# of Words: 248

Back in 1958, Boris Pasternak became only the second author (later Jean-Paul Sartre) to ever refuse the Nobel Prize for Literature. The thing is that while Sartre turned down the prize for philosophical reasons, Pasternak turned it down because the Soviet government would have given him a severe trouble if he'd dared to accept it.

Wait, why?

It was only one year before, in 1957, that Pasternak published his masterpiece Doctor Zhivago. He wrote the book in Russian, but since the book criticized Communism, the Soviets banned it from publication. It was only after Pasternak smuggled a copy from the nation that he was able to publish the book in Italian. When he was awarded the Nobel Prize the next year, he both humiliated and enraged the rulers of his home country.

Now to be fair, there's a lot more to Doctor Zhivago compared to a critique of Communism. Much like George Orwell's Animal Farm, Pasternak's book admits that the capitalist system that existed before Communism was totally awful and almost equally as bad as Communism turned out to be.

But the thing about Communism that never sits well with Pasternak's main character, Yuri Zhivago, is the manner that this manner of thinking completely dismisses and condemns the power of the individual human being to think for him- or herself. And to get a great writer like Pasternak, anything that condemns the power of the individual mind is the enemy of all that is good and beautiful in the world.

Related Papers

The Girl On The Train Paula Hawkins

Whether you're driving to wait tables in a restaurant at Topeka, riding the subway to Wall Street, or in a jeep heading out to search bloodthirsty koalas from the Australian Outback, the daily commute is a near-universal aspect of life. And this sail can be dull. It is the exact same old, same old, day in and day out. Yawn. There are any number of methods to pass the time, but our personal favorite is people watching (or at the Outback, wallaby watching). Individuals watching empowers us to be......Read More

Fences August Wilson

August Wilson was born Fredrick August Kittle on April 27, 1945. His parents were Frederick Kittel, a German immigrant, and Daisy Wilson, an African woman woman. The playwright never saw much of his father growing up. He was mostly raised by his mother, in an apartment with no hot water, at Pittsburgh's Hill District, a largely black neighborhood. When he was 20, August Kittle formally became August Wilson. He ditched his absent father's name altogether, aligning himself with his mother, her......Read More

Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury

Picture it: A future in which books are banned and critical thinking is contrary to the law. If you're one of those men and women who simply can not stand college and all of its pesky reading and thinking, this may sound like a pretty sweet deal. Not too fast, Goofus. You only have to get a few pages into Fahrenheit 451 to realize this bookless future is not all sunshine and rainbows. Sure, the dreaded book report may be something of the past, but life seems much cruddier withoutDickens,......Read More

Related Topics