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Here’s the moral of Crime and Punishment: Don’t commit a crime. Oh, but there’s more to this story than that. In fact, would you think we were insane if we said that Crime and Punishment is, ultimately, a hopeful book? This Recap has more.

Video Transcription:

You’ve probably seen the shows and movies. “Law and Order,” “Dexter,” “Prison Break,” “The Fugitive.” Almost a century and a half later, they’ve turned Dostoevsky’s exploration of the criminal mind into must-see media—and big bucks. But is that the only legacy Crime and Punishment left behind? Stay tuned …

Here’s the moral of Crime and Punishment: Don’t commit a crime.

Oh, but you got that already, didn’t you? You’ve had enough punishment just sitting through Raskolnikov’s for over five hundred pages. Why do anything to bring on your own?

That’s why I’d like to add that as dark as Crime and Punishment is, it’s not just a heavy-handed warning, or a story to scare you into good behavior. I think this is ultimately a hopeful story. It’s about the fact that a human being does have a conscience. It may be buried beneath a lot of muck, but it’s there. And it’s demanding your attention.

Dostoevsky does spend a lot of time focusing on guilt in this story. His main interest is psychology.

And yet, this book ends with redemption. It’s like Raskolnikov’s salvation is as inevitable as his confession. It’s as though on some level, Dostoevsky was as interested in the spark of humanity within each of us as he was in the things that would try to blot out that humanity.

Fortunately for all of us, it’s the spark of humanity that wins.