"Crime and Punishment" is considered one of the pinnacles of human works; it is an open enigma into the human psyche, into what goes on in its depths, and into the issues of existence, torment, good, evil, love, crime, madness, passions, self-interest, and illness. Raskolnikov's character is an attempt to understand the complexities of the human personality, offering a number of explanations, discussing the hidden motives and impulses in the subconscious that led Raskolnikov to act illogically. Dostoevsky presents the idea of the impossibility of truly knowing man, and forces us to look into our own souls, and to find within them the passions that afflict his heroes, and how the human soul simultaneously carries the highest ideals alongside the lowest vulgarities, and how man carries within him the power to commit crime and the desire to achieve justice.