Many great literary works emerge from a writer's experiences. Through The Crucible, Arthur Miller unleashes his fears and disdain towards the wrongful accusations of McCarthyism. Not only does Ernest Hemmingway present the horrors he witnessed in World War I in his novel, A Fair Well to Arms, he also addresses his disillusionment of war and that of the expatriates. Another writer who brings his experiences into the pages of a book is Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Faced with adversity and chronic financial problems, he lived as a struggling writer in St. Petersburg, a city stricken with poverty. Dostoyevsky's novel, Crime and Punishment, ingeniously illustrates the blatant destitution that plagued the city of St. Petersburg in nineteenth century. Throughout Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky reveals how this destitution victimizes two main female characters, Sofia Semionovna Marmeladov and Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikov.
             In a poverty stricken St. Petersburg, many drunkards scourge the local taverns to satiate their desolation. One such out-of-work government clerk, Zakharych Semyon Marmeladov, lingers in the taverns relinquishing every penny to alcohol. Marmeladov's inability to maintain a job causes his family to live as indigents. The lack of money essentially leaves Sofia Semionovna, the daughter of Marmeladov, in a vulnerable position. Although Sonia is an "honorable girl . . .[she] has no special talents" (Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky [New York: Penguin Group, 1968] 27). With no steady income flowing into the family's pockets, Sonia's three younger stepsiblings cry of hunger. In response to the cries, Katherine Ivanovna, Sonia's stepmother, introduces the idea of harlotry to Sonia. Consequently, Sonia "puts on her cape and kerchief and leaves the apartment" (28). As she re-enters later, she "walk[s] straight up to Katherine Ivanovna, and quietly put[s] thirty rubles on the table" (28). In order to quiet "the weeping of [...