Realist writers were the mirrors of the society reflecting truth about life as they saw it. They tried to represent the life with all its social foibles, fats and fetishes, fears and doubts in its complete vicissitude.
In their writings, characters display unhindered hypocrisy and social taboos that had begun to mark their place in the religious lives of the people and various other economic and social problems touching every part of the lives of people.On one hand, nineteenth century was marked by industrial, scientific and technological development whereas on the other hand people were also suffering from poverty, superstitious beliefs, oppression, decadence, outmoded attitudes, and corruption. Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy and Gustave Flaubert rendered the local flavor in their writings.If Dostoevsky’s literature implored on the psychology of the spiritually vacuum human beings of the 19th-century Russian society, Leo Tolstoy was disgusted by the ways of the Russian society and Gustave Flaubert words plunge us into the depth of the life of an ordinary human being as that of Felicite, a poor country girl. Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground (1864) is considered as a philosophical preface of man’s role in the society.
Traditionally, there was an ardent belief that man was a perfect human being capable of improvement and growth but Dostoevsky struck quite opposite note on the notion of perfectibility of man.Protagonist of Notes from Underground is not only a nihilist but also a masochist man and does not believe in the man capability of being good instead he believes that all the man’s thoughts and preoccupations are only emotional outburst devoid of any sense and meaning. In the real sense he was objecting to the idea of human growth on the path of God in particular and religion in general. It implies that Darwinian thought and scientific revolution had made man question the existence of God and nature.Underground Man says that, “Man, whoever he might be, has always and everywhere preferred to act according to his own wishes rather than according to the dictates of reason and advantage. And his wishes may well be contrary to his advantage; indeed, sometimes they positively should be….
” (Dostoevsky, 28) The basic requirement of the man is the fulfillment of his own independent wishes in whatever way he or she likes. Dostoevsky attacks the mankind with a decree, “We all humans have become estranged from life, we’re all cripples. ” (Dostoevsky, 91) His views contradict the basic concept of Renaissance based on rationale.Man has devoid himself of any rational thoughts in his constant pursuit of immaterialist things. In his quest to continuously show his assertiveness, man has moved away from God but in the end he is landed as a sick man as Underground Man called him fixated and obsessed. The novel espouses on the doctrine of determinism, which says that the laws of nature determine all the actions of man and we are powerless in front of nature.
Dostoevsky, further states that man has lost all the moral values; we are so engrossed in our worldly affairs that we cannot even think we owe our life to the nature and we should feel gratitude to it.It is also true that every thing in life depends upon chance and how Ivan Vassilievich’s life was changed by the incident of one night, is an apt example for Leo Tolstoy to prove his point in his story “After the Ball. ” Intoxicated in love with Varenka, after the ball, Ivan Vassilievich’s was not able to sleep, so he just wandered towards Varenka’s house. Varenka was the daughter of colonel and what he saw shocked him. Near her house was a military procession and military officers were beating a runaway Tartar mercilessly with the instructions of Varenka’s father.
He was so filled with anguish that his plans for the future life vanished and his love for Varenka subsided at that very moment. What Ivan Vassilievich’ followed was his own conscience. But there is slight deviation what Ivan opines and what Leo Tolstoy wanted to convey. Ivan says that chance controls the man’s life but Tolstoy says environment influences the man and he tries to come out with the possible answer with the debates. Tolstoy puts forward the point by describing rule of colonel made by society that is both based on torture of the deserter and formal ritual of a dance ball.Both torture and a dance for a colonel is means to show his power and way of asserting himself and his actions are also influenced by environment.
Where on one hand, Dostoevsky was looking at God for every thing and seeking God in every object and in every activity, the philosophers of his contemporary period were finding new meaning of modern man. Gustave Flaubert has given similar connotation to “Simple Heart”. It is a simple heart of suffering woman trying to seek solace with parrot and the dove of the Holy Spirit descending from heaven.She finds parrot, as her friend whom she thinks is manifestation of the God.
Though Felicite had a superstitious belief in parrot as something divine but her belief was the expression of her ardent belief in the doctrines of Bible and Roman Catholic Church, which being illiterate she could not understand at all. Her superstitious predisposition was the result of the stories narrated by priest; from the familiar images of country life and from communion ceremony and slowly her religious devotion became so strong that she began to look at all the animate and inanimate objects as reincarnation of God.Through the indomitable spirit of a character like Felicite, writer exposed the hypocrisy of propagators of religion. They used the suffering of simple hearted and religious minded people to get into the belief in supernatural elements. But with this story, writer was also able to deliver and make us enlightened to the extreme exploitation that simple hearted people could face in this harsh world. Disillusioned, they are not left with anything else but to entrust their lives in the hands of divine and supernatural elements that they believe would relieve them of all their sufferings.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy and Gustave Flaubert in their own ardent style tried to bring man close to nature and its environment. Man is an intricate part of nature and nature and environment influence every part of his life. Whether it is Felicite who thinks parrot is a divine being came to give relief to her suffering soul, disillusioned underground man and Ivan Vassilievich’s change of life, have been influenced by environment and their socio and cultural societies.
