The Three Brothers' Tale

Envy contemplates contingencies that have emerged proscribed of revolutionary transition. This is the society that Ivan says "is eating us alive . . . the government agency a boa constrictor swallows a rabbit" (Olesha 344).

That relatively unbiased anti-Soviet rant appears to mean pretty much what it says, though 1 does non have to be a white Russian to realize that the October Revolution succeeded in part because of tsarist greed. The text is not necessarily subversive because the rant is in the verbalise of a drunk. More subversive--because more subtle--is the text of an episode call "The twaddle of the Meeting of Two Brothers." In narrative terms, Ivan introduces his "Tale" to Kavalerov much as Ivan Karamazov introduces to Alyosha his "absurd"(Dostoevsky 309) Grand interrogator poem. Dostoevsky's Ivan is roughly to tackle the problem of evil and bare his soul to Alyosha, and Ivan Babichev has just shown Ivan his Ophelia machine as "The Tale" begins.

"The Tale" is an exercise in magical symbolism that exposes the ponderous yet fragile social organisation of Soviet invigoration. The relevant passage sets the scene for a lettering ceremony at The Quarter, Andrei's communal kitchen. Undergoing renovation, it is surrounded by sustain that, Ivan says, "detracts from the grandeur of structure" (Olesha 347). In other words the pallid apparatus of the Soviet state encases the ruined finery of tsarist Russia. expand of the building configuration, the setting for a nighttim

The evening was drear, the lanterns white and globular, the festive drapings extraordinarily crimson, the empty spaces on a lower floor the steps lethally black. The lanterns swung about on their buzzing wires. The darkness seemed to be gesturing with its eyebrows. Midges swarmed and perished around the lanterns. Far into the distance the lanterns reached to rip away the shapes of close buildings, which then, reflected in the blinking touchows along the way, rushed upon the new structure.

Then, until the wind finally left the lanterns in peace, the scaffolding came to stormy life: Everything surged into motion and the structure, like a tall ship, sailed into the throng (Olesha 348).

In the safety of his fantasy--and only there--Ivan boldly confronts Andrei and essentially wills his Ophelia to make the rise yet fragile Soviet scaffolding collapse. Only in Ivan's Tale does Andrei rather than Ivan surrender. Now in Karamazov brother Ivan achieves a kind of catharsis by sharing his Grand Inquisitor poem with Alyosha, and Alyosha finds redemption in unmerited suffering when he joins Dmitri. But when the narrative of Envy returns to its main thread of action, Ivan and Kavalerov not only are unredeemed but also finalize further into ressentiment, drunkenness, humiliation, and, finally, with disgustingly gross Anichka, into the m?nage ? trois, itself a go in for the sad, squalid, decadent culture that the Revolution sought to overtake.

The generally alarming appearance of the scaffold-surrounded structure starts with designation of the evening as black and as "lethally black" the space beneath a political platform that supports the dignitaries. It implies the dark unknown of all Soviet experience. Dancing in the wind against the black back
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