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Rodion Raskolnikov

A young, handsome, formerly enrolled student living in extreme poverty in a tiny garret in St. Petersburg. Highly intelligent but mentally overstrained and isolated, he is secretly planning a violent act he rationalizes as a philosophical 'exploit.' He is deeply conflicted, oscillating between cold detachment and intense moral revulsion at his own thoughts.

Alyona Ivanovna

A diminutive, withered pawnbroker of about sixty with sharp, malignant eyes and a mistrustful demeanor. She lives alone in a small, meticulously clean flat and lends money at predatory interest rates. Raskolnikov is one of her clients and secretly reconnoiters her home as part of his hidden plan.

Semyon Zaharovitch Marmeladov

A disgraced titular counsellor (low-ranking civil servant) and hopeless alcoholic who accosts Raskolnikov in a tavern and pours out his tragic life story. Despite his degradation he possesses florid eloquence and genuine anguish, driven by guilt over the ruin he has brought upon his family. He has recently lost a reinstated government post after stealing household money for drink.

Katerina Ivanovna Marmeladov

Marmeladov's second wife, a proud and educated officer's daughter now reduced to desperate poverty and early-stage tuberculosis. Fierce, short-tempered, and consumed by memories of former respectability, she holds the family together through sheer will while slowly dying. She is both a victim of circumstance and a source of suffering for those around her.

Sofya Semyonovna (Sonia) Marmeladov

Marmeladov's gentle, fair-haired daughter from his first marriage, forced by destitution into prostitution and issued a 'yellow ticket' by the authorities. Despite her circumstances she is selflessly compassionate, giving money to her family and her own father even at personal cost. She lodges separately at the Kapernaumovs' due to her status.

Lizaveta

The sister of pawnbroker Alyona Ivanovna, referenced briefly as responsible for the immaculate cleanliness of the old woman's flat. She is otherwise absent during Raskolnikov's visit but is noted as a presence in the household.

Raskolnikov's Garret

A tiny, cupboard-like room on the top floor of a five-storied house on S. Place in St. Petersburg, rented from a landlady on the floor below. Stiflingly small and hot, it is where Raskolnikov broods obsessively for weeks on end. He is deeply in debt for it and dreads encountering his landlady on the stairs.

Alyona Ivanovna's Flat

A small but spotlessly clean flat on the fourth floor of a large tenement house on the canal side of the city, exactly 730 steps from Raskolnikov's lodgings. It consists of two rooms—a bright sitting room with yellow wallpaper, geraniums, and a corner icon, and an inner room with a bed and chest of drawers. The old pawnbroker operates her lending business here.

The Hay Market District Tavern

A dark, sticky, fume-filled basement tavern near the Hay Market district of St. Petersburg where Raskolnikov encounters Marmeladov. The area is characterized by pot-houses, drunken laborers, and the working poor. It serves as a social crossroads for the desperate underclass of the city.

Kozel's House (Marmeladov's Lodgings)

A tenement building belonging to a German cabinetmaker named Kozel, where the Marmeladov family rents a single disordered room on the fourth floor. The room is filthy and cramped, littered with children's rags, and separated from noisy card-playing neighbors by a thin partition. Landlady Amalia Fyodorovna Lippevechsel manages the property.

St. Petersburg Slum Districts

The broader urban environment of the novel: sweltering summer streets near the Hay Market, filled with the stench of pot-houses, dust, scaffolding, and drunken crowds. The city's canals, bridges, and densely packed tenements form an oppressive backdrop that mirrors the psychological states of its inhabitants.

Imperial Civil Service

The Russian bureaucratic hierarchy under the Tsar, organized by ranked titles such as titular counsellor and civil counsellor. Employment in the service provides a fragile veneer of respectability; losing one's post, as Marmeladov has done twice, means social and financial ruin. Connections to senior officials like 'his excellency Ivan Afanasyvitch' are desperately cultivated.

The Yellow Ticket

An official document issued by Russian Imperial authorities to registered prostitutes, marking them legally and socially as women of ill repute. Possession of a yellow ticket bars Sonia from living with her family in respectable lodgings and brands her permanently in the eyes of society and landlords.

Raskolnikov's Pawned Silver Watch

An old-fashioned flat silver watch engraved with a globe on the back, with a steel chain, belonging originally to Raskolnikov's father. He pawns it at Alyona Ivanovna's for a paltry rouble and fifteen copecks. The watch serves as both a symbol of his fallen circumstances and a pretext for his reconnaissance visit to the pawnbroker's flat.

Pawnbroking and Usury in Imperial Petersburg

Desperate urban poor routinely pawned personal belongings—watches, rings, clothing—to petty moneylenders like Alyona Ivanovna for small sums at high interest rates (ten copecks per rouble per month). Failure to redeem a pledge within the agreed term allowed the pawnbroker to sell it immediately. This system trapped the poor in cycles of debt with no legal recourse.

Social Stratification and the Concept of Beggary

Marmeladov articulates a sharp 19th-century Russian social distinction: poverty degrades but does not wholly destroy dignity, whereas beggary—the total loss of social standing—is considered a moral vice that places a person below the human community. This philosophy pervades the world and shapes how characters perceive themselves and their choices.

Redemption Theology and Suffering

A deep current of Russian Orthodox thought runs through the setting: suffering is redemptive, sinners can be forgiven through love and humility, and God's mercy extends even to the most degraded. Marmeladov's tavern monologue frames Sonia's self-sacrifice in explicitly Christ-like terms, suggesting that moral worth is measured by love, not social position.

Key Events Before the Novel Opens

Raskolnikov was enrolled as a student but dropped out due to poverty; he visited Alyona Ivanovna a month before the story begins and counted the 730 steps to her flat. Marmeladov lost his first civil service post through alcoholism, wandered with his family, and was reinstated five weeks prior before stealing household money five days before meeting Raskolnikov. Sonia received her yellow ticket after Darya Frantsovna and Lebeziatnikov reported her situation to authorities.