O tribunal como rito de passagem em Ressurreição e a literatura como rito de passagem em Tolstói

Abstract

This paper aims to approach about the land, man and conflict as constitutive categories of Tolstoy’s novel Resurrection. When the aristocrat Nekhliudov confronted in court with his aunts’ former maid he starts a process of self transformation operated by a crisis of conscience triggered by memories of the time in which seduced the girl and abandoned her to her own fate. The changes generate a displacement that is effective both in-and out-wardly, because of the questioning about the conduct and values that shape Russian society as well as the proper conduct of the male character, in parallel to a spatial displacement that crosses the Russian territory in the novel. The land, the man, and the conflict relate dialectically because they relate the character to the physical environment and to the transformations triggered by him. The duality commonly attributed to the human being is perceived in the prince’s presentation who appears in the plot as an averse man, in other words, as an amazing being when he shows up in front of the aristocracy, but also as the needs’ bearer of the socially excluded people.