@article{Bhanot_2025, title={The Enigmatic Behavior of Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment: A Unifying Hypothesis}, volume={10}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijels.102.5}, DOI={10.22161/ijels.102.5}, abstractNote={The Russian novel, Crime and Punishment, has garnered significant international interest and praise. Various writers laud different aspects of the novel, some even considering it a work of philosophy. However, the character of the protagonist has been difficult to interpret for many and his behavior has been, likewise, challenging to explain. This paper is a detailed examination of this issue from a medical perspective. The evidence is gleaned solely from the text of the novel. A cogent argument is made to account for virtually all of Raskolnikov’s behaviors by one medical diagnosis, that of bipolar disorder. There is a brief discussion of the differential diagnosis, which includes schizophrenia and unipolar depression. I would like to submit that Dostoevsky used mental health as a major theme in this work, something that, perhaps, has not been given the recognition that it deserves.}, number={2}, journal={International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences}, publisher={AI Publications}, author={Bhanot, Raj}, year={2025}, pages={025–028} }