An impoverished student with a conflicted idea of himself, Raskolnikov (Rodya as his mother calls him) decides to kill a corrupt pawnbroker, Alyona Ivanovna, with whom he has been dealing, with the idea of using the money to start his life all over, and to help those who are in need of it. It is later revealed that he also commits the murder as justification for his pride, as he wants to prove that he is "exceptional" and can transgress the moral law against the act of murder in the way
Napoleon did. He commits the murder, however also kills Lizaveta Ivanovna (the old pawnbroker's sister whom she mistreats) upon her witnessing the murder, which directly betrays Raskolnikov's moral justification of killing for the greater good. Raskolnikov then finds a small purse on Alyona Ivanovna's body, which he hides under a rock without checking its contents. He has also been troubled by a letter his mother from the province sent to him about his sister Dunya accepting Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin (a wealthy-looking and well presented lawyer)'s marriage proposal. His mother claims he can get Raskolnikov a position at a firm, as well as lift his family out of the poverty they're experiencing, however Raskolnikov sees this as Dounia selling herself, and compares this to Sonia (the daughter of a troubled alcoholic Semyon Zakharovich Marmeladov), who was forced into
prostitution to lift her family out of poverty. This later strains the relationship between Raskolnikov and his sister's fiance, which Raskolnikov insultingly mentions the fact that Luzhin said that he chose Dunya because she was in poverty and would look at him as her beneficiary, the main reason why Raskolnikov isn't approving of their marriage. After he confesses his crime to the destitute,
pious prostitute Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladova, she guides him towards turning himself in to the police. Raskolnikov is sentenced to exile in
Siberia, accompanied by Sofya Semyonovna, where he experiences a psychological and spiritual rebirth. ==Cinema and television==