Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Fathers and Sons, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Tradition and Progress
Nature vs. Materialism
Love vs. Nihilism
Generational Conflict
Summary
Analysis
On May 20th, 1859, a Russian gentleman in his early forties waits impatiently on the porch of a coaching-inn with his servant, Piotr, who is “a man of the advanced modern generation.”
The novel opens with the palpable excitement of an anticipated reunion. Because the gentleman’s servant is “advanced” (or old), a hint of generational conflict is present from the beginning, also foreshadowing greater conflict to come.
Themes
The man’s name is Nikolai Petrovich Kirsanov. Ten miles from the inn, he owns “a respectable little property” of a couple hundred serfs and 5,000 acres. He has divided up the land among the peasants and begun a farm.
Nikolai is a relatively modest landowner, but even in his gentry status, the question of the rights of the serfs—a central controversy in Russia at the time Turgenev wrote— will come to the fore. Nikolai’s division of his land suggests that he has at least some reformist sympathies.
Themes
Nikolai’s father, Piotr Kirsanov, had been an army general who served in 1812, a “coarse, semi-illiterate but good-natured type of Russian” with considerable influence in the provinces. Nikolai and his brother, Pavel, were both born in southern Russia. Nikolai was meant to have followed his father into the army, but he broke his leg the same day he received his commission, resulting in a lifelong limp. Nikolai entered Petersburg University instead, preparing for a career in the civil service.
Differences across generations will continue to be a salient theme, as the comparison of Nikolai with his father suggests. Piotr Kirsanov’s life was dominated by military service (in 1812, Napoleon had attempted to invade Russia), while Nikolai made a decisive break with that life, turning toward education and civilian employment. The contrast creates an expectation that generational conflict will continue to be a theme in the book.
Themes
Shortly before his parents’ deaths, Nikolai fell in love with his landlord’s pretty, intellectual daughter, Masha. Soon after his parents died, Nikolai married Masha and abandoned his civil service post, and they established a comfortable, quiet life in the country, where their son, Arkady, was born. Ten years later, Masha died. Nikolai, devastated, considered going abroad, but the revolutionary year 1848 occurred. Finally he settled down to the work of improving his estate.
Generational conflict continues to be a theme, as Nikolai’s love for his landlord’s daughter was likely controversial with his parents—explaining why the marriage was delayed until after their deaths. 1848 was a year of republican revolutions in multiple European states, explaining why Nikolai couldn’t go abroad and so settled for a quiet life at home.
Themes
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In 1855, Nikolai brought his son, Arkady, to Petersburg University, and he spent three winters in the city himself, befriending Arkady’s friends. But this year he didn’t go, so today, Nikolai, now grey and stout, waits for Arkady, who has just completed his Petersburg degree, to arrive home.
Nikolai sits reflecting on his boy and his late wife, watching a pecking hen and a sprawling cat outside the inn. Finally Piotr reports that someone is coming. Nikolai glimpses Arkady’s face in the approaching tarantass (four-wheeled horse carriage) and runs to embrace his beloved son.
Nikolai’s love of nature is often evident in the story, prompting him to reflectiveness. The chapter ends with high anticipation as Nikolai finally spots Arkady in the distance.
Themes
