Which Dostoevsky novel centers on the student Raskolnikov’s murder and moral crisis?

Dostoevsky’s novel about the student Raskolnikov’s murder and moral crisis is Crime and Punishment.

The protagonist, Rodion Raskolnikov, is a former student living in extreme poverty in Saint Petersburg. He develops a theory that certain extraordinary people may be entitled to violate ordinary moral rules, then tests that idea by killing a pawnbroker. The crime produces intense psychological and ethical consequences.

The novel was serialized in The Russian Messenger during 1866 and appeared in book form the same year. Its major concerns include guilt, confession, conscience, poverty, redemption, and the limits of abstract reasoning.

Readers sometimes reduce the story to a detective plot, but the investigation is only one layer. Dostoevsky gives substantial attention to Raskolnikov’s relationships with Sonia Marmeladova, Porfiry Petrovich, and his family, all of which shape the novel’s moral argument.