Crime and Punishment

Crime And Punishment Slow slicing, or death by a thousand cuts, was a capital punishment in 900 A.D. China for those who committed brutal crimes, such as murder. In present day America, the use of lethal injection is one of many forms of capital punishment used to end the lives of an offender. It appears that people, throughout the centuries, have looked for a suitable way to punish a criminal. These punishments have a sole purpose, and that is to take the life of an offender. By taking the life of a wrong doer does not erase the crime nor does it help reform the criminal. The purpose of a punishment is to reform one’s moral standards. The protagonist of Crime and Punishment, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, is a student turned killer. As Crime and Punishment gradually progresses the reader can see how the protagonist's morally improves as he is mentally tortured by his guilt. One often fails to realize that physical abuse is not the only way to punish someone; however, Dostoevsky knew another alternative that would help reform one’s moral standards. Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment In Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, the theme of duality and the conflict between personal desires and morals is present throughout much of the novel. There are dual conflicts: one external between a disillusioned individual and his world, and the other internal between an isolated soul and his inner thoughts. It is the internal conflict in the main character, Raskolnikov, that is the focused on for much of the novel. The first of Rodya’s two sides is his intellectual side. This side of rodya is inhumane, and exhibiting extreme self-will and power. This is the side of him that comes up with his theory. The crime was a result of his theory that some people possess extraordinary abilities while others have no ability. It's this intellectual side of him that caused him to conceive and execute his murder. Through the authors use of setting tone,