The Lights of the Big City (Anna Starobinets’s "The Mercy Bus" and "City")

Abstract

This article examines the depiction of the metropolis in selected works by contemporary Russian author Anna Starobinets, specifically her short stories The Mercy Bus and City. In the first story, the author focuses on social contrasts within the Russian capital, while in the second, she confronts the Russian conceptualization of America, symbolically represented by New York. The analysis concludes that Starobinets does not necessarily create unprecedented constructs, but rather highlights and exposes phenomena that often escape our attention. First, she demonstrates that the forces which uplift or degrade us as human beings reside within ourselves—these constitute the true monsters of our lives. Second, she reveals that the nature of the so-called urban lifestyle depends entirely on individuals. The extent to which the territory within a city’s administrative boundaries becomes socially cohesive, what is produced within it, and the types of social interactions that occur there are ultimately the results of the behaviors, decisions, and reactions of its inhabitants.