt, startling moments of clarity. some part of him does know that raz. is very loyal to him and he may even be unconsciously using it to his advantage. right now he's even manipulating him in conversation, something he wasn't mentally capable of just in the last chapter.

Part III, Chapter 5 (3/4/2025)

The extraordinary rage with which Razumikhin greeted this ‘sincere’ laughter gave the whole of this scene an air of the most unfeigned joviality and – most importantly – naturalness. Razumikhin, as though on purpose, did his bit to help things along.

just when you start to think he's having a moment of actual humanity that manipulation comes back in -- the way he swings wildly between being so overcome with guilt to the point of physical reaction and blurting out things that could genuinely get him caught and acting perfectly natural and turning events to his benefit is crazy. it's like his rational and cunning mind is only active some of the time; a jekyll and hyde type deal.

'That's why they have such distaste for the living process of life: they don't want the living soul! The living soul demands to live, the living soul isn't obedient to the laws of mechanics, the living soul is suspicious, the living soul is reactionary! No, what they prefer are souls which can be made out of rubber, even if they do have a smell of corpse-flesh – but at any rate they're not alive, they have no will of their own, they're servile, won't rebel! And as a result they've reduced everything to brickwork and the disposition of the rooms and corridors inside a phalanstery!3 Their phalansteries may be ready, but the human nature that would fit them is not yet ready, it wants to live, it hasn't yet completed the vital process, it's not ready for the burial-ground! It's impossible to leap over nature solely by means of logic! Logic may predict three eventualities, but there are a million of them! Snip off the entire million and reduce everything to the question of comfort – that's a very easy solution to the problem! Temptingly obvious, and one needn't even think about it! That's the main thing – that one shouldn't need to think! The whole of life's mystery can be accommodated within two printer's sheets!’

Part III, Chapter 6 (3/5/2025)

‘No, those men aren't made like that; the real overlord, to whom all things are permitted, ransacks Toulon, commits a massacre in Paris, forgets an army in Egypt, throws away half a million men in his Moscow campaign and talks his way out at Vilna with a clever remark; and after his death they put up statues to him – and that means that everything is permitted to him. No! Men like that don't have bodies but lumps of bronze!’

Part IV, Chapter 2 (3/7/2025)

‘What?’ Dunya exclaimed, blazing up. ‘I put your interests on the same level as all that has hitherto been precious to me in life, that has constituted the integrity of my life, and you suddenly take offence because you think I value you too little?’

GET HIS ASS DUNYA LMAO

‘That is not entirely just, Pulkheria Aleksandrovna, especially not at the present moment, when tidings have arrived concerning the three thousand roubles bequeathed by Marfa Petrovna, tidings most opportune, it would appear, given the new tone in which you have begun to address me,’ he added, bitingly.

‘If that remark is anything to go by, one can really only suppose that you've been calculating on our helplessness,’ Dunya observed in irritation.

dunya you are SO smart girl you can do so much better than him!!!

Part IV, Chapter 3 (3/8/2025)

He had thought with rapture in deepest secret of a chaste and poor young girl (she must be poor), very young, very pretty, well-mannered and well brought up, very intimidated, who had experienced a great many misfortunes and would now be wholly at his bidding, the kind of girl who all her life would consider him her salvation, go in awe of him, subordinate herself to him, wonder at him, at him and him alone.

someone needs to kill this man. rodya you can get a pass for this one and this one alone

Here there was even more than he had dreamed of: the girl who had appeared was proud, full of character, virtuous, superior to him in education and upbringing (he sensed this), and yet this creature would view him with servile gratitude all her life for his noble deed, reverentially effacing herself before him, and he would have unlimited and exclusive power over her!

EW EW EW I HATE HIM SO MUCH. MEET ME IN HELL PETROVICH I'M SO SICK OF YOUR ASS

Part IV, Chapter 4 (3/9/2025)

The stub of candle had long been guttering in its crooked candlestick within that wretched room, shedding its dim light on the murderer and the prostitute who had so strangely encountered each other in the reading of the eternal book.

Part VI, Chapter 1 (3/17/2025)

‘No, better to resume the struggle again! Better Porfiry again… or Svidrigailov… What I want is some kind of challenge again, an attack from someone to fend off… Yes! That's what I want!’ he thought.

he feels so guilty internally, even though he barely ever acknowledges it, that he wants to force a conflict so he can eventually be caught out. he swings between apathy and intense guilt frequently; it shows that either way, he can't live with himself now after what he's done

Part VI, Chapter 3 (3/19/2025)

And was it really worth it now, after all that had taken place, to attempt to master all these newly arisen, trivial embarrassments? Was it, for example, really worth trying to hatch some intrigue in order to stop Svidrigailov going to see Porfiry; to study the behaviour of a man such as Svidrigailov, to make inquiries about him, waste time on him?

Oh, how tired he was of all that!

so we're getting to the point where he's gotten tired of holding up the charade to the point that he's not even bothering trying to prove himself innocent in small ways. subconsciously he knows he's finished

‘Ah, so that's where you're leading! I agree that it's an illness, like everything that passes the bounds of moderation – and here it's essential to pass the bounds of moderation – but I mean, in the first place, it takes one man this way and another man that way, and in the second place, of course, one ought to observe moderation, prudence, even of a villainous kind, in all things, but you see, what am I to do? If I didn't have that, I'd probably just have to shoot myself. I agree that a man with any decency ought to put up with the frustration, but you see, I just…’

this man said he would literally KILL HIMSELF if he couldn't be a pervert oh my god he is the WORSTTTTTTT.

His suspicions of Svidrigailov had been confirmed: he saw him as the most empty and worthless villain in all the world.

YOU KNOW WHAT RASKOLNIKOV??? ME TOO BABE

Part VI, Chapter 4 (3/20/2025)

‘In a word, what you're saying is that this monstrous difference in years and development also arouses your lust! And yet you're still going ahead with this marriage?’

you know what raskolnikov may be many things but at least he ain't a PEDOPHILE JESUS CHRIST

Part VI, Chapter 5 (3/21/2025)

If, on the other hand, you're convinced that it's wrong to eavesdrop at doors, but it's perfectly all right to crack the skulls of old women, then off you go to America at the double!

i hate this mf but this was funnier than it had any right to be

Part VI, Chapter 6 (3/22/2025)

'Oh, and by the way: if I were you, I'd give that money to Mr Razumikhin to look after for the time being. You know Mr Razumikhin, don't you? Of course you do. He's not a bad sort of fellow.'

even the whole ass villain in this book likes razumikhin. the way absolutely no one in this book has a bad word to say about my man is crazy. he's simply That Girl

i'm not even gonna quote the passage but let it be known that Svidrigailov is a FUCKING PEDOPHILE OH MY GOD

'He put the revolver to his right temple.

‘Vat-z-you doing, here is impossible, here is not ze place!’ Achilles said, rousing himself and dilating his pupils wider and wider.

Svidrigailov pulled the trigger.

GOOD

Part VI, Chapter 7 (3/23/2025)

‘Mother, whatever may happen, whatever you may hear about me, whatever people may tell you about me, will you go on loving me as you do now?’ he asked suddenly out of the fullness of his heart, almost without thinking what he was saying or weighing it over.

She had known for a long time that something terrible was happening to her son, and that now some fearsome moment had ripened for him.

this poor woman oh my god :((((

‘Yes, I am. Right now. Yes, in order to avoid this shame I wanted to drown myself, Dunya, but as I stood looking down at the water it occurred to me that if I really still believed I was strong, then I oughtn't to be afraid of shame either,’ he said, forestalling her. ‘Is that pride, Dunya?’

You're crying, sister, but will you give me your hand?’

‘Did you doubt that I would?’

NAH BECAUSE IM CRYING ACTUALLY

‘But that's wrong, that's utterly wrong! Brother, what are you saying?’

‘Aha! so I've put it in the wrong form, have I, not in the correct aesthetic form! Well, I must say I don't understand: why is it considered more respectable to hurl bombs at people in a regular siege? The fear of aesthetics is the first symptom of powerlessness!

'The main thing, the main thing is that now everything is going to take a new turn, is going to be broken in two,’ he cried suddenly, falling back into his leaden anguish again. ‘Everything, everything, and am I ready for it? Do I even really want it? They say it's necessary for me as a trial by ordeal! But what purpose, what purpose do all these senseless ordeals serve? What purpose do they serve, and will I be any nearer the answer to that question later on, when I've been crushed by sufferings, by idiocy, in senile helplessness, after twenty years’ hard labour, than I am now, and what purpose will there be in my continuing to live? Why am I giving my assent to that kind of life for myself now? Oh, as I stood above the Neva this morning at dawn I knew I was a villain.’

Part VI, Chapter 8 (3/24/2025)

Do you know the only thing that makes me angry? It's that all those stupid brutes will immediately surround me with their ugly mugs, gawp right at me, ask me their stupid questions, which I'll have to answer – they'll point their fingers at me… Pah!

even after all of this he still sees himself as superior to all the other criminals in the jail, as if his 'academic reasoning' makes it so his murder doesn't stain him as plainly as all the others