mple, Raskolnikov suddenly feels "a boundlessly full and powerful life welling up in him."(33) He compares the emotion to the reaction of "a man condemned to death and unexpectedly reprieved". The connection between these ideas in the novel and Dostoevsky's prison experience provoked his interest in the causes of crime. He questions the usefulness of punishment. In a letter describing his plan to write Crime and Punishment, he said, "Punishment meted out by the law to the criminal deters the criminal far less than the lawgivers think...." He believed that in order for punishment to work, it had t
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