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
At Madame Kukshin’s, the friends are met by a woman who’s neither servant nor companion, a sign of the lady’s “progressive tendencies.” They find Madame Kukshin in a study that’s cluttered with papers and cigarette butts. Madame Kukshin is young, plain, and somewhat disheveled, and, like Sitnikov, she seems “perpetually on edge.” Everything she does seems affected rather than spontaneous. She orders lunch and champagne for the guests and begins talking with Bazarov about chemistry; she’s invented a material to make unbreakable dolls’ heads.
Madame Kukshin is a rather awkward figure; she seems comfortable neither within traditional societal structures nor, for that matter, in her own skin. Her invention shows her eccentricity and also hints that Turgenev doesn’t view such dilettantes as being very useful to society.
Themes
The conversation drifts to women’s education. Bazarov takes little interest in the discussion until Madame Kukshin mentions a woman named Madame Odintsov, a clever, rich widow, albeit not “sufficiently advanced,” according to Sitnikov. The group goes through four bottles of champagne and debates marriage, equality, and individuality. Bazarov and Arkady unceremoniously leave after their hostess starts drunkenly singing ballads. Sitnikov skips after them, asking what they think of Madame Kukshin, whom he thinks “in her own way, a highly moral phenomenon.”
This scene further suggests that Turgenev doesn’t see some of the “radical” figures of his day as being all that interesting or useful. Such people often spend much of their time indulging themselves and talking with like-minded friends. Bazarov has little patience for Sitnikov’s or Madame Kukshin’s pretenses, either.
Themes
