Dostoevsky's 1865 novel Crime and Punishment is the story of the murder of an old pawnbroker and his sister by an expelled university student. The idealistic former student, Raskolnikov, is ultimately unable to live up to his nihilistic theory of what makes a "great man" and, overcome by bouts of self-righteousness, betrays himself to the police. Exiled in Siberia, suffering redeems the unfortunate young dreamer. Crime and Punishment is similar in many ways to Balzac's Pere Goriot, especially when it comes to moral issues. In Balzac, the criminal Vautrin lives by an amoral code similar to Raskolnikov's theory of Great Men: unfettered by conscience, Vautrin holds that laws are for the weak and those intelligent enough to realize this can cross any boundary they wish and dominate . the rest of humanity. But where Balzac's characters act on this idea without repercussions, Raskolnikov commits a transgression and then immediately begins to question it. The result is an internal psychological battle between rationality and sentimental moralism that is as much a contest between empiricism and romanticism as it is a contest between good and evil, or God and the devil. The arena of this ideological competition is Petersburg, full of slums. , revolutionary students and petty titular councillors. Built scientifically and artificially in the midst of swamps, the city itself is a symbol of the incompatibility of logical planning with the natural sensibilities of humanity. The city did not grow randomly or organically, but entirely by tsarist decree. Nonetheless, it's a dank and depressing place to live, at least for those in the vicinity of Haymarket Square, where the story takes place. Joseph Frank, Dostoevsky's biographer, says about... half the paper... where it is spent. Raskolnikov's tiny apartment is exactly one "square meter of space," aside from the cramped squalor and psychological turmoil, life in Raskolnikov's room is worth living. Bibliography Dostoevsky, Feodor. Crime and punishment. Trans. Jessie Coulson. Ed. Giorgio Gibian. New York: Norton, 1989.Frank, Joseph. Dostoevsky: The Miraculous Years, 1865-1871. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.Balzac, Honoré de. Father Goriot. Trans. Henry Reed. New York: Penguin Books, 1981.Note1 "Rodya" is Raskolnikov's nickname. It is a diminutive of Rodion, Raskolnikov's name.2 Interestingly, only the positive characters are affected by the squalor of Raskolnikov's room. Characters like Mr. Luzhin, Svidrigaylov and Porfiry never, as far as I know, comment on Raskolnikov's room.*