46 pages • 1-hour read
The Captain's Daughter
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Essay Topics
Identify the realist elements and the folkloric elements in a chapter of The Captain’s Daughter. How are they intertwined?
James Joyce describes The Captain’s Daughter as “a book for boys” (Okri, Ben. “I Began Don Quixote as One Person and Finished as Another.” The Guardian, 8 Mar. 2019) What does this mean? To what extent is this assessment correct?
Analyze Andrey Petrovitch Grinyov, Pyotr’s father. What does he represent? How does he change, if at all, over the course of the novella?
Research the epigraph of one of the chapters. How does it relate to the themes or content of that chapter? Does an understanding of the epigraph change how you interpret the events of the chapter?
How does Alexander Pushkin use humor in The Captain’s Daughter?
Analyze the anecdote regarding the tension between Savelich and M. Beaupré at the opening of the novella. How does it relate to the larger theme of The Clash of Social Classes?
How does faith and prayer function as a reflection of the importance of fate or destiny in the novella? How does it contribute to the moral aspects of the characters?
To what extent is Pyotr Grinyov a classic Romantic hero?
Interpret Pyotr’s prophetic dream. How does it relate to the plot as a whole? What do the various elements, like his father turning into a peasant, symbolize?
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