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The Message of Hate in Babi Yar Essay

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The Message of Hate in Yevgeny Yevtushenko's Babi Yar

There are very few people in the world who are willing to go against the popular trends and do what they feel in their hearts is correct. But Yevgeny Yevtushenko is one of those people. In his poem Babi Yar, he tells the story of the modern persecution of the Jews, focusing on atrocities like those of the massacre at Babi Yar and the pogroms at Beilostok, and also the general anti-Semitism that killed men like Dreyfus and pervades the entire Russian people. The poem uses many literary devices, such as graphic imagery and contrasts, while painting a very clear picture of the scenes of pure horror.

Babi Yar is written in many different voices, all of which, however, have …show more content…

He says that he too must be a Jew for he is afraid of what his people and his society have become. Many years ago, in the "ancient days," it would not be such a shock to see the Jews enslaved in Egypt or crucified as a means of torture and death, but even in modern times the same things are going on-he still has the marks from where the nails pierced him. The author has used classical examples of Jewish persecution which every one knows is gone in the physical sense, but show how they still exist in the theoretical aspect, as the persecution is still occurring.

In the next three stanzas, the poem takes the standpoint of three figures whose stories are pertinent examples of what Yevtushenko is trying to rely in this poem. First the voice of Dreyfus is used, and the stanza describes how horribly and unfairly he was treated, and how the country and its leaders turned their backs on him.

There are two important literary devices used in this section. First the author puts the word "pettiness" on a line by itself. This is used as a declaration of what the author feels anti-Semitism is based on. It is because of pettiness that Dreyfus was accused and further because of pettiness that he was not pardoned when it was proven that he had not committed any crime. The next important device is the description of ladies with their umbrellas. This is an image to the wealthy

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