# Ivan Petrovich Ptitsyn — The Idiot character guide

> Ivan Petrovich Ptitsyn in The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Ivan Petrovitch Ptitsin, Ptitsin, Ivan Ptitsin, Ivan Petrovitch, Mr. Ptitsin

**First appearance:** 0002-part-i-iii

## Snapshot

A quiet moneylender whose ledgers and modest manners hide how much the novel's most desperate characters come to depend on him.

## Who they are

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 plants him at the edge of the family's daily humiliations and schemes. His reserve makes him easy to overlook, but his willingness to fund other people's catastrophes quietly shapes how those catastrophes unfold.

## In the story

### [Chapter IV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se/chapters/part-iii-iv)

Ptitsin listens to the general with a smile and turns as if to get his hat, but changes his mind.

### [II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se/chapters/part-iv-ii)

Attempts to calm the general and keep him from leaving.

### [VII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se/chapters/part-iv-vii)

Listens to Myshkin's speech with sarcastic laughter and later reveals his relation to Pavlicheff.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se/characters/ivan_ptitsyn
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_idiot_se/characters