A Dark, Constraining Silence The Relationship between Writing and Identity in Selected Works of Ludmila Petrushevskaya and Anna Akhmatova's Requiem
Date of Award
2007
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors
Department
Humanities
First Advisor
Schatz, David
Keywords
Petrushevskaya, Ludmila, Poverty, Chronotope, Identity
Area of Concentration
Russian Language and Literature
Abstract
The purpose of this thesis is to explore the ways in which two twentieth century Russian authors deal with the connecting themes of writing and identity. I use Anna Akhmatova's epic poem, Requiem, to establish that the tradition in Russia, beginning with Pushkin, of mythologizing the poet as a figure who gives voice to the conscience of the people is continued into the Soviet era. In Ludmila Petrushevskaya's short story, "Our Crowd", many of the ideas relevant to concepts of identity left out of Akhmatova's poem, predominately the physical body, are explored in considerable detail. In fact, the body proves to be a central thematic concern for Petrushevskaya. Petrushevskaya's longer novella, The Time: Night, has a narrator who shares the same first name and a similar patronymic as Anna Akhmatova. In this novella, Petrushevskaya demonstrates her familiarity with the literary tradition into which she is writing, often brutally satirizing that tradition. Her narrator, while deliberately and repeatedly invoking Akhmatova's name, also has shades of Dostoevsky's narrator in "White Nights" and Gogol's narrator in "Diary of a Madman". In the end, the most salient features of Petrushevskaya's writing are her attention to the body, her disavowal of traditional methods of concealing and revealing truth from the reader, and the establishment of a poverty chronotope, or a narrative structure where both time and place trap the characters in a manner analogous to a prison.
Recommended Citation
Estes, Benjamin, "A Dark, Constraining Silence The Relationship between Writing and Identity in Selected Works of Ludmila Petrushevskaya and Anna Akhmatova's Requiem" (2007). Theses & ETDs. 3775.
https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/3775
Rights
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