Analysis Of Leo Tolstoy 's ' The Great Anton Chekhov '

Anton Chekhov’s short story, “At Home,” provides a representation on how societies view morality when faced with the action of discipline. This view is imperative to the story because Chekhov wants the reader to recognize the futile ways societies determine what is morally correct or incorrect, by implementing consequences without considering why an action must be punished. Evgeni Bykovski, an attorney, is faced with this exact problem as he determines how to properly teach and discipline his son, Seriozha, who has been caught stealing, smoking, and lying. Nevertheless, Evgeni finds himself at his most difficult trial because as he ponders how to punish his son, he encounters his own set of crossroads on how societies discipline

Though Anton Chekhov's "The Bet" was written in a different country at a different time, it portrays a timeless theme; greed is a crippling trait of mankind. This message can be seen through the author's use of characterization of both the lawyer and the banker. The banker was a static character; he was greedy from start to finish. The lawyer was a dynamic character and he saw the wrong in his ways and changed them in the end.

“They walked and talked of the strange light on the sea… talked of how sultry it was after a hot day” and discussed employment and birthplaces (897). After departing from Yalta, Chekhov details Gurov’s dreary life of “children [having] breakfast and getting ready for school… entertaining distinguished lawyers... walking his daughter to school” (901, 905).

The short story “The Death of Dolgushov” by Isaak Babel is a gut wrenching story, at times literally, about the dilemmas of killing. Babel, a master of the short story, challenges readers’ morality by contrasting two soldiers plights. On the one hand, a soldier, Dolgushov, pleads that he has “had it (241),” meaning that he wants his comrade to kill him after being mortally wounded by machine gun fire; while on the other hand, another soldier, unnamed, cannot bring himself to kill Dolgushov. Throughout the story, war is depicted as a game until a soldier gets seriously hurt. This device, combined with the vivid imagery associated with both soldier’s plights, complicates how readers’ judge the act of killing and war in general.

In Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, Rakitin responds to a central question throughout the novel, “What is permitted?” when he proudly states to Dmitry that “An intelligent man can do anything he likes as long as he’s clever enough to get away with it” (788). While Rakitin has found his answer to this question, multiple characters in the novel are still stuck on that question. Throughout the novel, Dostoevsky seems to separate these characters into two groups: the characters like Dmitry who wonder if all actions are permitted and the characters like Ivan who wonder if all thoughts are permitted. These groups seem completely separate until Book 10 when a boy named Koyla Krasotkin comes onto the scene who seems to be in both groups at once as he tests for himself exactly what thoughts and actions are permitted. In Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky uses Book 10 and Kolya to introduce the idea that the “free thinkers” and the “free doers” are one in the same in that they are wondering who will punish those who go beyond “what is permitted” and by extension sets up an argument between moral and legal punishment throughout the rest of the novel.

The historical, monochrome images that flash on the screen, coupled with Motss’ asyndetic list, “Naked girl, covered in napalm. Five marines raising the flag, Mount Suribachl. Churchill, V for Victory” suggests that the public’s understanding of events is often defined by single photographic representations, rather than factual evidence. Followed by Motss’ antithetical, parallel phrases suggest that the understanding individuals gleam from such representations is shallow and fleeting: “You remember the picture, fifty years from now, they'll have forgotten the war” where these images that transpire come to embody and represent the entirety of military events. The imperative “Put the village behind her” and “Gimme some flames”, followed by the blue screen being replaced by a smoking Albanian village, reveals the degree to which the representations upon which the public understand political events may be subject to doctoring and manipulation by the composers in the media. Moments later, Levinson includes film, styled as raw news footage, of a television journalist vouching for the authenticity of the clip to reveal that fabricated representations may appear virtually indistinguishable from the clips shown on mass media. Thus, Levinson reveals the extent to which the public’s understanding of political

Tolstoy uses characters to show varying degrees of manipulation. Today’s society also displays many instances of manipulation, primarily in entertainment.

War in its romanticized state is considered to be poetic in a way. When husbands, wives, mothers and fathers go and fight for what they believe in, they are taking the ultimate risk that needs to be made to eventually assure their families, their peers, and most importantly their countries safety. However, to their knowledge, the war that they are ready to fight isn’t the war that they are going to fight. Within our world today and most visibly in the past, we can see many different examples of the romanticism of war, most commonly known as propaganda, and in the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, you can see that war propaganda and romanticism is a key point in the marketing of war and how problematic it can really be.

Tolstoy’s emphasizes deeply with the Chechen people as he details their suffering at the hands of the

Real Fiction I’ve always had a clear meaning of the words reality and fiction. I was taught that they are basically opposites. Fiction stories are completely falsified. Reality was well…real.

Tolstoy's emphasizes deeply with the Chechen people as he details their suffering at the hands of

As long as there has been war, those involved have managed to get their story out. This can be a method of coping with choices made or a way to deal with atrocities that have been witnessed. It can also be a means of telling the story of war for those that may have a keen interest in it. Regardless of the reason, a few themes have been a reoccurrence throughout. In ‘A Long Way Gone,’ ‘Slaughterhouse-Five,’ and ‘Novel without a Name,’ three narrators take the readers through their memories of war and destruction ending in survival and revelation. The common revelation of these stories is one of regret. Each of these books begins with the main character as an innocent, patriotic soldier or civilian and ends in either the loss of innocence and regret of choices only to be compensated with as a dire warning to those that may read it. These books are in fact antiwar stories meant not to detest patriotism or pride for one’s country or way of life, but to detest the conditions that lead to one being so simpleminded to kill another for it. The firebombing of Dresden, the mass execution of innocent civilians in Sierra Leone and a generation of people lost to the gruesome and outlandish way of life of communism and Marxism should be enough to convince anyone. These stories serve as another perspective for the not-so-easily convinced.

Count Leo Tolstoy's novella, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, was published in 1886. Despite being written over 100 years ago, it contains themes and ideas that are universal and still applicable today. These themes include mortality, authenticity of life, and suffering. Mortality, or transiency of life, is central in Tolstoy's novella. Like most people, the main character, Ivan, ignores his mortality until he becomes sick. In chapter 6, Ivan recalls studying Keiswetter's philosophy, and the idea of mortality (1464). Tolstoy writes, "And Caius is indeed mortal and and it's right that he should die... for me it's quite different. And it cannot be that I should die" (1464). Ivan can not grasp that he has to face death just like everyone else. Among

Leo Tolstoy was an author, anarchist, critic, pioneer, visionary, and a world changer. He wrote many great novels and various other literary works in his time, but that only scratches the surface of how and what he did to change the world. Leo Tolstoy changed the world by starting schools which allowed peasants to get an education, influencing leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., and changed the world through his writings.

“Nothing has ever been more insupportable for a man and a human society than freedom.” –The Grand Inquisitor” “Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.” - Father Zosima. These two quotes voice the polarized philosophies that impregnate the book, The Brothers Karamazov. Ivan, the second of the three sons, and Zosima, the old monk, are huge commentators on the question, “Is the burden of free will to much for a human to bear?”