Crime and Punishment Chapter 6 Summary

Summary

Razumikhin and Raskolnikov walk toward Bakaleyev’s lodgings arguing about Porfiry Petrovich’s and Zametov’s behaviour and the growing suspicion around Raskolnikov. Razumikhin is indignant on Raskolnikov’s behalf, urging direct confrontation with Porfiry and mocking the idea that the police have concrete facts; Raskolnikov counters with cold, analytical hypotheses about why investigators might behave as they do. At the entrance to Bakaleyev’s the friends part abruptly when Raskolnikov insists on going home alone.

At his garret Raskolnikov panics briefly, fears that hidden evidence may have slipped from his hiding place, and then encounters a short, stooping stranger who suddenly calls him “Murderer!” The accusation unnerves him and he collapses into feverish, fragmented reflections—memories, dreams and rationalizations about his crime, the moral idea he claims to have targeted, and contradictory feelings toward the murdered women. In a half-delirious state he wanders into the night, follows the same mysterious man into a house and imagines scenes of the murder; he awakens from a nightmare to find a stranger waiting in his room, who calmly reveals himself as Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov.

Key events

1. Razumikhin and Raskolnikov debate Porfiry and Zametov on the way to Bakaleyev’s.
2. They part; Raskolnikov returns to his garret and frantically checks the hiding-place.
3. A stooping stranger follows and directly calls Raskolnikov “Murderer.”
4. Raskolnikov sinks into feverish, hallucinatory reflections and memories.
5. He wanders out, follows the man to the painters' flat, experiences a vivid nightmare of the murder.
6. Raskolnikov wakes to find an unknown visitor, who identifies himself as Svidrigailov.

Analysis

This chapter intensifies psychological pressure on Raskolnikov and shifts the novel toward suspicion, paranoia and moral introspection. The public debate with Razumikhin foregrounds competing responses to legal interrogation—raucous indignation versus cold analysis—highlighting Raskolnikov’s isolation even among friends. Razumikhin embodies protective, naive loyalty and social indignation, while Raskolnikov’s reasoning reveals his tendency to theorize about others’ minds and to see traps where none may exist. The street accusation (“Murderer!”) functions as an externalization of conscience or communal judgment: a brief, piercing label that destabilizes him more than any legal proof. Dream sequences and fevered monologues compress memory, justification and revulsion into a single, spiralling interior crisis; here narrative technique blends realist detail with hallucinatory stream-of-consciousness to dramatize guilt.

Motifs of concealment and exposure recur—hidden evidence, the cloak, the unlocked but latched room—underscoring the novel’s concern with what can be hidden from law, society and oneself. The sudden arrival of Svidrigailov at the end introduces a new, unsettling presence and raises questions about motive, surveillance and temptation without resolving them. Structurally, the chapter functions as a hinge: it moves the plot from interrogation scenes and social interactions into intense interior unraveling and introduces a new external actor whose intentions remain opaque, increasing suspense and moral ambiguity.

Important quotes

““I don’t believe it, I can’t believe it!” repeated Razumihin, trying in perplexity to refute Raskolnikov’s arguments.”

NarratorOpens the chapter with Razumikhin's shocked defence of Raskolnikov and frames their argument about Porfiry and Zametov.

““You are a murderer,” the man answered still more articulately and emphatically, with a smile of triumphant hatred, and again he looked straight into Raskolnikov’s pale face and stricken eyes.”

NarratorA sudden, direct accusation in the street that unnerves Raskolnikov and externalizes communal condemnation or his own guilt.

Characters in Chapter 6

• Dmitri Prokofych Razumikhin
• Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikova
• Pulcheria Alexandrovna Raskolnikova
• Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov
• Porfiry Petrovich
• Zametov
• Nastasya Petrovna
• Lizaveta Ivanovna
• Alyona Ivanovna
• Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladova
• Tchebarov
• Nikolay
• Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov