Dead Souls Book Study
Dead Souls Is a classic novel by Nikolai Gogol, and is considered an exemplar of 19th century Russian literature. Russian literature in the 19th century provided insight on the flaws and faults of the Russian people during that time, and Gogol masterfully portrayed these defects though his characters. The story focuses on the historical setting, being written after the french invasion of Russia and the thoughts of the war still fresh in the minds of the citizens. also this was a time where indentured service, called serfs, were prominent in Russia. The book also touches on the political setting, where the people with the most serfs are the most powerful in the nation. Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol is a book that really helps one understand what Russia was like in the 19th century, by letting people know about the historical setting and the politics of the era as well.
The era in Russia is perfectly depicted in Dead Souls. The reason why the book is called Dead Souls is Interesting, and also tell about how people though in Russia in the 19th century. Dead Souls is talking about the serfs, who souls are considered owned by their master, and the master has to pay taxes on the serf. However, the Russian authorities do censeces very infrequently, so the serfs who die are considered “Dead souls” because there master still has to pay taxes on them because a new census was not completed, so they are still considered alive by the Russian authorities. The plot involves the main character going around buying these “Dead Souls” in order to appear rich and thus get richer by doing this. This title, however unimportant it sounds, gives background on what Russia was really like in the 19th century. There is clear separati...
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...ics and corrupts the whole system. Politics in 19th century Russia where dominated by the people who didn't belong there, and they just appeared rich, signifying what politics where really like in the 19th century Russia.
Russia in the was a different place in Dead souls, which took place in the 19th century, than we know it as today. through telling about the timeframe of the book and through telling about the politics of the time, Dead souls is a masterpiece that Google has witten. The story easley tell about what the time was like and what the people were like, how they acted and what is important to them. This is what the book does so well, and what makes Dead souls a classic in Russian literature.
Work Cited
Gogolʹ, Nikolaĭ Vasilʹevich, and Bernard Guilbert Guerney. Dead Souls. New York: Modern Library, 1965. Print.
Historically, Russia has always been a country of perplexing dualities. The reality of Dual Russia, the separation of the official culture from that of the common people, persisted after the Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War. The Czarist Russia was at once modernized and backward: St. Petersburg and Moscow stood as the highly developed industrial centers of the country and two of the capitals of Europe, yet the overwhelming majority of the population were subsistent farms who lived on mir; French was the official language and the elites were highly literate, yet 82% of the populati...
While most of Europe had develop strong central governments and weakened the power of the nobles, Russia had lagged behind the times and still had serfs as late as 1861. The economic development that followed the emancipation of peasants in the rest of Europe created strong industrial and tax bases in those nations. Russian monarchs had attempted some level of reforms to address this inequality for almost a century before, and were indeed on their way to “economic maturity” (32) on par with the rest of Europe. But they overextended themselves and the crushing defeats of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 and the First World War in 1917 lost them the necessary support from their subjects and created “high prices and scarcity” which were by far “the most obvious factors in the general tension”
The Brothers Karamazov is an enthralling thriller about the strive for self-redemption in the eyes of God as well as in the hearts of the Russians. The murder of Fyodor Karamazov, a foolish and heartless savage who betrays his own sons of a father's care, venomously seeps its way into Dmitri, Ivan, and Alyosha's lives causing innocence to request fault and suffering. With intricate characterizations, Dostoevsky magnificently presents the internal agony that derives from a wavering spirit.
The first encounter with Helga Crane, Nella Larsen’s protagonist in the novel Quicksand, introduces the heroine unwinding after a day of work in a dimly lit room. She is alone. And while no one else is present in the room, Helga is accompanied by her own thoughts, feelings, and her worrisome perceptions of the world around her. Throughout the novel, it becomes clear that most of Helga’s concerns revolve around two issues- race and sex. Even though there are many human character antagonists that play a significant role in the novel and in the story of Helga Crane, such as her friends, coworkers, relatives, and ultimately even her own children, her race and her sexuality become Helga’s biggest challenges. These two taxing antagonists appear throughout the novel in many subtle forms. It becomes obvious that racial confusion and sexual repression are a substantial source of Helga’s apprehensions and eventually lead to her tragic demise.
In describing the setting, the general locale is the prison in the coldest part of Russia- Siberia, geographically but socially depicting the social circumstances in the prison, but draws analogies to the general social, political and economic circumstances of Russia during the Stalinist era (form 1917 revolution up to 1955). The symbolic significance of the novel and the film (genres) reflects experiences, values and attitudes of the Russian society. The genres reflect the origins of the Russian social disorders and massive counts of political misgivings which watered down real communism in Russia. We are constantly reminded of the social and cultural heritage and originality of Russian ethnic groups through those different levels of meanings
Michael MacDonald’S All Souls is a heart wrenching insider account of growing up in Old Country housing projects located in the south of Boston, also known as Southie to the locals. The memoir takes the reader deep inside the world of Southie through the eyes of MacDonald. MacDonald was one of 11 children to grow up and deal with the many tribulations of Southie, Boston. Southie is characterized by high levels of crime, racism, and violence; all things that fall under the category of social problem. Social problems can be defined as “societal induced conditions that harms any segment of the population. Social problems are also related to acts and conditions that violate the norms and values found in society” (Long). The social problems that are present in Southie are the very reasons why the living conditions are so bad as well as why Southie is considered one of the poorest towns in Boston. Macdonald’s along with his family have to overcome the presence of crime, racism, and violence in order to survive in the town they consider the best place in the world.
Being a work of fiction, the characterization of people and events in Hadji Murat is largely a product of Tolstoy’s own imagination. This does not, however, take away from his message, from the story, or from truths about Russian culture found in the novel. Tolstoy believed strongly in nonviolence, which is evident in his message about oppression; that it only breeds more dissent and resentment. The thistle in the opening sold its life so dearly in its attempt at self preservation, and the Chechen villagers’ hate of the “Russian dogs” is said by Tolstoy to be just as strong, they would fight just as hard as that simple thistle did. Aside from Tolstoy’s message and any biases he had against any of the historical figures in his novel, his book is a wealth of information about stratified Russian society from the top to the bottom, making it very valuable in the study of Russian history and culture.
The 19th century was a highly turbulent time in Russia’s history. Following the defeat of Napoleonic France, Western ideas and philosophy crept into Russian culture. As a result, Russian nobles split into two schools of thought. Slavophiles valued Russia’s traditional Orthodox Church, and did not want to Westernize and secede to the supposed superiority of Western culture. Conversely, Westernizers were a group of nobles who were against the traditional Russian values, and believed that the only way forward was to look to Europe. The Westernizers and the Slavophiles disagreed on a deep level about the direction Russia needed to take in the future. Russian thinkers were split between the Westernizer and the Slavophile point of view; both sides disagreed about the true nature of the country as well as its relation with the West.
Through these decrees we see how Russian social class is very stratified and there are more high official roles but more people in poverty. Russia still had to serfs until 1861. Also the state of the Russian economy was probably very limited to do the fact that there was no manufacturing company to provide for the empire. The Russian economy was very isolated and they go to areas where they can trade. With Russia’s subsistence economy, they were not able to specialize in other areas.
Russia entered the 20th century as an oppressed tsarist state and the last of the Medieval European strongholds. The people were poor, starving and hopeless and, unlike the rest of Europe, had not experienced revolution. Eventually, however, a small group of revolutionaries emerged and overthrew the tsarist regime. Russia quickly devolved into anarchy and the resulting turmoil saw the rise of the Bolshevik Party and Vladimir Lenin. This was the beginning of the Russian Revolution, a prolonged event that deeply impacted Russia and the whole of Europe and the effects of which continue to be felt today.
“The social causes by the Russian revolution mainly became of centuries of domination over the lower classes by the Tsarist regime, and Nicholas’s failures in World War one.”5 As the rural agricultural peasants had been limitless from serfdom in the year 1861, the peasants still refused paying redemption payments to the state and demanded to be the private owner of the land that they worked. The only problem was further compounded by the never lasting failure of Sergei Witte’s land reforms during the early twentieth century. Peasant disturbances increased which sometimes ended up becoming revolts, with only the goal of securing the ownership of the land they worked. At that time Russia consisted mainly of poor farming peasants, which made up one and a half percent of the population owning twenty-five percent of the land.
According to Oudenaren and Tiersky, “Russian’s relationship with Europe is a geopolitical story of major consequence that goes back centuries to the beginnings of the modern European order” (European Foreign Policies 69). While Tsar Peter the Great did much to modernize Russia’s economy and technology, he did so while repressing many aspects of the European enlightenment and even European culture. In going about the modernization in such a way, Russia failed to develop its own sense of foreign policy for the 18th and 19th centuries, frequently “alternating between periods of introspection and retreat and aggressive moves towards Europe along its western frontier” (69). It was this inability to adapt to a changing world that contributed to a series of collapses of Russia’s governme...
"The Russian Revolution, 1881-1939." DISCovering World History. Online ed. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Student Resource Centre Canadian Edition. Web. 28 Oct. 2009.
Morrissey, L.J. "Inner And Outer Perceptions In Joyce's 'The Dead'." Studies In Short Fiction 25.1 (1988): 21. MasterFILE Complete. Web. 16 Apr. 2014. http://catalog.cumberlandcountylibraries.org:61080/ebsco-w-b/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=7693b223-8004-4e94-90d1
... story but it also reflects Russian society. This, however, isn’t why many Russians still continue to hold this piece of literature as central to their culture. Although, it tells of their heritage and society, it is the simple genius of the structure of the novel of –14-line stanza form-and his lyrics, which are complex and meticulous but are written with such ease that they appear effortless, simple, and natural.