Space and Place in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment

Introduction: Petersburg as Psychological Landscape

St. Petersburg had been the capital of Russia for more than a century and a half when Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote Crime and Punishment. The capital had been established in the early eighteenth century by Tsar Peter the Great, who, like his descendants — Catherine the Great especially — was influenced by trends in European style and philosophical thought. With the liberation of the serfs in 1861, St. Petersburg transformed from a cultural hub into the type of overcrowded city, full of people of every manner and class, that Dostoevsky describes in the novel.

The influx of people not only reflected the social and moral atmosphere of Russia as a whole; it also reflected the deteriorating spiritual and psychological state of Dostoevsky's hero and anti-hero, Raskolnikov — a man whose name is literally derived from the Russian word for "split" or "schismatic." Raskolnikov is indeed a man splitting apart at the seams: he is at war within himself spiritually, at war psychologically with the landlord of his cramped and claustrophobic apartment, at war with his stifling surroundings in Petersburg, and at war with the natural and divine law of old-world Russia. This paper examines how Dostoevsky uses ideas of space and place in Crime and Punishment to reflect these various states of conflict.

The City's Heat and Raskolnikov's Fever

St. Petersburg sets the tone of the novel through its extremes of weather. At the beginning of the novel, the city is suffering from a terrible heat wave that mirrors the fever rising in Raskolnikov's brain. Raskolnikov tries to escape the heat by venturing outdoors, out of the confines of his room, but the characters he encounters in the city only aggravate his spiritual and mental condition further. For example, he meets a predator whom he recognizes as trying to take advantage of an intoxicated young girl. Raskolnikov righteously summons a policeman and ensures the predator is chased off. At the same time, however, Raskolnikov is plotting the murder of an old woman on the grounds that if Napoleon could challenge the whole world, then a student with equal will to power can certainly challenge a mere pawnbroker.

It is this line of thinking that connects Raskolnikov to the revolutionary ideals sweeping across Europe and gaining popularity in Russia by way of Petersburg. It was another great patron of Petersburg, Catherine the Great, who had corresponded with the French writer and philosopher Voltaire. Other French thinkers of the Enlightenment and Romantic Age, such as Rousseau, also influenced the intellectual climate of Petersburg. Clearly shaped by this current of thought, Raskolnikov embodies the conflict between modern ideas and old-world religious belief. Like the city itself, he is literally split between the old and the new.

Wandering, Confinement, and Moral Conflict

After his revolutionary and revolting murder, Raskolnikov wanders the city like a dispossessed person. His action has severed him from the moral foundations of his youth, just as Petersburg's modernization was severing the city from its past. At one point, he witnesses a drunk man run over in the street by a carriage and, moved by the grief before him, gives money to the man's family, one of whom — Sonya — has been forced into prostitution. This act connects him to Sonya, who represents the old-world Christian belief system, in direct contradiction to the modern ethos best embodied by Raskolnikov's double, the philanderer Svidrigailov.

Unable to reconcile these conflicting principles, Raskolnikov is virtually at the mercy of the city, which, like him, seems unable to tend to itself properly and appears to be coming apart at the seams. He retreats further in terms of space, locking himself in his room and suffering a breakdown of his senses, slipping in and out of delirium. His fever reaches its peak, and it is only with the arrival of his friend Razumikhin and his mother and sister that he is able to return to his senses.

Conclusion: Space as Metaphor for the Soul

Dostoevsky uses place and space to represent both the overall condition of Russia and a metaphor for the condition of Raskolnikov's soul. The city of Petersburg is cramped, extreme, seemingly lawless, and disordered. Its attempts to govern itself are in perpetual conflict with its impulse to break free from all restraint. Raskolnikov embodies this conflict: isolated in his small apartment and oppressed by murderous thoughts, he can only find true freedom through a return to morality, confession, and old-world belief.

This freedom is illustrated by his exile to Siberia, where the claustrophobia and disorder of city life are replaced by the ordered, disciplined routine of prison life in a natural environment. It is the beauty of that world — open, unhurried, and honest — that helps restore harmony to the soul. In this way, Dostoevsky transforms geography into theology, and the journey across Russia's landscape into an allegory of spiritual death and rebirth.