Literary notes about parricide (AI summary)
Within literature, parricide emerges as a potent term enriched with both literal and symbolic meanings. Authors employ it not only to denote the overt act of killing a parent [1, 2] but also to evoke broader themes of betrayal, degeneration, and the perversion of familial and social order [3, 4]. In some narratives, its usage lends a legal or historical gravitas—as seen when it is invoked to condemn political usurpation or moral decay [5, 6, 7]—while in others it becomes a dramatic device that heightens the tragic dimensions of a character’s downfall [8, 9]. This layering of meaning transforms the word from a mere descriptor of a heinous crime into a versatile emblem of inner corruption and societal disintegration [10, 11].
- But, so be it, I assume that my client is guilty of parricide.
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - He couldn't endure the thought that his own brother was a parricide!
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - You call me your Father; before I had any claim to this title I deserved that of Parricide.
— from Letters of Abelard and Heloise by Peter Abelard and Héloïse - But if parricide is a prejudice, and if every child is to ask his father why he is to love him, what will become of us?
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - "It is a crime to imprison a Roman citizen; wickedness to scourge; next to parricide to put to death, what shall I call it to crucify?
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - Italy produces no monkeys; but the want could never be felt, till the middle of the sixth century first revealed the guilt of a parricide.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - 175 Italy produces no monkeys; but the want could never be felt, till the middle of the sixth century first revealed the guilt of a parricide.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - “Listen, listen, monks, to the parricide!”
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Go to them; just tell them that if they stay away it will be parricide!
— from Father Goriot by Honoré de Balzac - Such a murder can only be reckoned parricide by prejudice.
— from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - 'Then he is a parricide and a cruel, unnatural son.'
— from The Republic by Plato