She's a remarkable nature, emancipee in the true sense of the word, an advanced woman."(Turgenev, 47) When Bazarov meets Kukshina however, he is again skeptical as to whether to believe in her accomplishments, and betrays his despise for the opposite gender even more when he hears she is not at all pretty and advocates that, if a woman is not pretty, she is not worth knowing. Bazarov's view on women is thus very eloquent, as it expresses the general mood of the age: women are the weak, passive gender, who can only make themselves useful for society if they are pretty and play well their roles as wives and mothers. However, the way in which the plot develops, points to the fact that women have more power than the men in the novel are willing to grant them. Although he is Bazarov's disciple, Arkady changes his nihilist view of love when he meets Katya. The same thing happens to Bazarov when he falls in love with Anna, although he is reluctant to admit to it until the end of the novel, when the young doctor dies from a typhus infection. When he meets Anna, Bazarov is impressed by her intelligence, but expresses his opinion in his usual misogynistic way: "Yes... A female with brains. Yes, and she's seen life too." He attempts to persuade himself that women are all manipulative and tries very hard to withstand the impulse to fall in love with Anna. When she rejects him, he is even more convinced that women are all hypocritical. Gradually however,...
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