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"Passion, Humiliation, Revenge reveals the phenomenon in Russian prose in which a male protagonist finds himself perpetuating a cycle of passion, humiliation, and revenge in his relationships with women. By examining the mental and emotional state of the male protagonist who finds himself in a sexual situation, Rina Lapidus explores how his passion for a woman leads the man into an encounter that causes him humiliation and ends up eliciting a powerful desire on his part to punish the woman who initially arouses his erotic feeling. The male protagonist directs his fury at the woman, seeking vengeance because of the shame he has suffered."--Jacket The evolution of attitudes towards women in Russian literature -- Spiritual and physical murder between man and woman : Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Chekhov -- Woman as sexual predator : Tolstoy, Zoschenko and Trifonov -- Woman's infidelity as the cause for man's devastation : Tolstoy v. Flaubert, Leskov, Turgenev, Kuprin, and Chekhov -- Anxiety about the strong woman : Turgenev, Leskov, Bulgakov -- Surrogate for man-woman relations in post-war Soviet literature : Vasilyiev, Grossman, and Rasputin -- Eunuch as hero in late-Soviet and Perestroika literature : Dovlatov, Nagibin, and Polyakov -- Man as an object in literature by women : Shcherbakova, Rubina, Ulitskaya, Petrushevskaya, and Grekova -- Conclusion : sex as an animal act beyond comprehension.
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