Ivan Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons depicts the events which occur after two college friends return to their homes in Russia during the 1860s. It was a turbulent period in Russia’s history, due in large part to the emergence of the Industrial Revolution, a time that was to change the western world forever. Turgenev’s novel investigates how interpersonal relationships??most specifically, those between fathers and sons, the old generation and the new??were affected by this global change. As values shift to reflect a new way of living, conflicts arise between what once was and what will be and individuals find themselves torn internally (as to what decision or philosophies they should adopt) and externally (from each other and those whose ideologies differ). While the particular problems Turgenev describes can only exist at one historical point of time and place, many of the related themes, such as the importance of compassion, are universal and applicable throughout history.
Fathers and Sons is set during a period of social unrest. In the years preceding the novel’s events, the Russian Empire had suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of England, France, and Turkey’s allied army during the Crimean War. This damaged the notion of the infallible monarchy, and the nobility-dominated social system suffered as well. Beyond this, the Industrial Revolution, in a general sense, threatened Russian convention by introducing new foreign powers and social systems, as well as new ideologies which questioned the traditional way of Russian life. Other upheavals, such as what resulted in emancipation of the serfs, were also at work during the period in which Turgenev’s novel is set.
The older, traditional way of life is represented by the older
generation--the fathers--while the newer worldviews
are introduced by their younger, educated offspring--the sons.
In Fathers and Sons, this division is most clearly represented by the polar
opposition of Paul Petrovich, the uncle of the central character, Arcady,
and Arcady’s friend, Barazov, who represents and espouses the new existential
Nihilism.
Paul is a man who longs for the past, both romantically (his love life
proved a failure) as well as socially. He says "aristocracy is a
principle, and only immoral or empty-headed people can dispense with principles
in our times" (55) and that Russians need to have "a holy respect for traditions"
as "a patriarchal people" (56). To say Paul is a conservative would
be an understatement. He clings to the old ways until the end, when
he is left as a "corpse" (169). His notions of chivalry and general
dislike of everything Barazov represents results in him challenging him
to a duel (a conventional way to settle a dispute) which he is doomed to
lose, perhaps on account of his age.
Barazov, in contrast, promotes a belief in no institutions. He
is a medical student, basing his judgement (or so he believes) purely on
empirical grounds. This scientific worldview fits accordingly with
the various advances in science that correlated with the Industrial Revolution.
He also despises the "romantic" social institutions that uphold the
ideology which gives aristocrats (and the royalty) their power. He
is described as unable to "stand ceremony" (29), a Nihilist who believes
a "good chemist is more useful than a score of poets" (33), and as someone
who finds living absurd. His self-proclaimed materialism stands in
stark difference from the idealism of a harmonious classist society.
To him, all men are equal, and all institutions deserving of destruction
("set Moscow on fire" [59]). However, he is also seen as one who
"never indulged common-folk and treated them offhandedly" (26). In
his own way, he is as elitist as Paul, as much separated from the downtrodden
serfs, upon whose backs his collegiate education was funded.
In the end, it is not theories or philosophies that determine who is right or wrong, but the amount of compassion they have for other people. Paul, stung by love unrequited, acts coolly toward women (he cannot look the servant Fenichka in the eyes at first) and relies on the aristocratic system as a means to power and comfortable living. Barazov, who perhaps never has fallen in love (he believes it is "all sheer romanticism, stuff and nonsense" [40]), thinks humans "are very like … frogs" (26). It is no surprise that when Barazov begins feeling attracted to Anna Sergeyevna, he find himself confused and "overcome with a desire" (176) that he cannot write off as purely chemical. In both Paul and Barazov’s cases, their opposing positions on life represent a feud among the upper classes regarding Russia future, but lacks a voice from the peasant, working classes, "that mysterious Unknown" (162), which will eventually stage their own revolution within a few decades.
If Fathers and Sons has a moral, it is that social harmony
will not come about through elitism on anyone’s part, be it aristocratic
or learned Nihilism, but through a compassionate understanding. To
agree to disagree, in other words, not to get bound up in a static social
model and to also respect the humanity of all people as equals. For
this reason, the two who failed "to understand each other" (147), Paul
and Barazov, die, while Nicholas and Fenichka’s marriage, symbolic of a
"reconciliation" (207) between classes and worldviews, are in a position
to affect the future with a new son, Mitya. While the book closes
with a scene of a graveyard, the idea of hope exists, "life without end"
(207), promising no clear-cut solution to Russia’s troubles, but the suggestion
that the future is not written in stone. The only thing consistent in life
is the possibility for change, for better or worse.
[Seb's Note: This is a first draft copy ... a sorrowful pretext (post-text?)
for the lack of quality, but a pretext all the same.]
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