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The Epilogue of Crime and Punishment (Patreon)

Published:
2021-05-24 16:56:03
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

What did you think of the epilogue to Crime and Punishment? 

Many famous critics of Dostoyevsky's poetics (like Mikhail Bakhtin and Viktor Schlovsky) thought the epilogue was a deus ex machina. 

In a thoroughly polyphonic novel, one might say the epilogue is a monophonic authorial intrusion.

Then there's the whole issue of whether or not we buy into Raskolnikov's conversion.

I believe Dostoyevsky seeded a lot of symbols along the way to suggest that our crazed homicidal protagonist does experience a conversion.

But what do you think?

Timestamps:

  • 0:00 - my personal congratulations to you
  • 0:40 - is the epilogue relevant? 
  • 0:50 - what is a 'deus ex machina'?
  • 2:25 - Bakhtin on the ending of C&P
  • 3:40 - does the epilogue feel more thought out?
  • 4:00 - how to reread Crime and Punishment
  • 4:30 - Schlovsky on the ending of C&P
  • 5:00 - Dostoyevsky's Christianity 
  • 6:00 - Raskolnikov's sympathy, suffering, and guilt
  • 6:30 - Raskolnikov as fallen angel with rebirth potential
  • 7:30 - the binaries of good and evil (Tolstoy tie-in)
  • 8:30 - fate, free-will, and dreams 
  • 9:00 - the timescale of C&P (3x 9-month periods)
  • 10:00 - the number 9 = gestation/rebirth 
  • 10:30 - the significance of the number 4 in C&P
  • 13:00 - comparing the beginning and ending
  • 15:00 - the insanity plea and merciful sentencing 
  • 17:00 - Raskolnikov murdered so we don't have to
  • 18:40 - the new story beginning 
  • 19:00 - let me know your thoughts on the epilogue 

Please share any thought you might have on the epilogue of Crime and Punishment as I'll be collating our impressions and putting them together in a video.

Happy reading!

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Comments

MJ Föhr

Just finished C&P today and absolutely loved it. I don't think Raskolnikov's genuine guilt for having murdered Alyona and Lizaveta were prerequisites to salvation; rather, I think that through Sonya's unconditional love and devotion for him, and he finally accepting that, was he truly reborn. Throughout the novel, he hated himself and everything around him, even his own family and friends. He rejected their love and affection. But the moment he surrendered himself to the purest love of the imperfect Sonya, his petrified heart became human again.

Thomas C

My reread of this book 40 years or so later. It is funny what one remembers about books and what one has forgotten (quite a bit). I think I probably misunderstood Sonya the first time around but understand her now to be a redemptive figure whose influence permeates all--some are ready to receive this influence, others not. As others point out, I think the epilogue completes the artistry of this amazing novel...one has been taken to the depths through the razor-sharp casuistry of Rodion, but in the end it is the heart forces of das Ewig-Weibliche (anticipating our reading of Goethe) that leads us upward (and that would connect Rodion to the, vergänglich).