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The role of women in the works of Jane Austen
The role of women in English literature
The role of women in English literature
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Anna Karenina - The Complex Character of Constantine Dmitrich Levin
In the novel Anna Karenina, written by Leo Tolstoy, both major and minor characters played important roles through out the story. One protagonist, Constantine Dmitrich Levin, caught my interest as being a compassionate, moral character. Constantine Dmitrich Levin is a complex character whose direct and indirect characterization emphasizes a search for balance. Constantine Dmitrich Levin, often called Levin or Constantine, later Kostya by Kitty, is a farmer in eighteenth century Russia. He enjoys his work and avoids the city at all costs. He is madly in love with Princess Catherine Alexandrovna Shcherbatskaya, normally called Kitty, but she rejects him in hoping that Count Alexey Kirilich Vronsky, normally named Vronsky, a man who has shown great interest in her, will propose marriage. Both are discarded but reconcile their feelings and eventually marry.
The novel Anna Karenina directly depicts Levin as a strongly built, honest worker, who dislikes the immoral views of the aristocracy. Levin enjoys his choice of work in the fields and begins to trust the peasants who assist him in his farming duties. He believes that working outside the cities provide a more noble lifestyle. Levin considers peasants to be more independent that those in urban areas and considers the peasants more morally correct.
Seeing the waiters busy over washing up the crockery and setting in order their plates and wine-glasses, seeing their calm and cheerful faces, Levin felt an unexpected sense of relief as though he had come out of a stuffy room into the fresh air (Tolstoy, 695, part 6, chapter 28).
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...her; he wishes the peasants to control their lives with self-interests, not by the interests of the government because the general welfare may not benefit the peasants or him.
Of the two protagonists of the novel, Anna Karenin and Constantine Levin, Levin is the one I admire most. Directly depicted as an honest, moral man, Levin is well liked among people he meets and does not try to escape to a fantasy world as Anna did. The novel goes in-depth by indirectly depicting him to be a philosophical thinker and an atheist, who is torn apart by his beliefs. The manner Tolstoy describes Levin is appealing, for I admire all of the qualities he possesses and that is why I chose him for my character of study. By using both direct and indirect characterizations, Tolstoy aimed to depict Levin as the role model for Russians in the eighteenth century.
4. Let the protector of a landholder be a landholder; for one of the proletariat, let anyone that cares, be protector.
Maintaining feudal conditions through violence and intimidation, the army holds the populace in a constant state of fear. Guaranteeing that the peasants stay ill and in need furthers the necessity that they work to stay alive, but prevents them from doing so. This is the paradox of the poor worker, but one the army does not see. The army blindly kills anyone who tries to help the peasants, murdering all the doctors and priests that enter the villages. They do so to keep the peasants in need and in ignorance, to prevent them from learning another way of life. Lacking knowledge of the outside world ensures that the peasants will remain in the plantations, because fear of the unknown is stronger than fear of the known. Acting as feudal knights, the army forces people into the feudal plantation relationship using fear and intimidation.
He abandons omniscience, the story’s main narration style, and writes in the first-person: “The hero of my story, whom I love with all my heart and soul, whom I have attempted to portray in all his beauty and who has always been, is now and always will be supremely magnificent, is truth” (Tolstoy 109 [1986]). Unlike many literary works, there is no analysis needed in order to uncover Tolstoy’s primary message — he directly expresses to readers that truth is the center of the text. Essentially, the story’s characters, settings, and plot are merely vehicles Tolstoy manipulates to bring him to this final sentence where the central theme is revealed; everything in the piece ties back to the concept and central theme of truth. Some might say this ending degrades the story’s literary appeal because it does not allow for a clean resolution, but in many ways, this proclamation serves as the story’s climax. In this moment, the veil of fiction is lifted away from the reader’s eyes and only then can they see the story clearly.
Merriman, C.D.. "Leo Tolstoy." - Biography and Works. Search Texts, Read Online . Discuss.. Jalic INC., 1 Jan. 2007. Web. 16 May 2014. .
After Tsar Nicholas II created the National Assembly called the Duma, a great political and social unrest led to the Revolution of 1905. After that, members of the Duma stood up for the peasants. Sakhno, a peasant representative to the Duma, said in his speech in 1906, “Why can a landlord own a lot of land, while all that remains to the peasant is the kingdom of heaven?” (Document 10). Sakhno was protesting the inhibition of the peasants to own land, and to be equal as the landowners. He argued that the only reason that the peasants were arguing was because they were lacking provisions to feed themselves and their families while the landlords had more than enough. Others, such as Katerina Breshkovskaia, a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, vouched for the peasants to be able to be educated. She wrote that “The peasants intensely desired education for their children, for they realized that this was the only way in which they could escape slavery they themselves had endured.” (Document 6). While she supported that they should deserve an education, Serge Witte, a Minister of Finance, wrote in a private letter to Tsar Nicholas II, that “It is not enough to free the peasant from the serf owner” claiming that it was “still necessary to free him from the slavery of despotism, to give him a legal system [...] and to educate him.” (Document 8). He
Dostoyevsky's writing in this book is such that the characters and setting around the main subject, Raskolnikov, are used with powerful consequences. The setting is both symbolic and has a power that affects all whom reside there, most notably Raskolnikov. An effective Structure is also used to show changes to the plot's direction and Raskolnikov's character. To add to this, the author's word choice and imagery are often extremely descriptive, and enhance the impact at every stage of Raskolnikov's changing fortunes and character. All of these features aid in the portrayal of Raskolnikov's downfall and subsequent rise.
The working class--the proletariat--must work to survive. Conversely, the bourgeois own the means of production and exploit the proletariat for their labor as well as the goods produced as a result (Ollman). The characters of Fuenteovejuna fit easily within this dichotomy. The townspeople exemplify Marx’s proletariat class, working tirelessly only to have the fruits of their labor--the crops they have harvested--taken by the Commander and the other nobles. Then, the Commander and his fellow nobles exemplify the bourgeois
The reaction of one soldier to another is the basis of war, as camaraderie is the methodology by which wars are won. Henry gave witness to the horrors of war, the atrocities of battle, the deaths of his friends, and later a life of victory. The ultimate transformation in Henry's character leading to a mature temperament was found by finding himself in the confusion of war and companionship.
Ironically for the time period, female characters in the book represent Christian symbols, sacrificing themselves for what they love. Raskolnikov’s own sister, Dunya, acquires a very Christ-like position due to her extensive self-sacrifice. Having grown up in the same environmental situations as Raskolnikov, there is still a distinctive difference in their personalities. This difference allows Dunya to be adored by those around her as contrasted with Raskolnikov who, when at school, was mentioned to have “no friends…” and “nobody liked him” (63). Here Raskolnikov’s differentiation from society is clearly demonstrated. Dunya takes her role a step further and is described as someone who “demands to accept torment for someone else’s sake as quickly as possible.” (567). The connotation of the word “demands” conveys her self-brought on obligation to undergo hardships. The word “quickly” demonstrates just how frenzied her need to suffer for others is. An akin female who also craves suffering is Sonya. This is most clearly validated by her occupation as a prostitute. A prostitute typically sacrifices all they physically have for the sake of others. Her life is meager...
Within most forms of literature there seems to be a representation of a double standard. Even in our societies double standards not only exist but are prevalent. In literature though double standards are sometimes not always noticeable to the reader, however in the texts that we have read double standards are not only noticeable, but are written in a way as if the author wants the reader to pick up on this. It’s fairly comprehensive how when it comes to adultery that the female characters suffer far more from their consequences than the males. Within each culture’s literature though, some might find adultery to be more acceptable based on that culture’s views. Altogether it is through the way the authors choose to depict the apparent double standard, how their own cultural morals for punishment in infidelity become reflected in the text, and how they choose to have the morals of their characters reflect on the act of adultery in itself that we are able to see how these books are able to find themselves in such a category of being “big books about bad girls.”
The witch is both vulnerable and a powerful figure. The resulting tension between power and powerlessness as a response to laws created by those in power, rather institutionalised power: men, can be seen as expressed through such binary metaphors as that of physical strength and beauty versus weakness and ugliness, kn...
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy is a novel about love and marriage among the Russian aristocracy in the 1870s. Anna is young, beautiful woman married to a powerful government minister, Karenin. She falls in love with the elegant Count Vronsky and after becoming pregnant by him, leaves her husband Karenin and her son Seryozha to live with her lover. Despite the intervention of friends such as her brother Oblonsky, an adulterer himself, she is unable to obtain a divorce, and lives isolated from the society that once glorified her. As a man, Vronsky enjoys relative social freedom, which causes Anna to have increasingly intense fits of jealousy. Because of her constant suspicion, she thinks that Vronsky’s love for her is dwindling. Their story is ended by an exciting finale that moves the reader.
A. The Epic of Russian Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1950. 309-346. Tolstoy, Leo. "
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a book that I read in last summer. I like this book because I like this type of books. I can call this book as an adventurous book. In this book, every scene makes me very excited. The words and the sentences in the book can make me really feel like I am one of the characters and experience what they are experiencing.
Anna Karenina is a novel by the prominent Russian author Leo Tolstoy. It was published in serial installments between 1873 and 1877. Tolstoy himself claimed that Anna Karenina was his first novel. Despite criticism that the novel was indeed two separate novels, there was much acclaim. Fellow Russian author Dostoevsky hailed it as “a flawless work of art” (En8848.com.cn).