A socio-psychological exploration of Dostoyevsky’s crime and punishment

Abstract

Using a socio-psychological approach, the essay explores Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. The exploration highlights Dostoyevsky’s heavy reliance on the use of psychological realism, showing in the process the intricate interplay between psychology, sociology and literature. In the novel, the reader comes across the merging of the philosophies of Hegel, Nietzsche, Sartre, Kierkegaard, Heidegger and Marx.
The essay concludes that Crime and Punishment is a mixture of four novels: the psychological novel, the novel of detection, the novel of character, and the philosophical Four voices, namely: voices of the existentialists, Marxian, Freudian, and Christianity are intertwined in the novel. Fyodor appears to be saying that the world is meaningless but it is through the Christian faith meaning could come to life.