The reading from pages 135 to 174 is divided into two distinct sections. The first, pages 135 to 157, describes Lyudmila’s trip to see Tolya and the ensuing changes to her mentality, and the second, pages 158 to 157, recounts the preparations that the soldiers in a Russian air battalion make for their journey to a new town. Each of these two sections discusses two main ideas that shine light on the Russian Condition as Grossman sees it. In the first section we about how Russians internalize their emotions by creating a façade that distances them from others and, when they are forced to come into contact with others, falls away to expose their fear of the regime that causes them to be overly dependent on receiving praise and acceptance to perpetuate their good reputation. The second section goes into detail about the cycle that the soldiers go through every time they enter a new town, bringing to light the monotony of their lives that pervades even the their romantic endeavors and begging the question: are the soldiers really acting through love and emotion or are they just guided by a ingrained idea of what types of social behaviors are expected and to some extent required of them? The second section also brings up the tension surrounding religion and how it affects one’s status as a true, trustworthy Russian.
As the preceding reading suggests, Lyudmila starts out as an assertive, opinionated, emotional Russian woman and Grossman reinforces this belief by describing all the strong opinions that she defends against Victor and his mother but which she would relent on ”if only Tolya were still alive”. Therefore, at the beginning of the reading it is no surprise that she finds the “calm eyes of” the other women on the steamer with her “unbearable” (138). She goes on to present a question that is at the heart of the Russian condition under Stalin. “Where did this inhuman behaviour come from?” This inhuman behavior pervades Russian culture and even touches Lyudmilla “filling her with the cold and darkness of thousands of miles of desolate Russian steppe, with a feeling of helplessness amid life’s frozen wastes” as she watches the other people. Up until the time when Ludmilla breaks down on Tolya’s grave, she describes everything with vivid and emotional language and continues to view others with distain showing us she has not changed. For example, the hospital “was so sticky and viscous that however chilled you were by the frost, you wanted to go back outside rather than stay and enjoy its warmth”(142). Then when she goes to visit Tolya’s grave and we get several pages of strange but understandable mourning (152-155) in which Lyudmila experiences; surprise at all the death surrounding her, then a growing silence that marks her isolation from the world and culminates in a massive nose bleed “the water of life” (153) symbolizing her rebirth into the deranged new world of internalized suffering in which she believes that Tolya is still alive. As this change takes place she has several thoughts that range from total despair to fake acceptance of Tolya’s death before she learns to internalize her sorrow like the other Russians. See “A soul can live in torment…before reality”(154), “she suddenly felt…eternity retreated before her love”(154), “her madness had passed…He was dead”(155), and “All that existed…against her temples”(154). Consequently, after Lyudmila goes through this transformation, Grossman ends the trip and the first chapter of Lyudmila’s life by showing us her new self through the eye’s of Viktor’s eyes “She had always been argumentative, but now she no longer argued with anyone” (157). The obvious question surrounding Lyudmila’s change is : Is detached, internalized mourning and the creation of a fake “world” inside oneself an inevitable part of Russian life during the war, and if not how can it be avoided, and if so who does it affect (everyone, the families of the soldiers, the mothers)?
The second theme contained in this first section concerns the “forgiveness” and praise that character including the commissar, the commandant, the nurse, and the cook on the boat need to justify their actions and in a sense their lives. This series of requests for praise that so disgust Lyudmila, begins innocently enough with the cook asks Lyudmila with “an openness and simplicity of heart in this demand for praise, addresses to someone the man had himself just fed” if it is a “fine soup” (139). Unfortunately, the requests for justification and congratulation get more and more pitiful and frustrating to Lyudmila over the course of this section. For example, Lyudmila says that “she could feel the commissar, the nurse and the commandant also wanted something from her, that they too wanted some word of consolation or forgiveness.” Grossman sums up this Russian condition at the end of chapter 31 “ Everyone feels guilty before a mother who has lost her son n a war; throughout human history men have tried in vain to justify themselves.” The logical question following this section is: Do these people seek forgiveness because they are afraid of getting a bad name under Stalin’s rule or do they truly feel guilty?
At this point I have already written too much and very few people are going to read farther therefore, I will include my outline and page numbers for the two paragraphs that would follow in hopes that you will think independently.
• Russian Soldier. Free versus in controlled/typical road (need women in the towns remake their relationships in every town)
o Initiate an elaborate “play” every time they enter a town with different actors and actresses, but the same script, in which the whole town participates.
o Is there any true emotion
o Pg (160-161) the beginning of the chapter and the story
• Prejudice.
o What is the true Russian?
Pg (165, 169)
Jew…is not (Korol)
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Insightful post, Ben.
ReplyDeleteI was especially intrigued by the question that you posed concerning Lyudmila's realization of this loss of humanity, how the Russian people have become emotionally separated and distant from both one other and themselves. The answer to Lyudmila's question, in my opinion, has no definitive, rational, tangible solution. Rather, it is a culmination of the Bolshevik rise to power, the severely crippling political, social, and economic effects of Stalinism, and the subsequent mandatory sacrifice of individuality for the greater good of the State. Herein lies the tragedy, the inevitable fall from grace. Totalitarianism has stripped these people of their inner "good". The inherent, outer shell made up of competitiveness, self-interest, ambition, etc. remains, but all the compassion, love, and understanding has been extracted. The Russian people have become a raw, primitive, desperate force, giving all their energy to the sustainment of the facade of the Homo Sovieticus. They are all, however, helpless and afraid. They no longer trust in each other, they are no longer able to form sincere and loving relationships, they no longer have the ability to feel their own humanity. Life no longer has a meaning other than devotion to the complete fulfillment of the State. Freedom has been silenced, and when freedom is suppressed to such ends, so then is the humanity of each and every man, woman, and child.
p.s. I know, its really melodramatic. I felt like Connor when I was writing it.
I think the description of Lyudmila in chapter 34 is indicative of what Grossman percieves to be the goal of the Soviet's plan to alter human nature. After returning from Tolya's grave, Lyudmila drops her selfish, argumentative demeanor and becomes a quiet, dutiful housewife: "She went to the store to collect the family's rations; she prepared meals; she stoked the stove; she cleaned the floors and did the washing... she no longer argued with anyone" (156-157). From the viewpoint of a party official, Lyudmila is an ideal Soviet woman, but from the viewpoint of her family members (and the reader), Lyudmila seems to be out of touch with normal human emotion and possibly psychotic because of Tolya's death. Grossman implies that human nature is malleable, but that the result is not human. Lyudmila ends up a Soviet robot instead of a Russian woman embracing communism.
ReplyDeleteBravo Ben,
ReplyDeleteYou reference the repression that the Russians use to distance themselves from the atrocities inherent in war. This suppression of the seemingly natural law for human empathy demonstrates a sad yet common occurrence. Though many claim that human nature cannot be changed, in times of war, entire nations are dehumanized and can commit the horrible crimes.
As Lyudmila is en route to her hospitalized son, she reflects how this dehumanization reveals a deeper trend; people only seem to get upset when their routine is broken or when something out of the ordinary occurs. She comments on this idea when thinking, “the events of the war would pale before the terrible passions aroused be the allocation of seats for the ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ coaches” (138). This paragraph is in reference to the differing reaction of between simply being forced off a train verses losing Leningrad to the Germans. It shows how disconnected the people are and how they have lost interest in the war. Unfortunately, with the current war in the Middle East, many Americans are guilty of this same indifference.
(Insert positive alliterative comment here), Ben.
ReplyDeleteI think your analysis of Lyudmila here is spot on. She does indeed go through a change, albeit for the worse. The Stalinist state has fostered an atmosphere in which people are becoming disconnected with themselves as well as those around them. The dehumanization of Lyudmila, I think, is a result of the nature of a totalitarian regime, such a regime that suppresses the individual at all costs. The Stalinist state has stripped Lyudmila of her humanity. Although she may no longer have the ability to compete, lie, cheat, and steal, she no longer can live, love, cry, or be human. She is merely a lifeless Homo Sovieticus, a servant to the state, an emotionless vegetable at the whims of Stalinism.
I think your description of the soldiers is very interesting: "The second section goes into detail about the cycle that the soldiers go through every time they enter a new town, bringing to light the monotony of their lives that pervades even the their romantic endeavors and begging the question: are the soldiers really acting through love and emotion or are they just guided by a ingrained idea of what types of social behaviors are expected and to some extent required of them?" one key idea behind communism is that you can fundamentally change man kind. you can take him from him all thoughts of the individual and make him a purely societal creature. though this description i believe he is pointing out that, though one might be able to point out cases of this under the totalitarian regiemes, even when man was acting as a societal creature it was not because he had changed but because he had been destroyed. Man was not acting out of free will, but rather obidience.
ReplyDeleteWow. What a post. You put all of us to shame. Don't worry Mr. H, I have something of substance. Here it goes:
ReplyDelete"In the first section we about how Russians internalize their emotions by creating a façade that distances them from others and, when they are forced to come into contact with others, falls away to expose their fear of the regime that causes them to be overly dependent on receiving praise and acceptance to perpetuate their good reputation."
I would like to focus my attention to this quote. You all know how I love my quotes. However, when reading this, I immediately drew a connection to "The Lives of Others." In the scene where Dreyman is talking to Jerska. We see the truth behind Dreyman. In public, Dreyman acts as the perfect Communist, an integral cog in the system, obediently passive. However, when he talks to Jerska, who has been blacklisted, we see Dreyman's true emotions of uncertainty in the system. Dreyman, like Grossman's Russians, has learned to hind behind this obedient facade.
The emotional deprivation of the Russian people is a mere product that fuels the regime of totalitarianism. Though in some cases the regime has punished those opposed, the general fear of nonconformity has by this point in the reading completely permeated the hearts and minds of the Russian people because not conforming could jeopardize one’s survival and or livelihood. Survival is what forces people to let go of who they are and cause them to be what is required despite potentially losing their identities in the process. So is there any true emotion? I’d say no, and even if so, it’d be hard to emulate unfettered through façades they have to live through. As a result relationships attenuate, and the souls of people die even though their bodies go on.
ReplyDeleteIt makes sense to create such a façade by internalizing emotions in some situations – it is the easiest way to avoid being hurt. In a totalitarian government during wartime you can be hurt by the invaders, the government, and even your neighbors, so it makes sense not to open up to anyone. Personally, I found the greatest display of emotion – Lyudmilla’s before the grave of her son – to be needlessly heady reading. It felt like an unrealistic, overly melodramatic scene with all the pathos possible wrung out of it. I believe that the ones seeking Lyudmilla’s forgiveness are simply feeling guilty and uncomfortable seeing her – sort of like you feel when you see a man begging on the side of the road and don’t have money with you. Seeing someone suffer without being able to help makes you feel guilty, and so they seek some form of absolution from such guilt. The people in this story are not “lifeless Homo Sovietici” but normal humans operating under certain circumstances.
ReplyDeleteOne of the main characters that ask for forgiveness in this section is the doctor that performs the surgery on Tolya. On page 148 the doctor says, "I did all I could. But, instead of saving him from death, my hands only brought his death closer." Then a few sentences later Grossman says, "But there was something else that had made the conversation difficult and painful: she sensed that the doctor had wanted this meeting not for her sake, but for her own." The doctor wanted forgiveness from Lyudmila because he felt responsible for Tolya's death. The doctor is trying to get this forgiveness so that he can try and justify what he did. The doctor is just like every other character in the book in that he will do whatever it takes to survive but he now regrets what he did and wants to be forgiven.
ReplyDeleteChapter 33 (the description of Lyudmila's grieveing) is extraordinarily well done. It makes me wonder whether Grossman himself had lost someone extremely close to him because it seems impossible to write this emotionally without having experienced it first hand. But anyways, I want to focus on a particular quote from this chapter, specifically the part that states "A soul can live in torment for years and years, even decades, as it slowly builds a mound over a grave; as it moves towards the apprehension of eternal loss and bows down before reality." This then, is question of how it is ever possible to move on in spite of such great personal loss, despite the practical need to do so. This is certainly a problem that those dealing with the death of loved ones would have had to deal with, the question of the personal vs. the practical - and this grief should be allowed to be dealt with slowly and experienced fully. However this luxury simply is not given in a totalitarian state, and the methods by which one deals with death varies from person to person, but in Lyudmila's case, she internalizes the pain and effectively becomes the perfect Soviet woman - perhaps an intended result of this inhuman and inhumane system.
ReplyDeleteBoring but beneficial, Ben
ReplyDeleteI remember reading this- indeed it seems that the surgeon and the nurse both want forgiveness from Lyudmilla for the death of her son and their choice of proceeding with the controversial surgery. As I have said before, although the killing touches almost everyone, in many cases the Russian nationalism and pride overcomes individuals' discontent with the system.
Grossman is commenting in this chapter especially about the individuality of every wasted life - the relationship between parents and their kids and how worthless the fighting is.
On another note, I think its weird that his mother stands by his grave thinking that nobody ever loved him when its clear that the doctor and the nurse both cared deeply about saving his life.
Wonderful post, Ben.
ReplyDeleteI’ll address the latter part of your post concerning forgiveness. Like you said, the commissar, the commandant, the nurse, and the cook on the boat all need to justify their actions in order to earn forgiveness. I think these people seek forgiveness because they are both afraid of earning a bad reputation under Stalin’s gripping control and truly feel guilty about their actions. In the case of the commissar, Grossman writes: “the commissar felt guilty because men were dying in his hospital…Now, however, in front of the mother of the dead lieutenant, the commissar felt himself to blame for the fact that three patients had died the day before—while he himself had taken a shower, ordered his favorite dish of stewed sauerkraut from the cook and drunk a bottle of beer from the store in Saratov” (148-149). Thus, the commissar truly feels guilty as he cannot provide adequate medical treatment to the patients in the military hospital. I believe, however, the commissar also feels some pressure to obey the Party’s guidelines as Grossman writes: “He had been told that he would be sent to the front if the Special Section ever again informed them of ideological errors in the hospital” (149). Thus, to answer your question, the people in this section seek forgiveness for both reasons—because they are scared of disobeying Stalin and in some cases because they truly pity themselves and desire to cleanse themselves of their wrongdoings.
What i found interesting about this section was the fact that Lyudmila had to comfort the doctor's after the loss of her son. They were trying to make sure that Lyudmila held nothing against them, and that she believed that the doctor's had done everything they could. I tend to think this happens not because they feared retribution from the society, because I'm not sure the Stalinist regime would care about the loss of one soldier over medical malpractice. I think that those doctor's truly just felt bad about what happened, but it their statement came out of a desire to over up their own butts. I am not so sure they truly cared for Tolya, maybe they were just complimenting him because he had died in their hands. Lyudmila certainly thinks that no one ever cared for him. Her love for her son had gone beyond love and become an obsession and an object of worship. The loss of a son to war is a terrible thing, but Lyudmila's response to it was such a drastic change in character.
ReplyDeleteI think Ben’s points about the soldiers are very interesting here, even though he didn’t get to develop them fully in his posting. Maybe the soldier knows he faces potential death every day he fights. This awareness makes him value life and at the same time try to put it behind him so he will be able to actually fight. This is a difficult situation to be in. So I can see how a soldier would want to connect with women in each posting, or how he would want to engage in relationships. But at the same time I can see how he would not be able to have real relationships, or else he wouldn’t be able to take the next round of orders and go on and fight again somewhere else.
ReplyDelete