The way Sergei’s character shows he is altruistic and caring when he uses the two wishes on others than himself. At one point in the story, Sergei shows those character traits when he uses up his first wish of his sister with cancer “That first wish, Sergei used up when they discovered a cancer in his sister. A lung cancer, the kind you don’t get better from”(Keret 7). An analysis of this quote reveals that in the past, he would give up his first wish on his family for her to survive from cancer. After utilizing the wish, the goldfish cures his sister before Sergei could say anything to him when he found out. According to the author, the usage of the second wish was for Svet’s boy five years ago when he was the age of three with a mind that
After the assassination of Alexander the Great in 1881 by Russian socialist revolutionaries, Alexander III ascended to the throne and began to develop a reactionary policy that would be used to suppress the power of anti-tsarist rivals (Kort 23). In the late 1800s, Tsar Alexander III was faced with growing insurrection from the populist peasants, who were demanding more freedoms and land under the Tsarist regime. However, he was unwilling to give up his traditional centralized authority for a more democratic system of ruling. Instead, he sought political guidance from his advisor, Konstantin Pobedonostsev, an Orthodox religious conservative and loyal member of the Russian autocracy. Pobedonostsev was quick to hound revolutionaries by means
Leo Tolstoy as one of Russia’s great writers, wrote marvelous pieces looking at societal questions and playing with the minds of his readers. The Death of Ivan Ilych is one of Tolstoy’s best written short stories and a popular story for the world on the topic of death and the process of dying. This story is about a man confronting death and in a way bringing life to him during the process of his death. Ivan Ilych fell onto the inevitable trail of death and had realized the true meaning of living along the way. The concept of writing about death is not in any way a new concept nor was it obscure to read in Tolstoy’s era; what makes this short story special is the way that Tolstoy illustrates his character. Ivan Ilych goes through a journey of discovery while he is dying. This story attempts to tackle the questions that cannot be answered; what makes a man happy in life, what makes life worth living?
All of the wishes start a chain reaction of other events which makes their lives more
The short story “The Death of Ivan Ilych” is about a man who realizes he is dying and that no one in his life cares about him. Even more disappointing for Ivan is the realization that besides his success as a high court judge, he has done nothing else to make his life worth saving. The death of Ivan Ilyich, sadly, comes as a release of stress to all. In the end, Ivan is soothed by the release of death, his family and friends are relieved of having responsibility of Ivan taken off their shoulders, and the reader is released from the stressful journey. Tolstoy teaches the audience through the structural elements of the “black sack” metaphor and pathos about the unavoidability of death and the relief of accepting it.
This novel and film commentary analysis or interpretation will be first summarised and then critiqued. The summary will be divided into twenty- four episodes. While summarising it is well to remember that the film was made out of the book.
In order to be able to assess the reasons as to why it was that the
John in this chapter has an obsession with Lenina. He breaks into the rest house after he finds the door locked. He was terrified that Bernard and Lenina were gone. Once he realized that Lenina was there when he saw her initial on her green suit case joy “flared up like fire within him.” I thought this was pretty strange considering he has not know her for that long. He smelled her perfume, put scarf with the perfume around his neck, wiped her powder on his chest, shoulders, and bare arms whispering Lenina time. That is obsession and in my opinion is creepy! Those action might be acceptable if maybe they were dating but to me this is still very extreme. After fantasizing about her he finds her asleep stares at her and even thinks about unzipping
We are all condemned to death; it is inescapable. Even if a person doesn’t believe in the concept of destiny, it is undeniable that every person is fated to die at some point. Most people, however, are not aware of when exactly the inevitable will approach. Often in works of fiction, the reader, or sometimes even the character, is aware of their fate. There are many different understandings of destiny, which is one of the reasons why it has played such a large role in so many different literary works throughout the world and history. Fate is one of the principal literary devices used in Homer’s epic poem, The Iliad, Shakespeare’s tragic play, Antony and Cleopatra, and Tolstoy’s pedagogical novella, The Death of Ivan Ilych.
In Etgar Kerets short story "What, of, This Goldfish, would you wish?", there are two main characters, Sergei and Yonatan. At the beginning of the story, the author begins to show Sergei is an egocentric person. But, as the story progresses, he becomes a warm-hearted character. On page 7, it explains that he did not want to use his last wish on Yonatan, because Sergei had used his two other wishes on his sister, who had cancer, and Sergei also used his other wish on his girlfriend at the time son. On page 8, Sergei seems obsurd because he thinks he can cover up the murder of Yonatan by mopping up the blood in his kitchen, and Sergei was going to drag Yonatan out of his house at midnight, and put him at the end of his fishing poll. Then, as
Throughout the 20th century, many countries were ruled by totalitarian leaders who were ready to commit many horrible deeds in order to achieve their goals. Josef Stalin, the leader of Soviet Union between 1924 and 1953, is the perfect example of a despotic ruler, who was responsible for the deaths of millions of people. He believed that communism would transform the Soviet Union into a perfect nation, with an ideal society where everyone would be treated equally. However, in order to achieve this perfection, all external and, more importantly, internal enemies had to be destroyed. Instead of a perfect nation, Stalin created a system, which was based on fear and denunciation, where killing of the so-called "enemies of the nation" became a sport, where Stalin's representatives competed against each other on the basis of the number of "enemies" killed. Throughout almost three decades, millions of innocent people were either killed or put into labour camps. The author of the book himself, was sentenced to eight years in a concentration camp for his anti-Soviet views, which he expressed in writing, and through the characters of his novel, Solzhenitsyn portrays his personal beliefs. Most of the characters in "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" are innocent people, who have never done anything reprehensible. Among them is Gopchik, a sixteen-year-old boy who was sentenced to 10 years in concentration camp for giving milk to Ukrainian nationalist rebels, and Aleshka the Baptist who received twenty-five years for his religious beliefs. The protagonist of the novel, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, is a simple man without any heroic qualities. He is a former carpenter who was sent off to the battlefield during the World War II. After being captured by the Germans, Ivan and five of his fellow soldiers were able to escape and return to the Soviet military base. However, three of them were killed instantly, mistaken for German soldiers while the fourth soldier died from wounds a couple of days later. Although Ivan Denisovich was not shot, he was arrested and accused of being a German spy. Even though he was innocent, he had to confess during the interrogation, because he understood that he would be shot immediately if he did not. As a result, he was sentenced to ten years in a Siberian concentration camp for betraying Soviet Union. The Soviet labour camps represented a small-scale totalitarian nation, where wardens were the despotic rulers who frequently abused the prisoners.
In his final days, Ivan screams a loud and dreadful scream that lasts three days. Ivan struggles in the black sack, certain that he will not escape. His pain and agony results from him not being able to fit right through the sack because of his conviction that his life has been a good one, “this justification of his life clutched, would not let him move forward, and tormented him most of all” (90). Suddenly, at the end of the third day, “some force” strikes Ivan in the chest and side and pushes him through the sack and into the presence of a bright light. At that moment, Ivan's son, Vasya, approaches his side. As Ivan's hand falls on his son's head, Vasya begins to cry. When Ivan catches a glimpse of the light, it is revealed to him that though
Russian talking goldfish and murder is the basis of ‘What of This Goldfish, Would You Wish‘. Reading ‘What of This Goldfish, Would You Wish’ is about a young boy, known as Yonatan or Yoni for short, and his journey throughout his neighborhood to interview his neighbors and search for a talking goldfish. He stumbles upon a house occupied by a resident named Sergei Goralick who had recently moved from Russia. He describes Yoni as the boy with a ring in his ear and tries his best to keep Yoni from entering his home. But to no avail Yoni trespasses in his home and sees the goldfish sitting upon Sergei's counter. As Yoni reaches for the goldfish, he is hit with a pot from the stove and murdered. In turn the talking goldfish did grant three wishes and had asked Sergei to wish for what he desired for the last time. If one had the goldfish in their possession, what type of wishes would they desire? If I had the goldfish in my possession, what would I wish for? I would wish for correct amount of change to be in my pocket to purchase any item of my choice, world peace, and the suffering to end
To begin with, What of This Goldfish displays how even thought through wishing can create problems. In the story the main character Sergei has obtained a magical, talking, wishing goldfish. All at once, a stranger comes to his door intrigued by the fish Sergei mistakes his excitement for greed and kills him. Sergei was afraid that the intruder would take the goldfish, the only reason that he cared for the goldfish was not for the last wish that remained but for the comforting
ABSTRACT: This paper focuses on the most recent period in the development of Russian thought (1960s-1990s). Proceeding from the cyclical patterns of Russian intellectual history, I propose to name it 'the third philosophical awakening.' I define the main tendency of this period as 'the struggle of thought against ideocracy.' I then suggest a classification of main trends in Russian thought of this period: (1) Dialectical materialism in its evolution from late Stalinism to neo-communist mysticism; (2) Neorationalism and Structuralism; (3) Neo-Slavophilism, or the Philosophy of National Spirit; (4) Personalism and Liberalism; (5) Religious Philosophy and Mysticism, both Christian Orthodox and Non-Traditional; (6) Culturology or the Philosophy of Culture; (7) Conceptualism or the Philosophy of Postmodernity.
This quote demonstrates how our “hero” Pechorin is neither a quintessential hero nor villain because his internally conflicted character, and his destructive nature places him in the margin between the two. Employing a a unique style of varying narrative techniques in a series of five skillfully connected short stories, the author, Mikhail Lermontov, depicts the bizarre Romanticism and Byronic nature of Pechorin’s “heroism” , and the internal complexities of his character,