Eugene Onegin's Heartbreaking

A story, of any type, is greatly affected by the characters’ outlook on life. A bright, hopeful main character will give the narrative a more lighthearted feel, and cause the reader to feel encouraged and satisfied. If the character has a negative perspective, however, it can elicit sadness, pity, or even irritation from the reader. In Voltaire’s Candide and Tolstoy’s Death of Ivan Ilyich, two characters with very different worldviews are displayed. The lighthearted Candide maintained an attitude of cheerfulness and perseverance even through the hardships of his life, which stems from his deep love and care for others, while the coldhearted despair of Ivan Ilyich is only intensified into anger by the feigned optimism of those around him.

The theme of “The Darling” tells of a woman named Olenka that changes her interest every time she falls madly in love with a new man. This gives the reader the perception that she cannot form an opinion on her own. The behavior leaves Olenka distraught every time a man leaves her life. Olenka’s relationship between her first and second husband helps elucidate the theme. Olenka’s first husband Ivan Petrovich loved the theater which meant Olenka loved the theater. When Olenka married her second husband Vassitchka he did not enjoy the theater. His opinion became Olenka’s opinion. She then had the belief that she did not have time for the nonsense of theater.

Unlike the Continental Op, Princess Zhukovski allows some of her most significant actions to be ruled by her own gender stereotyping. To begin with, the princess is taken by surprise when the Op announces his suspicions of her. Her reaction proves that she does not believe he would come to those conclusions, not only because she is of royal birth but also because she is a woman. Once the princess realizes she is found out, Zhukovski attempts to gain sympathy from the Continental Op by expressing the woes of her troublesome past life. She laments, “There was no place for us in world. Outcasts easily become outlaws” (Hammett 250). Zhukovski hopes that her sob story will touch the heart of the Continental Op and that her portrayal of the damsel in distress will drive the point home, but the Continental Op is having none of it. Growing in desperation, the princess plays her last card by seductively offering herself to him, and it appears it is a hand she has played before. Zhukovski expects even the strongest-willed men to bend before her at the promise of a sexual favor.

When he heard of the critical conditions of his sister and Sveta’s boy respectively, he did not hesitate to use his first two wishes to save them respectively. His sister had a fatal lung cancer; “The fish undid it in an instant-the words barely out of Sergei's mouth.”.(lines 135-137) And

“Days of a Russian Noblewoman” is a translated memoir originally written by a Russian noblewoman named Anna Labzina. Anna’s memoir gives a unique perspective of the private life and gender roles of noble families in Russia. Anna sees the male and female gender as similar in nature, but not in morality and religiosity. She sees men as fundamentally different in morality and religiosity because of their capability to be freely dogmatic, outspoken, and libertine. Anna implies throughout her memoir that woman in this society have the capacity to shape and control their lives through exuding a modest, submissive, and virtuous behavior in times of torment. Through her marriage, Labzina discovers that her society is highly male centered.

Gurov, dissatisfied with his monotonous life, goes to Anna because he needs the scandal to relieve a numbness that has taken effect, not because he loves her. She merely reciprocates his affection, not out of love, but to escape the entrapment she feels from her marriage. In a subtle climax during his return home to Moscow, Gurov feels the agonizing absence of anyone he can talk to meaningfully about the personal secrecies of his life, specifically Anna. This intolerable sensation sends him to “S—,“ to find her. Only when Gurov is standing outside Anna’s house does he actually relate to her situation and form some genuine connection. “Just opposite the house stretched a long grey fence adorned with nails…One would run away from a fence like that," thought Gurov, looking from the fence to the windows of the house and back again…He loathed the grey fence more and more, and by now he thought irritably that Anna Sergeyevna had forgotten him, and was perhaps already amusing herself with some one else, and that that was very natural in a young woman who had nothing to look at from morning till night but that confounded fence” (p.230). With Gurov’s realization, he actually escapes his fenced in world and partially enters her miserable one. In sharing a connection, their emotions and psychological needs start to blend together and they become entrapped by the same fence, where inside, the two of them are alone and vulnerable in a shared arena. This isolation

He does not feel anything toward women and in fact, refers to them as “the lower race” (1) and that “their beauty aroused hatred in him and the lace on their linen reminded him of scales” (118). As the story ends, the readers learn about Gurov’s consciousness and that his feelings towards women have changed. The motive for his alteration begins with Gurov’s love for Anna, and later these feelings makes him “sleepless and restless” because of continuous thinking and dreaming about Anna.

From the concept of magic, of where Vika and Nikolai each have their own strengths with it; to the concept of the game of which they are trying to kill each other but not. They could easily let the game or the tsar chose, but each tries to attack the other, getting rid of the game choice of choosing a winner. Skye adding a twist making this book unique: not only did it have Vika and Nikolai slowing falling in love with each other, but the addition of Pasha, gives it the extra mile. Pasha, the crown prince, who goes in disguise among his people, and has a soft heart, is best friends with Nikolai and believes he is in love with Vika. Where Nikolai never told him who he was, this problem becomes a major event in Skye’s book, after all we all know nothing good comes from lying to your friend, especially about who you are. Bit of history in this novel as Skye has it taking place from October to December in 1825, also location of the novel takes place in Saint Petersburg, Russia (not a common set location). From heartbreak, to love, Skye writes the story of the Crown’s Game, between two contestants who are battling it out for their life, as no matter their feelings toward each other, only one can

Dmitri, before he loved Anna, was a dog, one who looked down on women and only thought of the pleasures and benefits he could receive from them. Stuck in an unhappy marriage with his wife to the point that he, “did not like to be at home” (Chekhov, 62). Dmitri, though enjoys the company of women, he acknowledged that “he could not get on for two days together without ‘the lower race’” (Chekhov, 62), the “lower race” referencing women. Consequently, this disgust of his own wife and desire for women causes Dmitri to cheat, “He had begun being unfaithful to her long ago -- had been unfaithful to her often” (Chekhov, 62). Dmitri liked to keep all his affairs simple and amusing, whenever one would begin to be too much work and/or unbearable, he would drop it and proceed to the next one. Though Dmitri is quite an observant person he would focus on the

However, in Oates’ version, she utilizes the female character, Anna, to develop the story. In Chekhov’s story, the reader is more aware of the masculinity present in the story. Gurov is manipulative of women, and he uses them as a device to remove himself from his marriage. In the story, he speaks of women by saying, “It seemed to him that he had been sufficiently tutored by bitter experience to call them what he pleased…” (Chekhov 2014). He believes that all women are the same and are the inferior race compared to men. Anna’s actions in the Oates’ story contrast greatly compared to Gurov’s. Anna displays the feminine side of the relationship between the couple. Anna is not accustomed to being involved in several affairs, which can be seen through the emotional toll that it takes on her. Following the stereotypical female

Finally, when things are heating up between the two lonely travelers, so is the weather, which “was close indoors, while in the street the wind whirled the dust about” (Chekov 507) and their thirst is unrelenting no matter what they eat or drink to quench it. “One did not know what to do with oneself” (Chekov 507), seemingly, with the desire for one another that is beginning to blossom. On this particular evening, the couple makes way for the pier to watch the incoming ship. A crowd of people have gathered with many bouquets of flowers to greet arrivals. The churning ocean echoes the intensity of their attraction for each other, along with the mess of people surrounding them and Anna’s display of uneasiness and absentmindedness. As the crowd thins out,

Popular descriptions of Alexei Karenin label him as a cold and passionless government official who doesn’t care about his wife or family. Indeed, he is viewed as the awful husband who is holding Anna hostage in a loveless marriage. However, this is a highly exaggerated description, if not completely false, analysis of Karenin. Upon careful analysis of Karenin’s character and his actions, it is clear that he is not the person Anna makes him out to be. In fact, with thorough examination of the passage on pages 384 and 385 of Anna Karenina, it is clear that Alexei Karenin can be considered the hidden tragic hero of the novel.

The past is constantly mentioned by the characters in this play. Even the cherry orchard as property, is a symbol of the Old Russian regime. The end of the Old Regime therefore, is portrayed by Chekhov when at the end of the play Lohpakin becomes the owner of the estate and cuts the cherry orchard. Chekhov, as a contemporary observer, uses his play to criticize some aspects of the emancipation of 1861. The message he leaves is that although the emancipation was an important step towards freedom, it was not the only one to be made. This message, besides being given throughout the novel, is also stated by Trofimov, an idealist student who realizes how far Russia is from achieving real freedom. At the end of Act 2, Trofivom tells Anya, Madame Ranevskaya’s 17-year-old daughter: “...In order to start living in the present, we first have to redeem our past, make an end of it, and we can only do that through suffering…” .

Grief is keen mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss; and sharp sorrow. Grief is something that can take a massive toll on one’s mental health and actions. It can change a person’s thinking and what they do. In “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare, grief is shown in many ways but with each person who is grieving they begin to act differently than they normally would.

Gurov has found a woman he can love for the rest of his life, and he hates the fact that she is not with him. She has left him just as the way he would leave the women he has had affairs with. He feels that she is the only woman to make him happy in the world. His own past has doomed him; He knows he can never be with Anna but trys to make a effort to see her again in S--. He arrives at her home to see that she is enclosed by a long fence, slammed in with nails, a prison he imagines it to be. Desperately seeking to find her he attends a theater at night. He sees her there with her tall husband, wearing a uniform. While her husband is gone, Gurov approaches her to speak with him, as she leaves the auditorium to avoid him. Gurov catches up to her and they speak for a short while and Anna promises to him that she will come to Moscow to visit him.