Mohammad Asad

    001109-018

WORLD ASSIGNMENT 2

English A1 / Higher Level

FATHERS AND SONS

By: Ivan Turgenev

10 years have passed…

By: Mohammad Asad

Date: 01/30/2008

Word Count: 1,537

Candidate Number: 001109-018

Statement of Intent

Ten years have passed since the brothers last met. It was then when in the small parish church, two weddings had taken place quietly and almost without witnesses: Arkady’s wedding to Katya and that of Nikolai Petrovich to Fenichka; and on that same day, Nikolai Petrovich was giving a farewell dinner for his brother, who was going away to Moscow on some business.

        I have decided to continue and add to the novel Fathers and Sons ever since I finished reading it. I always wondered where each character would be after a certain period of time. And now I will remind you of the characters, and where we last left them with Turgenev, so we can carry on from there:

The Kirsanovs, father and son, had settled at Maryino. Arkady was passionately engrossed in the management of the estate and the farm was yielding a fairly substantial income. Nikolai Petrovich became an arbitrator in the land reforms and was putting all of his energy into the work. Katya had given birth to a son, little Nikolai, while Mitya (Fenichka’s son) scampered all over the place. Pavel Petrovich had gone from Moscow abroad for the sake of his health and then stayed in Dresden, where he associated chiefly with English and Russian visitors.

As time passed, the estate at Maryino began to grow. Under Arkady's supervision, more and more peasants are needed. Arkady’s transition is complete and he becomes the practical man of business who still adheres too many of the more advanced ideas, but will not reject all the classical values found in art, literature, and music. With Arkady’s educational knowledge, new methods of farming are found. These new methods are more effective and time conserving, so more work can be done in the same amount of time. The Kirsanovs farm became known all across the region. People from all parts of the world heard of the success of the farm and these new methods. Arkady soon began to teach these new discoveries in farming. People were willing to work on the farm for free as long as Arkady taught them these new methods. These methods and techniques soon became so famous that Arkady decided to publish them into a book called Maryino’s Farming Methods.

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As the estate grew, so did Nikolai. He could no longer bare the stress of his work, so he spent most of his time engaged at home. He would sit with his son, Mitya, and his grandson, Nikolai, and tell them stories of his past experiences and adventures. As they sat one breezy afternoon drinking their tea, Nikolai decided to tell these young ones something he had never told anyone before. He hesitated at first, but the thought of it made him continue: “A long time ago, I used to work at the neighbors farm since my family’s farm was ...

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