Everyone in his or her life experiences some type of mischief or wrong doing in
which causes some type of mental disturbance. In Crime and Punishment, Fyodor
Dostoyevsky uses the five basic literary elements in order to show the atrocities of crime;
that crime is an unnecessary evil that only brings about suffering such as guilt, illness,
loneliness and punishment. The five basic literary elements utilized by Dostoyevsky are
setting, plot, characterization, style and theme.
For instance, Dostoyevsky uses the literary element of setting to show that crime
is consequentially followed by guilt, and only causes a negative effect on that person who
is culpable of the crime. The setting of Crime and Punishment takes place in St.
Petersburg, the capital of Russia, in the midst of its troubled transition to the modern age.
Through Dostoyevsky use of setting we see that crime causes suffering and guilt. For
example, he uses normal occurrences at a police station to exacerbate the protagonist's
(Roskolnikov) guilt. Furthermore, we see the suffering of Roskolnikov through
Dostoyevsky's vivid descriptions of his impoverished room; "He woke up tense, bilious,
irritable, and looked with hatred at his tiny room. It was a minute cubicle, six steps
long...the ceiling was so low that a man of any height could not stand there without the
sense that he was about to bump his head."(37)
Secondly, through the use of plot, Dostoyevsky displays his feelings that crime is
accompanied with loneliness. "I've really got to go. I wanted to tell you mother...and
you Dunia, it would be better off if we ...separated for a while."(336) This statement by
Roskolnikov indicates the extent to which his crime has isolated him, further
demonstrating Dostoyevsky belief that crime entails loneliness. Furthermore,
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