Heart of a Dog - Mikhail Bulgakov

Orwell effectively conveys the rise of communism in Russia throughout the book Animal Farm by the accurate elucidation of the context in the Soviet Union from 1917-1945. Orwell’s attitude and political view towards Russia is evident in his representation of the farm animals on Communist Party leaders: Napoleon and Snowball, for example, are figurations of Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky, respectively. He expresses the anthropomorphic characters of farm animals, and major events in Animal Farm such as the Rebellion and the construction of the windmill, reminiscent of the Russian Revolution and the “Five-Year Plans”. Orwell also uses many techniques to describe the crucial points in Animal Farm by metaphoric language and allegorical means

George Orwell’s Animal Farm is, first and foremost, a political satire warning against the pursuit of utopian desires through unjust and oppressive means. Operating under the pretense of an animal fable, Orwell disparages the use of political power to poach personal freedom. He effectively alerts his readers to the dangerous price that can accompany the so-called “pursuit of progress”. And he illuminates how governments acting under the guise of increasing independence often do just the opposite: increase oppression and sacrifice sovereignty. While the cautionary theme Orwell provides proves widely applicable, in reality his novel focuses on one tale of totalitarian abuse: Soviet Russia. The parallels between the society Orwell presents in his Animal Farm and the Soviet Union – from the Russian revolution to Stalin’s supremacy – are seemingly endless. Manor Farm represents Tsarist Russia, Animalism compares to Stalinism, and Animal Farm, with the pig Napoleon at its helm, clearly symbolizes Communist Russia and Joseph Stalin. But Orwell does more than simply align fiction with fact. He fundamentally attacks Soviet Russia at its core. And in so doing he reveals how the Communist Party simply replaced a bad system with a worse one, overthrowing an imperial autocracy for a totalitarian dictatorship. This essay will demonstrate that Orwell’s Animal Farm is

To begin with, this book educated the reader about the past. Everyone in the Soviet Union looked up to the leader, Stalin, even though he wasn’t a good leader at all. He caused many problems for the citizens including uncomfortable living conditions. This book educates the reader by showing that back then even when people were treated badly, they still had to look up to their leader even though he was the cause of all

Stalin’s early promises compromised of socialism and a life free from exploitation in regards to his social policies. However, he soon realised his error and reverted to a more conservative form of rule, whereby the interest of the state was given priority. Many describe his soviet social policy during the 1930s as a ‘Great Retreat’, it was named this as his policies saw a return to earlier social policies under the Tsar and former leaders. It is debatable as to how far his actions were a retraction of previous decisions…and the areas impacted were women, family, and education. A common theme of the great retreat was the gender role in society.

Sofia Petrovna follows the life of Sofia Petrovna, a typist who works at the Leningrad publishing house. After the death of her husband and capture of her son, Sofia goes insane. It’s a type of unhinged that demonstrates itself in mirages minutely dissimilar from the deceits those surrounding her voice to guard themselves. Sofia Petrovna proposes an extraordinary and fundamental account of Stalin's Great Purges through simple fictional story arcs. First, there is the vanishing of seemingly innocent people. Sofia looses several people in her life throughout the duration of the novel with almost no warning or explanation. This provides an effective look into

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

“Hunger—thirst—fear—transport—selection—fire—chimney: these words all have intrinsic meaning, but in those times, they meant something else” (Wiesel ix). Years after he was liberated from the concentration camp at Buchenwald, Elie Wiesel wrote Night as a memoir of his life and experiences during the Holocaust, while a prisoner in the Nazi concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Scholars often refer to the Holocaust as the “anti-world”. This anti-world is an inverted world governed by absurdity. The roles of those living in the anti-world are reversed and previous values and morals are no longer important. Elie Wiesel portrays four of the characters, in his memoir, Night, as prophetic figures, each with a new warning for the Jews. There are four main characteristics that make a person a prophetic figure. First, they always have a story or a tale they are trying to tell. Secondly, this story usually contains a warning of some kind. The perception of these individuals as mad by others in their community is the third characteristic; and isolation by their community as a result of this belief is the fourth characteristic. Throughout the story Eliezer struggles with his faith and belief in God. Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, characterizes four prophetic figures to portray the distorted nature of the anti-world and to illustrate a constant questioning of God and faith by Eliezer.

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.

Both the Bolsheviks and the Nazis shared a fundamental commitment to create a creating a higher human type. However, the ideals and approaches of both regimes towards this mission differed substantially. While the Nazis sought to create a master race above all in European hierarchy, the Bolsheviks sought a system of liberation of their entire race and complete equality. Within both ideologies, the role of women was a hotbed of debate and instigated a period of change. In Germany, women confined to roles that were ‘natural’ or intended by nature, while in Russia, although women ‘received’ previously inaccessible rights and freedoms, it became more of a burden rather than a boon, The creation of “new men and women,” became more about the removal of undesirable classes or nationalities and the integration of the rest of the population with particular characteristics. Women were expected to accept state-propagated guidelines for conduct and appearance, and conform to certain gender roles that were defined by the state. In Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union ideology, the rebirth of the nation, its prosperity and survival depended directly on women’s conformity to the propagated feminine ideal and thus, their participation was severely influenced by the regime’s economic, social and political policies. In this essay, I

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.

Animal Farm by George Orwell is a satire that exposes and criticizes the corruption of the Russian Revolution by using animals to represent political figures. The novel symbolizes a time of darkness in Russia as one that resulted in a government more controlling, totalitarian, and deadly than the one it overthrew. The short story “Harrison Bergeron” is set in the year 2081 where thanks to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments, everyone is equal to each other. Although the two works of literature may sound to be very distinct from one another, they both are full of social commentary.

The Heart of a Dog, by Mikhail Bulgakov is a satiric novel about an experiment on a dog named Sharik, in which they give him human organs, transforming him into a human. The whole novel goes through the metamorphosis of the dog, Sharik, becoming a “human” who can think and act for himself in being able to make humanlike decisions, to his downfall and becoming a dog again. The plot of this satire is just an allegory on the communist revolution of the early 1900’s, which is why it is considered to be a satire. There are many ways in which Bulgakov mocks the Russian society of the 1920’s, one being that the Communist leaders of the time attempted to make a “new Communist man,” which is linked to the creation of Sharikov from Sharik. Under the same idea, Bulgakov is also mocking the idea that Communist Russia believed that they could improve the genetic quality of their population, which is what Dr. Preobrazhensky and Bormenthal attempted to do using Sharik. There are many allegories spread out throughout this satire made to mock Communist Russia of the 1920’s and to point out all of it defects.

George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm is a great example of allegory and political satire. The novel was written to criticize totalitarian regimes and particularly Stalin's corrupt rule in Russia. In the first chapter Orwell gives his reasons for writing the story and what he hopes it will accomplish. It also gives reference to the farm and how it relates to the conflicts of the Russian revolution. The characters, settings, and the plot were written to describe the social upheaval during that period of time and also to prove that the good nature of true communism can be turned into something atrocious by an idea as simple as greed. This essay will cover the comparisons between Animal Farm and the Russian Revolution. It will also explain why

George Orwell’s novel ‘Animal Farm’ is an allegorical fable of the Russian Revolution. It depicts the Revolution in a way that is inoffensive to people and also very easy to understand. This controversial novel also teaches many valuable lessons, all very true in man’s past and also in the present.

The Russian attitude toward love during Chekhov’s time is very patriarchal and is considered normal to marry for practical reasons, parental pressures or other considerations rather than for love. The feelings that accompany love, such as passion and spirituality, are not a societal consideration and this institutional attitude toward human emotion is the catalyst for Chekhov’s story. When a person is deprived of love, he or she builds up a futility of life which consumes the human soul. In Anton Chekhov’s “The Lady with the Dog”, the readers are placed in a setting where the main character Gurov, and his love interest Anna, are given the emotional freedom to feel love toward one another. This freedom is the driving force in the story