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Alyona Ivanovna is a pawnbroker that Raskolnikov chooses to murder. One of the only pawnbrokers in Petersburg who always gives her clients a little money, even if they’re pawning worthless items, Alyona often serves the most desperate customers and takes advantage of their desperation by low-balling them. She’s become decently rich from exploiting those in poverty, which makes her a target of hatred from many people in the community. In addition to her unethical business practices, Alyona is also abusive to her younger sister Lizaveta, exploiting Lizaveta’s timid and simple-minded nature. Lizaveta works as her sister’s servant and maid, which makes Raskolnikov angry on her behalf.
Alyona Ivanovna mainly serves as a philosophical quandary, prompting both Raskolnikov and the reader to consider the moral implications of murdering a person who is, by all accounts, a wicked, greedy leech on society. Although Raskolnikov suffers psychologically after the murders, he continuously justifies the killing by asserting that Alyona Ivanovna was barely a human being and that she may have even deserved to be killed. Raskolnikov believes that, in order to prove that he is a Nietzschean Superman, he must be able to kill without remorse and without suffering the consequences. Thus, it is imperative that he be able to rationalize Alyona Ivanovna’s murder to himself. Any guilt or remorse on his part would, according to his ideology, prove that he is not the “special” sort of man who can defy law and order and redefine society. While Raskolnikov never truly admits to feeling remorse over killing Alyona Ivanovna, his emotional rebirth in the novel’s epilogue sees him rejecting his nihilist, utilitarian philosophies. Thus, the novel also rejects the idea that murder can be rationalized and justified if the victim is an immoral person.
