Moral Conflicts in Crime and Punishment by Fydor DostoyevskyCrime and Punishment by Fydor Dostoyevsky has been hailed as the greatest literary work in the Western Hemisphere. Crime and Punishment was written in pre-communist Russia under the Tsar. Dostoyevsky's writings show a view of the human spirit that is both frightening and terrifyingly real. Its main character, around whom all other characters are presented, is Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov. Raskolnikov murders an old pawnbroker for no reason. His sister and mother moved to Saint Petersburg following his sister's engagement to a man with whom Raskolnikov was extremely unhappy. Raskolnikov suffers severe mental trauma and falls ill after the murder. The reader does not know exactly why Raskolnikov killed the woman, indeed it seems that Raskolnikov did not know himself. He is surrounded by friends and family and draws other characters to him during his illness. He befriends a woman, Sofya Seymonavitch, who prostitutes herself to support her mother and drunken father. As the police close in on his trail, Raskolnikov faces serious threats against his sister from her two suitors, one of whom attempts to rape her and commits suicide after finding he is unable to do so. . In the end, Raskolnikov surrenders and entrusts his family to the care of his friend Rauzumihin, who marries Raskolnikov's sister Douina. Dostoyevsky exposes the darker sides of human nature with completely human characters. The story Dostoevsky weaves is a murder mystery, with the murderer and all the facts of the murder known from the first pages of the book. How then can this be a murder mystery? The mystery is why Raskolnikov communicates... middle of paper ...... and then gives all his money in the world to Marmeledov's family after his death? Who befriends and supports Sofya? Who repeatedly defends the honor and safety of his sister? Can the reader label this man as a murderer, avoid and hunt him, make him the bad guy? Or should we force the reader to see the suffering that Raskolnikov inflicts on himself, the acceptance of the evil he has done, his need to confess to the world what he has done. Must the reader finally admit that this horrible criminal is human? That Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov was neither a brute nor a hero, but one of us? Dostoyevsky leaves the reader who sought to divide the characters with the sword of moral good and evil with the sword pointed directly at himself. Works cited: Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Crime and punishment. Trans. Constance Garnett. New York: modern library, 1950.