Summary Of Towles's A Gentleman In Moscow

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In A Gentleman in Moscow, Towles engages with the same theme as the Count’s effort to maintain his identity is challenged. Early in his imprisonment, the Count notes the deterioration of manners and ethics, two things that as a gentleman, he values highly. When being waited on at the Piazza, the Count is infuriated by the service he receives from a new waiter, who forgets to serve the Count his wine and is inexperienced at offering proper wine pairings. This waiter has “a narrow head and superior demeanor,” which earns him the nickname the Bishop from the Count (39). Defined as a chess piece, rather than as an individual, Towles develops the Bishop into a symbol for communism and its influence on the hotel and the individuals living there. …show more content…

When the Count enters the wine cellar, he proclaims, “A bottle of wine was the ultimate distillation of time and place; a poetic expression of individuality itself. Yet here it was, cast back into the sea of anonymity, the realm of averages and unknowns” (144). Towles personifies the bottles of wine in order to symbolize that because of the upheaval in Russia, the Count has been reduced from a man of tradition and fine taste to a man restricted between ordering red or white wine. Not only does the Count acknowledge that his former life is behind him since he too is a relic of his era which will be destroyed by the Revolution, he makes plans to end his

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