Sacrifice In Sonya Marmeladov

Sonya Marmeladov is a young woman forced to become a prostitute so as to produce monetary wealth for her family. She does, in fact, have a license for this profession; therefore it is not a lawful crime. However, it is a moral crime, yet she does not do it of her own free will. Sacrifice is one of the greatest themes within this novel; Sonya represents this accurately. In the narrative, Marmeladov reveals to Raskolnikov the reason Sonya is a streetwalker. “At six o’clock I saw Sonia get up, put on her kerchief and her cape, and go out of the room and about nine o’clock she came back. She walked straight up to Katerina Ivanovna and she laid thirty roubles on the table before her in silence” (Dostoevsky 17). Before this occurred, Katerina had