r Walter Scott, a Scottish novelist was one of those people. By the age of twelve, Dostoyevsky had read all of the man's works, thus establishing the notion of family and human society. This is an important aspect to the novel's main character Raskolnikov, his sister Dunia, and mother Pulcheria Alexandrovna. The dual nature of the equally good and evil Raskalnikov was a concept introduced to Dostoyevsky by the German Romantic writer, Hoffman, and another writer Nikolay Gogal. While writing Crime and Punishment, the influence of these three men came into play, as these issues of family, society, and good versus evil are repeatedly brought up.
             Certain events in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's life affected him so deeply that they served as a model for similar scenes in Crime and Punishment. Two scenes in the story come directly from the experiences of the author at the time the novel was being formulated in Dostoyevsky's mind. At the time, Petersburg newspapers were filled with stories of Gerasim Chistov, a man responsible for murdering two elderly ladies with a short-handled axe, and stealing eleven rubles from them. It is apparent that this coincides with the murder scene in the novel. Another scene took place that struck Dostoyevsky as being so tragic that he included it in his novel. Dostoyevsky witnessed a Tsar's all-powerful courier, driving off at high speed viscously punching his peasant coachman. This inspired Raskalnikov's dream of the beaten "skinny sorrel mare", which made him plea to God, "Show me the way...I renounce that damned dream of mine." (67). Evidently, these events affected Dostoyevsky so deeply that he managed to incorporate them into his novel. They inspired Dostoyevsky and allowed him to connect his real life to his literature. However, it was not only events that impacted the writing of Crime and Punishment. Characters in the novel can easily be seen as hav...