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How does Life of Insects function as an allegory of transition:
a) economically (the transition from a communist command-administrative economy to a capitalist free-market economy.
b) From a closed and authoritarian society to an open and democratic one.
c) From a society based on the belief in fixed laws of history (feudalism to capitalism to socialism), a society based on rationality and logic, to a postmodern society in which there are no fixed perspectives, no linear logics. (What do we mean by "postmodern"?)
How does the novel function as an allegory of the disintegration of the Soviet Union? List some examples.
How is the United States portrayed in the novel? Is the author’s view positive, negative, merely ironic?
Discuss the representations of "consumer society" in the novel (goods to buy, restaurants, popular culture, housing). To what extent can these be accepted as examples of "developed socialism"?
Discuss the representations of Russian nationalism/patriotism.
Do the metaphors of darkness and light function as an allegory for the Soviet system? Or for life in general?
Why insects?
What function does each of the insect plots serve?
Sam, Arthur and Arnold, the mosquitoes
Dung beetle father and son
Marina the ant and daughter Natasha the fly
Mitya and Dima, the moths
Maxim and Nikita, the hemp beetles
Seryozha, the cicada cum cockroach
