Good Bye Lenin Symbolism

East Germany, its demise relayed through the mass media of recent history, has in popular consciousness been posited as negative, a corrupt bulwark of the last dying days of Communism in Eastern Europe, barren and silent. The other Germany to its West, its citizens free, was striding confidently ahead into the millennium. Recent cinema has sought to examine re-unification, the Wolfgang Becker film Goodbye Lenin! (2003) a recent example of such an investigation into the past through cinema. In this essay I will look at the film and the narrative techniques it uses, probing whether it portrays the East German nation as positive or

Set at the end of the Cold War in East Germany, the movie Goodbye Lenin is the story of a young man, Alex, trying to protect his mother, Christiane, who just spent the last eight months in a coma. Christiane is a personification of the values and ideology of socialism. She carries them out in her interactions with society, and is very hopeful towards the success of the regime. During her absence, the fall of the Berlin Wall and of the German Democratic Republic leads to a radical and turbulent change in society: the fall of socialism and the triumph of capitalism. Because of the shocking effect of such information and the danger of another heart attack, Alex creates for Christiane an ideological form of socialism. Fundamental themes in the movie are the difference between ideal and reality of socialism, as well as the positive and negative aspects of the transition to free market capitalism. Such themes are carried out through a juxtaposition of an ideal society and its reality in the form of a constructed reality of socialism. This idealized version of socialism served as an oasis from the chaotic transition from a problematic socialist regime to free market capitalism.

Both the Bolsheviks and the Nazis shared a fundamental commitment to create a creating a higher human type. However, the ideals and approaches of both regimes towards this mission differed substantially. While the Nazis sought to create a master race above all in European hierarchy, the Bolsheviks sought a system of liberation of their entire race and complete equality. Within both ideologies, the role of women was a hotbed of debate and instigated a period of change. In Germany, women confined to roles that were ‘natural’ or intended by nature, while in Russia, although women ‘received’ previously inaccessible rights and freedoms, it became more of a burden rather than a boon, The creation of “new men and women,” became more about the removal of undesirable classes or nationalities and the integration of the rest of the population with particular characteristics. Women were expected to accept state-propagated guidelines for conduct and appearance, and conform to certain gender roles that were defined by the state. In Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union ideology, the rebirth of the nation, its prosperity and survival depended directly on women’s conformity to the propagated feminine ideal and thus, their participation was severely influenced by the regime’s economic, social and political policies. In this essay, I

East Germany is a mysterious environment, created by the yearning to camouflage into the greyness of ones surroundings. Intense control limits a human’s capacity to think, without ownership over your thoughts - determining a future and making sense of a tainted and oppressive environment can become paralysing. Therefore, throughout East Germany a truth did not exist as fear had given people the inability to formulate opinions to their full extent. Everyone had an idea as to what had occurred as their minds continued to play the scenarios on repeat - if a recognisable lifestyle disappears it is possible that you will recreate the only life you knew due to the sense of uncertainty present towards existence in an unfamiliar environment. An

The working class in this film are forced to endure agonising labour in extremely dangerous environments whilst the upper class, the ‘sons’ are free to live at their will. The dystopic setting of the ‘depths’ becomes evident through Lang’s use of symbolism when the dictator’s son, Freder, journeys to the depths and starts to see the workers being eaten up by the machines in the scene ‘Slaves of the Means of Production” (14.58-17.52). This symbolises the dystopic society in which workers do not have the right to be safe. This idea forms a contextual connection to the 1920’s Weimar Republic where there were two distinct classes, the conservative elite, who were free to live at their will, and the workers who were forced to endure labour with no guarantee for safety. Through the contextual connections of political reform and the shared perspectives of dystopian societies the quote “the object of power is power” is strongly supported by George Orwell’s ‘1984’ and Fritz Lang’s ‘Metropolis’.

‘Stasiland’ is a non-fiction text written by Anna Funder and follows the personal recounts and experiences of those who lived throughout the GDR prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. While the book primarily revolves around the conversations and reflections which Funder holds in relation to these stories, it is the authors remarkable use of symbolism which enables her to go beyond mere conversation delve into the complexities of not just other’s but her own experience in Stasiland. The use of physical motifs such as Hagen Koch’s Stasi plate are representative of the unrelenting oppression and control

Taking place in East Germany, 1989, the movie is about a family consisting of a mother, son, and daughter. The mother, Christiane, is a strong socialist and a party member of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Christiane was dramatically shaken, but it only increased her passion for the GDR. One day, she witnesses her son, Alex, protesting in an anti-Berlin Wall demonstration and being apprehended by the police. Christiane suffers a heart attack from the sight and goes into a coma for 8 months. During that time period, much has changed, including the fall of the Berlin wall, the GDR being dissolved, and the reunification of West and East Germany. With the fall of the Berlin wall, socialism in on the decline and capitalism begins to

To begin with, this book educated the reader about the past. Everyone in the Soviet Union looked up to the leader, Stalin, even though he wasn’t a good leader at all. He caused many problems for the citizens including uncomfortable living conditions. This book educates the reader by showing that back then even when people were treated badly, they still had to look up to their leader even though he was the cause of all

Lenina is supportive of the way matters are handled in her society. She repeats hypnopaedic sayings with pride and refuses to hear about anyone’s unhappiness with societal matters. The totalitarian rule of the world state is similar to communism and Lenina’s name is alike that of Vladimir Lenin, a famous communist ruler. Huxley alludes to this man to illustrate the ideology of the people in this time. They are all supportive of the state of the government, but they do not realize that this is only the case due to their brainwashing. If they could understand how their lives are all pretend, there would be massive consequences for those in power. In addition to this, Shakespeare is referenced frequently throughout the novel by John. Near the end of the story, John and Helmholtz suggest bringing some of Shakespeare’s works back. The Controller denies this request because the return of his tragedies would bring back social instability. He feels that the stories would only bring unhappiness and other feelings which could lead to a loss of power. When people do not know exactly what they are missing, they are unable to fight for it, resulting in more power for those in

Chapters 7 and 8 foreshadow the the future of Lenina. In these chapters Lenina meets Linda a woman who used to be of an upper caste but was forced to stay at the reservation after discovering that she was pregnant. At first Lenina is disgusted calling Linda speaking in with derogatory terms such as “So fat. And all the lines in her face, the flabbiness, the wrinkles. And the sagging cheeks, with those purplish blotches…” (Huxley 121) But once Lenina is able to move past Lindas looks the two instantly hit it off, and talk of all the great times each had had as an upper caste woman, but the story of Linda eerily foreshadows the fate of Lenina. It can be assumed that what has happened to Linda will also happen to Lenina, as she is also of

Were it a testimony to the rigors and cruelness of human nature, it would be crushing. As it is, it shatters our perception of man and ourselves as no other book, besides perhaps Anne Franke`s diary and the testimony of Elie Wiesl, could ever have done. The prisoners of the labor camp, as in Shukhov?s predicament, were required to behave as Soviets or face severe punishment. In an almost satirical tone Buinovsky exclaims to the squadron that ?You?re not behaving like Soviet People,? and went on saying, ?You?re not behaving like communist.? (28) This type of internal monologue clearly persuades a tone of aggravation and sarcasm directly associated to the oppression?s of communism.

From Stalin’s Cult of Personality to Khrushchev’s period of De-Stalinization, the nation of the Soviet Union was in endless disarray of what to regard as true in the sense of a socialist direction. The short story, This is Moscow Speaking, written by Yuli Daniel (Nikolai Arzhak) represents the ideology that the citizens of the USSR were constantly living in fear of the alternations of their nation’s political policies. Even more, the novella gives an explanation for the people’s desire to conform to the principles around them.

The Russian Revolution is a widely studied and seemingly well understood time in modern, European history, boasting a vast wealth of texts and information from those of the likes of Robert Service, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Allan Bullock, Robert Conquest and Jonathan Reed, to name a few, but none is so widely sourced and so heavily relied upon than that of the account of Leon Trotsky, his book “History of the Russian Revolution” a somewhat firsthand account of the events leading up to the formation of the Soviet Union. There is no doubt that Trotsky’s book, among others, has played a pivotal role in shaping our understanding of the events of The Revolution; but have his personal predilections altered how he portrayed such paramount

Love is the foundation and the weakness of a totalitarian regime. For a stable totalitarian society, love between two individuals is eliminated because only a relationship between the person and the party and a love for its leader can exist. The totalitarian society depicted throughout the Orwell’s novel 1984 has created a concept of an Orwellian society. Stalin’s Soviet state can be considered Orwellian because it draws close parallels to the imaginary world of Oceania in 1984. During the twentieth century, Soviet Russia lived under Stalin’s brutal and oppressive governments, which was necessary for Stalin to retain power. In both cases, brutality and oppression led to an absence of relationships and love. This love was directed towards

First, the proletariat is responsible for tearing down the statue of Alexander III. Thus, the revolutionary body of the working class itself is responsible for the first step towards socialism rather than being directed by a revolutionary leader. Secondly, the Provisional Government, appears counter revolutionary and comparable to the tsar. According to Eisenstein, the Provisional Government’s resemblance to the autocracy is simply the inevitable result of an incomplete revolution. Thus, montage is used to convey political ideology, but also forms the content of the film. Eisenstein’s use of montage lets the statue become more than a simple symbol representative of the tsarist rule, but rather as a means of expressing the need for complete revolution. Without the use of montage, the statue’s meaning would have been far more limited, and thus far less prominent within the film. In this case, Eisenstein’s use of montage influences the film’s visible content as well as its meaning in a way that political ideology alone would not