The Story Archive

Youth

Leo Tolstoy · 1857 CE · Novel · Russian · Victorian

Sixteen and about to enter the university, the narrator draws up rules for a perfect life, confesses at a monastery, and is halfway home before he is certain he has left out a sin. Examinations, a first drinking party, and the discovery that the plain students he despises for their fingernails and their French are far better at the work than he is. The trilogy breaks off here; the fourth part Tolstoy planned was never written.

Open Youth in the archive — filters, lineage graph and full facet browsing.

Lineage

Attributes

Genre
Coming-of-AgePsychological
Theme
Coming of AgeIdentity & SelfVanity & BeautyClass & InequalityFaith & Doubt
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
InnocentEveryman
Plot structure
BildungsromanEpisodicConfession
Symbol / motif
The MirrorThe CityThe Estate
Conflict
vs Selfvs Society
Mode / tone
RealistIronic
Culture / tradition
Russian

Closest analogues