Fyodor Karamazov

Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov (Russian: Фёдор Павлович Карамазов) is a fictional character from the novel The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. He is the father of Alexei, Ivan, and Dmitri Karamazov, and his conflict with the latter comprises a major part of the book's plot.

At the trial following his murder, the prosecutor Ippolit Kirillovich describes him as follows:

Beginning life of noble birth, but in a poor dependent position, through an unexpected marriage he came into a small fortune. A petty knave, a toady and buffoon, of fairly good, though undeveloped, intelligence, he was, above all, a moneylender, who grew bolder with growing prosperity. His abject and servile characteristics disappeared, his malicious and sarcastic cynicism was all that remained. On the spiritual side he was undeveloped, while his vitality was excessive. He saw nothing in life but sensual pleasure, and he brought his children up to be the same. He had no feelings for his duties as a father. He ridiculed those duties. He left his little children to the servants, and was glad to be rid of them, forgot about them completely. The old man's maxim was Après moi le déluge. He was an example of everything that is opposed to civic duty, of the most complete and malignant individualism. 'The world may burn for aught I care, so long as I am all right,' and he was all right; he was content, he was eager to go on living in the same way for another twenty or thirty years.^[1]

References

1. Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov. p. 788.