Passion, Humiliation, Revenge

Hatred in Man-Woman Relationships in the 19th and 20th Century Russian Novel

Rina Lapidus

• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Year: 1955
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9798216325109
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

This book reveals the phenomenon in Russian prose in which a male protagonist finds himself perpetuating a cycle of passion, humiliation, and revenge within his relationships with women. By examining the mental and emotional state of the male protagonist who finds himself in a sexual situation, Rina Lapidus explores how his passion for a woman leads the man into an encounter that causes him humiliation and ends up eliciting a powerful desire on his part to punish the woman who initially arouses his erotic feeling. The male protagonist directs his fury at the woman, seeking vengeance because of the shame he has suffered.

Lapidus shows how the man sees himself as a highly spiritual being and finds it difficult to comes to terms with his sexual nature. The author argues that this denial of desire leads the man to take out his frustration with himself on the woman, projecting all of his faults and guilt onto her. When the woman brings the male protagonist low, his thirst for revenge becomes a powerful driving force in his life that eventually brings about his downfall. This book will be of interest to those studying in the areas of Russian literature, psychology, and gender studies.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: The Aim and Structure of the Book
• Chapter 01. The Evolution of Attitudes towards Female Characters in Russian Literature: An Historical Overview
• Chapter 02. Spiritual and Physical Murder between Man and Woman: Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Chekhov
• Chapter 03. Woman as Sexual Predator in Russian Literary Tradition: Tolstoy, Zoschenko, and Trifonov
• Chapter 04. Woman’s Infidelity as the Cause for Man’s Devastation: Tolstoy, Flaubert, Leskov, Turgenev, Kuprin, and Chekhov
• Chapter 05. Anxiety about the Strong Woman: Turgenev, Leskov, and Bulgakov
• Chapter 06. Surrogate for Man-Woman Relations in Post-War Soviet Literature: Vasilyev, Grossman, and Rasputin
• Chapter 07. The Eunuch as Hero in Late-Soviet and Perestroika Literature: Dovlatov, Nagibin, and Polyakov
• Chapter 08. Man as an Object in Literature by Women: Shcherbakova, Rubina, Ulitskaya, Petrushevskaya, and Grekova
• Conclusion: Sex as an Animal Act Beyond Comprehension
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author