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
Later Nikolai goes out to his garden, “filled with melancholy thoughts.” He foresees a widening gap between himself and Arkady and feels that his efforts to stay up to date have been in vain. Nevertheless, he feels that the young men have some advantage over his generation—perhaps their distance from “the serf-owning mentality.” Yet the nihilist rejection of nature confounds him. Looking across his fields, Nikolai thinks “O Lord, how beautiful it is!” and almost recites some favorite lines of poetry, but he remembers Stoff und Kraft and falls silent.
Nikolai is a generous man who seeks to do justice to the young men’s perspective. It’s still heartbreaking for him to see an unbridgeable gap between himself and Arkady. Though both Bazarov and Nikolai are ardent observers of nature, their attitudes about nature couldn’t be more different: Nikolai is moved to a poetic outburst, while Bazarov wants to dissect it, in accordance with materialist tomes.
Themes
As he continues his melancholy reflections, Nikolai thinks of his Masha and is sorry when Fenichka suddenly calls for him in the garden, reminding him of his age. His memories fade, but he remains there, pacing and shedding tears as night falls, all the while thinking how Bazarov and Arkady would laugh at his sentimentality. He briefly crosses paths with Pavel; Pavel, too, is pacing, but unlike his romantic brother, his soul “was not capable of reverie.”
Nikolai reflects tenderly on his first wife; Fenichka’s youth only seems to remind him of his loss. Both he and Pavel harbor their share of memories, but Nikolai is given to sentimentality, whereas Pavel stews in bitterness. For both, romance has been a palpably transforming experience, in contrast to the nihilist contention of its unreality.
Themes
That night Bazarov suggests to Arkady that they should go and visit the bigwig relative who’s extended an invitation. Arkady is delighted with the suggestion but conceals his excitement behind languor; “he was not a nihilist for nothing!” The two of them set off the following day. The older men “breathed a sigh of relief.”
As much as Arkady looks up to Bazarov and genuinely wants to embrace his principles, there’s an element of youthful pretense in it, as well—of trying to embody a worldview that maybe doesn’t fit him as well as he thinks. The departure of the two deflates the generational tension that has prevailed at Maryino.
Themes
