The novel links the state of each house and surrounding land with the psychological qualities of its owner.

Descriptions of Marino paint it as an estate in disarray: The estate is on “flat and barren land” and “the young trees hadn’t taken, too little water collected in the land, and that in the wells had a brackish taste” (15). This demonstrates Nikolai’s ineptitude at land management and his unconventional domestic situation. When Nikolai finally marries Fenechka, and Arkady has settled into domestic happiness with Katya, Arkady takes over management of Marino and becomes the “zealous proprietor” of the newly thriving estate (160).

Anna’s estate Nikolskoe, reflects her extreme control over her life and emotions: “an avenue of pruned firs lead to its entrance […] it was clear that order prevailed in this house: everything was clean and sweet-smelling, like a minister’s reception room” (65). She marries a man equally committed to an absence of passion, retaining her ability to organize everything around her.

While Bazarov’s family home has none of this grandeur, it echoes the warmth and love of his parents: Arkady finds dinner “sumptuous” and he “slept very well in the room attached to the bathhouse. It smelled of mint” (95). Even the two crickets he hears behind the stove seem to be a reference to Vassily and Arina. After Bazarov’s death, his parents make a home in a new place: a poorly tended cemetery where only his grave is “untrampled by animals” and has a new fence around it. As, “the flowers growing on it look out at us serenely with their innocent eyes” (163), the novel implies that Bazarov’s scorched-earth approach to life has left no mark on the environment. In death, his parents have covered over their son’s temperament.