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    A Study Guide for Arthur Koestler's "Darkness at Noon"
    A Study Guide for Arthur Koestler's "Darkness at Noon"
    A Study Guide for Arthur Koestler's "Darkness at Noon"
    Ebook38 pages25 minutes

    A Study Guide for Arthur Koestler's "Darkness at Noon"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Arthur Koestler's "Darkness at Noon," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateJun 15, 2016
    ISBN9781535821483
    A Study Guide for Arthur Koestler's "Darkness at Noon"

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      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Arthur Koestler's "Darkness at Noon" - Gale

      1

      Darkness at Noon

      Arthur Koestler

      1940

      Introduction

      Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon (1940, France) is one of the twentieth century's most famous political novels, or fictional accounts of a historical reality. Written by a former member of the Communist Party, it is a unique glimpse into the volatile political situation under the government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in the late 1930s. Its main character Rubashov combines characteristics of key Soviet politicians and intellectual leaders from the Bolshevik Revolution, and the story of his imprisonment and confession explains and develops the topical political themes of totalitarianism, socialism, communism, and individualism.

      Part of the reason for the novel's wide success is the fact that Koestler, who was influenced by Sigmund Freud, was able to weave his political and philosophical themes into a compelling psychological narrative. With the use of rationalistic argument and religious symbolism, Koestler is able to consider politics together with psychology and individualism. Despite the loss of the original German text, Daphne Hardy's English translation of the novel, published in London in 1940, has become an international classic and has profoundly affected how history remembers the Moscow Show Trials.

      Author Biography

      Koestler was born September 5, 1905, in Budapest, Hungary. His father owned a textile business, until it failed during World War I, at which time Koestler and his family moved to Vienna, Austria. While studying physics and engineering at the University of Vienna, Koestler became interested in the Zionist movement, which stresses that Jews should rule Palestine (modern day Israel). He moved to a Jewish settlement in Palestine in 1926 and began a career in journalism, but after three years he lost his faith in Zionism and transferred to Paris and then to Berlin, where he became a member of the Communist Party in 1932.

      In 1932 and 1933, while working for a newspaper, Koestler traveled through the USSR, where he witnessed extreme poverty and met famous politicians Karl Radek and Nicolai Bukharin. These former intellectuals of the Bolshevik Revolution, who were later executed by the Soviet government, made a deep impression on Koestler and formed the basis for the main character of his 1940 novel Darkness at Noon,

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