Crime and Punishment is a novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky that explores the theme of redemption through suffering. The story follows Raskolnikov, a poverty-stricken but talented student who murders a pawnbroker and her sister to prove his theory about extraordinary men being above the law. The novel provides readers with a suspenseful, penetrating psychological analysis that reveals something about the human condition: The more we intellectualize, the more imprisoned we become. Crime and Punishment is now one of the most famous and influential novels in world literature.