The meaning of life in the works of Leo Tolstoy and the meaning therapy of Victor Frankl
Subject Areas : Comparative Literature Studies
Fatemeh Yahoseini Mousavi
1
,
Soheyla mousavisirjani
2
,
Afsaneh lotfiazimi
3
1 - Ph.D. Candidate, Persian literature and foreign languages Department, Azad University, South Tehran Branch, Iran
2 - Faculty Member, Persian literature and foreign languages Department, Azad University, South Tehran Branch, Iran
3 - Faculty Member, Psychology and Educational Sciences Department, Azad University, South Tehran Branch, Iran
Keywords: "meaning of life, Tolstoy", "healthy personality", " Victor Frankl", "Logotherapy",
Abstract :
In this article, we have described the characteristics of a healthy personality bystudying the perspective of Victor Frankl, the founder of the school of “logotherapy”,and adapting it to four Tolstoy novels. Just like Frankl, Tolstoy seeks to define andexplain a kind of self-awareness by depicting one's relationship to himself in the firstplace, and then to determine a healthy personality in the school of psychotherapy. Inprogressive research, we have achieved a literary expression of the effect of the valueof life on a healthy personality by analyzing the behaviors and actions of the maincharacters of the novels and adapting them to the characteristics that Frankel hadmentioned about the value of life (work, love, suffering, guilt, morbidity, andreligion). To answer the question of what specific features are present in the maincharacters of Tolstoy's novels that are compatible and overlap with the main featuresof Frankl's intended healthy human being, we have found out that the threefold valuesare more manifested in the characters of Anna Karenina, than in the other novels. InResurrection, Sergei's father and the Death of Ivan Illich, attitude values are moreprominent, and despite the occurrence of sequential events, some dynamic charactersbecome better characters with healthy personalities over time. Accordingly, and withregard to the fundamental issue in progressive research, the characteristics of thenovel's protagonists seem to be consistent with what Frankel has defined.
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