Let us turn to the "nodal" moments of the analysis of "The Nest of Nobles". It is necessary to start with the fact that, undoubtedly, it was a public, acutely topical novel, in which Turgenev again addresses the problem of the nobility, its role in difficult period life of Russia. Death of Nicholas I, defeat in Crimean War, climb peasant movement unusually intensified Russian society. What position can a nobleman take under such a set of circumstances? How to live on? Panshin directly poses this question to Lavretsky: "... What are you going to do?" “To plow the land,” answers Lavretsky, “and try to plow it as best as possible.”
"The Nest of Nobles" is a "personal novel", the hero of which, with his inner nobility, decency, patriotism and many other worthy qualities, will remind himself of himself in Pierre Bezukhov, Andrei Bolkonsky, Chekhov's heroes-intellectuals.
In The Nest of Nobles, Turgenev turned not only to the personal fate of the protagonist, but also depicted the history of the Lavretsky family in a panoramic view in order to be able to present a generalized portrait of the Russian nobility in terms of the novel's problems. The author is especially cruel in assessing the separation of the most advanced class of Russia from their national roots. In this regard, the theme of the motherland becomes one of the central, deeply personal and poetic. The motherland heals Lavretsky, who has returned from abroad, just as the people's sense of life helps him survive tragic love to Lisa Kalitina, endowing him with wisdom, patience, humility - everything that helps a person to live on earth.
The hero passes the test of love and passes it with honor. Love revives Lavretsky to life. Recall the description of the summer moonlit night seen by him. Following the principle of "secret psychology", Turgenev reveals through the landscape the awakening of the hero's soul - the source of his moral strength. But Lavretsky will also have to go through a state of self-denial: he comes to terms with the loss of love, comprehending the highest wisdom of humility.
"The Nest of Nobles" as a "test novel" involves testing life position hero. In contrast to Lisa, Mikhalevich, Lem, marked by the height of the chosen goal, Lavretsky is ordinary in his earthly claims and in conceivable ideals. He wants to work and work as best he can, remaining true to himself to the end. Finding himself without hope for his own happiness, the hero finds the strength to live, to accept the laws of the natural course of life, reflected in the people's worldview, such as being able to suffer and endure and at the same time recognize the moral duty of a person not to lock himself in, but to remember those around you and try to work for their benefit.
Lavretsky, and with him Turgenev, consider such a state to be the only worthy one, although not without bitter internal losses. It is no coincidence that in the finale the hero feels like a lonely homeless wanderer, looking back at his life - a dying candle.
Thus, in The Nest of Nobles, two time planes characteristic of Turgenev's novel organically closed: historical and timeless, resulting in a philosophical and symbolic finale - a feature of all Turgenev's novels - with his idea of accepting the laws of a fast-flowing life with its eternal contradictions, gains and losses. And here Turgenev’s thoughts about the interrupted connection between generations in Russian history sound, which will become main theme novel "Fathers and Sons".
The first mention of the novel "Noble Nest" found in a letter from I. S. Turgenev to the publisher I. I. Panaev in October 1856. Ivan Sergeevich planned to finish the work by the end of the year, but did not realize his plan. All winter the writer was seriously ill, and then destroyed the first sketches and began to invent new plot. Perhaps the final text of the novel differs significantly from the original. In December 1858, the author made the final corrections to the manuscript. The Nest of Nobles was first published in the January issue of the Sovremennik magazine in 1859.
The novel made a huge impression on Russian society. He immediately became so popular that it was almost considered bad form not to read The Noble Nest. Even Turgenev admitted that the work was a very great success.
The novel is based on the writer's reflections on the fate of the best representatives Russian nobility. The author himself belonged to this class and understood perfectly well that "noble nests" with their atmosphere of sublime experiences gradually degenerate. It is no coincidence that Turgenev cites the genealogies of the main characters in the novel. Using their example, the writer shows that in various historical periods happened significant changes noble psychology: from "wild nobility" to admiration for everything alien. The great-grandfather of Fyodor Ivanovich Lavretsky is a cruel tyrant, the grandfather is a careless and hospitable hater of Voltaire, his father is an Anglo fan.
Nest like symbol of the motherland abandoned by its inhabitants. The writer's contemporaries prefer to spend time abroad, speak French, mindlessly adopt foreign traditions. The elderly aunt of Lavretsky, obsessed with the style of Louis XV, looks tragic and caricatured. The fate of Fedor himself is unfortunate, whose childhood was crippled by foreign "education system". The generally accepted practice of entrusting children to nannies, governesses, or even giving them to someone else's family breaks the connection between generations, deprives them of their roots. Those who manage to settle in the old tribal "nest", most often lead a sleepy existence filled with gossip, playing music and cards.
Such a different attitude of the mothers of Lisa and Lavretsky towards children is not accidental. Marya Dmitrievna is indifferent to the upbringing of her daughters. Lisa is closer to the nanny Agafya and the music teacher. It is these people who influence the formation of the girl's personality. And here is the peasant woman Malasha (Fyodor's mother) "quietly fading away" after she is deprived of the opportunity to raise her son.
Compositionally the novel "The Nest of Nobles" is built in a straightforward manner. Its basis is the story of the unhappy love of Fedor and Lisa. The collapse of their hopes, the impossibility of personal happiness echoes the social collapse of the nobility as a whole.
Main character novel Fyodor Ivanovich Lavretsky has many similarities with Turgenev himself. He is honest, sincerely loves his homeland, seeks rational use of his abilities. Brought up by a power-hungry and cruel aunt, and then in a peculiar way "Spartan system" father, he acquired good health and a stern appearance, but a kind and shy character. It is difficult for Lavretsky to communicate. He himself feels the gaps in his upbringing and education, therefore, he seeks to correct them.
The prudent Varvara sees in Lavretsky only a stupid clown, whose wealth is easy to take possession of. The sincerity and purity of the first real feeling of the hero are broken by the betrayal of his wife. As a result, Fedor ceases to trust people, despises women, considers himself unworthy true love. Having met Lisa Kalitina, he does not immediately decide to believe in the purity and nobility of the girl. But, having recognized her soul, he believed and fell in love for life.
The character of Lisa was formed under the influence of a nurse from the Old Believers. The girl from childhood was kind to religion, “the image of the omnipresent, omniscient God was pressed into her soul with some kind of sweet power”. However, Lisa behaves too independently and openly for her time. In the nineteenth century, girls who aspired to successfully marry were much more accommodating than Turgenev's heroine.
Before meeting with Lavretsky, Liza did not often think about her fate. The official groom Panshin did not cause much rejection from the girl. After all, the main thing, in her opinion, is to honestly fulfill your duty to the family and society. This is the happiness of every person.
The culmination of the novel is Lavretsky's dispute with Panshin about the people and the subsequent scene of Lisa's explanation with Fyodor. In the male conflict, Panshin expresses the opinion of an official with pro-Western views, while Lavretsky speaks from positions close to Slavophilism. It is during this dispute that Lisa realizes how consonant her thoughts and judgments are with Lavretsky's views, she realizes her love for him.
Among the "Turgenev girls" image of Lisa Kalitina- one of the brightest and most poetic. Her decision to become a nun is based not only on religiosity. Lisa cannot live against her moral principles. In this situation, for a woman of her circle and spiritual development there was simply no other way. Liza sacrifices personal happiness and the happiness of a loved one, because she cannot act "wrong".
In addition to the main characters, Turgenev created a gallery in the novel vivid images which reflect the noble environment in all its diversity. Here there is a lover of government money, retired General Korob'in, the old gossip Gedeonovsky, the dexterous dandy Panshin, and many other heroes of provincial society.
There are also representatives of the people in the novel. Unlike gentlemen, serfs and poor people are depicted by Turgenev with sympathy and sympathy. The ruined destinies of Malasha and Agafya, the talent of Lemm that was never revealed due to poverty, many other victims of lordly arbitrariness prove that history "noble nests" far from ideal. AND main reason of the ongoing social decay, the writer considers serfdom, which corrupts some and reduces others to the level of a dumb creature, but cripples everyone.
The state of the characters is very subtly conveyed through pictures of nature, speech intonations, glances, pauses in conversations. By these means, Turgenev achieves amazing elegance in describing emotional experiences, soft and exciting lyricism. “I was shocked ... by the light poetry spilled in every sound of this novel,” Saltykov-Shchedrin spoke of The Noble Nest.
artistic skill and philosophical depth provided the first major work Turgenev an outstanding success of all time.
hope for the future
People are known in dispute and on the way.
George Herbert
If you think about it, every person in the process of his life is looking for the truth. It seems to one that he is looking for well-being, another - love, the third - knowledge ... But in the end, each of them is looking for the truth that he aspires to. It is sad when this search leads to bourgeois comfort, limited to geraniums on the windowsills and lace napkins on the sideboard. It is wonderful when the search leads a person to creative feats. To whom is given...
The theme of such a search is one of the dominant ones in the works of Russian literature. Chernyshevsky in captivity "let" Rakhmetov on such a search; Gorky “instructs” to search for the truth with his numerous literary heroes, starting with the legendary Danko; Chekhov develops the theme "by the hands" of the heroes " cherry orchard"," Seagulls "; and Pushkin, in sonorous lines, puts this theme into the mouths of Lensky, Don Guan, Pugachev.
Looking for the truth and contemporary writers. Such as Rasputin, Yevtushenko, Afanasiev, Soloukhin, Shugaev, Pelevin, Brodsky, Aleshkovsky, and many others.
It does not matter at all what stylistic devices writers use for this purpose. Here, for example, is one of the remarkable works of Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev - the novel "The Noble Nest". In it, with the help of his heroes, the writer studies the ways of the moral and spiritual development of an advanced Russian girl. This search is considered to be from Natalia Lasunskaya to Elena Stakhova, bypassing the image of Lisa Kalitina. This is not true .. Liza, by her nature, is closer to Elena than Natalya. The latter, after her bitter disappointment, was satisfied with the ordinary "happiness" with the limited Volynsky. Vera will do the same in "The Cliff" - already at the behest of Goncharov. Lisa is not capable of any compromises. She refuses to be happy with Panshin. According to Lemm, "she could not love one beautiful thing." Pisarev was absolutely right when he pointed out that, according to the properties of her personality, Liza “adjoins the best people our time". She has the same unshakable character in her spirit, which was possessed by the heroic girls of the 60-70s, going to the people.
By strength of character, by severe demands on herself, by her ability to self-sacrifice, Liza Kalitina is also close to them. In conditions revolutionary movement In the 70s, she could become the heroine of Turgenev's prose poem "The Threshold".
Proclaiming in his novel the idea of uniting the advanced intelligentsia with the people, with the "land", Turgenev saw the truth in an optimistic outlook on the future. The Nest of Nobles ends with mournful motives about a useless life, about lonely old age, and at the same time an expression of faith in the younger generation, which will be able to resolve tragic contradictions and find the path to happiness. “Play, have fun, grow young strength... your life is ahead of you, and it will be easier for you to live: you don’t have to, like us, find your way, fight, fall and get up in the midst of darkness,” Lavretsky says, referring to youth. Lavretsky sits down on the same bench on which he once sat with Liza. Around him - all the same familiar to him and unchanging nature. And he was so changed by years and grief.
With sad lyricism, Turgenev develops in this scene one of his favorite thoughts about the contrast between the eternal and mighty nature and the mortal, weak man, unable to achieve happiness, find the truth and doomed to the merciless, destructive action of time.
The Nest of Nobles, a lyrical novel centered on the problem of the correlation between the ideological concepts of the modern noble intelligentsia, its spiritual quests and the traditional folk worldview, struck contemporaries after Rudin, where this problem was not raised.
In addition, the very construction of the novel with two equal heroes (Lavretsky and Liza Kalitina), with an accentuated reproduction of the situation, conveying the hero’s organic connection with his native country, with the soil, differed sharply from the laconic organization of the material in the “one-centered” novel Rudin.
In The Nest of Nobles, for the first time, the ideological dispute of the characters occupies a central place, and for the first time, lovers become the “sides” of this dispute. Love itself turns into an arena for the struggle of ideals.
Interest in the people, the desire to be useful to them, to find their place in historical life country, the main purpose of whose development should be to improve folk life, based on the knowledge of the needs and aspirations of the people, are characteristic of Lavretsky.
Lavretsky is a thinker. Conscious of the need for action, he considers it his main concern to develop the meaning and direction of this action. Already in his early youth, he plunged into scientific studies, which were supposed to give theoretical foundations his activities.
Turgenev simultaneously worked on The Nest of Nobles and the article Hamlet and Don Quixote. In the novel "The Nest of Nobles" many moments are introduced that should emphasize the Hamletism of the protagonist. The author confronts Lavretsky with three people of an active nature, with three bearers of complete, well-established convictions, with people who live in accordance with their convictions.
With all three of these characters, his hero enters into disputes. The dispute with Mikhalevich, who most fully and directly embodies the image of Turgenev's Don Quixote with his infinite kindness, conviction and impracticality, is portrayed as an exchange of opinions, the stormy and bitter nature of which is determined both by the opposite natures of the characters and the kinship of their mental interests.
Mikhalevich Lavretsky asks an important question for both of them: “What to do?”. This question for them is not of narrow practical importance, but is related to the very foundations of the theoretical solution of the problems of history, politics and philosophy.
Genuine Don Quixote - Mikhalevich considers this issue resolved, and resolved not by reason, but by feeling, intuition and faith.
For him, the task of a person is not reflection on the meaning of activity and its fruitfulness, but active, practical work on the embodiment of the truth obtained by intuition.
Let us point out a trait that characterizes antagonist friends and then often found in the literature of the 60s. when characterizing such a “pair”, the clash of Hamletic and quixotic characters: Lavretsky turns out to be practically much more wealthy than Mikhalevich, who exalts the importance of “work, activity”. Mikhalevich would have considered the achievement of the results achieved by Lavretsky a direct path to the realm of freedom and prosperity. Lavretsky, however, these results do not save him from a feeling of deep dissatisfaction.
A fundamentally different character than Lavretsky's dispute with Mikhalevich is his dispute with Panshin, who is also a convinced man of "cause". Panshin is not only not Don Quixote, he opposes this kind of people. Its main features are selfishness, ambition and an animal thirst for the blessings of life.
He is a St. Petersburg official, a "performer" to the marrow of his bones. At the same time, he is ready to carry out the most decisive reforms, break and destroy. His ideals are limited to the last "types" of government, since loyalty to these "types" and recklessness in their implementation promises him personal benefits.
The reformist itch of the "pure" (Saltykov's expression) young administrator - the chamber junker, the external liberalism of his speeches more clearly than any dating indicate what era is depicted in the novel.
This follows even more clearly from the concise author's retelling of Lavretsky's objections to Panshin: "... he sacrificed himself, his generation, but stood up for new people, for their beliefs and desires." Thus, we are talking about a new, young generation, which should replace the people who lived under the yoke of the reign of Nicholas.
Let's make a reservation that the historical and political plan here does not chronologically coincide with the time necessary for the implementation of the lyrical plot.
Between disputes about which in question, and the epilogue of the novel, drawing last meeting Lavretsky with the youth of the Kalitins' house and with Lisa the nun, 8 years pass. That is why Turgenev, obviously, was forced to attribute the beginning of the novel to 1850, despite the entire historical setting depicted in it.
It is characteristic that Panshin calls Lavretsky a backward conservative.
Rejection of lies characteristic Lavretsky was expressed in his negative attitude to Panshin, in his uncompromising unwillingness to agree with the latter in anything. Panshin's broadcast plans, which he perceives as a "phrase", Lavretsky opposes the demand to study home country and "confessions folk truth and humility before her.
To Panshin's impatient question "... what are you going to do?" (as we can see, Panshin is also interested in the question “what to do?”, but for this official “to do” means to reshape the life of the people without recklessness and thoughtlessly, taking advantage of their resignation) Lavretsky gives an answer dressed in the form of deliberate simplicity and prosaicness: “Plow the land<...>and try to plow it as best as possible.
In this position of Lavretsky there is a similarity with the position of the hero of Tolstoy - Levin, who also ironically treated the "administrative delight" of bureaucrats and liberal landowners who carried out all kinds of reforms, who also saw his task in organizing agriculture on new foundations, who also repeatedly heard accusations against him of conservatism. Subsequently, a similar type, called Mikhailovsky "repentant nobleman", attracted the attention of writers and critics.
Lavretsky's love, interest and respect for the people makes him related to Lisa Kalitina, a girl whose actions directly and directly follow from her convictions.
Speaking about the devotion of people like Don Quixote to a certain, once for all accepted ideal, Turgenev argued: “Many receive their ideal already completely ready, in certain, historically established forms; they live, contemplating their lives with this ideal, sometimes deviating from it under the influence of passions or accidents - but they do not talk about it, do not doubt it ... ".
It is to this type of people that Liza Kalitina belongs. Her conviction, as well as the fact that her “own thoughts” are essentially just an application of the traditional, existing in the patriarchal peasant environment and time-honored system of ideas to this situation, make her actions incomprehensible and unexpected for people brought up in the traditions of noble life.
Lisa is constantly arguing with Lavretsky, trying to convert him to her "faith". The plot of “propaganda”, the ideological upbringing of a girl by a man, which Dobrolyubov considered typical of Turgenev, seems to be reversed in The Nest of Nobles. Lisa is not only deeply convinced of the moral truths that she has learned since childhood, she, like Mikhalevich, “believes” in them, and somewhere this belief borders on fanaticism.
No wonder her tutor Agafya went to old believer skete. Religion for Lisa is a source of ready-made moral answers to the deepest mysteries of life, to the most tragic contradictions. human life. Loving my country ordinary people, simple life, Liza meets a like-minded person in Lavretsky, a person who respects Russia and its people; however, Lisa sees both skepticism and Lavretsky's disbelief, his indifference to religion. She hopes to convert him to religion.
Liza's religiosity is fanned by a sense of the tragedy of life and is inseparable from her inherent highest ethical exactingness in relation to herself. Mikhalevich argued that modern Russia"on each individual there is a duty, a great responsibility before God, before the people, before oneself! Liza Kalitina instinctively feels this responsibility.
External tragic circumstances, preventing Liza and Lavretsky from connecting, are perceived by Liza as a signal that complex connection the most, apparently, distant from each other phenomena, due to which happy love can be perceived as a sin at a time when the peasants in the countryside are suffering, starving, running wild.
The fathers of modern liberal landowners robbed, tortured, and killed the fathers of modern peasants. This fatal guilt weighs on the people of the new generation. Lavretsky notices in Lisa features of fatalism and humility - patriarchal virtues that frighten him. “All lots are equal” for her, but not because she experienced love disappointment, but because she is surrounded by the sea people's suffering and in these sufferings she considers her ancestors guilty.
These sentiments are understandable to Lavretsky, but he cannot accept the ancient morality of renunciation and humility. Lavretsky tries to warn, convince her and is forced to speak in her own language.
His assurances that the freedom of feeling is the highest good, that the violation of this freedom entails misfortune, and the one who violates it is responsible for the consequences of such a violation, encounters the resistance of Liza, the source of her persistence is her adherence to a certain ethical system.
From the image of Liza, straight threads stretch to the heroine of Turgenev's story " Strange story"- to the young lady Sophie, whom everyone finds "strange" and the most life feat which (feat of self-denial and religious service is traditional, ancient feat pilgrimage and obedience), sanctified by an idea, but a false idea, looks like nothing more than a “strange story”.
She did not find a way to a great, to a truly useful application of her forces for mankind and remained nothing more than " a strange person". Consistently negatively regarding religious fanaticism, arguing with Herzen, who saw in the Old Believers and sectarianism possible source revolutionary moods, Turgenev at the same time compared Sophie with the young revolutionary populists, who later, as the writer emphasizes, went to the feat for the sake of what "they considered the truth and goodness", embodying their "unshakable and ineradicable convictions." The article "Hamlet and Don Quixote" says: "All people live<...>by virtue of its<...>ideal, that is, by virtue of what they consider to be truth, beauty, goodness.
Lavretsky's convictions do not correspond to Lisa's ascetic views, he argues with her, but his humility before the people's truth, the readiness with which he submits to a false situation that has arisen through no fault of his own (after all, he could divorce his wife) and refuses to fight for his happiness, reproaches , which he addresses himself, contrasting work for the benefit of the disadvantaged people with love and the joys of life, testify to the fact that he does not believe in his right to happiness.
After parting with Liza and ascetically devoting himself to work for the benefit of his peasants, Lavretsky, forgotten by everyone and alone, "stopped thinking about his own happiness, about selfish goals", and that is why "he had something to regret, nothing to be ashamed of."
The novel "The Nest of Nobles" is imbued with the consciousness of the flow of historical time, taking away the lives of people, the hopes and thoughts of generations, and entire layers of national culture.
The very image of the “noble nest”, an image that is locally and socially “dissociated” from the large generalized image of Russia, the motherland, is nevertheless a derivative of it, and this side of the world created in the novel is no less important than the “sense of history” expressed in it. .
In the "Noble Nest", in old house, in which generations of nobles and peasants lived, the spirit of the motherland, Russia, lives, it blows "the smoke of the fatherland". Lyrical theme Russia, opposed to the West, consciousness of the peculiarities of Russian historical conditions and characters in "The Nest of Nobles" anticipate the problems of the novel "Smoke".
In the "Nest of Nobles", in the houses of Lavretsky and Kalitin, spiritual values were born and matured, which will forever remain the property of Russian society, no matter how it changes.
“Light poetry spilled in every sound of this novel,” according to Saltykov-Shchedrin, should be seen not only in the writer’s love for the past and his humility before the highest law of history, but in his faith in the internal organic development of the country. At the end of the novel new life“plays” in the old house and old garden, and does not leave this house, renouncing it.
In no other work of Turgenev, to such an extent as in The Nest of Nobles, is negation connected with affirmation, in none of the opposites are weaved into such a tight knot. Drawing the historical sunset of the landowners' nests, Turgenev showed that enduring values noble culture were created in the process of its interaction with the spiritual life of the people, the peasantry.
History of Russian literature: in 4 volumes / Edited by N.I. Prutskov and others - L., 1980-1983
The favorite place of action in Turgenev's works is the "noble nests" with the atmosphere of sublime experiences reigning in them. Their fate worries Turgenev and one of his novels, which is called “The Nest of Nobles”, is imbued with a sense of anxiety for their fate.
This novel is imbued with the consciousness that "noble nests" are degenerating. Critical coverage of Turgenev's noble genealogies of the Lavretskys and Kalitins, seeing in them a chronicle of feudal arbitrariness, a bizarre mixture of "wild nobility" and aristocratic admiration for Western Europe.
Turgenev very accurately shows the change of generations in the Lavretsky family, their connections with different periods historical development. A cruel and wild petty tyrant-landowner, great-grandfather of Lavretsky (“what the master wanted, he did, he hung men by the ribs ... he didn’t know the elder above him”); his grandfather, who once “ripped through the whole village”, a careless and hospitable “steppe master”; full of hatred for Voltaire and the "fanatic" Diderot, is typical representatives Russian "wild nobility". They are replaced by those who have joined the culture, either claims to “Frenchness”, or Anglomanism, which we see in the images of the frivolous old Princess Kubenskaya, in a very old age who married a young Frenchman, and the father of the hero Ivan Petrovich. Having begun with a passion for the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Diderot, he ended with prayers and a bath. “Freethinker - began to go to church and order prayers; European - began to bathe and dine at two o'clock, go to bed at nine, fall asleep to the chatter of the butler; statesman- burned all his plans, all correspondence, trembled before the governor and fussed in front of the police officer. Such was the history of one of the families of the Russian nobility
Also given is an idea of the Kalitin family, where parents do not care about children, as long as they are fed and clothed.
This whole picture is complemented by the figures of the gossip and jester of the old official Gedeonov, the dashing retired captain and famous player - Father Panigin, the lover of government money - the retired General Korobin, the future father-in-law of Lavretsky, etc. Telling the story of the families of the characters in the novel, Turgenev creates a picture very far from the idyllic image of the "noble nests". He shows aerowool Russia, whose people are hit hard by full course west to literally dense vegetation in his estate.
And all the “nests”, which for Turgenev were the stronghold of the country, the place where its power was concentrated and developed, are undergoing a process of decay and destruction. Describing the ancestors of Lavretsky through the mouths of the people (in the person of Anton, the courtyard man), the author shows that the history of noble nests is washed by the tears of many of their victims.
One of them - Lavretsky's mother - is a simple serf girl, who, unfortunately, turned out to be too beautiful, which attracts the attention of the nobleman, who, having married out of a desire to annoy his father, went to Petersburg, where he became interested in another.
Petersburg, where another became interested. And poor Malasha, unable to bear the fact that her son was taken away from her for the purpose of education, "resignedly, in a few days faded away."
The theme of the "irresponsibility" of the serfs accompanies Turgenev's entire narrative about the past of the Lavretsky family. The image of Lavretsky's evil and domineering aunt Glafira Petrovna is complemented by the images of the decrepit footman Anton, who has grown old in the lord's service, and the old woman Apraksey. These images are inseparable from the "noble nests".
In addition to the peasant and noble lines, the author is also developing a love line. In the struggle between duty and personal happiness, the advantage is on the side of duty, which love cannot resist. The collapse of the hero's illusions, the impossibility for him of personal happiness are, as it were, a reflection of the social collapse that the nobility experienced during these years.
"Nest" is a house, a symbol of the family, where the connection of generations is not interrupted. In the novel The Noble Nest "this connection is broken, which symbolizes the destruction, the withering away of family estates under the influence of serfdom. We can see the result of this, for example, in N. A. Nekrasov's poem "The Forgotten Village".
But Turgenev hopes that not everything is lost yet, and in the novel, saying goodbye to the past, he turns to the new generation, in which he sees the future of Russia.
