Essay Questions

Comment on the setting in which the story of Fathers and Sons takes place.

The novels begins on the 20th of May and is set in the year 1859. It’s not an insignificant date in Russian history. After Russia’s disastrous defeat in the Crimean War (1853-1856), Russians had become particularly attuned to their country’s backwardness. There was a desire to move from a feudal economy, where the majority of the population was composed of serfs that were entirely dependent on a select class of land-owners, to a free market economy, one where former serfs had opportunities to become independent land-owners.

Integrated with a growing abolitionist feelings, these practical factors were pushing Tsar Alexander II towards the Emancipation Reform of 1861, that provided freedom to the serfs working on private estates. The setting of Fathers and Sons is not the entirety of Russia; it is the Russian countryside in particular. Perchance the most significant implication of setting in Fathers and Sons is the stark difference between the major Russian cities and the countryside.

Do you think that there is a tragic undertone in the novel Fathers and Sons? Substantiate your opinion.

After Peval Petrovich and Bazarov finish their most exclusive argument, Nikolay remembers a dispute between him and his mother. He recalls that he said to her, “Of course you cannot understand me; we belonged to two different generations“. In many ways this line captures the conflict that lies at the heart of the novel: the thwarted attempts of parents and children to understand one another.

In the character of Bazarov, we come across a young man who, above all, longs to be a person of his own, someone original. As the novel goes on, if becomes clear that part of Bazarov’s nihilistic philosophy is borne of his own insecurities. He envisions himself fated for greatness and thus does everything he can do to set himself apart from his parents and all those who went before him.

Bazarov seems to regard Arkady’s return to his family circle as a sort of failure; to him it’s equivalent to forfeiting in a fight. Yet everyone else is happy to try and find a middle ground, a place of recognition to settle for without remorse. It is with this perspective that at the end of the novel, it’s worth noting the fates of most of the characters end on a happy note. Yet Bazarov, the central character of the story, spirals downwards in the second half of the book. For a while it seems that he is on top of the world, yet the end result of all his renouncing is that he is extremely isolated. Even before he falls ill with typhus, we get the feeling that he won’t be able escape from his tragic fate.

As is the case in most tragedies, the hero has a fatal flaw that eventually leads to his downfall. And in Bazarov’s case, the flaw is pretty clear; his outrageous pride. Yet the novel is novel is not pessimistic, and despite its tragic end, the narrator insists on striking a positive chord in the last sentence.

Comment on the tone of the novel Fathers and Sons.

When Fathers and Sons was first released in 1862, people from the younger generation were outraged because they thought that Turgenev was copying and making fun of them through the character of Bazarov. There are few instances when we come upon a line where we understand what they were worried about.

It is pretty easy to imagine that the narrator (or the author himself) is having fun with Bazarov. Yet, as the novel goes on, it becomes clear that narrator writes about each of his characters with supreme sympathy. His main goal is to depict the situation carefully and truthfully, not to pass judgement on his characters or to mock them.

Now, since Turgenev’s motto was realism, the narrator quite a few times seems to keep the story at a distance from himself. It’s as if he doesn’t want it to become too imbued with his own personality. Yet, at times he cannot help himself. At one point, the narrator erupts, “Is there anything in the world more captivating than a beautiful young mother with a healthy child in her arms?” Lines such as this one make it clear that the narrator is attached to the story that he tells. Perchance he does his best to keep himself out of it, but quite often we see as his enthusiasm breaks the narrative bounds and he includes himself into the story.