A Marxist-Feminist view of Gorky’s Mother and Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children
There are books in every language that are landmarks, even turning points, in the history of the literature in that language. Such a book for Russians is Maxim Gorky’s Mother while, for Germans is Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children. “Mothers are hardly ever pitied,” wrote Maxim Gorky in his landmark novel. The novel is about the pre-revolution proletariat of Russia and focuses on the role women played in the struggle of the Russian working class on the eve of the revolution of 1905. Gorky’s Mother was written ten years before the establishment of Soviet power in Russia, it the first stone laid in the foundations of Soviet literature.
Maxim Gorky, who was persecuted by the tsarist government and forced to live abroad for his ties with the Bolshevik Party, was moved by the brutal social and economic disparity that existed in Russian society during the tsarist government. Mother was written at the end of 1906 and the beginning of 1907 when Gorky was living abroad, part one was written in the United States, and part two in Italy. Mother was first published in Russia in 1907.
Even before the emergence of Maxim Gorky in the literary arena of Russia, the Russian literature of the 19th century was, as Gorky himself has written, “ever strong in its democratic feeling, its passionate striving to find a solution for our social problems, its advocacy of humanity, its praise of liberty,
The American Revolution was a war fought on home ground throughout the colonies that gave burdens to colonist. This war brought scarcity and danger into the lives of every American living in New England, and throughout the book Revolutionary Mothers Carol Berkin, the author, shows us that women, of all ethnicities, cultures, and classes were called upon to play more of a part in the war than just the housewives. Berkin travels back in time for this book to the Revolutionary War and explores diverse roles of these revolutionary women. What everyone else saw was how the women managed different parts of their husband’s jobs while they were out battling on the home front. Some of the women took it a step farther to become nurses and cooks in the
Joseph Stalin, 1878-1953, established totalitarianism in Russia, and forever changed the nation. He used police force to gain power, and instilled fear in all of his followers. This reign of terror was known as the Blood Purges or the Great Terror. During the Blood Purges, Stalin blamed Russian citizens for crimes he committed, and imposed the worst of punishments on them. Death or being sent to a labor camp, such as Gulag, was the fate of most.
The prejudice that the author brings forward strongly is the notion of feminism. The author’s main purpose of writing this novel is to examine the role of women played around
In the book Revolutionary Mothers, author Carol Berkin discusses women’s roles in the American Revolution. She separates out the chapters so that she can discuss the different experiences and roles of women during the period. She utilizes primary and secondary sources to talk about how women stepped into their husband’s shoes and maintained their livelihoods and how they furthered the war effort on both sides, as well as how classes and race effected each woman’s experience. Berkin’s main goal was for the reader to understand that although women’s roles aren’t traditionally discussed when talking about the American Revolution, nevertheless, they played a major part in it.
The archetypes analysed in this essay will be Stalin as ‘the wise leader’, as ‘the father of all people’, and as ‘the generalissimo’. To answer the research question, several academic works including those of Jan Plamper and Anita Pisch will be investigated, and paintings by the prominent Socialist Realism artists Deineka, Laktionov, Gerasimov and Vladimirskiy will
Analysis of: The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story “I don't understand all the fuss. If any creature is in danger, you save it, human or animal” (Ackerman 113). Compassion is a major theme in the book, The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story written by Diane Ackerman and published in 2007. The book tells the true story of a polish couple in WWII who owned a zoo and hid over 300 Jewish people inside their empty cages, closets, and even in their basement.
In the 19th century, a group of people launched the suffrage movement, and they cared about women’s political rights, their property and their body liberty. Born in that age, Kate Chopin was aware of the importance of setting an example for those who were taken in by the reality and poor women to be an inspiration. So we call her a forerunner of the feminist author for every effort she put in advocating women’s sexuality, their self-identity and women’s own strength. When people were ashamed of talking about sexuality, Kate Chopin stood out and call for women’s sexual autonomy.
Every modern society since the beginning of time has painted the female as frail and individuals at the mercy of men, unable to reap the same freedoms and aspirations as their male counterparts. The English Renaissance is no different as women were not allowed to play themselves on stage, and more often than not were seen as weak characters in their portrayal. In Shakespeare's “Hamlet”, all the female protagonists all have flaws that eventually leads to them meeting their deaths. The characters of Ophelia and Gertrude are two different women trapped in the same predicament, partly being due to the inefficacy of being taken seriously, and are therefore perceived as feeble women; looking at the persona of Ophelia, she tends to follow the direction
Feminist Criticism allows to understand the meaning and importance of literature when relating to the male-female power
The concept of freedom constantly rings throughout the texts of Alexander Pushkin’s The Bronze Horseman and Nikolai Gogol’s The Overcoat. These stories are both key elements of Russian literature and Russian history. During 19th century Russia, there was a prominent distinction that many peasants and people of lower class didn’t have the rights that the bourgeoisie potentially possessed. There are also freedoms that do reign on the main characters of these pieces as they go along in their respective plots. Points of freedom resonate with the protagonists as well as a dissolution of freedom that is constantly referenced throughout the stories, respectively.
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.
The Awakening by Kate Chopin was during a time when society viewed women as weak individuals. Demonstrates women's struggles for the freedom and individuality they wanted. During this time men had far more power than women did and took advantage of the freedom they had. This took place before the 19th amendment was passed and women were limited to their rights. He “Looks at his wife like a valuable piece that has suffered some damages” (p33).
Also, the analysis of her literary work, which provides a faithful image of early nineteenth century social stratification, and the relationships between individuals viewed from the marriage perspective. The analysis was realized comparing two of the author’s works, Pride and Prejudice one of the first novels, and her last Persuasion, which show the reality lived by the middle and upper-class societies at that time. In order to analyze these hypotheses, I started reading the two novels I proposed for this research paper. While reading, I observed the style of the English author, and also the matters she was writing about, especially about marriage in a society driven by the desire to overcome.
Liberation After Death: Akhmatova’s Shifting Tone in “Requiem” Written between 1935 and 1940, Anna Akhmatova’s “Requiem” follows a grieving mother as she endures the Great Purge. Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Union’s General Secretary, unabatedly pursued eliminating dissenters and, consequently, accused or killed hundreds of thousands who allegedly perpetrated political transgressions (“Repression and Terror: Kirov Murder and Purges”). Despite the fifteen-year censorship, Akhmatova avoided physical persecution, though she saw her son jailed for seventeen months (Bailey 324). The first-person speaker in “Requiem,” assumed to be Akhmatova due to the speaker’s identical experience of crying aloud “for seventeen months” (Section 5, Line 1), changes her sentiments towards deaths as reflected in the poem’s tone shifts.
The role of women in literature crosses many broad spectrums in works of the past and present. Women are often portrayed as weak and feeble individuals that submit to the situations around them, but in many cases women are shown to be strong, independent individuals. This is a common theme that has appeared many times in literature. Across all literature, there is a common element that causes the suffering and pain of women. This catalyst, the thing that initiates the suffering of women, is essentially always in the form of a man.