Embarrassment Of The Family Name

However, these masks are not strong enough to justify his true nature which is much illustrated by the way he got married. The author reports that Gurov got married in his second year of university studies, an act that portrayed Gurov as not fully focused in his studies but rather concerned by fulfilling his sexual lust. Thus his desire to marry was not driven by the will to raise a family as entrenched in the society’s social standards (Sleeper 75). The author’s description of the beauty in Gurov’s wife even before they got married counters all the negative pictures that the character is painting to the audience. Whereas the husband talks of her to be unintelligent, the author describes her as a dignified woman who is feared by her own husband.

My initial observation of Dashkova is her ability to be extraordinary despite her difficult upbringing. Her intelligence was compelling to the Empress Catherine and the men that she had encountered during her traveling. Dashkova portrayed herself as a strong, versatile woman, who’s not only different from most of the women during the time period, but can also outperform her male counterparts in various tasks (e.g. surgery, debate, carpenting, etc.) (pg. 144). She surprised the readers at the first moment when she met Prince Dashkov, a Moscow man. She fell in love with him and got married at the age of 16. The proposal was informal and emotional unlike the traditional arrangement with its strict regulations. Just 5 years after, Prince Dashkov passed away, leaving Dashkova 2 children and his mountainous gambling debt. In the most hopeless scenario, Dashkova managed to raise her 2 children and provided her son a wonderful education while still remaining faithful to the Empress Catherine II. She declared, “My own poverty affected me not at all” (pg. 149).

This love, which is most fully expressed when we live as though each is responsible for everything.” Throughout the novel, Zosima’s actions reveal the position of his heart. Dostoevsky, through Zosima, shows how these complex and difficult ideas can be lived out to produce paradise. He lives as a monk, to which people travel far to hear his wisdom, he treats each of these individuals with love, and caters to their needs. When Zosima meets with Alyosha’s family he bows at Dimitri’s feet. Even though Dimitri lives a life of greed and grotesque sin, Father Zosima chooses to humble himself below the sinner. Father Zosima lays in a state of complete mercy at Dimitri’s feet, an absurd action to those in the company. Later, Zosima confides in Alyosha, “I bowed down yesterday in recognition of the great suffering that he is to endure” (355). Zosima takes it upon himself to feel guilt and responsibility for the suffering Dimitri is about to endure, even though Dimitri lives a life of sensuality and greed, while Zosima has been practicing a holy life. Zosima recognizes the fact that, as an individual in sobornost, he stands guilty before Dimitri for any sin he has committed that has brought Dimitri to this point of suffering. Zosima sees his actions in the past and present as waves in the ocean, which at any point intermingled with Dimitri’s life. Another way in which Zosima actively acts out the

Ivan Ilych’s marriage to Praskovya Fedorovna is not built on true love, instead it is built on Ivan Ilych once again, trying to fit in with society. To prove that Ivan Ilych did not get married based off true love the narrator says, “Ivan Ilych might have aspired to a more brilliant match, but even this was good. He had his salary, and she, he hoped, would have an equal income.” (Tolstoy) This quote proves that Ivan Ilych was conforming to society and he married his wife just because it was the right thing to do since everyone else was doing it which is shown when the narrator says “Ivan might have aspired to a more brilliant match” meaning that he was not completely satisfied with his wife. Ivan Ilych did not look at the deeper meaning of marriage, he only looked at the materialistic and physical things that came along with his wife which is why they both did not live a happy life together. When Ivan Ilych got ill the narrator says, “her husband had a dreadful temper and made her life miserable, she began to feel sorry for herself, and the more she pitied herself the more she hated her husband. She began to wish he would die” (Tolstoy). This expresses the hate that Praskovya Fedorovna felt towards her husband due to the fact that she realized Ivan Ilych never cared for her or her family and he only cared about his social status. Ivan Ilych was a bad husband because of his immorality and thus his wife is insurgent against him. Here,

Anton Chekhov is a well-known Russian author recognized for his revolutionary work as a writer of short stories and drama. In many of his pieces, Chekhov’s characters seem unhappy with their position in life. The common factor leading to this unhappiness in a majority of Chekhov’s stories is marriage. Chekhov’s “The Chemist’s Wife”, and “The Lady with the Dog”, both contain examples of loveless marriages. This element of the unhappy marriage permeates a large portion of his work, and relates to a common theme present in both stories, and other works of Chekhov’s; that the mundane nature of a traditional marriage leads to a lack of passion.

    In the face of Morrie's overwhelming compassion and tenderness, Ivan Ilych presents an opposite lifestyle. After a pleasantly carefree childhood he turned towards ambition and pursued an ever-larger salary and an ever-increasing social rank. Ivan lived without values and without attachments, easily moving between cities and jobs. He cared little for the great inconvenience of his family, and even less for his wife: "he hate[d] her with his whole soul" (Ivn, 139). Commitment was a prison to be avoided at all costs, a detriment to his proper and official existence. Genuine love touched Ivan only rarely and certainly not during the dying moments when he needed it the most.

While family structure in the Soviet Union did change significantly during the first two decades of Communist government following the social revolution, there were also many ways in which it did not change, and some ways in which there was a return to traditional family structure during this time. Although there were changes to marriage and divorce laws, the role of women in the workplace, and the social ideas of male and female roles, inequality was still a significant issue. The attempts to create a new model of family life throughout the 1920s and 1930s, without traditional boundaries but with respect for individual rights, was unsuccessful in many ways, as women were still viewed as responsible for household duties and for raising children while men had much more sexual freedom than women. The early 1920s and the revolutionary concepts and laws which it introduced resulted in social disorder, with marriage breakdown, homelessness and poverty leading to a backlash against the changes in gender roles. Rather than blaming the lack of social services, many claimed that women needed to return to traditional roles and supply stability to the family, rather than considering the nation’s economic situation and the lack of social services as being the central issue.

Petersburg. She has a reputation for cheating the poor and for beating her own sister, Lizaveta. Raskolnikov developed a relationship with her during Act I when he pawned a watch to her. During a walk to a local Tavern, Raskolnikov hears Lizaveta mention that she will not be home around seven o’clock with Alyona. “The old woman [Alyona Ivanovna] would be left alone (Dostoyevsky 51).” With this new information, Raskolnikov has had his mind made for him. “He went in [to his apartment] like a man condemned to death (Dostoyevsky 51).” That very night, he visited Alyona with vicious intentions. Raskolnikov invited himself into her apartment, fabricating a story about an item that he wanted to pawn to her. Alyona was focused on the item when Raskolnikov brutally hit her with an axe. “He stepped back, let it [Alyona’s body] fall, and at once bent over her face; she was dead (Dostoyevsky 63).” Raskolnikov killed a defenseless old woman, finally revealing his cruel

The life of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is marked by his remarkable refusal to abandon that which he loved and believed in, even under the iron grip of oppression. Born in 1918, the Russian spent the majority of his early life in the city of Rostov-on-Don where he lived with his widowed mother. As a young man, Aleksandr developed a passion for writing, and began looking for places to print his works when he was only a teenager. This proved to be more than just a vaporous fantasy of his adolescence; Solzhenitsyn's strong desire to write motivated and inspired him throughout his entire life.

“A Transcultural Monument: Anna Akhmatova in Postsocialist Russia.” South Atlantic Review. 74.2 (2009): 62–81. JSTOR. Web. 28 Feb. 2016. Written by Sarah A. Krive, from the Department of Languages at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, the article, “A Transcultural Monument: Anna Akhmatova in Postsocialist Russia” (2009), argues that Akhmatova was a postsocialist poet, because she began producing her work at the end of Imperial Russia and throughout Soviet Russia, until her death in 1966. She believes that Akhmatova was a symbol of strength in her stand against Stalin, and subsequent persecution from his regime. Next she posits that Akhmatova achieved what many Russians could not; she was able to make a permanent record of Stalin’s reign through her poetry. She emphasizes that instead of Russians internalizing the trauma, they turned to Akhmatova and regarded her as the voice of Russia. In the second half of the piece, she details the creation and collection of Akhmatova’s poetry cycle Wreath for the Dead, an elegiac work. Krive discusses elements of Akhmatova’s work of poetry in order to express the importance of the poet as a mouthpiece for Russia. Her audience appears to be any researcher who wishes to further understand the relationship between Akhmatova and Russia. This article focuses on delivering a large measure of information on Akhmatova’s work of poetry, and this will aid the

Popular descriptions of Alexei Karenin label him as a cold and passionless government official who doesn’t care about his wife or family. Indeed, he is viewed as the awful husband who is holding Anna hostage in a loveless marriage. However, this is a highly exaggerated description, if not completely false, analysis of Karenin. Upon careful analysis of Karenin’s character and his actions, it is clear that he is not the person Anna makes him out to be. In fact, with thorough examination of the passage on pages 384 and 385 of Anna Karenina, it is clear that Alexei Karenin can be considered the hidden tragic hero of the novel.

The main character of the novel is 25 year old Alexei, employed by a Russian General to be a home teacher (tutor) for his two younger children and stepdaughter- Paulina. Alexei is a well-educated man, however he lacked funds. Alexei’s consuming passion for gambling caused him to gamble his life away and it resulted to him losing everything. Before he realized it, he lost the most important part of his life, Pauline. His longing love for Pauline is what led him to his downfall. Alexei believed that if he was wealthy, he would prove his love to her. However, it was his obsession with gambling and money that ruined his chances to be with the women he had loved. Ultimately, in the grand scheme Alexei is a loser because he had lost all of his money, but more importantly, he lost the most valuable thing to him: Paulina’s love.

Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov is a landowner very known for his strange death. Fyodor started from nothing and had married a rich, beautiful and intelligent girl named Adelaida Ivavnova Miusov. The two had a son named Dmitri, but Adelaida soon had realized the she does not love Fyodor and decided to run away. Some after time, a news have reached Fyodor that Adelaida had died. Some says that Fyodor celebrated his freedom others said that he wept like a poor little child. Fyodor left with their son, he has not served his responsibility to Dmitri so the child was taken care off by Adelaida’s relatives. When Dmitri was being raised, he was taught to think that he had a huge amount of inheritance that her mother left to her father. He entered the military and after that went to his father to claim for his inheritance. Dmitri was deceived by his father about the inheritance and he had accumulated anger and wanted to fight for his rights. After getting rid of Dmitri way back then he married again to Sofia Ivanovna. They had 2 sons namely Ivan and Alexei. Fyodor mistreated her wife. He held immoral and vicious acts in front of her own wife such as infidelity attending and sleeping with other women, holding orgies and maltreatment. With these happenings Sofia became mentally unstable and soon died. Their two sons were taken cared off by the person who was also part of raising Dmitri up. The two went to school, Ivan

We will begin with an analysation of his family situation. Praskovya, his wife, had been a love constructed from the start of an economic and sociological expectation rather than that of a true courtship. The happiness therefore of the union was derived solely of a necessity to fulfill a desire on the part of others for a “success” of sorts, surely her desire as well. “Ivan Ilyich could have counted on a more illustrious match, but even this one was quite good. He had his salary, and her income, he hoped, would bring in an equal amount. (Tolstoy, 56)” Tolstoy goes on to make several remarks on the benevolent nature of the relationship between he and his wife. The arrival of his children creates no great marker in his life, and proves to be little more than a factor in his ever-lengthening retreat into his life of solitude and work.

In 19th century Russian literature there was often a gender inequality depicted between the male and female characters. Women were expected to get married, start a family, and obey their husbands. Women often made sacrifices and married men they weren’t fond of in order to support their families. Anton Chekhov’s writing questions these gender relationships. The female characters have a strong presence within Chekhov’s works, and they transcend typical gender roles.