4.1.6. Brave
Although Pelagea Nilovna is pictured by Maxim Gorky in the beginning of his novel as a fearful person, she basically has the quality of being brave. She tries to
conquer her fear when the police make a search in her house in the middle of the night to finally pick Andrei and Vesovshchikov up. She argues with the authority.
Overwhelmed by hatred, she even challenges the authority and exclaims at them so that Pavel has to calm her 56-7.
She is also considered brave in the sense that she later voluntarily helps Pavel and friends in the movement, by making journeys and distributing leaflets—a really
dangerous move. She is the only one who is able to spread leaflets in the factory by disguising as a food trader, while Pavel and friends are in jail 81. When offered by
Nikolai Ivanovich to go a village to give leaflets and books to Rybin, she is occupied by the desire to wander, as seen from her own remarks:
“Please let me do this I’ll go anywhere, you’ll see I’ll find my way along all the roads of all provinces Summer and winter—to the very
grave—a wandering pilgrim—is that so bad a lot for me?” 190 Furthermore, at May Day demonstration, Pelagea heroically speaks up to the
people and stirs them up 180. And finally, at the end of the story, Pelagea boldly confronts the authority by throwing the leaflets to people while the police are beating
her. She has made up her mind about the cause she has taken with Pavel and friends, and she keeps shouting and agitating people while she is being beaten 382.
Those are major kinds of personality of Pelagea Nilovna as seen in the novel through applying Murphy’s theory of characterization. Some of the kinds of her
personality undergo changes throughout the novel, like being fearful and religious to being brave and indifferent to religion in the end of the novel. But other kinds of
personality, like loving and sensitive, are consistent throughout the novel is her being loving.
4.2. Pelagea’s Reactions towards the Political Situation in the Novel
Kategori