A Psychological And Social Examination of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crimeand Punishment: A Theoretical Perspective

The study investigates the presence of repressed desires of a person in relation with society. It also explores the

presence of inner actions of the person that creates a psychological tension throughout the novel, Crime and

Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. As Crime and Punishment is a classic writing by Fyodor Dostoevsky that

focuses on social injustice and mental anguish, the study is designed to analyze the examination of social

psychological perspective of the main character. These aspects are prominently linked with the protagonist,

Rodion Raskolnikov; the person who committed murder and how he was “punished” for it. By applying Freud

Psychoanalytic theory, the writer has used the qualitative approach to investigate thereason behind the

criminality done by the Raskolnikov by killing a pawnbroker, AlyonaIvanovna and her sister just because he

was troubled since the beginning of the story. As the interior monologue of the protagonistforces him to

consider himself an extraordinary personcauses to do a grisly crime for which he has punished at the end of the

novel. The findings of the current study reveal that the inner psyche of a person is more significant in order to

explore relationship with societal circumstances. The employed themes for analysis are themes of alienation,

morality and society and superman complex and psychology of crime. All these themes interlinked with the

features of moral dilemmas of the protagonist. Having established a sample of data for analysis, the researcher

reported conclusion that there are several social and psychological aspects that forces the protagonist to commit

crime in order to achieve greatness. And this could help the future researchers to explore other characters of the

novel as well with the help of these perspectives.