Question by Mike Dillaire: In Father’s and Sons, was Turkenev criticizing the worldview of the older generation or the newer one?
Fathers and Sons was first published in Russia in 1862. It was met with a blaze of controversy about where Turgenev stood in relation to his account of generational misunderstanding. Was Turgenev criticizing the worldview of the conservative aesthete, Pavel Kirsanov, and the older generation, or that of the radical, cerebral medical student, Evgenii Bazarov, representing the younger one?
Answers and Views:
Answer by Lenny
Primitive writers make it clear that the whole novel was written to tell you what to think or what to buy (if novel was ordered by sponsor as a commercial).
It does not work this way with good writer. And Turgenev was a good writer.
Good writer shows you complex situations with no clear good and bad guys and makes you think.
Turgenev had shown the conflict between generations where both sides have their points. Then he offers you to think for yourself.
PS Othello, the military hero and loving husband is not a bad guy either.
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Olga says
I think it criticizes the changes in society at the time. The young generation of the time with their opposition to traditional values and manners.