Misha Gordon Character Analysis in Doctor Zhivago

Misha Gordon is a philosopher and Yuri Zhivago’s childhood best friend. The son of a prominent lawyer, Gordon witnesses Yuri’s father throw himself off a moving train. He is close childhood friends with Yuri and Tonya. Gordon co-publishes Yuri’s first book with their mutual friend Dudorov while Yuri is fighting in World War I. Gordon is able to avoid being drafted, though he visits his friend on the front. Gordon is a moralistic, verbose thinker who pontificates on the virtues of Christianity as opposed to Judaism. Gordon adapts to the new Soviet government, though this does not prevent him from being arrested and sent to a labor camp in the 1930s, a sentence he is able to have commuted by volunteering for the frontlines of World War II.

Misha Gordon Quotes in Doctor Zhivago

The Doctor Zhivago quotes below are all either spoken by Misha Gordon or refer to Misha Gordon. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

His friends had become strangely dull and colorless. None of them had held on to his own world, his own opinion. They were much brighter in his memories. Apparently he had overestimated them earlier.

As long as the order of things had allowed the well-to-do to be whimsical and eccentric at the expense of the deprived, how easy it had been to mistake for a real face and originality that whimsicality and right to idleness which the minority enjoyed while the majority suffered.

But as soon as the lower strata arose and the privileges of the upper strata were abolished, how quickly everyone faded, how unregretfully they parted with independent thinking, which none of them, evidently, had ever had!

Related Characters: Nika Dudorov, Nikolai Nikolaevich Vedenyapin, Yuri Andreevich Zhivago, Misha Gordon

Page Number and Citation: 204

Explanation and Analysis:

To the aging friends at the window it seemed that this freedom of the soul had come, that precisely on that evening the future had settled down tangibly in the streets below, that they themselves had entered into that future and henceforth found themselves in it. A happy, tender, sense of peace about this holy city and about the whole earth, about the participants in this story who had lived till that evening and about their children, filled them and enveloped them in an inaudible music of happiness, which spread far around. And it was as if the book in their hands knew it all and lent their feelings support and confirmation.

Related Characters: Yuri Andreevich Zhivago, Nika Dudorov, Misha Gordon

Page Number and Citation: 613

Explanation and Analysis:

Misha Gordon Character Timeline in Doctor Zhivago

The timeline below shows where the character Misha Gordon appears in Doctor Zhivago. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

Meanwhile, on the train, an 11-year-old boy named Misha Gordon is travelling with his father Grigory Osipovich Gordon, a lawyer—they are both moving to... (full context)

...with a daughter the same age, Tonya, and has become good friends with his classmate Misha Gordon. (full context)

...one of the guests, a doctor, is urgently needed at a nearby hotel. Alexander Alexandrovich, Misha Gordon, and Yuri accompany the doctor. At the hotel they find that Madame Guichard has... (full context)

Russian Culture and Christianity Theme Icon

...of chain of health issues culminating in pneumonia. By 1911 Anna Ivanovna is bedridden. Yuri, Misha, and Tonya are all in their last year of university, studying medicine, philology, and law,... (full context)

Misha Gordon arrives at the front too, intending to visit his childhood friend Zhivago. A chaotic... (full context)

Gordon reaches the village where Yuri Zhivago’s hospital is located. Reunited, the two friends talk late... (full context)

One day, Gordon and Zhivago observe a Cossack tormenting an elderly Jewish villager. After ordering him to stop,... (full context)

...to Katenka; Yuri similarly wishes to be with his family. Yuri learns that Dudorov and Gordon published a book of his poetry to very favorable reviews, but growing unrest overshadows that... (full context)

...has rented out part of the house and let almost all of the servants go. Gordon, Dudorov, and Alexander Alexandrovich, now a district duma member, will soon be home for a... (full context)

...friends too, whom he finds less interesting and original than he had remembered them being. Gordon remains resolutely moralistic. Dudorov, now a professor, speaks in a dull, academic register. Nikolai Nikolaevich... (full context)

While the Zhivagos, Nikolai Nikolaevich, and Gordon are trapped inside by the fighting, Sashenka gets sick. Yuri treats him at home until... (full context)

...legally married to Tonya. They have two daughters together. Yuri maintains his old friendships with Gordon and Dudorov, but he remains disappointed by the ways that his friends have changed. He... (full context)

Dudorov and Gordon chastise Yuri for his listless, aimless attitude toward life, telling him that he should want... (full context)

The next day Marina visits Gordon and tells him she cannot find Yuri . Gordon and Dudorov search for the doctor... (full context)

The summer of 1943 finds Gordon and Dudorov together again, this time as Red Army officers on leave together following a... (full context)

Gordon and Dudorov find Tanya in a crowd talking about her conversation with General Evgraf Zhivago,... (full context)

Gordon and Dudorov reflect on the incredible twists of fate that have come to pass, and... (full context)

Back in Moscow many years later, Gordon and Dudorov sit together and read through Yuri’s notebooks. Though the end of the war... (full context)

Misha Gordon Character Analysis

Misha Gordon Quotes in Doctor Zhivago

Part 6: The Moscow Encampment Quotes

Part 16: Epilogue Quotes

Misha Gordon Character Timeline in Doctor Zhivago