Analysis Of Mayakovsky 's ' The Bedbug '

Vladimir Mayakovsky's “The Bedbug,” written in 1928-1929, appears to satirize the New Economic Policy. Mayakovsky separates his play into two acts to demonstrate two contrasting ideas, and the idea to stop the progressing bureaucracy from being a participant in the fight for communist power. In “The Bedbug,” Zoya Beryozkina is a working class woman who is rejected by Prisypkin; he abandons the working class world to marry a bourgeoisie woman in the effort to advance himself in society. After attempting suicide, Zoya seems to be quite fine fifty years later when they unfreeze Prisypkin from the past. The first half of the play ends with a tragic fire killing everyone in its presence, with one man unaccounted for. Ironically the only people to survive and advance are Zoya, the working class woman who attempts suicide in scene two, and the people who are associated with the working class. These two acts reflect the removal of the apparatchiks who took advantage of the resources supplied to them by the working class. This is demonstrated in scene one when

Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener”, demonstrates the theme of isolation and going against the working world through his use of characterization and setting in 1853. Similarly, it was also around the same time when Marxism was causing a commotion, and George Gunn’s essay of “CRITIQUE OF MARXISM” in 1964 explains the theory and flaws behind it. Naomi C. Reed’s “The Specter of Wall Street: “Bartleby, the Scrivener” and the Language of Commodities” and Anderson’s “Imagined Communities” will help make connections between Herman Melville’s story and Marxism. Naomi C. Reed’s article will provide additional interpretation on Herman Melville’s work and historic content of what it was like during that time period. Anderson’s paper on “Imagined Communities” describes how nationalism came to be and why people are attached to it, where people shared the same ideology in a community. But, the behavior of Bartleby, shows that he is resistance toward his society under the capitalist rule which shows that he is supporting a belief similar to Marxism. This shows that capitalist society is flawed and should switch to a better type of system.

Mikhail Lermontov’s ‘A Hero of our Time’ is set in the 1840s, a crucial time in Russian history. Pechorin was a revolutionary character in Russian literature due to his cynical and amoral personality that alienates him from all social strata. ‘A Hero of our Time’ generated a large amount of outrage from the public due to Lermontov, claiming Pechorin to be the ‘hero’ of our its time. ’Bela’ is a framed narrative portrayed from the views of an old friend, Maxim Maximych, however, the story told by Maxim Maximych suggests it is an unjust and biased view of our ‘hero’ thus we as readers are to depict the true ‘hero’ Pechorin is. Examining the chapter ‘Bela,’ his actions signify his capability to damage a society, demonstrating him to be the callous and manipulative character he is.

The Great Terror was one of the single greatest loss of lives in the history of the world. It was a crusade of political tyranny in the Soviet Union that transpired during the late 1930’s. The Terrors implicated a wide spread cleansing of the Communist Party and government officials, control of peasants and the Red Army headship, extensive police over watch, suspicion of saboteurs, counter-revolutionaries, and illogical slayings. Opportunely, some good did come from the terrors nonetheless. Two of those goods being Sofia Petrovna and Requiem. Both works allow history to peer back into the Stalin Era and bear witness to the travesties that came with it. Through the use of fictional story telling and thematic devises Sofia Petrovna and Requiem, respectively, paint a grim yet descriptive picture in a very efficient manner.

Anton Chekhov hardly restrained from writing the dreary aspects of life during his writing career. Noted as one of Russia’s most prominent realist writers of the late 19th century, Chekhov’s work ranged from critical issues concerning the mental health system in “Ward No.6” to illustrating the tiresome cycle occurring for ordinary people sensing they are incomplete with their dull, normal life in “The Lady with the Dog.” “The Lady with the Dog,” in particular portrays characters of Chekhov’s facing an unreachable desire; Gurov and Anna. This desire emulates two contrasting forces represented by the double-lives the couple lives, one being that of realism and boredom, and the other of strict passion and romanticism. Gurov and “the lady with

We formed a special bond with Nabokov despite the difficulty of his prose. This went deeper than out identification with his themes. His novels are shaped around invisible trapdoors, sudden gaps that constantly pull the carpet from under the reader’s feet. They are filled with mistrust of what we call everyday reality, an acute sense of that reality’s fickleness and frailty (293).

Trotsky’s overall role in the Soviet Union is indisputable as his strategic leadership skills enabled him to play a fundamental role in the organisation and implementation of the November 1917 Bolshevik seizure of power and the Civil War of 1918-21. However, the importance of Lenin’s role must also be taken into account to achieve a more balanced portrayal, as many of Trotsky’s successes were based on Lenin’s initiatives. Although Lenin held authority over the Bolshevik’s, it

The end of the nineteenth century marked a brilliant period in Russian literature defined by innovation and experimentation. With political and economic changes sweeping over Russia, its literature displayed the anxious, even hostile reaction to the modernization of a nation that hadn’t seen transformations in decades. The Petty Demon, Wings, and Petersburg considered to be some of the greatest works of the time, were unique pieces of literature in the decadence period, although they borrowed and built on elements from other authors of the time. The analysis of these novels, in terms of conventional categories of literary analysis, including thematics, narration, and setting is not only a means to display the uncommon structure of the novel, but also to demonstrate its association with other influential authors. In the writings of The Petty Demon, Wings, and Petersburg these authors dismantle the ideas of other authors and then parody them, therefore subverting the norms of realist pros and making reader think of a particular style of writing and then goes to write the complete opposite.

It can be argued that Leon Trotsky’s naïve personality is what failed him in the attempt to achieve power, but through his intelligence and sturdy leadership, he shaped the Russian and International history to the way it is today. Through his main roles as ‘Commissar for Foreign Affairs’, ‘Commissar for War’ and the political position in the Politburo, Trotsky impacted society by his efforts in control and fight for power, and his aim to spread his communist ideals of ‘comintern’ (Communist

Were it a testimony to the rigors and cruelness of human nature, it would be crushing. As it is, it shatters our perception of man and ourselves as no other book, besides perhaps Anne Franke`s diary and the testimony of Elie Wiesl, could ever have done. The prisoners of the labor camp, as in Shukhov?s predicament, were required to behave as Soviets or face severe punishment. In an almost satirical tone Buinovsky exclaims to the squadron that ?You?re not behaving like Soviet People,? and went on saying, ?You?re not behaving like communist.? (28) This type of internal monologue clearly persuades a tone of aggravation and sarcasm directly associated to the oppression?s of communism.

Throughout the course of the semester, we have studied various texts, and applied various themes in order to further interpret said texts. As a class, we have studied, and discussed, what makes working class prevalent in a theme, how it is, and was, used in regards to studying the Victorian Era. While the concept of working class issues may not be as prevalent in the Goblin Market as they are in other works, they are still nonetheless, prevalent. One main theme that plays into the issue of working class in the piece is the theme of temptation in the Victorian Era, in which the Goblin Market is based. The Goblin Market piece illustrates many routes women in the Victorian Era had to take just in order to survive in the time period, illustrating class divisions, as well as how class identities clashed together in the piece alone, and more.

If these were the discourse narratives, then how did they affect worker roles, and worker positionally in the Soviet landscape discussed in Bol’shevik? If the individual, indeed did have an active part to play, what was that part and how was he supposed to achieve it? Even more importantly, what if the state failed to create the tools necessary to assume that role? This ideological narrative mimics similar threads of discourse discussed previously. It is important to realize the conflicting messages the journal sent to the reader. The resulting analysis finds that the rhetoric reflected a dichotomy of state control and worker agency. While the worker was presented as the one solely able to complete the national narrative, the party created

From Stalin’s Cult of Personality to Khrushchev’s period of De-Stalinization, the nation of the Soviet Union was in endless disarray of what to regard as true in the sense of a socialist direction. The short story, This is Moscow Speaking, written by Yuli Daniel (Nikolai Arzhak) represents the ideology that the citizens of the USSR were constantly living in fear of the alternations of their nation’s political policies. Even more, the novella gives an explanation for the people’s desire to conform to the principles around them.

In the 1920’s, the Soviet State was a terrible spectacle of intense political and economic restructuring. However, specifically in Soviet society, even more restructuring took place. Specifically, lower members of society, such as the proletariat, were forced to become a new, more refined class of men. In the novel, Heart of a dog, Mikhail Bulgakov, satirically expresses this restructuring of the Soviet Union under Josef Stalin with the character Polygraph Polygraphovich or Sharikov. Throughout, Sharikov is used as an engine to describe the many downfalls of the Stalin Revolution including food and housing shortages, and class merges. Further, a high level of censorship was taking over Soviet society. Unsurprisingly, Bulgakov was reported by the secret censorship police even though he attempted to express his own personal opinions without having his work cut or censored, through the use of satire. Using real-life people disguised as characters, Bulgakov transforms the character Sharikov into a dog after suggesting that the character symbolizes the old style proletariat. During this time, the Second Russian Revolution, (also known as the "Stalin Revolution") the Soviet State underwent the aforementioned changes during the late1920's and early 1930's. It was during this time that Joseph Stalin imposed upon the country new forms of social, economic, and even linguistic censorship.

Rodchenko overlaps planes of colour, form and texture in an architectural way. His design includes a large clock signifying the importance the Revolution placed on precision and efficiency, as well as a speaker’s rostrum, a huge billboard and a space to sell books and newspapers. Rodchenko became an indisputable supporter of the Bolsheviks after the revolution and held roles within the newly formed Fine Art Department of the People’s Commissariat of Enlightenment. El Lissitzky was a Suprematist and therefore his goal was to create work that embodied utopian ideals and values. His work was more transcendental and he sort to manipulate space and perspective to shape the new world. El Lissitzky developed Prouns (an abbreviation of Russian words meaning ‘project for the establishment of new art’). These images were meant to move and inspire the masses. El Lissitzky described the ‘Proun’s power is to create aims, this is the artists’ freedom, denied to the scientist’ (Margolin 1997, p. 33). He aimed to create works that would be clear to everyone in an attempt to build a classless society. Despite the isolation of Russia from the rest of the world as a result of the Revolution, El Lissitzky still believed in a utopian world. He chose to recreate form and space from scratch. The Proun brought together architecture and painting. Proun 1 E, The Town (see figure 2), closely models a town plan. There is volume to the shapes he uses which indicate the form of