Fyodor Dostoyevsky Research Paper

The biographical history of an author greatly influences the way he or she writes a novel. In Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky envelops his life history within the novel, creating characters who parallel with those in his real life. Similar to many of the other Russian children at the time, Dostoyevsky was not brought up with a loving father; as a matter of fact, his father was a very stern and rigid man, contrary to Dostoyevsky’s loving and caring mother. At a young age, Dostoyevsky’s father forced him to enroll in an engineering school, disregarding Dostoyevsky’s love for literature. One night, when his father was walking him to enroll in the school, Dostoyevsky encountered a government courier viciously beating his

Dostoyevsky, however, was never able to receive the loving comfort that he needed from his father; instead, he could only wish for such love in the form of a dream.

In addition to his father, Dostoyevsky includes the loving traits of his mother within the character of Pulcheria to highlight the impact his mother had on his life. Throughout the novel, Pulcheria tries her best to take care of Raskolnikov; her selflessness is displayed when she writes him a letter, when she stays at his house waiting for him to return, and even at the end of the novel when she worries about Raskolnikov on her death bed. Dostoyevsky creates Pulcheria as a conventionally idealized, pure, loving and self-sacrificing parent according to J.R Maze. J.R Maze also states that Dostoyevsky was enormously attached to his mother because he lacked a caring father figure in his life. By creating Pulcheria the way he viewed his mother, Dostoyevsky was able to contrast the different parental figures he had during his adolescence.

After his time in engineering school, Dostoyevsky soon began to realize that his true passion lay in writing. He began to hone his skills as a writer and soon published many short stories in several