His conflict with the eldest son—Dimitri—comprises a major part of the book's overt plot, although it becomes clear as events unfold that Ivan's relation to him is equally significant.
Each of the sons represents a distinct character, life orientation and filial attitude that allows Dostoevsky to examine the theme of the father-son relationship in all its complexity and moral ambiguity.
Moral questions, particularly those arising from notions of filial obligation, are thus tested in great depth, and the consideration of their relation to the wider reality of Russian social disintegration is always in the background.
At the trial following his murder, the prosecutor Ippolit Kirillovich describes Fyodor Pavlovich 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.