Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

The comedy The Government Inspector was the first of its kind. It was a comedy made up of realistic characters meant to comment on society and promote change. The front page of Nikolai Gogol’s work begins with a popular saying, “If your face is askew don’t blame the mirror.” This quote sets up his purpose and message quite aptly. Gogol wanted his play to be a reflection of real life in Russia so his audience could see the skewness of Russian life. As a scholar once noted about Gogol, “His is the…

when he discovers the birthday present his father gave him when he turned fourteen. At that age Gogol was too engrossed in hating his name to have ever paid any attention to the book or what it contained within. Upon opening The Short Stories of Nikolai Gogol,…

In a crowded room, do you feel alone? In the book The Namesake by the author Jhumpa Lahiri, the main character Gogol Ganguli internally struggles to accept himself. Instead, he searches for a new identity. With his parents, he leaves India along with his culture, emigrating to the United States.The author, Jhumpa Lahiri, is very alike in comparison to Gogol Ganguli. They both have immigrated to the United States from India, and have a pet name and a preferred nick name. Gogol’s father, Ashoke,…

Pravda was a daily newspaper that tried to prove labor activism and expose the working conditions in Russian factories. The first paper of Pravda was issued on May 5, 1912 in St. Petersburg by the Bolshevik's of the Russian Social Democratic Party. The paper was closed eight times in the first two years and every time it closed, the Bolsheviks reopened it under a new name "Worker's Truth," etc. Pravda represents Squealer in the book Animal Farm because Squealer tells lies to try to get everybody…

Ashima and Ashoke Ganguli moved to a small town in America shortly after they became husband and wife. Not only was the move a culture shock to Ashima but the idea of assimilating into the American culture was about as foreign as she was. Throughout her novel Lahiri paints the picture of what it was like for a Bengali foreigner to try and hold onto their culture in America. Along with trying to raise a Bengali family surrounded by ever pressing American influence. In the novel The Namesake by…

Few films capture the essence of being an outsider in a foreign nation, namely and Indian in the United States of America, and one of these films happen to be Mira Nair’s The Namesake. Based on the titular book by Jhumpa Lahiri, the story focuses on the difficulties of a Bengali family after migrating to America, and the conflicts their son faces throughout his life after receiving an uncommon name, Gogol, at birth. Despite having such a simple premise, The Namesake shows the significance a name…

‘On the one hand, man is a body. On the other hand, man has a body. That is, man experiences himself as an entity that is not identical with his body, but that, on the contrary, has a body at its disposal' (Berger and Luckmann). With reference to TWO works studied on this course, discuss the body as the source of identity, and also as a source of confusion about identity. Kafka's 'Metamorphosis' and Gogol's 'The Nose' are both novellas that centre on a bodily catastrophe. The protagonists'…

Mr. Molotov’s Life of War According to Nikita Khrushchev, “Molotov took the name hammer just as Stalin had taken the name steel, and Stalin did indeed use Molotov to smash his opposition into submission and to pound his own power base into shapes” showing that Molotov was a tool for construction that Stalin used as he saw fit. Vyacheslav’s original last name was Skryabin, but changed it to Molotov which literally meant the hammer. Molotov was arrested and banished twice in his lifetime, once…

The first four chapters start off with the new life that Ashima is experiencing after she moved to the United States with her husband. Her first child, Gogol, was born in America. The name “Gogol”, a Russian writer’s last name, is given by Gogol’s father, Ashoke because he thinks he has a very special bond with that Russian novelist’s book. Ashima met Ashoke when she was 19 in Calcutta, and she is the most conservative member of her family. Ashima’s marriage was determined by her parents…

Ajima, also known as “The honorable potter’s wife, has always been very compassionate to Tree-ear since the beginning. She nourished Tree-ear at the midday meal along with her husband. In addition, she provided him with clothing. Ajima used to be known as, “The honorable potter’s wife”. More frequently, she is known as Ajima. On page 91 in A Single Shard, it says “The second is that from now on, you will call me Ajima”. Ajima was closed off at the beginning. She was mainly in the home, or…