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Ideas That Plague Us: Reading “Crime and Punishment” as a Pandemic Narrative, Part II
It is ironic that Raskolnikov justifies selecting the old woman as his victim because she is economically unproductive and sick. Raskolnikov is himself perpetually ill, does not work, and relies on charity from the women in his life.
Ideas That Plague Us: Reading “Crime and Punishment” as a Pandemic Narrative, Part I
The motif of illness runs through Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” and accompanies key developments and themes—so much so that the novel can be read as a pandemic or plague narrative.