sures, simply because they cannot afford to buy or rent dwellings which would at least give them some refuge from the corruptions of the city outside. For the poor, such as Raskolnikov, their dwellings merely remind them of the fact of their oppression. The daily suffering becomes so great that they no longer even feel it, numbing themselves as a kind of survival process: "He had lately ceased even to feel the weight of the poverty that crushed him. He had completely lost interest in his day-to-day affairs, and he had no wish to recover such interest" (13).
The poor and oppressed, represented by Raskolnikov, become little more than animals trapped in a cage, with no escape and no respite from their suffering---except in drinking and crime. The murders committed by Raskolnikov can be seen in this context as a means of expression of utter misery and rage. Certainly Dostoyevsky is not excusing Raskolnikov's crimes, or suggesting that one should murder in order to begin the process leading to spiritual redemption. However, the author is clearly suggesting that Raskolnikov and those oppressed by the city and by poverty to such a degree that they strike out in criminal violence are not necessarily evil people, but rather are driven to madness by their environment:
Outside, the heat had grown ferocious. Closeness, crowds, scaffolding, with lime and brick and dust everywhere, and that special summer stench familiar to every Petersburger who cannot afford a summer cottage: it all jarred . . . on the young man's nerves. . . . An expression of the deepest loathing flashed . . . across his sensitive face (14).
Raskolnikov is a "sensitive" man whose sensitivity contributes to the feelings of desperation which increasingly bear down upon him. He is hungry, he is badly dressed, and yet far worse than
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