Fyodor abandons young Mitya

Fyodor abandons young Mitya after Mitya’s mother leaves the household, making the boy’s first years a story of paternal neglect and improvised care. Rather than raising his son, Fyodor turns the home toward drunken debauchery; Grigory takes the three-year-old into his charge, preventing the child from being left wholly unattended.

Abandonment and Household Disorder

After Mitya’s mother runs away with a destitute divinity student, she leaves her three-year-old son in Fyodor’s hands. Fyodor’s response is not to assume the responsibilities of a father: he introduces a regular harem into the house and gives himself over to drunken orgies. The contrast between the helpless child and the disorder of the adult household defines the episode’s central circumstance.

Grigory’s Care

The family servant Grigory takes Mitya in because no one else provides even the most basic care. Without him, there would have been no one to change the child’s little shirt. Mitya’s maternal relatives initially forget him as well: his grandfather is dead, his grandmother has moved to Moscow and is seriously ill, and his aunts are married. The boy consequently spends almost a year in Grigory’s care, living with him in the servant’s cottage.

Significance

The episode makes Mitya’s abandonment concrete through the absence of ordinary parental care and the presence of a servant who supplies it. It also establishes a contrast that shapes the family history: Fyodor is not simply inattentive but has made his household a place of debauchery, while Grigory assumes the practical duties the father neglects. The narrative notes that Fyodor could not have been entirely unaware of Mitya’s existence, underscoring that the child’s care falls to Grigory rather than to his father.