A Study Of Death Consciousness In Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy’s Works

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy,who has a large number of works,is a distinguished Russian realistic writer in 19 th century.He is a productive writer whose literature is always related to philosophy and involves the discussion of death.Therefore,this thesis will focus on the Death Consciousness in Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy’s works to explore Tolstoy’s unique understanding of death,so as to think about death,explore the aesthetic value and artistic function of death consciousness in novel creation,as well as the origin of death consciousness.There are four parts in this thesis.The first one is the introduction,which mainly discusses the research status of this thesis,introduces the current research situation of domestic scholars and the comments of famous foreign scholars of death in Tolstoy’s works from the perspectives of the origin of death consciousness,the death expression and the theme of death in his works,philosophy,comparison and ethics.Besides,two parts of the research purpose and value of this thesis are also discussed in the introduction part.The second part is the first chapter.Starting from the concept of death consciousness,it discusses the uniqueness of Tolstoy’s death consciousness in terms of content and form.On this basis,it further explores the content expression of death consciousness in Tolstoy’s novel creation.Death is a common topic in Tolstoy’s writing,no matter in longer ones or short ones.The content of death consciousness is expressed in a variety of ways in his masterpieces.Some are reflected by the figure’s altitude towards other’s bodies,some are through the performance of the protagonist looking directly at the body of another person,and some are described by their direct actions.From these content,unique aesthetic values can be obtained.The third part is the second chapter of the thesis,it starts from the structure of the work.On the one hand,it explores the narrative structure with death as the dark line,adopts multiple narrative structures,including circular linear,sub-story,etc.Through these structures,the death events of the characters in the work promote the development of the storyline;On the other hand,this thesis studies the death symbols with Tolstoy’s characteristics in the works,including blizzards,flowers,trees,and horses.The last part is the third chapter of the thesis,it discusses the origin of Tolstoy’s death consciousness.In Tolstoy’s works,he can’t get rid of the existence of death because he has a strong sense of death.This kind of death consciousness firstly stems from the author’s personal experience such as growth experience,life experience and so on.The second origin is the choice of history and culture,it has absorbed Russian religious culture in the collective unconscious.The third reason is that it is a reflection of the social reality at that time,Tolstoy chooses to show the readers death consciousness in a simple and true way.