scholarly journals The Eastern Plot of L.N. Tolstoy

2021 ◽  
Vol 04 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dilfuza Xusenova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Leo Tolstoy ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Xix Century

The article considers the development of the concept of the Caucasian peoples in the works of Leo Tolstoy: from the depiction of the Highlanders as natural, somewhat idealized types ("Cossacks") to the affirmation of their universal human nature ("Caucasian prisoner") and the return to the novel type of a person in whose fate the most important features of Russian life of the late XIX century were reflected. (“Hadji Murad”).

La Bête humaine

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Émile Zola
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Technological Progress ◽  
Second Empire ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Literary Context ◽  
The Future

Did possessing and killing amount to the same thing deep within the dark recesses of the human beast? La Bete humaine (1890), is one of Zola’s most violent and explicit works. On one level a tale of murder, passion and possession, it is also a compassionate study of individuals derailed by atavistic forces beyond their control. Zola considered this his ‘most finely worked’ novel, and in it he powerfully evokes life at the end of the Second Empire in France, where society seemed to be hurtling into the future like the new locomotives and railways it was building. While expressing the hope that human nature evolves through education and gradually frees itself of the burden of inherited evil, he is constantly reminding us that under the veneer of technological progress there remains, always, the beast within. This new translation captures Zola's fast-paced yet deliberately dispassionate style, while the introduction and detailed notes place the novel in its social, historical, and literary context.

Fielding and Richardson

PMLA ◽  
1966 ◽  
Vol 81 (5) ◽  
pp. 381-388
Author(s):  
William Park
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
General Type ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Tom Jones ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One

But the Discovery [of when to laugh and when to cry] was reserved for this Age, and there are two Authors now living in this Metropolis, who have found out the Art, and both brother Biographers, the one of Tom Jones, and the other of Clarissa.author of Charlotte SummersRather than discuss the differences which separate Fielding and Richardson, I propose to survey the common ground which they share with each other and with other novelists of the 1740's and 50's. In other words I am suggesting that these two masters, their contemporaries, and followers have made use of the same materials and that as a result the English novels of the mid-eighteenth century may be regarded as a distinct historic version of a general type of literature. Most readers, it seems to me, do not make this distinction. They either think that the novel is always the same, or they believe that one particular group of novels, such as those written in the early twentieth century, is the form itself. In my opinion, however, we should think of the novel as we do of the drama. No one kind of drama, such as Elizabethan comedy or Restoration comedy, is the drama itself; instead, each is a particular manifestation of the general type. Each kind bears some relationship to the others, but at the same time each has its own identity, which we usually call its conventions. By conventions I mean not only stock characters, situations, and themes, but also notions and assumptions about the novel, human nature, society, and the cosmos itself. If we compare one kind of novel to another without first considering the conventions of each, we are likely to make the same mistake that Thomas Rymer did when he blamed Shakespeare for not conforming to the canons of classical French drama.

scholarly journals Golding’s Narrowed Attempts at Defining Human Nature in Lord of the Flies

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-50
Author(s):  
Rabia Khan ◽  
Sajjad Ahmad ◽  
Ali Ammar
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Social Problem ◽  
Political System ◽  
Research Work ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Biological Factors ◽  
Single Character ◽  
William Golding ◽  
Lord Of The Flies

This paper is an attempt to prove the assumption that William Golding is a failure who claims to have written his novel Lord of the Flies on the idea of human nature. He considers that he wrote about human nature in general, but he is a Western and has those ideas of being superior to other people. He takes all his characters from among the English boys. Not a single character who is shown as civilized belongs to a marginalized race. This act of Golding reveals his ethnocentric attitude. He does not bother to include a female character in this novel. All his characters are male. It shows his androcentric nature. Though he tries to put the evil like every man whenever he wants to show the brutality or savagery of a human, in the form of his chosen English boys, he portrays them as the hunters of Africa or paints them with mud. In doing so, he is affiliating savagery with the blacks and Indians. Thus, he propagates the same stereotypical concept of “Orients” as uncivilized and savages. Golding relies solely on the biological factors of human nature. He ignores to consider any social problem for the conflict of the two groups of boys. These social factors may include political system, religion, or Marxism. This research work has proved that Golding’s self-critique of human nature in the novel is a failure on his part.

scholarly journals Virtue or Vice? Trauma Reflected in Mo Yan’s Frog

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 173-189
Author(s):  
Jinghui Wang
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
Population Control ◽  
Control Policy ◽  
Chinese Society ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Mo Yan ◽  
Epistolary Novel ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Ancient Chinese

The preoccupation with human nature is deeply rooted in literature. This paper starts from the ancient Chinese rudimentary understanding of human nature, then passes through Mo Yan’s Frog, an epistolary novel which covers the 30-year history of the Chinese population control policy through the description of an obstetrician in quest of her own human nature, and ends with her mediation and effort to retrieve goodness in the face of state will. Mo Yan, as well as many other Chinese people, does not deny that the onechild family policy had been laid down with a good intention to promote the general welfare of all citizens in China. But through a detailed reading of the novel Frog, it is argued that this policy might be a legalized illegality, which results in the schizophrenia of the main character out of the dilemma of justifying her deeds as virtue or vice. It is suggested that the experience of the female character in the novel, as well as in the contemporary Chinese society, should be investigated allegorically, and it reveals a universal issue about the complexity of human nature, for in a certain sense, one may start aiming to be Mother Theresa, but end in finding himself or herself merely a devoted clownlike servant of the state will.

scholarly journals GERMAN NINETEENTH-CENTURY PERIODICAL PRESS ON A.S. GRIBOEDOV: CONTEXTS AND IMAGES

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
E.V. Ablogina ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Periodical Press ◽  
Temporal Features ◽  
Xixth Century ◽  
Xix Century

The article studies the reception of A.S. Griboedov in German periodicals of the XIX century. The novel study aims to analyse both topics and contexts of the references made to the Russian diplomat and playwright in the corpus of German periodicals. If offers observations on the dynamics of the Germans’ interest in his personality and creativity, defines the image of Griboedov made by the German XIXth century periodicals, its national and temporal features commented.

scholarly journals Community and the Individual: A Note on Rohinton Mistry's Family Matters

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
P. Eshwara Murthy
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Family Values ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Rohinton Mistry ◽  
Family Politics ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Individual

Rohinton Mistry was born in 1952 in Mumbai, but settled in Canada, is a well known contemporary postcolonial writer. His novels portray modern India, focusing on conflicting situations and redemptive moments. His works Such a Long Journey (1991) A Fine Balance (1996) and Family Matters (2002) emphasize poverty, corruption and injustice intertwined with humour and tragic beauty highlighting the perception of life of the urban poor. Mistry uses both myriad and mixed experiences of a particular family to present the brokenness of modern society which is compounded by various and different memories and feelings. The paper throws light on community and the individual in Family Matters, it was published in 2002, and is Mistry’s third novel.  It has been rightly acclaimed as a masterpiece and also shortlisted for Man Booker Prize in 2003.  The writer’s humanity and compassion towards human beings relations and problems have been delicately portrayed. Rohinton Mistry’s Family Matters focuses upon the problems of un- belongingness and preservation of family values. The novel reveals the mutual equation of family members and family politics in the post modern society. The novelist delineates the importance of belongingness and preservation of family values through the most trustworthy institution named family and reflects the psychological stance of the members of family towards their aging and dying elders. The novel is a representation of harsh realities and selfish human nature of the characters who expresses the status of an individual in relation to family, community and society.

scholarly journals The Binary Oppositions in Joseph Conrad's Novel Heart of Darkness

2021 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 611-642
Author(s):  
Asst. Prof. Huda Kadhim Alwan
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Heart Of Darkness ◽  
The World ◽  
Highly Skilled ◽  
Unethical Behaviors ◽  
Binary Oppositions

The novel Heart of Darkness is regarded as one of Joseph Conrad's highly skilled works and seen as an important tale written between the years of 1898 - 1899, and also viewed as an assault on imperialism and unethical behaviors of the European colonizers in Africa in the nineteenth century. The novel displays the author's humanity towards the crimes of the colonists and imperialists throughout the world. In Heart of Darkness, Conrad shows the cruelty of colonialism in Africa through his major character, Charlie Marlow, who realizes the cruel manners of Belgian colonialism during his journey to the Congo looking for the European ivory agent, Kurtz. This novel is a combination of two opposite things. It exposes the author's viewpoint regarding the ethics of the Europeans and the Africans.        This research concentrates on the binary oppositions in Heart of Darkness through Marlow's journey to Africa and exposes Marlow's struggle between his human nature and his beliefs and replies whether his conflict will be effective and bring good results or negative.

scholarly journals OUT OF TIME CHARACTERS IN LITERARY WORKS OF 1859: “FAMILY HAPPINESS” BY LEV TOLSTOY, “OBLOMOV” BY IVAN GONCHAROV, “A HOUSE OF GENTLEFOLK” BY IVAN TURGENEV

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (5) ◽  
pp. 859-869
Author(s):  
G.M. Rebel
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Literary Process ◽  
Historical Specificity ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Lev Tolstoy ◽  
Xix Century

The article is a comparative structural, thematic and genre analysis of the works by Lev Tolstoy, Ivan Turgenev and Ivan Goncharov. The study had the following objectives: to give the genre definitions of “Family Happiness”, “Oblomov” and “A House of Gentlefolk” on the basis of structural, ideological and thematic features of the works; to compare the novels of Turgenev and Goncharov as different genre modifications; to justify the ideological character of the novel “A House of Gentlefolk”; to analyze the ideological controversy of the characters of Turgenev’s novel. As a result, the following conclusions were made. Tolstoy's “Family Happiness:, which is traditionally identified as a novel, in this case should be qualified as a novella: it has the predominant point of view which belongs to the narrator; the subject of the description are the episodes of private life presented outside of the socio-historical context of the era. Goncharov's “Oblomov” and Turgenev's “A House of Gentlefolk” present a multi-faceted, epically voluminous, large-scale picture of reality in two fundamentally different versions of the genre novel modifications. Despite the fact that in both novels the main characters are out of time, both works recreate the pre-reform atmosphere of the late 1850s, but perform it in fundamentally different ways. A mythologically-generalized, elegiac image of the past serfdom of Russia is presented in “Oblomov”. In “A House of Gentlefolk” the socio-historical specificity appears in close connection with real historical events, the lyrical beginning is organically combined with the polemical acuteness of the problem. The plot and the destinies of the characters in Turgenev's novel are determined by the ideological controversy, in which not only the main but also the secondary characters are subjectively or objectively involved, which ultimately determines the ideological character of the work. The proposed genre differentiation of the works of the three leading writers of the era allows us to give a dynamic cross-section of the literary process of the second half of the XIX century in the defining 1859 year of this period.

scholarly journals HERO SEARCHING FOR IDENTITY IN THE ENGLISH LITERATURE OF THE SECOND HALF OF THE XIX CENTURY (ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE WORKS BY J. S. LE FANU AND R. L. STEVENSON)

2019 ◽  
pp. 67-76
Author(s):  
T. Kyrpyta
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Victorian Literature ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Gothic Novel ◽  
English Society ◽  
Split Personality ◽  
Xix Century ◽  
Political Economic

In this article, we aim to examine how English writers of the second half of the nineteenth century attempted to answer the question of the identity of their representative, the way they saw human nature, and the nature of good and evil in a person, in what they saw the integrity of personality, from which the ideals were repelled in search of a hero of his time. Using cultural, historical, and comparative methods, we contrasted the momentous events that influenced nineteenth-century English society with such a literary phenomenon as the revival of interest in the techniques characteristic of the Gothic novel, in particular, characters' doubles, the split personality, expressed through physicality. We have considered the reasons why the idea of the dualism of human nature became relevant in this era. The political, economic and social shifts in the life of England in the second half of the nineteenth century caused the writers to rethink their own identities as representative of nation and humanity. Scientific discoveries, above all, the work of Darwin, forced a new look at the nature of man, his inner world. As a projection of Darwinism as well as the search for self-determination of the colonized peoples, there is a fear of degradation, which is reflected in the appearance of animal characters (the monkey-like ghost in Le Fanu's novel Green Tea, Hyde in the novel by R. L. Stevenson "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"). The literary hero of the late nineteenth century is a multifaceted combination of archetypal images such as Prometheus, Satan, Pygmalion, and the embodiment of the idea of the dualism of human soul, in which the divine and animal principles are combined. Such a split personality is also associated with the destruction of the image of the good patriarch as the embodiment of the English nation. Keywords: Victorian literature, double, duality, rebel hero, identity, Prometheus myth, English "Gothic" tradition.

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