A Hope In The Darkest Of Times Analysis

A Hope in the Darkest of Times Imagine living in a grand mansion in the center of once lively Moscow. Except twenty strangers live in your living room fighting over your expensive belongings. Also, none of it really belongs to you anymore. It now belongs to Communist Russia. This is exactly what happened to Yuri Zhivago and many other Russian families during the Revolution. Throughout the story, Yuri’s life changed from being an orphan living in the cold frontier of rural Russia to being apart of a wealthy family from the city center of Moscow. Everything changed as the Bolsheviks, a Communist cult who opposed and killed the Tzar, transitioned the country from a place of culture and beauty to a region of poverty and death. All in all, Doctor Zhivago was a story of great love and loss with many elements of symbolism including the use of the balalaika as a symbol of hope, the fall of wealth through the Gromeko family, and the rise of Communism through the analogy of Pasha and Stalin all of which highlight the horror of the time period and examine how Russians clung to hope in the darkest of times. The balalaika, a musical instrument appearing much like a guitar, exempting its

Stalin, which literally means “steel”, is responsible for millions of deaths of his own people through the ruthless labor camps he created to punish those that did not comply to the Communist lifestyle. Pasha, better known by the people of Russia in Dr. Zhivago as Strelnikov, was a symbol of Stalin. His cold nature and absolute belief in the system mimic the likes of the Soviet Union’s “Man of Steel” himself. Pasha was willing to give up his life for the cause, which he thought was best for Russia. Much like Stalin, he rose through the ranks of the system and eventually became the leader of the whole