Crime and Punishment is told in the third person, with the narrator being omniscient. The protagonist is former student Romion Romanovich Raskolnikov a down-and-out and somewhat unbalanced individual who lives in a tiny garret at the top of a St. Petersburg apartment building. He is contemplating a crime to prove to himself that all human beings are capable of committing crimes of the most heinous sort.

Events lead up to his murdering a pawnbroker named Alyona Ivanovna who he believes the world will be better off without. He believes the immorality of her death will be offset by the good he can do with the proceeds of his crime.