"Fathers and Sons"

Paper Summary:

This paper attempts to assess the claim with reference to the novel "Fathers and Sons" that fundamental to the novel is a story in which a person comes into contact with things that are strange, foreign and monstrous. It begins with an assessment of the realistic nature of Turgenev's novel and the credibility of its characters and then analyses why - and how - the idea of Nihilism and Bazarov are strange, foreign and monstrous to the other characters of the novel.

From the Paper:

"Likewise, the language used by the characters allows the reader "to see through into a world that he or she can accept as 'real'" (Hampton). Thus, the characters belonging to the aristocracy insert, in their Russian, French language terms, expressions and sentences quite naturally. This habit is imitated by people who do not belong to the aristocracy but who wished they did, with a very ironic - sometimes pathetic- result which, unfortunately, is completely missing from the English translation (but is faithfully reproduced in the Hebrew translation). For example, Bazarov's father, as Pavel Petrovitch remembers, was not a "military doctor" (Turgenev, 22), but a "medical orderly" (Turgenev [Hebrew] 25). Vassily Ivanovitch's real social origins show when he refers to his son as "Omfey" (Turgenev [Hebrew] 113, and not 'homme fait ' in the English translation 113) or when he present himself as a "retired army doctor" (both translations p. 166) only to finish his sentence with a "volatoo" (and not the correct "voila tout " as in the English translation). "

More papers on "Fathers and Sons":

• Analytical Essay # 135062 : "Ivan Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons"
• Analytical Essay # 135689 : "Fathers and Sons" by Ivan Turgenev"
• Book Review # 72346 : "'Fathers and Sons'"

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