Crime and Punishment (AmazonClassics Edition) characters

Also known as Rodya, Rodion Romanovich

Appears from the start

An impoverished former student living in a cramped St. Petersburg room. Proud, isolated, and feverishly preoccupied with a secret plan, he begins the novel rehearsing a visit to a pawnbroker while wavering between disgust and determination.

Also known as the Pawnbroker

Appears from the start

An elderly pawnbroker who lends Raskolnikov small sums against his few possessions. Suspicious and exacting in business, she lives in a carefully secured apartment that Raskolnikov visits while covertly studying its layout and routines.

First appears in chapter 2

A dismissed government clerk whom Raskolnikov meets in a tavern. Talkative, self-accusing, and unable to stop drinking, he has consumed money desperately needed by his sick wife and children and relates the suffering his failures have imposed on the family.

First appears in chapter 2

Marmeladov's consumptive wife, educated beyond her present circumstances and struggling to maintain dignity in a crowded, impoverished household. Illness, hunger, and her husband's drinking leave her volatile, but her anger is bound to an increasingly desperate effort to protect the children.

Also known as Sonya, Sofya Semyonovna

First appears in chapter 2

Marmeladov's quiet eldest daughter. Driven by the family's hunger to earn money through sex work, she lives apart because of the social stigma but continues to support her father, stepmother, and younger siblings.

Also known as Pulkheria Alexandrovna

First appears in chapter 3

Raskolnikov's widowed mother, introduced through an affectionate letter filled with family news and hopes for his future. She has little money but places intense faith in her son and plans to come to St. Petersburg with his sister.

Also known as Dunya, Avdotya Romanovna

First appears in chapter 3

Raskolnikov's intelligent and resolute sister. After enduring damaging rumors while employed as a governess, she accepts a marriage proposal from Pyotr Luzhin, believing the practical match may also allow her to help her mother and brother.

Also known as Pyotr Petrovich

First appears in chapter 3

Dunya's financially secure fiancé, a lawyer and businessman preparing to establish himself in St. Petersburg. He presents the marriage as a respectable opportunity and values the gratitude he expects from a wife with fewer resources than himself.

First appears in chapter 3

A servant in Raskolnikov's lodging house who brings him food and watches over him during his periods of illness. Practical, amused by his strange behavior, and more compassionate than her teasing manner first suggests, she provides much of his limited contact with ordinary domestic life.

Also known as Dmitri Prokofych

First appears in chapter 9

Raskolnikov's former university friend, energetic, sociable, and capable of living on very little through translation and other work. When Raskolnikov approaches him in a confused state, Razumikhin responds with practical help rather than resentment at their long separation.

First appears in chapter 10

A young doctor and friend of Razumikhin who attends Raskolnikov during his fever. He treats the illness as both physical and nervous, observing the patient's agitation with professional concern.

First appears in chapter 8

A police clerk who first sees Raskolnikov at the station after a summons concerning his landlady's debt. Curious and self-important, he later becomes the audience for Raskolnikov's reckless conversation about the pawnbroker's murder.

Also known as Porfiry Petrovich

First appears in chapter 19

The examining magistrate responsible for investigating the pawnbroker's murder and a relative of Razumikhin. Informal and conversational in manner, he is interested in Raskolnikov's published argument about whether extraordinary people may cross ordinary moral and legal boundaries.

Also known as Arkady Ivanovich

First appears in chapter 3

The landowner in whose household Dunya served as a governess. While married, he pursued her and allowed damaging rumors about her conduct to spread until evidence of her innocence was made public. He is presented in the family's early account as persistent and morally dangerous.