“Master of Life” is an essay written by Gorky in 1906, included in his collection “My Visits”. In this collection, Gorky adopts the perspective of “I” and uses the form of “visits” to meet “William II”, a tycoon from the United States, and “Freedom” in France, among others, sharply satirizing the bourgeoisie of various countries, exposing their oppression of the people and the true face of European countries suppressing the Russian Revolution. In the article “Master of Life,” the author creates the revolutionary image of “Death,” with “I” visiting the cemetery with Death and meeting skeletons one by one. These buried are all reactionary figures of the bourgeoisie, some supporting white supremacy theories, some supporting Spencer-style social organicism, and Death mercilessly whips and mocks these dead skeletons, while ruthlessly exposing various bourgeois viewpoints. He says humanitarianism is the “stillborn baby of the bourgeoisie… they want to hang this beautiful curtain on the stage of life to cover up the sinister and terrifying abuse of people…” At the same time, he harshly criticizes two bourgeois perspectives on the oppression and discrimination against women: “Some people only need women as wives and slaves, and strongly advocate that women are not human! … Others do not give up exploiting her as a woman, intending to broadly exploit her labor, and strongly advocate that she is fully suitable to work equally with men everywhere, even working for him.” Death points out that although these people in the cemetery are already dead, the living are still controlled by the bourgeoisie of “masters of life” with these dead people’s ideas. “Your true masters of life are always the dead, although they manage your affairs or people, but they are inspired by the dead.” At the end of the article, as dawn breaks in the East, Death envisions a post-revolutionary society, believing that “life will become a sea of flowers… thoughts are in struggle, but people have become comrades.” The cock crows, and the world turns white; the Death in the article, holding onto hope for a new life, departs. Meanwhile, the reactionary scholars’ bones of the bourgeoisie still rot in their graves.
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