Zamiatin's The Cave Flashcards
Cavemen theme
> “And you must wrap yourself into shaggy animal hides”- pg 2
“And cave men, wrapped in hides, blankets, rags, retreated from cave to cave” pg 2
> Cavemen is a metaphor to describe the conditions in which the Russian people are currently
living in.
This evokes the feeling that the living conditions that they are subject to are almost pre-
historic, backwards, a contrasting opposite to what has been promised of a soviet regime.
> “retreated from cave to cave” almost implies that they are lumbering about like
Neanderthals because of the lack of energy. The implied lack of energy is supported by the
fact that the House Chairman had lost a significant amount of weight “once had weighed
two hundred and forty pounds”- this suggests that due to the food shortages which could
have been caused by the great Russian winter of the time and surplus grain requisition.
> Grain requisition was a policy in Lenin’s War Communism, resulting in the starvation of the
population.
These measures negatively affected both agricultural and industrial production. With no
incentives to grow surplus grain (since it would just be confiscated), the peasants’
production of it and other crops plummeted, with the result that starvation came to
threaten many city dwellers.
This is contrasting to the Soviet ideology in itself as one of the
aims was that everyone will have access to equal amounts of food, utopia, everyone is
happy educated, living in thus a CIVILISED society- however, the starvation depicted in
Zamiatin’s book shows the exact opposite, thus undermining the soviet ideology and also
suggesting that the October revolution is not achieving the aims it set out.
Intelligentsia theme
Mart represents the intelligentsia (educated group of social justice warriors)- he has books, a piano,
Zamatin gives value to personal property
when he steals he feels bad showing he still has a moral code,
reference to Adam- And in the light it could be clearly seen-his face was crumpled,
claylike (many people had clay faces now-back to Adam).
Clay once hardened very easy to break- potential for a new beginning but very fragile
Sympathy for the intelligentsia- they want change but not at the expense of their mere
survival
New soviet-man sacrifices books, papers, documents for survival.
Nature theme
Zamiatin uses lots of animalistic references for various purposes
He refers to Obertyshev’s children as cubs. This connotes the image that they are pre-
historic figures referring to their children in an animalistic fashion rather than as little
humans.
The association of cubs can connote the theme of survival where the mother animal e.g.
wolf goes hunting to feed its cubs- i.e on the hunt for food- surviving the winter.
“Icy roar of the King Mammoth” also connotes pre-historic connotations as Mammoths are
an animal of the past- the animalistic features helps to strip down soviet society back to the
pre historic era were survival was the main reason to live. The soviet ideology has returned
Russia back to this era.
Other imagery of essentials needed to survive include: “And in the center of this universe-its
god, the short-legged, rusty-red, squat, greedy cave god: the cast-iron stove.”
Perhaps this cave god- the cast iron stove is referring to heathenism, regressing back to pre-Christian times, back to when the fire gods existed, back to barbarity.
One of the soviet regime aims was to get rid of religion and replace it with total devotion to communism -
perhaps the author is depicting the lack of freedom to choose your religion through inferring
that the soviet regime is taking the Russians back to a time before god and the Christian
faith.
Nature overcoming civilisation- primal- cultural civilisation is dwarfed by nature
However- civilisation is still shown- there’s a hierarchy with the chairman
Existence of legal procedures keeps civilisation alive. – legal procedure to get the wood back.
