Crime and Punishment

At first glance, "Crime and Punishment" is a novel about a double murder committed by a poor student for money. It is hard to find a simpler plot, however, the intellectual and spiritual shock that this text produces is indelible. Dostoevsky included all the pressing issues of his time in the narrative - poverty, alcoholism, spiritual emptiness, dangerous nihilistic ideas spread among the youth, and even prostitution. While honing his craft of creating multifaceted characters, the author simultaneously illuminated complex moral questions for centuries to come: does a person have the right to transgress any moral law in order to later become the savior of the humiliated and the comforter of the weak; can he first love himself, and only then, becoming strong, love his neighbor?