Assignment

Doctor Zhivago Chapter 13 - Epilogue

1. What are the people of Yuryatin being told about food supplies?

They are being told that by a proclamation that stated that the town had ample food supplies and anyone found hoarding food will be shot on the spot.

2. What is the regulation regarding possession of arms?

The regulation states "Anyone who fails to surrender his arms or who continues carrying them without having the appropriate new permit will be prosecuted with the utmost severity of the law".

3. What is happening on the railroads?

The railroads had been abandoned, neglected, and covered in snow.

4. What is the most important thing Yury must do before it gets dark on the day he returns to Yuryatin? He needed to go outside and read the texts of the decrees posted in the street.

5. Why is it ridiculous to talk about "propertied classes and speculators"?

Yury was wondering what period these ridiculous regulations belong to since they had been abolished by earlier decree and didn't matter anymore.

6. What is the "convincing symptom of [Yury's] approaching illness"?

7. What kind of clothes are being made in the clothing factory?

8. What does the head seamstress think Yury might be trying to do by getting a haircut?

9. How does the head seamstress respond to Yury's lie about being a traveling inspector?

10. What does Yury suspect when he realizes that Lara must have been receiving supplies from Samdevyatov?

11. What does Yury tell himself about what Lara means to him?

12. In Yury's dream about Lara, what is "the only form of communication that remained between them"? How might this be related to the answer to #11 above?

13. Why does Pasha/Strelnikov have enemies in the Red Army now?

14. What has happened to the value of money?

15. What reason does Lara give for being sure she would never be attracted to a man like Samdevyatov?

16. How does Yury imagine he would react if he found out that "a man [he] understood and liked were in love with the same woman as [he]"?

17. What does Yury say about the bond between Lara and Komarovsky? What does he predict about Komarovsky?

18. As Lara recalls seeing Pasha once from a distance during the war, what disturbing expression on his face does she recall?

19. What does Lara talk about when Yury asks her what went wrong between her and Pasha?

20. In Lara's view, what is the "great misfortune, the root of all evil to come" that came into Russian life and destroyed the foundations of the culture and her marriage?

21. Why is Yury thinking of giving up his teaching and administrative duties at the hospital?

22. Why won't Lara agree to go to Moscow with Yury?

23. According to Sima Tuntseva, there have been "new, lasting, permanent achievements" in the revolutionary era. However, what is wrong with its philosophical ideas about life and happiness?

Chapter 14

1. Why does Lara beg Yury to stay in the house and meet Komarovsky with her when he comes?

2. What does Komarovsky tell Yury about his father's death?

3. Why has Komarovsky come to see Yury and Lara?

4. When Lara tells Yury she will tell him something later, what does he think it will be?

5. When they arrive at Varykino, what seems unusual about the condition of some rooms in the house?

6. Whose toys does Yury offer to Katya?

7. What do the wolves near the house symbolize for Yury?

8. How is Yury spending his time at Varykino? What seems to be his physical condition?

9. When Komarovsky returns and fails to persuade Lara to leave without Yury, what is the first thing he tells Yury when the two men go off to speak privately?

10. When Yury and Strelnikov speak at Varykino, what reason does Pasha/Strelnikov give for "plung[ing] headlong into the revolution" years earlier after he escaped captivity but everyone thought he had been killed?

11. According to Strelnikov, why didn't he go to Lara and Katya when he had been near their town? How does this compare with what Lara believed was the reason?

12. When does Strelnikov expect that he will be found and arrested?

Chapter 15

1. How does Yury behave when he is in the company of his old friends after his return to Moscow?

2. What is the condition of the countryside Yury has passed through on his journey to Moscow?

3. Why did the widow hire Vassya to dig a pit on her property?

4. Who was blamed for the murder of the widow? What was the consequence?

5. What government policy change was implemented at the time (1922) when Yury and Vassya arrived in Moscow?

6. What kind of work did Yury and Vassya manage to do?

7. Why did Vassya become disappointed in Yury? What was the ultimate effect of this on Yury's life?

8. What brings Yury and Marina together as a couple?

9. How are Gordon and Dudorov living their lives? What does Yury think of them?

10. What do Gordon and Dudorov criticize about Yury?

11. What communication has Yury had from Paris?

12. After Yury disappears from the lives of Marina, his children and friends, what communication does he send them?

13. How does Yury manage to find a place to live and get a job?

14. Why was the cremation of Yury's body delayed?

15. Who had once lived in the room where Yury's coffin is set up?

16. What assistance does Lara request of Yevgraf?

17. What is probably the reason Lara disappeared?

Epilogue

1. What is the status of Gordon and Dudorov now? What happened to them before WWII?

2. In what way was the war a "blessing" for Gordon and Dudorov?

3. What is the last name given to Tanya, the laundry girl? Who sought her out and promised her an education?

4. How did Tanya come to be separated from her mother?

5. What is the name of Marfa's husband, who took the role of stepfather in raising Tanya?