{"id":1116,"date":"2020-05-03T17:33:06","date_gmt":"2020-05-03T17:33:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/?p=1116"},"modified":"2020-05-03T17:33:06","modified_gmt":"2020-05-03T17:33:06","slug":"the-grown-up-child","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/gbatista\/the-grown-up-child\/","title":{"rendered":"The grown up child"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the surface, Tolstaya’s short story\u00a0Night<\/em> depicts the day of a mentally challenged man named Alexei who is being cared for by his mother, but I think that this story is an allegory for Russia in the contemporary world. The man acts as a child would, understanding the world not for what it was, unable to live an independent life.<\/p>\n

We know the main character is a fully grown man by the several allusions to his balding head and his beard, as well as the way people treat him. They’re uncomfortable with his childish and immature actions, and treat him like a pariah when they see him outside. This is because he can’t control himself, and he acts like a child. I think this is an allegory for Russia in the late Soviet period, with a child that was born out of pain, and never really grew up to be what he was supposed to be, instead becoming a misfit.<\/p>\n

I interpret this “birth from pain” to be the Russian revolution and the wars surrounding the Soviet Union’s inception. In addition to that parallel, the Soviet Union had ambitions to become a global powerhouse, but as time went on, that vision faded and the country sort of floundered, much like Alexei, who wanted to be a writer but is instead a man who hasn’t matured in a normal, healthy way.<\/p>\n

Based on this analysis, I’m not exactly sure who the mother is meant to represent. Based \u00a0on her tired and disheartened appearance, I imagine she’s meant to represent somebody who tried to set the USSR on a positive path, but is now a sort of caretaker. If\u00a0Night<\/em> is meant to be an allegory, who do you think Alexei is, and who do you think the mother is?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the surface, Tolstaya’s short story\u00a0Night depicts the day of a mentally challenged man named Alexei who is being cared for by his mother, but I think that this story is an allegory for Russia in the contemporary world. The man acts as a child would, understanding the world not for what it was, unable […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1018,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-unit-12-perestroika-and-the-new-russia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1018"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-spring-2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}