Compare And Contrast City Of Thieves By David Benioff

Has your skin ever tasted the scorching coldness to the point of actually flavoring death, has your stomach ever craved for even a gram of anything that can keep you alive, has your deep-down core ever been so disturbed by profound fear? No never, because the deep-freeze, starvation, and horror that Kolya and Lev experienced were far worse to the point of trauma. In the novel, City Of Thieves, author David Benioff describes the devastating and surreal situations and emotions that occurred to Benioff’s grandfather, Lev and Lev’s friend, Kolya, during WWII the Siege of Leningrad in Leningrad, Russia. Both Lev and Kolya share some similarities such as their knowledge of literature; even so, they are very contrastive individuals who oppose

in personality traits. While Lev is portrayed as self-conscious, insecure, sexually inexperienced, and self-critical; Kolya is seen as handsome, thrilling, heroic, and a ladies-man. Regardless of distinct personalities, this dynamic duo -who together venture through the harsh winter, starvation, and horrors for a dozen eggs- develop a strangely endearing friendship. Benioff explicates Lev’s masculinity growth and manhood development in the war-type environment and situations that he and Kolya must go through to complete an ultimatum given by their colonel who threatened them that if they don’t complete the mission by the given day, they would be executed as enemies of the state.
Lev has always opposed himself to his own ideology of an idealistic heroic figure and explains his desire to conform to a heroic-like figure during the war.

This is evident in the beginning when Lev refuses to escape to Vyazma with his mother and sister because he wants to serve as a hero in the war, “I fought with my mother… She wanted me to go with them… But I wasn’t leaving Piter. I was a man. I would defend my city…” (8). He reflects as a 17-year-old craving for the title of a hero, “I was seventeen, flooded with a belief in my own heroic destiny... I believed in the cause; I would not flee the enemy; I would not miss out on the triumph.” (9). Despite his severe desire to feel entitled to heroism, Lev recognizes that he does not feel remotely close to being a hero or stand as a heroic figure, “Heroes and fast sleepers, then, can switch off their thoughts when necessary. Cowards and insomniacs, my people, are plagued by babble on the brain.” (143). Benign of Lev’s journey, Lev is inclined to favor his own heroism and warrior-hero figure; however, amid his journey with Kolya, he concedes to his belief of non-fulfilling heroism and nonetheless fitting a cowardice

profile.
Lev considers himself inferior to Kolya as he perceives Kolya as an over-confident and heroic epitome and struggles with emotions of sexual jealousy, inferiority, and terror.

Immediately upon Kolya’s and Lev’s journey, they confront cannibals in which they are able to overcome them and survive. Lev deliberates Kolya’s bravery and heroism that he yearns for and lingers on his belief of being a complete coward. ”Maybe his mind was more peaceful because he had reacted bravely, with strength and decisiveness, while I cowered on the dark staircase, waiting to be saved.” (64). As their odyssey progresses, Lev and Kolya rest at Sonya’s house -Kolya’s friend. Lev is seen struggling with sexual jealousy towards Kolya’s sexual affairs with Sonya, while he hasn’t had any sexual intimacy with anyone at all. “Sonya was lovely and kind, but her pleasure was awful to listen to—I wanted to be the one who could transport a pretty girl away from the siege with my cock.” (76). After their stay at Sonya’s house, Lev and Kolya encountered 2 girls and questioned them about the possibility of eggs, where the 2 girls are seen flirtatious towards Kolya in which Lev again refers to being jealous and feels complete injustice “A surge of envy rose in me again, that sense of injustice compounded with anger and self-loathing—why did they like him? The long-winded braggart! And why did I begrudge him their attention? I didn’t care about these girls, after all. Neither was remotely attractive to me...”

(80). Lev and Kolya returned to Sonya’s house and were already stepping out again when Lev had a surge of despising thoughts toward a smitten Kolya, “I turned back to Kolya, who was adjusting his hat to a properly heroic angle with the help of the mirror. I hated him even more, the cheerful swaggering brute, happy and fresh at six in the morning... I imagined that he still stank of sex...” (97). Throughout their mission, Lev continues to refer Kolya as a heroic man and invalidates his own bravery, “Kolya was a braggart, a know-it-all, a Jew-baiting Cossack, but his confidence was so pure and complete it no longer seemed like arrogance, just the mark of a man who had accepted his own heroic destiny.” (98). Lev struggles with complex inferiority to Kolya's qualities and confidence while overwhelming himself with self-loath. Lev understood that both him and Kolya have very opposing personalities, but he indulged in the idea of inferiority and shame when it came to terror “I could not remember when I was not afraid, but that night it came on stronger than ever before. So many possibilities terrified me. There was the possibility of shame, of cowering again on the fringe of the action while Kolya fought the Germans…” (136).
Lev harshly punishes himself and dwells on his created expectations on how a warrior-hero would respond to fear vs how he responds to fear. Despite his original belief that by participating in the war he would become a brave hero-like warrior and disregard fear, he consumed himself in his own cowardice beliefs and continued to be frightened even more than before, “As siege-hardened as I was before my arrest, the truth was that I had no more courage in January than I had in June – contrary to popular belief, the experience of terror does not make you braver. Perhaps, though, it is easier to hide your fear when you’re afraid all the time.” (18). As a youngster who could only cower away and dream of becoming heroic like any other kid at his age, Lev acknowledged how fearful he was of battling; thus demonstrating how relatable he can be to other males who also struggle with self-image and confidence, “... but reality ignored my wishes from the get-go, giving me a body best suited for stacking books in the library, injecting so much fear into my veins that I could only cower in the stairwell when the violence came.” (98).
As Lev continues to struggle with different horrific scenarios and his own demise, he progressively matures and his confidence starts to sprout. Toward the end, Kolya and Lev must face their enemy to kill him and obtain the eggs in which Lev finally begins to find his way out of his own self-loath when facing the enemy known as Abendroth,“The imminence of death did not frighten me as much as it should have. I had been too afraid for too long; I was too exhausted, too hungry, to feel anything with proper intensity. But if my fear had diminished, it was not because my courage had increased.” (221). Lev began to act out of instinct leaving all trace of previous fear in order to survive, “I don’t remember getting to my feet or running over to help, but before the trooper could level his MP40 and empty his magazine into Kolya’s chest, I was on the man’s back, plunging the knife in and pulling it out, again and again.” (231). Lev when against all his odds and proved his own self-bravery when he rescued both Kolya and the women Lev took interest in, “I had acted, against all expectation, against my own history of cowardice. In the end, killing Abendroth had nothing to do with avenging Zoya or eliminating a
vital Einsatz officer. I had kept Kolya and Vika alive. I had kept myself alive.” (234-235). Against Lev’s previous sexual frustration and own immaturity, Lev learned to value and respect love and those around him, “Five years had passed since I had cried, but I had never lived through a night like this one, and I was convinced that the sniper from Archangel was the only girl I would ever love.” (237).
Throughout the entire story, Benioff greatly emphasized Lev’s disappointments and ambiguity within himself and desperation in wanting to fight for his country as a war hero would. Lev struggles to embrace his identity and relentlessly compares himself to Kolya; however towards the end, Lev discovers his own bravery through survival means. Through his own self-insecurities, jealousy, desires, cowardness, experiences, and fears, Lev’s own masculinity grows. Moreover, he goes through manhood during the harsh war of the Siege of Leningrad. Through Benioff’s novel we can observe how Lev went through a transformation from a boy to a man during the presence of war and survival. Readers can easily relate to some of the teen-like emotions and mind-thoughts that Lev goes through as he continues to grow inwardly.