Trips in Fathers and Sons Natalia Martinez

In the novel Fathers and Sons, Ivan Turgenev explores the inevitability of man's integration into society by implementing effectiv structural devices. The parallel trips of the central characters highlight their emotional and intellectual paths and culminate in their seemingly inevitable fusion with society. Similarly, Turgenev's deft control of Arkady's and Bazarov's cyclical journeys to their paternal homes enhances the reality that life is an inescapable force and reinforces the psychological effect of the final integration into the world around them. Additionally, the novel's pairing of its characters and their eventual shifts in symmetry also compliments the structural climax that is the personages' unity with the world around them. These elements help take the story out of the realm of the atypical and into the realm of the universal.

The work's structure may be examined as a series of trips, and each trip as part of a revealing progression. The journeys set off from the Marino estate to town, then from town to Odinstsova's estate at Nikolskoe, and on to Bazarov's parental home. From there, via separate visits, Arkady and Bazarov visit both Marino and Nikolskoe again (Knowles 73). All of...