Part I - Chapter II Practice Quiz — Crime and Punishment
by Fyodor Dostoevsky — tap or click to flip
Practice Quiz: Part I - Chapter II
Where does Raskolnikov go at the beginning of Part I, Chapter II?
He enters a grimy tavern, seeking human company after weeks of feverish isolation and concentrated wretchedness.
What does Marmeladov reveal about his daughter Sonia?
He confesses that Sonia has been forced to take a "yellow ticket" (become a registered prostitute) to support the starving family.
How much money did Sonia bring home the first time she went out with a yellow ticket?
She laid thirty roubles on the table before Katerina Ivanovna in silence, then lay down on the bed weeping.
What happened after Marmeladov regained his civil-service position?
The family experienced a brief period of happiness and hope, but within five days Marmeladov stole Katerina Ivanovna's remaining money and went on a drinking binge.
What does Raskolnikov do before leaving the Marmeladov apartment?
He quietly places his last coppers on the windowsill, then immediately regrets the gesture as he walks down the stairs.
Where has Marmeladov been sleeping for the past five nights?
He has been sleeping on a hay barge on the Neva River, having exchanged his work uniform for the ragged clothes he wears.
What does Katerina Ivanovna do when Marmeladov arrives home?
She searches him for money, finds nothing, and drags him by the hair into the room in a fury, while the children scream and cry.
What is Marmeladov's former rank and occupation?
He is a titular counsellor, a low-ranking civil servant, who has been discharged from government service due to his alcoholism.
Who is Katerina Ivanovna and what is her background?
She is Marmeladov's second wife, an educated officer's daughter who attended a school for noblemen's daughters. She married Marmeladov out of desperation after her first husband died.
How is Katerina Ivanovna's health described?
She is consumptive (has tuberculosis), with hectic flushed cheeks, parched lips, and nervous broken breathing. Marmeladov notes she has begun coughing and spitting blood.
Who is Amalia Fyodorovna Lippevechsel?
She is the Marmeladovs' landlady, who constantly quarrels with Katerina Ivanovna and threatens to evict the family.
How does Sonia's character emerge even though she never appears in this chapter?
Through Marmeladov's account, Sonia is portrayed as gentle, self-sacrificing, and morally pure — she silently accepts her fate, weeps without complaint, and continues to support her family with her earnings.
What distinction does Marmeladov draw between poverty and beggary?
He argues that in poverty one may retain innate nobility of soul, but in beggary one is stripped of all human dignity — "swept out with a broom" from human society.
How does this chapter foreshadow the novel's central moral conflict?
Raskolnikov's instinctive compassion for Marmeladov contradicts his developing theory that some people are mere "lice," revealing a tension between empathy and cold rationalism that drives the entire novel.
What role does the theme of sacrifice play in this chapter?
Sonia's prostitution to feed her stepfamily represents selfless sacrifice with Christ-like overtones, establishing her as the novel's moral center and eventual agent of Raskolnikov's redemption.
What does Marmeladov mean when he says he drinks "so that I may suffer twice as much"?
He suggests that his drinking is not an escape from suffering but a way to intensify it, reflecting a paradoxical desire for self-punishment and the belief that through suffering one may find spiritual meaning.
What biblical allusion does Marmeladov use in his climactic speech?
He alludes to the Last Judgment and echoes Luke 7:47 ("Thy sins which are many are forgiven thee for thou hast loved much"), envisioning God forgiving drunkards and sinners because none believed themselves worthy.
How does Dostoevsky use irony in the contrast between Marmeladov's speech and his appearance?
Marmeladov speaks with formal, dignified, almost liturgical rhetoric while being a filthy, staggering drunk — the gap between his eloquence and his degradation creates a powerful dramatic irony.
What narrative technique structures most of this chapter?
The chapter is built around dramatic monologue: Marmeladov's extended, uninterrupted confession carries the narrative, with Raskolnikov serving primarily as a listener rather than an active participant.
What is a "yellow ticket" as referenced in this chapter?
A yellow ticket (or yellow passport) was the official registration document issued to prostitutes in 19th-century Russia, replacing their regular internal passport and marking them as social outcasts.
What does "titular counsellor" mean?
It was the ninth rank in the Russian Imperial civil-service hierarchy (Table of Ranks), a relatively low position that nonetheless carried modest social respectability.
What is "drap de dames" as mentioned in the chapter?
It is a fine-quality woolen cloth (literally "ladies' cloth" in French), here referring to the family's one good shawl — a relic of better times that Sonia uses to cover herself.
Who says "Poverty is not a vice" and what is the full argument?
Marmeladov says it to Raskolnikov. He argues that poverty is not a vice and drunkenness is not a virtue, but beggary is a vice because in beggary a man loses all innate nobility and is "swept out with a broom" from society.
What is the significance of Raskolnikov's final thought: "What if man is not really a scoundrel"?
This closing reflection reveals Raskolnikov testing his philosophical theory: if mankind is not inherently base, then moral barriers are merely "artificial terrors" and transgressing them would be justified — foreshadowing his planned murder.
What does Marmeladov mean when he says "when one has no one, nowhere else one can go"?
He describes the absolute desperation of having exhausted all human connections and options, a motif that recurs throughout the novel as multiple characters face moments where they have "nowhere to turn."