Darkness at Noon

Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon is a sharp denunciation of Stalinism through the story of Nicolas Rubashov, a former Communist official under Lenin who is imprisoned and executed under Stalin's...

Arthur Koestler's novel needs to be understood in the context of the 1917 Russian Revolution and the history of the Soviet Union over the next twenty years. The events of 1917 seemed to give many...

" ... We seem to be faced with a pendulum movement in history from absolutism to democracy, from democracy back to absolute dictatorship. "The amount of individual freedom which a people may...

The main thrust of Darkness at Noon concerns the "end-means" debate. The Bolsheviks, represented by the figure of Rubashov, believed that the end justified the means. In other words, they believed...

A totalitarian state is that which is run by one party, or more often, by one person, with little to no individual freedoms or rights. The people are often referred to in the collective (for...

Darkness at Noon is a classic statement, in the form of fiction, of Lord Acton's principle that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Koestler depicts the situation as it was in...

Although it is never named outright in the novel, Koestler clearly intends the setting of Darkness at Noon to be the Soviet Union. References to the nation's shadowy leader, Number One, are meant...

The "grammatical fiction" is what Rubashov experiences when his individuality defies Party bounds and appears, often when he has a toothache or is daydreaming. The grammatical fiction equates with...

This is Arthur Koestler's fictional history of Stalin’s Russia, and his main purpose is to expose the tragedy of Stalin’s reign.This historical/fictional novel reflects the difficult times during...

Rubashov is a figure who represents the Old Guard of the Bolsheviks, those who were regarded as having had "pure" motives in the Russian Revolution of 1917. As such he is a hero to those who...

The repeated mentioning of the "Pince Nez", or eyeglasses that were popular at that time which were supported by pinching the bridge of the nose rather than hooking around the ears seems to be a...

Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon was written to reflect his own combined horror at Nazism and disillusionment with communism as it had evolved in Russia under Stalin. The figure of Commissar...

Darkness at Noon takes place during the 1930s, when Josef Stalin ran the Soviet Union and was conducting a series of bloody purges of his party and his military. The bulk of the dialogue in the...

This novel/play is a thinly disguised criticism of communism, but on another level, it describes the tendency of all Western governments (including capitalism) to deal with abstractions and...

Within the traditional definition of "motif" as it applies to literature, if we think of a motif as a recurring theme, fragment or event, then Rubashov's eyeglasses (known then as "Pince Nez"...

No. 1 is the fictional representation of USSR leader Joseph Stalin. This leader plays an important role in the novel, although he is entirely behind the scenes. He is the successor to the grand...

Since Darkness at Noon deals heavily with the concepts of individuality and consciousness, you might do well to select "Consciousness Derived from Material Conditions" by Karl Marx for a...