Mapping Dostoevsky

The maps presented here are the results of a pilot project, Mapping Crime and Punishment, which aimed to experiment with forms of literary cartography and examine the use of Petersburg space in Dostoevsky’s 1866 novel. Three types of maps are included:

1. Maps exploring different aspects of the text:

The Notebooks plots the use of space in Dostoevsky’s working plans for the novel.
Mapping Ambiguity focuses on the anomalous use of space in Crime and Punishment and the differences between the real and the imagined city.
Institutions maps references to public and private institutions in the text, emphasizing the novel’s connections with the real city.

2. Single maps focusing on the text as a whole:

Places maps all the locatable places that appear in the novel, showing its spheres of action and the types of place that are included.
Appearance and Reference contrasts the locations where the action takes place and the projected space that is introduced through the characters thoughts and speech.
Indoors and outside divides the maps between interior and exterior locations.

3. Maps that divide the novel’s locations by different time-frames and narrative units:

Events are plotted in a series of six maps, representing the six parts of Crime and Punishment, which show how the interaction with space changes as the novel progresses. Go to Crime and Punishment: Part 1.

Day by day breaks the novel up chronologically by date.

Times of day divides the novel into action that takes place in the morning, afternoon, evening and night. Such divisions are not only potentially useful in defining places associated with different times of day, but also more generally as a filtration tool that can enable us to see patterns more clearly by removing extraneous material. Four maps showing the different time-periods in isolation are also presented. Go to Crime and Punishment: morning.