Word: raskolnikov
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...poverty, and a long Siberian exile in a bestial prison camp, made him spasmodically elated or despondent. He discovered in the contact with his fellow prisoners in Siberia, that under a rough exterior many criminals had really extraordinary qualities. He conceived that man might become noble through sin. When Raskolnikov, the young student in "Crime and Punishment," murdered two old women through a Napoleon ambition to transcend all human values at a blow his final defeat was not attributable to the sinfulness of the act, but rather to his lack of fortitude in self-justification. Dostoevsky was not irreligious...