Crime and Punishment · Chapter
IV explained
Raskolnikov visits Sonia after the confrontation with Luzhin.
What happens
Raskolnikov visits Sonia after the confrontation with Luzhin. He is tormented by the need to confess to her that he killed Lizaveta. Their conversation oscillates between his philosophical provocations about moral dilemmas and his overwhelming psychological agony, culminating in a moment where he nearly confesses. Sonia offers him her cypress-wood cross, urging him to accept suffering and redemption. Their intense meeting is interrupted by Lebeziatnikov.
Themes in this chapter
Psychological Torment
Raskolnikov's internal state is one of agonizing paralysis and self-torture as he struggles with the inevitability of confession, describing his sensations as similar to standing over the old woman with the axe.
Guilt and Conscience
The driving force of the chapter; Raskolnikov's need to confess to Sonia stems from an unbearable guilt. Sonia's offer of the cross represents a path toward accepting guilt and seeking atonement.
Characters to notice
- Raskolnikov
In profound psychological torment; visits Sonia intending to confess the murder, but is paralyzed by fear and self-loathing. He tests her with moral hypotheticals before a moment of near-confession.
- Lizaveta Ivanovna
Her murder is the central subject Raskolnikov feels compelled to confess. Sonia mentions having Lizaveta's cross, symbolizing their shared suffering and Raskolnikov's guilt.
Key passages
“He was agitated too, especially at some moments, by the thought of his approaching interview with Sonia: he had to tell her who had killed Lizaveta.”
Raskolnikov is intensely anxious about his meeting with Sonia because he feels compelled to confess that he is Lizaveta's murderer.
Establishes the chapter's central conflict and Raskolnikov's driving motive.
“His sensations that moment were terribly like the moment when he had stood over the old woman with the axe in his hand and felt that 'he must not lose another minute.'”
The overwhelming, imperative feeling that grips him as he nears confession is compared directly to the sensation he felt just before committing the murders.
Highlights the psychological parallel between the act of murder and the act of confession as moments of terrifying, decisive inevitability.
“'We will go to suffer together, and together we will bear our cross!'”
Sonia offers to share in Raskolnikov's suffering and penance, symbolically inviting him to join her in a path of redemptive agony.
Sonia's response transforms his isolated guilt into a potential for shared, religiously framed suffering.