Ilyusha is a local schoolboy who is also the protagonist of a pivotal subplot in the novel. Captain Snegiryov, his father, is a poor officer who Dmitri ridicules after Fyodor pays him to scare him over his debts, and as a result, the Snegiryov family is humiliated. Dostoevsky uses this character to illustrate that seemingly minor occurrences can have serious consequences, as we saw Ilyusha fall ill and eventually die, partly as a result of the shame of being bullied by his peers.