Part VI - Chapter VII Practice Quiz — Crime and Punishment
by Fyodor Dostoevsky — tap or click to flip
Practice Quiz: Part VI - Chapter VII
What is Raskolnikov's physical state when he arrives at his mother's lodging?
He is appallingly dressed with torn, dirty clothes soaked from rain. His face is distorted from fatigue, exposure, and twenty-four hours of inner conflict. He spent the previous night alone, wandering.
What does Pulcheria Alexandrovna excitedly show Raskolnikov during his visit?
His published article in a magazine, which Dmitri Prokofitch (Razumihin) brought her. She has read it three times and sees it as proof of his intellectual greatness.
What crucial question does Raskolnikov ask his mother before leaving?
He asks: "Whatever happens, whatever you hear about me, whatever you are told about me, will you always love me as you do now?" He needs assurance of unconditional love before confessing.
What does Raskolnikov do at his mother's feet before departing?
He falls down before her, kisses her feet, and both weep embracing. She is not surprised—she has realized something awful is happening to her son.
What is the last thing Raskolnikov asks of his mother?
He asks her to kneel down and pray to God for him, saying "Your prayer perhaps will reach Him." She blesses him and signs him with the cross.
Who is waiting for Raskolnikov when he returns to his lodgings?
His sister Dounia (Dunya). She already knows the truth about his crime, having spent the day with Sonya. Her eyes betray "horror and infinite grief."
What does Raskolnikov reveal about his night by the Neva River?
He tells Dounia he walked by the Neva multiple times wanting to drown himself, but could not go through with it. He rejected suicide out of pride.
What object does Raskolnikov give Dounia before their final parting?
A small watercolor portrait on ivory of his landlady's daughter—his dead betrothed who had wanted to be a nun and died of fever. He had confided his plans to her.
How does Pulcheria Alexandrovna demonstrate maternal intuition in this chapter?
She tells Raskolnikov she has foreseen a great sorrow, lay awake at nights, and says "I felt all the morning as though I were going to be hanged, waiting for something." She senses the truth without being told.
How does Dounia respond when Raskolnikov asks if she can still hold out her hand to him?
She says "You doubted it?" and throws her arms around him. She tells him that facing suffering is itself half expiating his crime, showing unwavering loyalty and moral support.
What role does Sonya play in this chapter, even though she is mostly absent?
Sonya's influence is felt throughout. Dounia spent the day with her waiting for Raskolnikov. Dounia says "Thank God" when she learns he did not drown himself—"that was just what we were afraid of, Sofya Semyonovna and I."
How does Raskolnikov describe himself in his final interior monologue?
He calls himself "wicked" for his angry gesture toward Dounia, wishes no one loved him, and bitterly observes that everyone on the streets is "a scoundrel and a criminal at heart and, worse still, an idiot."
What does Pulcheria Alexandrovna reveal about Raskolnikov's father?
She mentions he sent manuscripts twice to magazines—first poems, then a whole novel—but both were rejected. She compares her current grief to when they wept together at his father's grave.
What contradiction does Raskolnikov himself articulate about his spiritual state?
He tells Dounia: "I haven't faith, but I have just been weeping in mother's arms; I haven't faith, but I have just asked her to pray for me. I don't know how it is, Dounia, I don't understand it."
How does Raskolnikov justify murder on a philosophical level in his argument with Dounia?
He argues that blood "flows and has always flowed in streams," that men who shed blood are "crowned in the Capitol and called afterwards benefactors of mankind," and that his plan failed only because he was too contemptible to execute it.
Why does Raskolnikov say he rejected suicide—what does this reveal about his character?
He says: "if I had considered myself strong till now I'd better not be afraid of disgrace." Pride prevents him from taking the easy way out. He views suicide as weakness, showing his identity is still bound to the extraordinary man theory.
What does Raskolnikov mean when he says "everything now is going to be different, is going to be broken in two"?
He recognizes that confession will permanently divide his life—before and after. He dreads twenty years of penal servitude and wonders what he will have to live for afterward, yet he still chooses to go.
How does Dostoevsky create dramatic irony in the scene with Pulcheria Alexandrovna?
While the reader knows Raskolnikov is saying goodbye before confessing to murder, his mother chatters about his brilliant article and predicts he will become one of the leading minds in Russia. Her hopes are devastatingly misplaced.
What is the effect of Pulcheria Alexandrovna's line "I felt all the morning as though I were going to be hanged"?
It functions as tragic foreshadowing—she unconsciously uses the language of criminal punishment to describe her own dread, mirroring her son's actual situation without knowing it.
How does the final image of Raskolnikov and Dounia parting function as a literary device?
At the corner, they turn to look at each other one last time, then Raskolnikov motions her away with "impatience and even vexation." This visual echoes classical farewell scenes and symbolizes his determination to face his fate alone.
What does Raskolnikov mean by calling the pawnbroker a "vile noxious insect"?
He dehumanizes Alyona Ivanovna as a harmful parasite. "Noxious" means injurious or harmful. By reducing her to an insect, he tries to justify murder as extermination rather than crime—a key element of his extraordinary man theory.
What does "expiation" mean in the context of Dounia's question about Raskolnikov's suffering?
Expiation means making amends for guilt or wrongdoing. Dounia asks: "Aren't you half expiating your crime by facing the suffering?" She argues that voluntary confession and punishment are themselves a form of moral atonement.
What does Pulcheria Alexandrovna mean when she says she had a "foreboding of trouble"?
A foreboding is an intuitive feeling that something bad will happen. She uses it to describe her persistent maternal anxiety about Raskolnikov, which proves tragically justified.
Who says "Rodya, my darling, my first born" and what is the context?
Pulcheria Alexandrovna says this while sobbing and embracing Raskolnikov. She reminisces about his childhood, comparing the moment to when he used to comfort her as a boy and when they wept together at his father's grave.
What does Raskolnikov mean when he says "What God sends" in answer to what awaits him?
When his mother asks if some post or career awaits him, Raskolnikov answers evasively with "What God sends." He means prison and penal servitude, but frames it in the religious language his mother will accept, while hiding the terrible truth.
What is the significance of Raskolnikov's thought: "Nothing of all this would have happened" if no one loved him?
Walking away from Dounia, he thinks: "if only I were alone and no one loved me and I too had never loved anyone! Nothing of all this would have happened." It reveals that love—not logic—is what compels his confession, and that human connection is both his burden and his salvation.