Crime and Punishment: A Complete Character and Relationship Map

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Full spoilers: This guide identifies both murder victims, reveals Raskolnikov’s confession and sentence, follows Svidrigailov to his death, and includes the marriages, deaths, and changed relationships in the epilogue.

A reader can know exactly what Raskolnikov has done and still lose track of the people around him. Dostoevsky moves among formal first names, patronymics, nicknames, and—across English translations—different spellings of the same Russian name. The relationships also keep changing. Razumikhin begins as Raskolnikov’s university friend and ends as Dunya’s husband; Lizaveta is both Alyona’s half-sister and Sonya’s friend; Svidrigailov learns Raskolnikov’s secret by listening from empty rooms behind Sonya’s wall.

This guide starts with a name lookup, then separates the novel into four overlapping circles: Raskolnikov’s family and friends, the Marmeladov household, the murders and investigation, and Dunya’s relationships with Luzhin, Svidrigailov, and Razumikhin.

For a route through the author’s major books, see How to Start Reading Dostoevsky: A Beginner’s Guide.

Contents

1. How the Russian names work

2. Name and alias lookup

3. The whole network at a glance

4. Raskolnikov’s family and closest allies

5. Sonya and the Marmeladov household

6. The murders, witnesses, and investigation

7. Dunya, Luzhin, Svidrigailov, and Razumikhin

8. Other people who matter

9. The main action in sequence

10. The places that connect the circles

11. Where the relationships end

12. Sources

How the Russian names work

The middle name is usually a patronymic, not a second surname. Rodion Romanovich and Avdotya Romanovna are the son and daughter of Roman, which helps confirm that Raskolnikov and Dunya are siblings. A shared patronymic does not by itself establish a family connection: Porfiry Petrovich and Ilya Petrovich are not presented as relatives.

Nicknames can look unrelated to the formal name. Rodya is Rodion, Dunya is Avdotya, and Sonya is Sofya. Some translations keep older spellings such as Dounia, Sonia, Razumihin, Zametov, and Svidrigaïlov; others use Dunya, Sonya, Razumikhin, Zamyotov, and Svidrigailov. This guide uses the latter forms in its main text while preserving useful variants in the lookup.

One exchange creates a genuine trap. Razumikhin tells a messenger that his name is really Vrazumikhin, “not Razumihin, as I am always called,” but the narrator continues to call him Razumihin. Another trap changes with the translation: the painter Nikolay Dementiev may be called Mikolka, but he is not the Mikolka who beats the mare in Raskolnikov’s childhood dream.

If you are reading another Dostoevsky novel and the patronymics are causing the same trouble, The Brothers Karamazov character and relationship map uses the same lookup-first approach.

Name and alias lookup

Name you may meet	Same person	How to place them
Raskolnikov; Rodion Romanovich; Rodya; Rodka	Rodion Raskolnikov	The former student at the center of the novel.
Avdotya Romanovna; Dunya; Dounia; Dunechka	Dunya Raskolnikova	Raskolnikov’s sister.
Sofya Semyonovna; Sonya; Sonia; Sonechka	Sonya Marmeladova	Marmeladov’s daughter and Raskolnikov’s confidante.
Razumikhin; Razumihin; Vrazumikhin	Dmitri Prokofich Razumikhin	Raskolnikov’s university friend; he says Vrazumikhin is his proper name.
Arkady Ivanovich; Svidrigailov; Svidrigaïlov	Arkady Svidrigailov	The man whose household employed Dunya as a governess, and who later pursues her.
Pyotr Petrovich; Peter Petrovich; Luzhin	Pyotr Luzhin	Dunya’s fiancé until she breaks the engagement.
Porfiry Petrovich	Porfiry	The investigator who leads the inquiry; the novel gives no surname.
Zamyotov; Zametov; Alexander Grigorievich	Alexander Zamyotov	The head clerk at the police office.
Nikolay; Nikolai Dementiev; Mikolka in some translations	Nikolay Dementiev	The painter who makes a false confession. He is not the dream’s Mikolka.
Pulcheria Alexandrovna	Pulcheria Raskolnikova	Raskolnikov and Dunya’s mother.
Praskovya Pavlovna; Pashenka	Praskovya Pavlovna	Raskolnikov’s landlady and creditor.
Nastasya; Nastasya Petrovna; Nastenka	Nastasya	The servant who feeds Raskolnikov and helps care for him.
Polenka; Polya; Polechka in some translations	Polenka	Katerina’s eldest child and Sonya’s stepsister.
Amalia Fyodorovna; Amalia Ivanovna; Amalia Ludwigovna; Madame Lippevechsel	Amalia Lippevechsel	One landlady under several conflicting forms of address.
Lebezyatnikov; Lebeziatnikov; Andrei Semyonovich	Andrei Lebezyatnikov	Luzhin’s roommate and a lodger in Amalia’s building.

The whole network at a glance

The novel’s four main circles overlap through Raskolnikov, Dunya, Sonya, and Razumikhin. Lines without arrowheads show family or sustained personal ties; arrows mark directed acts such as murder, investigation, confession, coercion, or financial support. The smaller maps below separate relationships that would be unreadable here.

Raskolnikov is the hinge. He deliberately kills the pawnbroker Alyona Ivanovna and then kills her half-sister Lizaveta when she arrives unexpectedly. Porfiry Petrovich becomes convinced that Raskolnikov is the murderer and presses him to surrender, but Raskolnikov eventually makes his formal confession to the police official Ilya Petrovich.

Sonya joins circles that otherwise seem separate. She is Semyon Marmeladov’s daughter and Katerina Ivanovna’s stepdaughter, but she is also Lizaveta’s friend. Raskolnikov tells Sonya the truth; she follows him to Siberia; only in the final scene do they both recognize their love.

Dunya’s network forms a second hinge. She is Raskolnikov’s sister, Luzhin’s former fiancée, Svidrigailov’s former employee and unwilling object of pursuit, and—by the epilogue—Razumikhin’s wife. Razumikhin therefore moves from Raskolnikov’s friend to his brother-in-law.

Raskolnikov’s family and closest allies

Raskolnikov repeatedly tries to isolate himself, but his family, Razumikhin, and the people in his lodging keep reaching him. Sonya belongs to this circle as his confidante; her own family appears in the next map.

Rodion Raskolnikov

Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov—usually Rodya to his family—is a former law student living in a garret in Saint Petersburg. He plans the murder of Alyona Ivanovna, kills Lizaveta when she returns unexpectedly, and hides the stolen objects under a stone without using them.

His explanation of the crime is not stable. In private, he tells Sonya that the murder became a test of whether he could step beyond ordinary moral limits; at trial, he gives poverty and robbery as his motive and claims heartfelt repentance. The epilogue says that, for much of his imprisonment, he still does not repent of the crime itself. The novel does not reduce that contradiction to one tidy answer.

Raskolnikov confesses first to Sonya in private and later to Ilya Petrovich at the police office. He is sentenced to eight years of penal servitude in Siberia. His final scene with Sonya begins a possible moral renewal; the novel explicitly leaves the gradual work of that renewal beyond its ending.

Pulcheria Raskolnikova

Pulcheria Alexandrovna is Raskolnikov and Dunya’s widowed mother. Her long letter introduces Dunya’s history with Svidrigailov, Marfa Petrovna, and Luzhin before any of them enters Raskolnikov’s room. The letter mixes direct report with hearsay and often gives the most hopeful version of events.

After Raskolnikov’s confession, Dunya and Razumikhin conceal the truth from her. Pulcheria appears to suspect that something terrible has happened, becomes feverish and delirious, and dies after Raskolnikov’s departure for Siberia, before the final riverbank scene.

Dunya Raskolnikova

Avdotya Romanovna, called Dunya or Dounia, is Raskolnikov’s sister.

Dunya’s choices connect the family plot to the Luzhin–Svidrigailov plot. She becomes engaged to Luzhin partly because the marriage appears to offer security to her family, then ends the engagement when his need for control becomes unmistakable. She rejects Svidrigailov’s advances, later resists his attempt to coerce her with Raskolnikov’s secret, and finally marries Razumikhin. Her changing relationships are mapped in detail below.

Dmitri Prokofich Razumikhin

Razumikhin is Raskolnikov’s university friend, practical caretaker, and eventual brother-in-law. He finds Raskolnikov during his illness, retrieves the transferred promissory note after paying ten rubles and guaranteeing the balance, helps the family navigate the police inquiry, and becomes the person Raskolnikov trusts to protect his mother and sister.

Porfiry is Razumikhin’s distant relative, which gives Raskolnikov a route into the investigator’s rooms. Razumikhin falls in love with Dunya after meeting her in Petersburg. They marry two months after Raskolnikov leaves for Siberia and plan to settle near him within five years.

Nastasya Petrovna

Nastasya is the servant in Raskolnikov’s lodging and his most consistent source of food, gossip, and unsentimental care. She wakes him, brings him tea and soup, watches him through his fever, and admits visitors. When Razumikhin jokingly calls her Nastasya Nikiforovna, she corrects him: her patronymic is Petrovna.

Praskovya Pavlovna and Natalya Yegorovna

Praskovya Pavlovna—Pashenka—is Raskolnikov’s landlady and creditor. She transfers Raskolnikov’s promissory note to Tchebarov; Razumikhin retrieves it after paying ten rubles and guaranteeing the remaining debt.

Natalya Yegorovna is Praskovya’s deceased daughter and Raskolnikov’s former fiancée. Their engagement ends with Natalya’s death. Near the end, Raskolnikov keeps her portrait and says that she had heard ideas that anticipated his later theory—and had rejected them.

Zossimov

Zossimov is the doctor who attends Raskolnikov during his fever. He offers medical explanations for Raskolnikov’s behavior but does not discover the crime. At the trial, his evidence about Raskolnikov’s physical and mental condition helps support the case for a reduced sentence. The novel gives him no first name or patronymic.

Sonya and the Marmeladov household

Sonya is Semyon Marmeladov’s daughter by his first wife. Polenka, Kolya, and Lida are Katerina’s children by her first husband. The children therefore call Marmeladov their “second father” and Sonya their sister, although the ties are step-relationships.

Sonya Marmeladova

Sofya Semyonovna—Sonya or Sonia—is Marmeladov’s biological daughter and Katerina’s stepdaughter.

The family’s poverty drives Sonya into registered sex work and forces her to live apart under a “yellow ticket.” She continues to support Katerina and the children. She is also Lizaveta’s friend, owns the New Testament Lizaveta gave her, reads the story of Lazarus to Raskolnikov, receives his confession, and urges him to confess publicly.

Sonya follows Raskolnikov to Siberia with money Svidrigailov gives her. She earns a living there as a seamstress and becomes trusted by the prisoners. She loves Raskolnikov before he can return that love; their relationship becomes reciprocal only in the final riverbank scene.

Semyon Marmeladov

Semyon Zakharovich Marmeladov is Sonya’s father, Katerina’s second husband, and stepfather to Polenka, Kolya, and Lida. A former civil servant whose alcoholism repeatedly destroys his attempts to support the household, he tells Raskolnikov the family history in the tavern.

That monologue is indispensable but self-dramatizing. Later scenes complicate some of his claims, including his account of Lebezyatnikov’s conduct. Marmeladov is fatally injured by a carriage; the novel does not settle whether he deliberately moved under the horses. He dies after trying to ask Katerina’s forgiveness and crying to Sonya to forgive him.

Katerina Ivanovna

Katerina Ivanovna is an educated officer’s daughter, the widow of an infantry officer, the mother of three children from that first marriage, and Marmeladov’s second wife. The novel does not give her a surname.

Ill with consumption and driven by hunger and debt, Katerina lashes out at Sonya and then shows fierce attachment to her. After Marmeladov’s death, she organizes the funeral meal, quarrels with Amalia, is expelled, and takes the children into the street to sing and dance. A hemorrhage ends in her death in Sonya’s room. She entrusts the children to Sonya.

Katerina’s education and certificate of merit are real, but illness, pride, and desperation make some of her grander claims about influential connections unreliable.

Polenka, Kolya, and Lida

The three children are Katerina’s by her first husband. Polenka, also called Polya, is the eldest; the book gives her age once as nine and once as ten. Kolya is the boy, and Lida the younger girl.

Polenka cares for the younger two, fetches Sonya when Marmeladov is dying, and forms a brief bond with Raskolnikov. After Katerina dies, Svidrigailov finances places for all three in charitable institutions and arranges money for each child. He is their benefactor, not their guardian.

Amalia Lippevechsel

Amalia is the landlady of the rooms occupied by the Marmeladovs and Lebezyatnikov. Her shifting patronymic is a recurring source of confusion: she appears as Amalia Fyodorovna, insists that she is Amalia Ivanovna, and is taunted by Katerina as Amalia Ludwigovna. These names do not identify three women.

Amalia helps prepare the funeral meal, then quarrels with Katerina and orders her and the children out.

Andrei Lebezyatnikov

Andrei Semyonovich Lebezyatnikov is Amalia’s lodger and Luzhin’s former ward and roommate. Marmeladov says that Lebezyatnikov beat Katerina and pursued Sonya; Lebezyatnikov later says that Katerina attacked him, that he only pushed her away, and that he did not court Sonya. The novel leaves that early quarrel contested.

His later role is clear. He sees Luzhin slip a hundred-ruble note into Sonya’s pocket, exposes the planted evidence, and helps when Katerina collapses. Whatever the satire directed at his ideas, his eyewitness account prevents Luzhin’s theft accusation from succeeding.

The Kapernaumov household

Kapernaumov is the tailor from whom Sonya rents a partitioned room. His wife and children share the adjoining family room; Sonya calls them very kind. They are her landlords and neighbors, not relatives. Svidrigailov listens from an empty room on the other side of a locked door beside Sonya’s table; he later shows Dunya the two empty rooms accessible from his bedroom.

The murders, witnesses, and investigation

The evidence moves through several people who never see the murders. Koch and Pestryakov find the door barred from inside; Nikolay later finds Alyona’s earring case in the workroom where Raskolnikov hid; the unnamed tradesman sees Raskolnikov return later; Porfiry turns those fragments into psychological pressure. The final official confession goes to Ilya Petrovich.

Alyona and Lizaveta Ivanovna

Alyona Ivanovna is the pawnbroker whom Raskolnikov chooses as his intended victim. He has already pawned objects with her, uses a false pledge to gain entry, and kills and robs her.

Lizaveta Ivanovna is Alyona’s younger paternal half-sister: they share a father but have different mothers. Alyona treats her as a servant and controls her property. Lizaveta returns unexpectedly during the robbery. Her death is unplanned, but the axe blow that kills her is deliberate rather than accidental.

Lizaveta also belongs to Sonya’s circle. They meet, talk, and read together; Lizaveta gives Sonya a New Testament and exchanges a copper cross for Sonya’s small icon. This friendship is why the second murder enters Raskolnikov’s relationship with Sonya so directly.

Porfiry Petrovich

Porfiry is the head of the criminal investigation and a distant cousin of Razumikhin. He has no surname in the novel. The pledged objects connect Raskolnikov to Alyona, and Porfiry also uses Raskolnikov’s published article, his behavior during interviews, and his later return to the murder flat.

Porfiry eventually tells Raskolnikov in private that he believes him to be the murderer. Porfiry admits that his case is still largely psychological and could be read another way, even as he says that he must arrest Raskolnikov. He mentions a final “little fact” that the novel never identifies, urges a voluntary confession, and promises to help secure mitigation. He does not receive the formal confession.

Koch and Pestryakov

Koch, one of Alyona’s customers, and Pestryakov, a young law student, arrive while Raskolnikov is still inside. They notice that the door is hooked from within and correctly infer that someone must be in the flat. Pestryakov runs to fetch the porter; Koch stays briefly, then abandons the door, allowing Raskolnikov to escape. Neither sees the killer, and their alibis clear them after initial detention.

Nikolay Dementiev, Dmitri, and Dushkin

Nikolay Dementiev and Dmitri are house-painters working in an empty flat below Alyona’s. Their conspicuous play-fight helps establish that they were not secretly committing murder upstairs. Raskolnikov hides in their temporarily empty workroom while escaping. Nikolay later finds a small case of earrings there, creating a false trail toward the painters; the novel leaves the exact moment it fell unstated.

Nikolay takes the earrings to Afanasy Pavlovich Dushkin, a dram-shop keeper who also receives pledged goods. Dushkin reports him. Nikolay eventually gives a false confession to both murders. Porfiry rejects it and interprets Nikolay’s behavior as a religious desire to accept suffering; the epilogue also identifies the confession as false evidence. Dmitri the painter is not Dmitri Prokofich Razumikhin.

The unnamed tradesman

An older tradesman sees Raskolnikov during his compulsive post-crime return to Alyona’s building and hears him give his address. The next day he goes to Raskolnikov’s lodging; Raskolnikov follows him into the street, where the tradesman calls him “murderer.” The tradesman also reports the suspicious visit to Porfiry, who hides him in an adjoining room as a possible surprise witness.

After Nikolay confesses, the tradesman apologizes to Raskolnikov for his “evil thoughts.” The apology retracts his accusation, not the facts he witnessed: Raskolnikov still returned to the flat, asked about the blood, and rang the bell.

Who does what in the investigation?

Person	Office or function	Direct connection to Raskolnikov
Porfiry Petrovich	Head of the criminal investigation	Questions him, privately accuses him, and urges surrender, but admits that his case is still largely psychological and lacks conclusive proof.
Ilya Petrovich	Assistant superintendent, nicknamed the “Explosive Lieutenant”	Quarrels with him over the debt summons and later receives his official murder confession.
Nikodim Fomich	District superintendent	Hears the early discussion of the murders, sees Raskolnikov faint, and later attends Marmeladov’s accident.
Alexander Zamyotov	Head clerk at the police office	Hears Raskolnikov provocatively suggest that he murdered the two women; Raskolnikov does not formally confess to him.

Porfiry conducts the murder inquiry; the district police office first summons Raskolnikov over his landlady’s debt, and Ilya—not Porfiry—hears the confession that closes the Petersburg action.

Dunya, Luzhin, Svidrigailov, and Razumikhin

Dunya never reciprocates Svidrigailov’s pursuit. Her engagement to Luzhin ends in Petersburg; her trust in Razumikhin develops into marriage. Marfa first condemns Dunya, then publicly clears her name and leaves her money.

Dunya’s changing position

Dunya works as a governess in the Svidrigailov household. Svidrigailov pursues her and proposes that they run away together. Marfa initially believes Dunya responsible, expels her, and spreads the accusation; after reading Dunya’s letter and hearing the servants’ supporting evidence, Marfa retracts the charge and publicly restores her reputation.

Later, Dunya accepts Luzhin’s proposal without loving him, hoping that the marriage will bring security and allow her to help her family. She ends the engagement after their Petersburg meeting. After seeing Razumikhin care for Raskolnikov and help the family, she begins to trust him. Their marriage occurs in the epilogue, not during the main Petersburg plot.

Pyotr Luzhin

Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin is a distant relation of Marfa and Dunya’s fiancé until she dismisses him. He wants a poor wife who will regard him as her rescuer and remain dependent on him. His demand that Dunya choose between him and her brother turns the family meeting into the final break.

After Dunya ends their engagement, Luzhin secretly slips a hundred-ruble note into Sonya’s pocket and publicly accuses her of theft. Raskolnikov argues that the scandal was meant to validate Luzhin’s earlier warnings about his companions, estrange him from his family, and restore Luzhin to their favor. Lebezyatnikov’s eyewitness account exposes the trap. Luzhin leaves with the engagement broken and his attempt to control the family exposed.

Arkady Svidrigailov

Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov is Marfa’s husband; Dunya once worked as a governess in their household. His desire for Dunya is unreturned. His own accounts of their past are self-serving, but Dunya’s letter and her later conduct make her rejection clear.

In Petersburg, Svidrigailov rents rooms beside Sonya and listens to Raskolnikov’s confession through the empty rooms between them. He uses the secret to bring Dunya alone to his lodging, locks the outer door, and offers to save Raskolnikov while trying to force Dunya into submission. Dunya fires a revolver; the bullet grazes Svidrigailov’s temple, and another shot misfires. When she answers “Never” to his final question about whether she could love him, he gives her the key and lets her go.

Before confronting Dunya, Svidrigailov has already arranged money and institutional places for Katerina’s children. After releasing Dunya, he gives Sonya the children’s receipts and three thousand rubles for herself, which helps her follow Raskolnikov. Those acts do not erase the eavesdropping or coercion. After making further gifts, he kills himself. Dunya does not kill him.

Marfa Petrovna

Marfa Petrovna pays part of Svidrigailov’s debt and marries him, retaining his thirty-thousand-ruble I.O.U. as leverage. She returns the document to him nearly a year before her death. She is also Dunya’s employer, first accuser, later defender, and posthumous benefactor: her will leaves Dunya three thousand rubles.

Svidrigailov says the medical inquiry attributed Marfa’s death to apoplexy after a heavy meal, wine, and bathing. He admits striking her shortly before she dies, and Dunya later accuses him of poisoning her; the novel supplies no proof. Their marriage is troubled, but her death is not a confirmed murder.

Svidrigailov’s unnamed fiancée

Madame Resslich arranges Svidrigailov’s engagement to a girl who is not yet sixteen. The girl is never named. Shortly before his suicide, Svidrigailov gives her fifteen thousand rubles directly. She is distinct from Dunya, and Svidrigailov’s suicide ends the engagement before any marriage.

Other people who matter

Darya Frantsovna

Darya Frantsovna is a woman known to the police who, in Marmeladov’s account, tries to recruit Sonya and helps bring about the official scrutiny that results in her yellow ticket.

Mr. Tchebarov

Tchebarov is the businessman who receives Raskolnikov’s promissory note from Praskovya Pavlovna and files the demand that brings Raskolnikov to the police office. Razumikhin pays ten rubles, guarantees the remaining debt, retrieves the note, and tears it up. Tchebarov belongs to the debt plot, not the murder investigation.

Madame Resslich

Madame Resslich is Svidrigailov’s landlady. Her nearly empty rooms create the private route from his bedroom to the door beside Sonya’s table. She also arranges his late engagement to the unnamed adolescent girl. Reports about a dead girl connected to Resslich are inconsistent and unproved; they are not a reason to identify that girl with the fiancée.

Ivan Afanasyevich and Vahrushin

Ivan Afanasyevich is Marmeladov’s official superior, the man who gives him another chance at employment. He is not the same person as Vahrushin, a merchant and friend of Raskolnikov’s father who helps transmit money from Pulcheria. The Garnett text calls Vahrushin first Vassily Ivanovich and later Afanasy Ivanovich; the shared remittance context suggests inconsistent naming rather than two different merchants.

Mikolka in the mare dream

The Mikolka who beats a horse to death in Raskolnikov’s childhood dream is a dream figure. In translations that call the painter Nikolay “Mikolka,” the identical nickname can make them appear to be one man. They are not.

“Achilles”

“Achilles” is the narration’s label for the uniformed man standing at the gate beneath the tower before Svidrigailov’s suicide; it comes from his copper helmet. The man is a final witness, not an associate introduced earlier under another name.

Svidrigailov’s children

Svidrigailov mentions his own unnamed children, who live with an aunt and are provided for. They are not Katerina’s children, the Kapernaumov children, or members of the unnamed fiancée’s family.

His own children, Resslich’s alleged niece, and his unnamed fiancée are separate figures. The last hotel sequence also contains two disturbing visions: a fourteen-year-old girl in a coffin and a much younger child. The novel does not explicitly identify the girl in the coffin as Resslich’s niece.

The main action in sequence

The novel supplies no complete calendar. It opens in early July, and Raskolnikov’s fever makes some later intervals uncertain. The timeline therefore follows stages, using the murders as its fixed point.

Stage	What changes	Relationship consequence
Before the opening	Raskolnikov first visits Alyona as a customer, then overhears a tavern argument that treats her murder as a supposedly useful act.	The pawnbroker-client relationship becomes that of intended victim and would-be murderer.
Rehearsal and opportunity	He rehearses the visit, meets Marmeladov, and later learns that Lizaveta will be away at a known hour.	The Marmeladov family enters his life; Lizaveta’s absence makes the plan seem possible.
The murders	Raskolnikov kills Alyona, then kills Lizaveta when she returns. Koch and Pestryakov reach the hooked door; he hides in the painters’ empty workroom and escapes.	One planned crime produces an unplanned second victim and a misleading trail toward the painters.
Summons and illness	The police summon him over his landlady’s debt. He faints when the murders are discussed, hides the stolen objects, and spends several days feverish.	Ilya and Zamyotov notice him; Razumikhin, Nastasya, and Zossimov become his caregivers.
Family and investigation converge	Raskolnikov returns to the murder flat, then finds Pulcheria and Dunya waiting in his room. He meets Porfiry the next day; Svidrigailov later appears in his room.	The family, crime, and Dunya–Svidrigailov plots become one network.
Confession to Sonya and the funeral crisis	Luzhin frames Sonya and is exposed; Raskolnikov tells Sonya he killed both women; Katerina dies after taking the children into the street.	Sonya becomes Raskolnikov’s confidante and the children’s practical protector; Svidrigailov has overheard the confession.
Pressure, coercion, and public confession	Porfiry privately names Raskolnikov and urges surrender. Svidrigailov uses the secret against Dunya, releases her after her final refusal, makes gifts, and kills himself. Raskolnikov then confesses to Ilya.	Dunya learns the truth; the voluntary confession supplies what Porfiry’s private certainty did not: an official case against Raskolnikov.
Trial and Siberia	Five months after the confession, Raskolnikov receives an eight-year sentence. He leaves for Siberia, with Sonya following him; Dunya and Razumikhin marry two months later.	The family plans to regroup near Raskolnikov; Sonya remains close to him after Pulcheria’s death.
Epilogue riverbank	After months of emotional separation, Raskolnikov and Sonya acknowledge mutual love. Seven years of his sentence remain.	Renewal begins; it is not completed within the novel.

The places that connect the circles

Dostoevsky abbreviates many Petersburg place names, and the novel sometimes gives conflicting floor numbers. The rooms still connect the characters clearly: visitors crowd into Raskolnikov’s garret, while the empty rooms beside Sonya allow Svidrigailov to overhear his confession.

Place	Who belongs there	Why it matters
Raskolnikov’s garret	Raskolnikov; Nastasya and Praskovya in the same lodging house	Identified as being near S. Place and later as Shil’s house, flat 14; family, police, friends, Luzhin, Sonya, and Svidrigailov all cross its threshold.
Alyona’s tenement	Alyona and Lizaveta; Koch and Pestryakov at the door; painters below	A large street-and-canal building 730 steps from Raskolnikov’s room. Alyona’s flat is on the fourth floor; the text varies when it identifies the floor of the painters’ lower flat.
Kozel’s house / Amalia’s rooms	Marmeladov, Katerina, and the three children; Amalia and other lodgers	Marmeladov dies here, and the funeral meal brings Luzhin, Sonya, Lebezyatnikov, and Raskolnikov into one room.
Kapernaumov no. 9 / Resslich no. 8	Sonya in Kapernaumov’s rooms; Svidrigailov in Resslich’s	Empty rooms between Sonya’s lodging and Svidrigailov’s bedroom allow him to overhear Raskolnikov’s confession. The floor number varies between passages.
Bakaleyev’s house, room 8	Pulcheria and Dunya during their Petersburg stay	The family meets away from Raskolnikov’s cramped room and confronts Luzhin there.
District police office	Ilya, Nikodim, Zamyotov, and other police staff	The first summons concerns debt; the last visit contains Raskolnikov’s confession. This is not Porfiry’s investigation office or apartment.
Hay Market, canals, and bridges	Raskolnikov repeatedly; many brief encounters	The movement between rooms is repeatedly interrupted by crowds, accidents, overheard speech, and the possibility of confession or flight.
Siberian town, fortress, and prison	Raskolnikov in prison; Sonya lodging in town	The final geography is split: Sonya lives outside but visits the prison, hospital, work parties, and the riverbank where their relationship changes.

Where the relationships end

• Raskolnikov and Sonya: He is serving an eight-year sentence, with seven years remaining at the last scene. Sonya has followed him. Their love becomes mutual, and his gradual regeneration is presented as a future story rather than a finished achievement.

• Dunya and Razumikhin: They marry and plan to establish themselves near Raskolnikov in Siberia within five years.

• Pulcheria: She is never shown receiving a complete formal account of the crime. Her delirium suggests that she understands more than Dunya and Razumikhin realize; she dies before the final Siberian scene.

• Katerina’s children: Svidrigailov’s money secures charitable placements and future funds for Polenka, Kolya, and Lida. Sonya receives the relevant documents and remains their sister.

• Porfiry: He keeps his promise not to move prematurely. At the time of Raskolnikov’s voluntary confession, the formal case still lacks proof against the real murderer and is complicated by Nikolay’s false confession.

• Luzhin: His accusation against Sonya is exposed, his engagement to Dunya is already over, and he disappears from the action without reconciling with Dunya or her family.

• Svidrigailov: After Dunya’s final rejection and his last gifts, he kills himself. Those provisions do not resolve the harm he has done or the uncertainty surrounding Marfa’s death.

Sources

The primary edition is Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, translated by Constance Garnett, Project Gutenberg eBook 2554.

The SparkNotes character list and CliffsNotes character list supply the common modern spellings and diminutives used in the lookup.