Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky was a novel of ups and downs that took the reader inside the mind of a killer who found ultimate redemption through a relationship with another. Raskolnikov committed murder and was faced with psychological and internal struggles about what he had done. He was crazed and had no one to turn to with his secret until he found a girl name Sonia who helped transform his life and would lead him to redemption in Christ.

Raskolnikov finds commonality between himself and Sonia because of her past life and is drawn to her and she becomes the most important relationship in his life.

"I have only you now," he added. "Let us go together....I've come to you, we are both accursed, let us go our way together!"

They have both sinned and Raskolnikov believes that Sonia will accept his sin and he has grown attached to her. Although Sonia is frightened at times by Raskolnikov, she sees something within him that eventually makes her say that she will follow him anywhere. Raskolnikov is confused at first by Sonia's love and devotion to him and doesn't understand why she would be so willing to accept him and his pain.

“But his feelings was stirred; his heart ached, as he looked at her. “Why is she grieving too?” he thought to himself. “What am I to her? Why does she weep? Why is she looking after me, like my mother or Dounia?”

As the novel progresses, Raskolnikov turns to Sonia for support and finally confesses that he was the one that had killed the old pawnbroker and Lizaveta. This confession leads him on his way to redemption. Sonia pushes him to confess and to turn himself in to take responsibility of his actions.

"Go at once, this very minute, stand at the cross-roads, bow down, first kiss the earth which you have defiled, and then bow down to all the world and say to all men aloud, 'I am a murderer!' Then God will send you life again. Will you go, will you go?"

She has strong faith in Christ and believes that God will give Raskolnikov a life again after he confesses and goes to Siberia. She follows him to Siberia where he is able to find God. Without the relationship with Sonia, without the constant support and love, Raskolnikov would never have been able to find redemption, he would never have been able to find God. Without her, his life would have ended. The love that she gave to Raskolnikov kept him alive.

"They were renewed by love; the heart of each held infinite sources of life for the heart of the other"