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
Nikolai, Arkady, and Bazarov make their way into the house. The old servant, Prokofyich, warmly kisses Arkady and bows to Bazarov. Soon Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov, Nikolai’s brother, enters. He is about 45, a man with “aristocratic elegance” who has retained a “youthful shapeliness.” He greets Arkady with a “European handshake,” as well as the Russian style of kissing his nephew three times. He greets Bazarov with the slightest of bows. When the young men go out, Pavel asks Nikolai if “that long-haired creature” is staying with them.
Prokofyich’s effusive greeting is in keeping with the older style of class relations, in contrast to Piotr’s more aloof behavior earlier. Arkady’s uncle Pavel displays some Westernizing impulses, hence progressive ones for the time—but even he finds Bazarov’s presence unsettling.
Themes
At dinner, there’s little conversation. Nikolai talks about the farm and impending government reforms. Arkady has “a faint feeling of embarrassment” as a man newly returned to his childhood home. He avoids calling his father “papa” and drinks too much wine. After dinner, Bazarov marvels at Pavel’s “foppery” in such a rural setting, calling him “an archaic survival.” He also remarks that Nikolai “wastes his time reading poetry,” although “his heart’s in the right place.” Arkady falls asleep joyful over his homecoming and wishing peace upon his recently deceased childhood nurse, but “for himself he said no prayer.”
Arkady struggles to adjust to his awkward new role as an adult son in his childhood home. Bazarov, meanwhile, has terse—and rather dismissive—appraisals of each member of the household, seeing them each as out of date. Arkady pointedly declines to pray, a sign that he’s rejected some of the traditions of his childhood.
Themes
The young men are soon asleep, but Nikolai broods late into the night, and Pavel sits before his fire, his thoughts wandering. In another room, meanwhile, a young woman named Fenichka alternately dozes and listens to the breathing of a sleeping infant.
The older generation is unsettled by the youthful arrivals. Nikolai’s lover, Fenichka, has not yet appeared among the household, and the presence of a child—Nikolai’s other son—is a surprise that Nikolai hasn’t mentioned to Arkady.
Themes
