Parents of Bazarov - a characteristic and their role in the life of the protagonist

Evgeny Bazarov is the protagonist of Turgenev’s novel Fathers and Sons. Bazarov’s character is a young man, a convinced nihilist, contemptuous of art and respecting only the natural sciences, a typical representative of the new

generations of thinking youth. The main plot of the novel is the conflict of fathers and children, the philistine lifestyle and the desire for change.

In literary criticism, much attention is paid to the confrontation between Bazarov and Pavel Petrovich, the relations between Bazarov and Odintsova , the personality of Arkady Nikolayevich (Bazarov’s friend), but very little is said about the relationship of the protagonist with his parents. Such an approach is very unreasonable, because without studying his relationship with his parents it is impossible to fully understand his character.

Bazarov’s parents are simple, good-natured old men who love their son very much. Vasily Bazarov (father) is an old district doctor who leads the boring, colorless life of a poor landowner, who at one time spared nothing for a good upbringing of his son.

Arina Vlasyevna (mother) - a noblewoman who “needed to be born in the Petrine era”, a very kind and superstitious woman who knows how to do only one thing - to cook excellent dishes. The image of the parents of Bazarov, a sort of symbol of ossified conservatism, is opposed to the main character - an inquisitive, intelligent, harsh in judgments. However, despite such a different worldview, Bazarov’s parents truly love their son, in the absence of Eugene, all their free time is spent thinking about him.

Bazarov, on the other hand, is rather dryheaded of his parents; he certainly loves them, but he is not used to open outpourings of feelings, he is burdened by constant intrusive attention. Neither with his father nor with his mother can he find a common language, with them he can not even lead discussions, as with the family of Arkady. Bazarov is hard on this, but he can not help himself. He agrees to live with his parents under the same roof only on condition that he will not be prevented from studying the natural sciences in his office. Bazarov’s parents perfectly understand this and try to please the only child in everything, but of course it’s extremely difficult for them to bear such an attitude.

Perhaps the main trouble of Bazarov was that he was not understood by his parents, because of the big difference in intellectual development and educational level, and did not receive moral support from them, so he was such a sharp and emotionally cold person that he often repelled from him people.

However, in the parental home we are shown another Yevgeny Bazarov - softer, more understanding, full of tender feelings that he will never externally show due to internal barriers.

The characteristics of Bazarov’s parents confuse us: how could a person of such advanced views grow up in such a patriarchal situation? Turgenev once again shows us that man can create himself. However, he also shows Bazarov’s main mistake - his estrangement from his parents, because they loved their child as he is and suffered greatly from his attitude. Bazarov's parents survived their son, but with his death the meaning of their existence ended.