# The Idiot — Character guide

> Key figures in The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

- [Prince Lev Nikolaevich Myshkin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se/characters/prince_myshkin.md): Myshkin arrives in Petersburg with a bundle and no connections, the last of a poor noble line, and is immediately mistaken for a fool by clerks and millionaires alike. His epilepsy and his years abroad have left him oddl
- [Aglaya Ivanovna Epanchin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se/characters/aglaya_epanchin.md): Aglaya is the family's brilliant, capricious favorite, raised among wealth and suitors she despises, and given to cutting off her own hair just to spite her mother. She is drawn to Myshkin precisely because he is unlike 
- [Nastasya Filippovna Barashkova](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se/characters/nastasya_philipovna.md): Nastasya Filippovna was ruined young by Totsky and has spent years being passed around as a beautiful object, which has made her both magnetic and merciless. She holds men in contempt even as she craves proof that one of
- [Parfyon Semyonovich Rogozhin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se/characters/parfyon_rogozhin.md): Rogozhin meets Myshkin on the train and tells him, without shame, that he ran from his father and nearly died of fever, and that he would have been murdered if he'd stayed. Newly rich and utterly without polish, he pursu
- [Gavrila Ardalionovich Ivolgin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se/characters/ganya_ivolin.md): Ganya is the general's secretary and the son of a blustering, half-mad father, and he has calculated his way toward marrying into the Epanchin family. Offered a payout to marry Nastasya instead, he wavers between greed a
- [Ivan Fyodorovich Epanchin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se/characters/general_epanchin.md): Ivan Fyodorovich rose from the ranks to wealth and respectability, and he maintains his position by never seeming to push for anything, though he plays high-stakes cards and keeps his own counsel. He is genuinely fond of
- [Lizaveta Prokofyevna Epanchina](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se/characters/lizaveta_prokofyevna.md): Lizaveta Prokofyevna moves through Petersburg society esteemed for her Muishkin blood and her husband's rank, but she has stopped believing in that esteem and reads mockery into every glance. Convinced her three girls ar
- [Lukian Timofeyevich Lebedev](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se/characters/lebedev.md): Lebedev hovers at the edges of the novel's drawing rooms, a minor official whose real trade is information and access, offering rooms, rumors, and unsolicited commentary to anyone who will listen. He is at once servile a
- [Hippolyte Terentyev](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se/characters/hippolyte_terentyev.md): Hippolyte arrives among Myshkin's circle as a proud, terminally ill teenager, armed with radical ideas and a manuscript confession he is determined to read aloud. His bitterness at his own fading body collides with a des
- [Nikolai Ardalionovich Ivolgin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se/characters/kolya_ivolin.md): Kolya shares a cramped back room with his failing father, General Ivolgin, and moves through the household as its youngest, most clear-eyed observer. He is earnest, meddlesome in the way of clever boys, and loyal to a fa
- [Evgeny Pavlovich Radomsky](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se/characters/evgeny_pavlovich.md): Evgeny Pavlovich belongs to the same Petersburg world as the Epanchins, moving through it with the assurance of a man who has never had to scramble for position. He is drawn to Aglaya, yet his wit carries an edge of deta
- [Varvara Ardalionovna Ptitsyna](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se/characters/vardara_ptitsyna.md): Varvara Ardalionovna has escaped the Ivolgin household into marriage, but she remains its most competent member, scheming to let lodgings and holding her volatile brother Ganya in check. She is charming without being bea
- [Ivan Petrovich Ptitsyn](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se/characters/ivan_ptitsyn.md): Ptitsyn moves through the novel's Petersburg as a practical man of business, lending money to gamblers, suitors, and the perpetually broke while keeping his own counsel. He marries into the Ivolgin household, which plant
- [Ferdyshchenko](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se/characters/ferdyshchenko.md): A vulgar hanger-on at Nastasya Filippovna's party.
- [Keller](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se/characters/keller.md): A disgraced boxer and minor hanger-on in Myshkin's circle.
- [Antip Burdovsky](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se/characters/burdovsky.md): A young man claiming to be Pavlishchev's son, seeking money from Myshkin.
- [Alexandra Ivanovna Epanchina](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se/characters/alexandra_epanchin.md): The eldest Epanchin daughter, quiet and observant.
- [Adelaida Ivanovna Epanchina](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se/characters/adelaida_epanchin.md): The middle Epanchin daughter, an artist.
- [Nina Alexandrovna Ivolgina](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se/characters/nina_alexandrovna.md): Ganya's mother, a long-suffering woman.
- [Ardalion Alexandrovich Ivolgin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se/characters/general_ivolin.md): Ganya's alcoholic, boastful father.
- [Afanasy Ivanovich Totsky](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se/characters/totsky.md): A wealthy landowner who was Nastasya's former guardian and seducer.
- [Vera Lebedeva](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se/characters/vera_lebedev.md): Lebedev's kind daughter who helps Myshkin.
- [Marfa Borisovna](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se/characters/marfa_borisovna.md): Rogozhin's mother, mentioned but not seen.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se/characters