The Snowdrops
On the tragedy of Nick in Snowdrops — The tension between the Sophisticated and the Naïve
Abstract: Snowdrops is a tale of an Englishman abroad. Nick is a thirty-something lawyer working in Moscow to broker huge deals between banks, oil companies and property developers. His project on a major loan to a subsidiary of an energy company is underway, and meanwhile, he comes across an enchanting girl, Masha and soon becomes involved with Masha’s world, psychologically. This thesis tries to analyze the tension of the conflict between the corrupted native and the naïve foreigner, and the sophisticated disposition of the narrator and the other innocent part. And thorough analyzing the tension reflected from other characters, the reason for Nick’s tragedy is revealed.. Key words: tragedy, tension, sophisticated, innocent, personality,
A.D. Miller was born in London in 1974. He studied literature at Cambridge and
Princeton, where he began his journalistic career writing travel pieces about
America. Snowdrops is his first novel. Formerly the Moscow correspondent of
The Economist which is to write about British politics and culture, he is an expert
on the land of corruption and sophisticated stereotypes existing in
post-Communist Russia. His debut novel is about an electrifying tour of the dark
side of Moscow, of human nature and his naive fantasy of love.
The novel is narrated by Nick in the first person as a letter to his fiancée in England, revealing a story within a story. This novel tells crimes, as its title “snowdrops” implies: Moscow slang. A corpse that lies buried or hidden in the winter snows, emerging only in the thaw. At beginning, though, the narrator, Nicholas, is naive enough to think that he can go through his new life in Russia smoothly and there might be a love story. With the story developing, his hope gradually falls through and his ambitions go nowhere. The
Abstract: Snowdrops is a tale of an Englishman abroad. Nick is a thirty-something lawyer working in Moscow to broker huge deals between banks, oil companies and property developers. His project on a major loan to a subsidiary of an energy company is underway, and meanwhile, he comes across an enchanting girl, Masha and soon becomes involved with Masha’s world, psychologically. This thesis tries to analyze the tension of the conflict between the corrupted native and the naïve foreigner, and the sophisticated disposition of the narrator and the other innocent part. And thorough analyzing the tension reflected from other characters, the reason for Nick’s tragedy is revealed.. Key words: tragedy, tension, sophisticated, innocent, personality,
A.D. Miller was born in London in 1974. He studied literature at Cambridge and
Princeton, where he began his journalistic career writing travel pieces about
America. Snowdrops is his first novel. Formerly the Moscow correspondent of
The Economist which is to write about British politics and culture, he is an expert
on the land of corruption and sophisticated stereotypes existing in
post-Communist Russia. His debut novel is about an electrifying tour of the dark
side of Moscow, of human nature and his naive fantasy of love.
The novel is narrated by Nick in the first person as a letter to his fiancée in England, revealing a story within a story. This novel tells crimes, as its title “snowdrops” implies: Moscow slang. A corpse that lies buried or hidden in the winter snows, emerging only in the thaw. At beginning, though, the narrator, Nicholas, is naive enough to think that he can go through his new life in Russia smoothly and there might be a love story. With the story developing, his hope gradually falls through and his ambitions go nowhere. The