1. The two sides of the debates in Dostoevsky’s “The Grand Inquisitor” are who can handle freedom the most. Christ gave human beings the freedom to choose weather or not to follow him, but almost no one is strong enough to be faithful and those who are not will be cursed forever. The Grand Inquisitor says that Christ should have given people no choice, and instead taken power and given people no choice, and instead taken power and given people redemption instead of freedom. So that the same people who were to scared to succeed Christ to begin with would still be stuck, but at least they could have joy and security on earth, rather than the impossible burden of moral freedom.
Fyodor Dostoevsky's 19th century novel Crime and Punishment explores the psychological torture and moral dilemmas that the main character Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov faces after he murders a pawnbroker and her sister. All of the characters in the novel face troubles and suffer as a result of them, however all characters do not respond to their difficulties in the same manner. Through the use of foils, which is a literary device in which one character is contrasted with another in order to emphasis particular qualities in the other, Dostoevsky explores character's various responses to difficult situations.
The contrast Shalamov’s proposes allows us to place ourselves within the train of thought of a prisoner—allowing us to distinguish between the perceptions and thoughts of different positions within the system. While a person with the position of running the Gulag may depict the life of a prisoner as nothing more than animal-like—our narrator allows us to delve further into the treatment of prisoners. The mindset of a prisoner is one of the most significant components when attempting to understand the Gulag so that the culture, prison, and specific mentality is more accurately
My favorite book from this semester has to be the Grand Inquisitor by Fyoder Dostoevsky. First off, what compelled me to pick this book was the originality of the content by having the Grand Inquisitor appear to conversate with Jesus Christ. However, more specifcally, I appreciated the main themes like the ideas that the masses are innately naïve, a majority of people would rather be told what to do rather than to follow their own logic, and people are satisfied as long as they are comfortable. The idea of the masses seeking refuge and protection over their freedom due to being unintelligent is mentioned frequently in the Grand Inquisitor.
Inside the Tiny Shoes What would you do if you were inside the tiny shoes of a seven year old boy getting scolded by the man you looked up to the most? The short story “Home” by Anton Chekhov gives the audience the glimpse of both sides to the story. Yevgeny Petrovitch, a prosecutor and father to Seryozha, comes to realize that his son has been stealing his cigarettes and smoking them at a very young age. Disappointed and confused as what to say, he sits down and tries to talk to the boy, but is constantly reminded of his son’s age. Reading “Home” through a psychoanalytic lens reveals the frail boy named Seryozha to be a childish character, shown by his defense mechanism, psychosexual stage of development, and because of symbols shown.
Personal Reactions: I liked how Lev’s character was developed throughout the story. Lev’s main focus in the beginning of the book is to escape from his “kidnappers” and be tithed like his parents wanted, but he is so focused on obeying his parents that he doesn’t notice the people who he thinks kidnapped him are trying to save him from being unwound. As the story progresses it’s obvious Lev no longer feels the same way, this is shown on page 226 when Shusterman states, “Once he landed in the safe-house network, he quickly made it known that he was not a guy to be trifled with. He didn’t tell them he was a tithe.
“The heat in the streets was stifling. The stuffiness, the jostling crowds, the bricks and mortar, scaffolding and dust everywhere, and that particular summer stench so familiar to everyone who cannot get away from St. Petersburg into the country” (Dostoevsky 2). In the beginning of the novel, Raskolnikov begins to describe St. Petersburg, which is the setting of the novel. This description is not only included to convey a better understanding of the novel, but also to show a cause to why Raskolnikov feels the way he does at this moment in the novel.
Though ballet wasn’t originally intended for women, it was inevitable that the female race would rise above and eventually dominate this powerful yet delicate art. Femininity in ballet developed considerably after the reign of men in this art form during the 15th and 16th centuries, when men in mask and costume portrayed women in productions, and King Louis XIV’s elaborate productions starring himself in the 17th century. The Romantic Era ushered in a real exploration into the roles of gender, and ballets became a woman’s forte, full of love, sexuality, and femininity. During the early days of dance in ancient times of primitive civilizations such as the Aztecs and Maya, gender roles were not important to society.
Throughout the period of Stalin’s rule there existed a prison system named the Gulag archipelago. This chain of camps contained an immense amount of suffering and unjust cruelty that inflicted its prisoners. Due to the Soviet regime’s paranoia during the Purges many prisoners were in fact innocent and wrongly convicted. This is shown by author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, in his novel “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” through his illustration of the nature of these prison camps. This broke barriers since the conditions of the Gulags were not discussed publicly in the Soviet Union at that time.
From the biting frost of the weather to a rare stub of cigarette, ‘One Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich’ by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is a short novel about a prisoner named Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, who is one of millions heartlessly imprisoned for countless years in a Stalinist labor camp located in Siberia sometime in the 1950’s. Though he is somewhat uneducated, he is hardworking a working-class and his daily struggle represents that of the average Russian citizen, along with the other inmates in the camp. In ‘One Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich’, Solzenitsyn uses the two minor characters, Alyosha and Fetiukov to show the significance of how two characters with contrasting personalities influence Shukhov’s life, not forgetting the fact they have different perspective of the camp, despite the fact that they are all the same prisoners who share a similar everyday routine.
One’s desire of hope in perpetuity masks the underlying problems, causing one to become blind to the reality of the situation. This denial to comprehend the horrific realities soon took over the Russian inmate´s perception and became the epitome of the dreaded concentration camps. The novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn is a graphic and comprehensive description of one man’s struggle in the horrendous Stalinist camps. The novel highlights the unsettling relations presented in the labor camps which subjects the prisoners to cruel torture in just a single day. Solzhenitsyn shows how the idealized Russian government presented to the world by the contemporary communist regime was a complete deception.
One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich showed the readers the harsh situation the world war 2 have brought into the prison system that tortured the inmates mentally and physically without mercy. When that matter is discussed, accompanied with the crisis of communism in this case, the image of death came to mind when someone was put to sentence. This novel informed the reader about how it’s like to be imprisoned in the Gulag (Russian prison). The prisoners in Gulag would do physical work without proper treatment such as they would still work during extreme weather condition for more than 14 hours a day.
To what extent does the nature and form of a film and literature influence what is or is not presented as “reality?” How do we define what is considered as realism and what isn’t?In the world of realism we find ourselves engulfed in an attitude of living in the moment. By this I mean in regards to realism, we deal with situations as they arise. We do not plan or fabricate or use emotions; we use logic. We see this realism prevalent in Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground.
Saint Petersburg, the setting of Crime and Punishment, plays a major role in the formation in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s acclaimed novel. Dostoyevsky’s novels focus on the theme of man as a subject of his environment. Dostoyevsky paints 1860s St. Petersburg as an overcrowded, filthy, and chaotic city. It is because of Saint Petersburg that Raskolnikov is able to foster in his immoral thoughts and satisfy his evil inclinations. It is only when Raskolnikov is removed from the disorderly city and taken to the remoteness of Siberia that he can once again be at peace.
With the controversial topic of weapons brought into public light, different aspects on the subject may become universal. Although weapons are generally seen as dangerous and unnecessary to most, others view weapons as a means of lawful defense against everyday dangers. In 2007, there were 32 people killed in the Virginia Tech college shooting. This, although caused by unregulated gun licences, could have been helped by the presence of another weapon as a means of defense and may have lessened the number of casualties during this incident; however, one could also argue that the presence of a gun on campus may make the event of a college shooting more conceivable. Being able to access guns and utilizing them when there is a threat present can cause confusion for the authorities.
