Crime and Punishment

"A gloomy sensation of agonising, everlasting solitude and remoteness, took conscious form in his soul."
     Raskolnikov's crime tortures him immensely.  The title contains multiple levels of meaning, one of which being the inevitability of punishment in this novel.  As Zossimov (the doctor) intuitively knows, Raskolnikov's illness is more of a somatoform disorder than a physically caused illness.  In this case, the body reflects the tortured state of the soul and spirit.  The pawnbroker and her sister suffer immensely less in duration of time than Raskolnikov does.  There are no winners in sin or crime, only losers; no one goes unpunished.
     The crime has consequences.  The immediate one may be the torture of Raskolnikov's soul, which I think in turn causes his behavior to be erratic and almost nonexistent.  Raskolnikov's behavior is chaotic.  At one point he thinks about throwing all the stuff he stole into the river.  What?  That almost makes the whole crime pointless.  He needed money and at the time still needs money.  The irony is that after the crime, he gets money and support from his family and friends because he is in such a weak state.  Before he did the murder, while he was still thinking about doing the crime, I thought to myself that he really does not need to do the crime at all.  He has options for help and plenty of people who could help him.  It is his pride and idealism that makes him such a pragmatist ironically.  He disproves of his sister's fiance, and thinks that because the pawnbroker is somewhat of a dragon herself, he can justify slaying her.  He is really just doing what is practical to him.  He chooses to be selfish.  And therein is the source of his torture.  A person cannot be an island unto himself.