Crime and Punishment Ch. 4: Dunya's Sacrifice

Summary

Raskolnikov reads his mother's letter and decides instantly: Dunya will not marry Luzhin while he lives. What follows is not grief but prosecution. He mocks Luzhin's kindness in shipping their trunk while Dunya and Pulcheria ride in a sacking-covered cart and third class the rest of the way. He sees the marriage's future tone in every cheap detail and in Luzhin's belief that a wife raised in poverty should treat her husband as benefactor. Dunya would live on black bread before selling her soul for herself, Raskolnikov thinks, but for her brother she will sell everything, becoming casuist and Jesuit to call it duty. He compares that bargain to Sonia Marmeladov's fate and swears he will not accept it, then attacks his own hypocrisy. What right has he to forbid anything while living on their borrowed pension and waiting ten years to save them? Something must be done now, or he must throw up life altogether. The secret thought he has nursed returns, no longer fantasy.

On the boulevard he fixates on a drunken girl of fifteen, dress torn as if dressed by a man's hands, collapsing on a bench while a plump dandy stalks her. Raskolnikov screams Svidrigailov at the stranger, nearly brawls, and guides a policeman to see the setup. He gives twenty copecks for a cab home. Then revulsion flips him. Let them devour each other alive, he tells the constable. On the empty seat he imagines the girl's path through beatings, hospitals, and taverns, then hears society's consolation word percentage and asks whether Dunya is next. Only then does he recall that he was heading to Razumihin, the warm, tough friend he has snubbed for months, and wonder what need pulled him there.

In this chapter: Terms Characters Key Quotes Modern Story

Why This Matters

Detecting Moral Whiplash

Rage at injustice can flip into nihilism when you have no workable alternative. Raskolnikov spends twenty copecks to protect a drunk girl, then tells the policeman to let her go.

Before you mistake that reversal for realism, ask whether you are exhausted, complicit, or both.

Coming Up in Chapter 5

Still raw from the letter and his cruel reversal on the boulevard, Raskolnikov drinks, dreams of a beaten mare, briefly renounces his terrible plan, then overhears that the pawnbroker will be home alone tomorrow Raskolnikov catches himself planning a visit to Razumihin not today but on the day after It, when everything will begin afresh. The thought shocks him awake..

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Chapter 04

Dunya's Sacrifice

His mother’s letter had been a torture to him, but as regards the chief fact in it, he had felt not one moment’s hesitation, even whilst he was reading the letter. The essential question was settled, and irrevocably settled, in his mind: “Never such a marriage while I am alive and Mr. Luzhin be damned!” “The thing is perfectly clear,” he muttered to himself, with a malignant smile anticipating the triumph of his decision. “No, mother, no, Dounia, you won’t deceive me! and then they apologise for not asking my advice and for taking the decision without me! I dare…

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Critical Thinking Exercise

Audit a Sacrifice You Rejected

Identify a time someone sacrificed for you (money, time, reputation, comfort) that you opposed in principle. Write what you said you believed, what you actually did, and what concrete alternative you offered at the time. If the answer is none, describe how that gap changed your behavior toward others.

Consider:

•Distinguish between moral clarity and practical follow-through
•Notice whether frustration turned into withdrawal or cruelty
•Ask what help you could have accepted without requiring self-destruction from the other person

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Dunya's Sacrifice

Summary