ABSTRACT
Raskolnikov, the main character of Crime and Punishment, set in nineteenth-century Saint Petersburg, is an intelligent, handsome, proud but sickly, delirious former law student who is poor, dresses in rags, and rebels against social injustice. Throughout the novel, Raskolnikov is portrayed as a confused, feverish, disoriented, and contradictory figure, at war with himself and the world. He both rationalises his crime and judges it as a base act and fears capture. In the character study, Fyodor Dostoevsky provides people with deep psychological insights into Raskolnikov's character, his conflicts, entitled sense of exemption from the law, and his Napoleon complex. Throughout the book Raskolnikov presents as an asexual figure in a regressive retreat from oedipal conflict into anal sadism. By channeling his sadomasochistic urges into the act of murder, Raskolnikov kills in the name of those who have similar murderous wishes and satisfies their urges while taking on their guilt upon himself, much like an inverted messiah.
