Doctor Zhivago

At numerous points in Doctor Zhivago, characters find themselves torn between opposing values. In a broad sense, these dualities can be divided into the political and the personal. The conflict between competing political forces is evident. The Russian Revolution is such a force, pitting the proletariat against the bourgeoisie and the past against the future. In this sense, Russia itself is torn between two competing visions of what the country is and should be. The Bolsheviks' theory of revolution emphasizes the collective over the individual, seeking to build a more egalitarian and collective social order. This plan is quickly opposed by the reactionary tsarist forces, culminating in a civil war between the Red Army and the White Army. In these political dualities, compromise is seemingly impossible. The revolution is an attempt to destroy the past and bring about the future. The White Army, less ideologically homogeneous than the Red, seeks to preserve a connection to the past, and must crush the revolutionary Red Army to do so. For this reason, the White Army is funded by foreign countries seeking to preserve the status quo and contain the contamination of Marxist ideology. Though they come from the same country and the same history, the Red Army and the White Army cannot co-exist, much in the same way that the past cannot exist alongside the future.