BookBright
ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSRodion Raskolnikov is a brilliant but destitute former student living in a tiny rented room in St. Petersburg, Russia. Consumed by poverty and a theory he has been privately developing, he comes to believe that certain extraordinary individuals have the moral right to transgress ordinary law if their ends justify it. He has been eyeing a local pawnbroker, a greedy old woman named Aliona Ivanovna, and convincing himself that killing her would be no crime at all. Before he acts, he meets a ruined civil servant named Marmeladov in a tavern and hears how Marmeladov's daughter Sonya, out of desperation, has been forced into prostitution to keep her stepfamily alive; and he receives a letter from his mother describing how his sister Dunia plans to marry a cold, calculating lawyer named Luzhin to save the family financially. Both stories weigh on him as he wrestles with whether to carry out the murder he has been rehearsing in his mind for weeks.
Free Battle of the Books questions for Crime and Punishment
SPOILERSEvery one of these has the same answer, and that is the point. In a real battle the question is read aloud with a dozen other books in play, and students have a few seconds to place it. Here is what a battle might ask about Crime and Punishment. Use them as a quiz, a trivia round, or BOTB practice.
Where in the book they come from
- Early in the book
In what book does a child dream of peasants beating a thin mare to death with whips and a crowbar?
✓ Answer
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Raskolnikov's nightmare returns him to childhood, where he watches Mikolka and a drunken crowd bludgeon a wretched nag because she cannot pull their overloaded cart. The horrified boy clings to the dying horse and kisses her bloody muzzle, foreshadowing the violence to come.
- First half
In what book does a young man watch a woman with sunken red eyes throw herself off a canal railing?
✓ Answer
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
While standing on a bridge and thinking of drowning himself, Raskolnikov sees a drunken woman throw herself into the canal before a policeman pulls her out. He recoils, deciding water is too loathsome an end and walks toward the police station instead.
- First half
In what book does an investigator ask a pale visitor, "do you believe that Lazarus rose from the dead"?
✓ Answer
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
After Raskolnikov defends his theory of extraordinary men, Porfiry slyly asks if he believes literally in the resurrection of Lazarus. The question sets up a powerful biblical thread Sonia will later read aloud to him.
- Second half
In what book does a hateful suitor slip a hundred-ruble note into a poor girl's pocket?
✓ Answer
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Luzhin slips the money into Sonia's pocket in his own room, then accuses her of theft at the funeral dinner. He hopes to discredit her and turn Raskolnikov's family against him, but Lebeziatnikov witnesses the plant.
- Second half
In what book does a young man confess that he killed an old pawnbroker to become a Napoleon?
✓ Answer
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Raskolnikov confesses to Sonia that he tested whether he was an extraordinary man by killing the old woman. His theory of the Napoleonic individual collapses when he finds he cannot endure the act.
- Near the end
In what book does a man tell a guard he is going to America and then shoot himself?
✓ Answer
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
At dawn outside a watch tower, Svidrigailov tells a soldier in an Achilles helmet that he is bound for America. He pulls the trigger as the guard cries out that this is no place for jokes.
