Chapters 1, 2 and 3 Summary

Fathers and Sons is the age-old story of generations torn between the new people who want to eradicate the past in order to build anew and the older generation who wish only to preserve the past memories. The protagonist is a young doctor named Bazarov who is firmly entrenched in Russia's emerging nihilism movement in the mid 1850's.

As the novel begins Nikolai Petrovich Kirsanov awaits the arrival of his son, Arkady, at the local posting station in May 1859. Arkady is returning home to his small Russian village having just graduated from the university. Nikolai is a man about forty years of age who owns property twelve miles south of the posting station where people meet travelers arriving and departing by horse and carriage.

Nikolai comes from a privileged background, his father having served as an army general in the war...