Crime and Punishment is social-psychological and social-philosophical novel. It focuses on moral dilemmas of Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student in Saint Petersburg who formulates and executes a plan to kill an unprincipled pawnbroker for her cash. He commits the murder to test a theory of his that dictates some people are naturally capable of such actions, and even have the right to perform them. It portrays a large cast of other characters and offers the reader many literary, philosophical, and autobiographical digressions, often in a highly satirical vein.