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Book 2, Chapter 11
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Resurrection, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Moral and Spiritual Resurrection
Class and the Penal System
Double Standards and the Abuse of Women
The Role of Conscience
Hypocrisy and Self-Deception
Summary
Analysis
On his way to the prison, Nekhlyudov hires a talkative and thoughtful carriage driver, who points out a massive new building under construction and expresses pride in the jobs it creates. However, Nekhlyudov reflects bitterly on the injustice behind such grandeur—how laborers toil to build useless palaces while their families starve. The driver defends the work as necessary for survival, sparking a deeper conversation about the flood of peasants coming to the city. He explains that many, like himself, leave their villages because there's no land left to farm. He says that his own village is now dominated by a wealthy wigmaker, who bought the estate and refuses to lease land.
The conversation with the carriage driver gives a human face to the economic forces Nekhlyudov has begun to condemn. The driver speaks with practical pride, focused on survival rather than justice, but his story confirms everything Nekhlyudov has come to see: landlessness drives peasants into cities, where they labor on projects that serve wealth rather than need. The driver’s acceptance of this reality underscores how deeply the system has shaped people’s expectations, as survival becomes the only goal and exploitation becomes normal.
Active
Themes
