In the beginning, there was Agamemnon who killed his daughter for a good wind, and Abraham who was willing to make a sacrifice of his son.
From the German fairy tales we have hansel and gretel's father who (along with their stepmother) abandoned the children to starve in the woods.
In Melmoth the Wanderer we have the father of the Wahlberg family who started to annihilate his entire family because of his shame at being unable to provide for them. And he would have succeeded had word not come at the last minute that the inheritance came through.
In The Brothers Karamozov we have the patriarch Fyodor Karamazov, a nasty scum bag no matter how you parse it.
In Anna Karenina we have Oblonsky, who feels like he's doing his family a favor by sticking around because (in his own opinion), he is aging so much better than his wife. His proof? He managed to sleep with the nanny! What an accomplishment…
In Bukowski's Ham and Rye, the MC's father is a violent psychopath.
In The Talented Mr. Ripley, the father of Dick effectively abandons his son when he realizes his son might have been gay and could (maybe) tarnish his own reputation by association.
In Frankenstein, the creature's creator/father spends the entire book trying to kill his son.
In Little Women, the father bankrupts the family trying to help a friend.
In Jane Eyre, Rochester's Dad effectively auctions him off for money (assuming rochester's version of events could be believed).
Why are there so many awful fathers in literature? Is it a reflection of reality or is it just that people who become writers tend to have bad fathers?
There are also many awful mothers in literature, the worst of which has to be the mom in The Flowers in the Attic. But off the top of my head, literature dads seem so much worse.
by quantcompandthings