Wrongdoing and Forgiveness in Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago

Anna Głąb

doi:10.18290/rf21694-3

Anna Głąb John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Faculty of Philosophy https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7980-3778

Keywords: Pasternak, Zhivago, guilt, wrongdoing, self-forgiveness, fate, silence

Abstract

Could even the most ideal love justify betrayal? The author invites the reader to examine Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago through the lens of wrongdoing and forgiveness. She ponders whether Lara Antipova and Yura Zhivago can justify their actions with the beauty and the force of their love. In the light of the moral consequences of their actions, she finds such justification to be impossible. In her view the novel, culminating in the main characters’ deaths, opens itself to a transcendental sphere in which wounded people are laid bare in their humanity before themselves, free of the baggage of guilt and harm, ready for conciliation.

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