Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago

Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago challenged a number of socialist tenets in political, social, and literary terms, and it was banned in the Soviet Union as a consequence for 30 years. Politically, the novel questions the reality of the Soviet system as it developed, finding that the promise of the Bolsheviks was dissipated in the early years as changes were made in the social and political beliefs they had offered. In literary terms, the novel breaks away from the prevailing school of social realism, which in itself had been turned into a deliberate political statement and almost a political requirement for socialist-accepted writing. The novel intentionally deals with the early years of the Soviet system rather than with the Stalinist years. Pasternak had lived through both eras, but in this novel he was only challenging the way the Bolsheviks had abandoned their ideals. He does so in a context of humanist fiction, elevating the human being to a particularly high point and considering the relationship between the individual and society, the individual and other individuals, and the individual and his or her philosophy or religion. The move away from social realism is seen in the greater use of symbolism and a more romantic notion of human nature and of the importance of the individual. This idea is expressed through the relationship between Yurii and Lara and also in Yurii's disillusionment with Bolshevism and in its failure to make history more important than human be

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ituality of the people with the spirituality of nature as an expression of God on earth. Easter and the natural world are closely linked in this poem, showing that not only Christ will rise from death but that the land itself will come back to life in Spring: From Maundy Thursday right up to The very eve of Easter the waters gnaw At riverbanks, and are busy weaving Their currents, whirlpools, and eddies. The forest, too, is stripped, exposed, And all through Passiontide The trunks of pines stand in a throng Like worshippers aligned in prayer (524-525). Here Yurii also expresses his faith in a way that refers back to what Nikolai said history was, an exploration of the riddle of death, when he writes: And when the midnight comes All creatures and all flesh will fall silent On hearing spring put forth its rumor That just as soon as there is better weather Death itself can be overcome Through the power of the Resurrection (526). Other poems address spring more directly--"Bad Roads in Spring," for instance--as a time of rebirth. Again and again, the imagery combines nature and religious belief and shows the individual as part of a mass of worshippers. For that matter, all of nature is often expressed by

Category: Literature - B