Changing Clothes in the Novel Crime and Punishment

Abstract

The article examines the clothing of the heroes in the novel Crime and Punishment. The clothes of the poor (rags, cheap materials) are analyzed, as well as clothes that hide and reveal (an axe invisible from the outside, blood on clothes), grotesque clothes, etc. The analysis particularly emphasizes the clothing of the lovers. The clothes of the characters speak both about the falseness of love as well as about sincere feelings and the development of love between two couples: Razumikhin-Dunia and Raskolnikov-Sonia. The change of Raskolnikov’s clothes, carried out with Razumikhin’s help, is the first step in the hero’s restoration. Sonia’s headdress (green drap-de-dames scarf) changes as she grows from a girl, almost a child, to a grown woman in the novel’s epilogue.

Keywords

• clothing
• poverty
• love
• headdress
• crime and punishment