Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Bridging Two Fields: Game Theory And Crime And Punishment, Sarah Matthews, Mark Purves

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Many scholars have drawn on the tools of Game Theory to explore the Humanities as a whole, but have failed to make sense of the great contributions of Russian literature. In fact, the only two articles dealing with Russian literary works and Game Theory were made in 1968 and 1988. Therefore, the purpose of our project was to frame Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment through a reading of Game Theory. Approaching the novel in this light allowed us to better understand Raskolnikov’s behavior and the moral implications of his actions and the novel itself.