Crime and Punishment focuses on the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, an impoverished man who formulates and executes a plan to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker seemingly for her money, thereby solving his financial problems and at the same time, ridding the world of an evil parasite. Raskolnikov also strives to be an extraordinary being, believing that murder is permissible in pursuit of a higher purpose.