Doctor Zhivago: analysis. "Doctor Zhivago" - a novel by Pasternak

Roman B. Pasternak "Doctor Zhivago" is often called one of the most difficult works in the writer's work. This concerns the features of the mapping of real events (the first and the October Revolution, the world and civil wars), an understanding of his ideas, character characteristics, the name of the main one being Dr. Zhivago.

The analysis of the work on the role of the Russian intelligentsia in the events of the early twentieth century, however, is just as difficult as its fate.

Creative story

The first plan of the novel dates back to 17-18 years, but Pasternak began his serious work only after almost two decades. 1955 marked the end of the novel, then there was a publication in Italy and the award of the Nobel Prize, from which the Soviet authorities forced the disgraced writer to refuse. And only in 1988 - the novel first saw the light at home.

Several times the title of the novel changed: "The Candle burned" - the title of one of the poems of the main character, "There Will Be No Death", "Innocent Dudorov". As a reflection of one aspect of the author's design - "Boys and Girls." They appear on the first pages of the novel, mature, pass through themselves those events, whose witnesses and participants are. Adolescent perception of the world remains in adult life, which is proved by thoughts, actions of heroes and their analysis.

Doctor Zhivago - Pasternak was attentive to the choice of name - that's the name of the main character. First there was Patricki Zhivult. Yuri - most likely, George the victorious. The name of Zhivago is most often associated with the image of Christ: "You are the son of the living God (the genitive case in the Old Russian language)." In this regard, the novel is the idea of sacrifice and resurrection, a red thread passing through the whole work.

The image of Zhivago

The writer focuses on the historical events of the first and second decades of the 20th century and their analysis. Doctor Zhivago - Pasternak depicts his whole life - in 1903 he lost his mother and was under the care of his uncle. At the time when they go to Moscow, the father of the boy who earlier left his family also perishes. Next to his uncle Yura lives in an atmosphere of freedom and the absence of any prejudices. He studies, grows up, marries a girl whom he has known since childhood, receives a doctor's profession and starts doing his favorite work. And in it interest in poetry wakes up - he begins to write poetry - and philosophy. And suddenly the habitual and adjusted life collapses. In the courtyard of 1914, followed by even more terrible events. The reader sees them through the prism of the views of the protagonist and their analysis.

Doctor Zhivago, just like his comrades, reacts vividly to everything that happens. He goes to the front, where much seems to him senseless and unnecessary. Returning, it becomes a witness of how power passes to the Bolsheviks. First, the hero perceives everything with delight: in his view, the revolution is a "magnificent surgery", which symbolizes life itself, unpredictable and spontaneous. However, over time comes a rethinking of what happened. You can not make people happy beyond their will, it's criminal and, at least, ridiculous - Dr. Zhivago comes to such conclusions. Analysis of the work leads to the idea that a person, whether he wants it or not, is involved in the historical process. Pasternak's hero in this case is practically floating along the current, not openly protesting, but also not accepting unconditionally new power. This is something most often reproached the author.

During the civil Yuri Zhivago falls into a partisan detachment, from where he escapes, returns to Moscow, tries to live under the new government. But he can not work as before, this would mean adapting to the conditions that have arisen, and this is against his nature. There remains creativity, in which the main thing is the proclamation of the eternity of life. This will show the hero's poems and their analysis.

Doctor Zhivago thus expresses the position of that part of the intelligentsia who cautiously reacted to the coup in 1917 as a method of artificially changing life and adopting new orders that were originally alien to any humanistic idea.

Death of the hero

Choking in new conditions, which his essence does not accept, Zhivago gradually loses interest in life and spiritual strength, in the opinion of many, even degrades. Death overtakes him unexpectedly: in a stuffy tram, to get out of which Yuri feels unwell, there is no possibility. But the hero does not disappear from the pages of the novel: he continues to live in his poems, as evidenced by their analysis. Doctor Zhivago and his soul gain immortality through the great power of art.

Symbols in the novel

The work has a ring composition: it starts with a description of the funeral of the mother, and ends with his death. Thus, the pages describe the fate of the whole generation, represented mainly by Yuri Zhivago, and emphasizes the uniqueness of human life in general. Symbolically, the appearance of a candle (it, for example, sees a young hero in the window), personifying life. Or blizzards and snow as a harbinger of adversity and death.

Symbolic images are also present in the hero's poetic diary, for example, in the poem "Fairy Tale". Here, "the corpse of a dragon" - the victim in a duel with a rider - represents a dreamlike dream, turned into an eternity, as imperishable as the soul of the author himself.

Poetry Collection

"Poems of Yuri Zhivago" - only 25 - were written by Pasternak during the work on the novel and make up with him one whole. In the center of them is a man who fell into the wheel of history and faced a difficult moral choice.

The cycle opens Hamlet. Doctor Zhivago - analysis shows that the poem is a reflection of his inner world - appeals to God to alleviate the fate assigned to him. But not because he is afraid - the hero is ready to fight for freedom in the surrounding kingdom of cruelty and violence. This work is about the famous Shakespeare hero facing a complex moral choice, and about the cruel fate of Jesus. But the main thing is a poem about a person who does not tolerate evil and violence and perceives what is happening around as a tragedy.

Poetic entries in the diary correspond with various stages of Zhivago's life and emotional experiences. For example, an analysis of Dr. Zhivago's poem "Winter Night". The antithesis on which the work is built helps to show the turmoil and anguish of the lyrical hero trying to determine what is good and evil. The hostile world in his mind is destroyed by the warmth and light of a burning candle, symbolizing the trembling fire of love and home comfort.

The meaning of the novel

Once "waking up, we ... will not return the lost memory" - this idea of B. Pasternak, expressed in the pages of the novel, sounds like a warning and a prophecy. The happened coup, accompanied by bloodshed and cruelty, caused the loss of moral values and commandments of humanism. This is confirmed by subsequent events in the country and their analysis. "Doctor Zhivago" is different in that Boris Pasternak gives his understanding of history, not imposing it on the reader. As a result, everyone gets the opportunity to see the events in their own way and as it becomes his co-author.

The meaning of the epilogue

The description of the death of the main character is not yet final. Action of the novel for a short time is transferred to the beginning of the forties, when Zhivago's stepbrother meets Tatyana, daughter of Yuri and Lara, working as a nurse. Unfortunately, she does not possess one of those spiritual qualities that were peculiar to her parents, which is shown by the analysis of the episode. "Doctor Zhivago," thus, refers to the problem of spiritual and moral impoverishment of society as a result of the changes that have occurred in the country, which is opposed by the immortality of the hero in his poetic diary - the final part of the work.