possible plagiarism

Tue Apr 8 02:21:03 UTC 2008

 Just put it through turnitin.com and you'll find out the source (if indeed the paper is plagiarized).

Julia Trubikhina

Assistant Professor of Russian
Russian Program Coordinator
Department of Modern Languages and Literatures
Montclair State University
Dickson Hall, Room 138
Montclair, NJ 07043

-----Original Message-----
From: Deborah Hoffman <lino59 at AMERITECH.NET>
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Sent: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 9:14 pm
Subject: [SEELANGS] possible plagiarism

This is just a thought - something about this excerpt seems "older," i.e. "dull 
beasts," and the fact that the author felt no need to disclaim the gender 
relation in "Tanya was something they could possess: “…we all regarded her as 
something of our own." I'm wondering if it's a physical book in your university 
library - the kind I might have consulted as an undergrad before the Internet, 
something not likely to have been uploaded onto Google. I agree the translation 
can be a clue, especially the use of "kringel" rather than "pretzel" which I've 
seen elsewhere.

  On Apr 4, 2008, at 5:29 AM, Kevin M. F. Platt wrote:

> Dear SEELANGers:
>
> One of my students turned this piece of writing in for a weekly  
> reading response question about Gorky's "26 men and a girl" (I
asked

> them what they thought the significance of Tanya is in the story).
I

> am 95% certain that it is plagiarized, but I can't figure out from

> where. Does anyone recognize it as their own or as something on  
> their shelves? Let me know off line, please.
>
> This short story, published in 1899 in a collection entitled,  
> “Creatures that Once Were Men,” is an unflinching look at the
manner  
> in which men react to a crushing, stifling regime and how their  
> humanity is essentially dissolved over time. Tanya plays the role
of

> innocence, of hope, and of the possibility of redemption for the  
> twenty-six men in this narrative. Though “dull beasts,” the
twenty- 
> six are “still men, and, like all men, could not live without  
> worshipping something or other.” Living in a situation that
offered

> no returns for their labor, Tanya was something they could
possess:  
> “…we all regarded her as something of our own, something
existing
as  
> it were only by virtue of our kringels.” She carries the burden
of

> unrequited love without the knowledge or responsibility, a love so

> deep it could just as easily crush its receiver as its giver.
> The capitalistic exploitation in this story appears to extend  
> forever – the prisoners appear to be eternally trapped in a
static

> state, where nothing changes around them. Their humanity is kept  
> intact by Tanya’s fleeting presence, the hope she represents  
> flitting in and out of their lives, only taking, never giving. At

> the end of Gorky’s tale, Tanya is revealed to be nothing more
than
a  
> servant to the gold-embroiderers’ next door, the innocence she  
> represents extinguished in a moment of sexual passion. The men  
> return to their state of perpetual labor as Tanya is thrown aside,

> crushed by their desire for an ideal.

Deborah Hoffman, Esq.
Russian > English Legal and Literary Translations

A man ceases to be a beginner in any given science and becomes a master in that 
science when he has learned that he is going to be a beginner all his life. -- 
R. G. Collingwood

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