Zholkovsky "' Electrician" or the complex theatrical mechanism"

Z believes that the writer should show both the general and the personal. Without the general and the historic lead up to what is in his psyche, one cannot hope to understand the personal. 47

Z uses the conflicts that arise from and support public humiliation in his works.

Also, the play within a play where the events on the stage echo the events that take place off stage. Sometimes the events on stage have nothing to do with the fighting off stage.

Light/Dark oppositions show up in several of his plays. In the Electrician they play against the opera by glinka and the tale by Pushkin.

Z had a problem with the immorality of the public, but was unappologetic in his own vices. he said "A satirist must be a morally pure man. (61)"

He wrote for an 'anti-cultural' simplicity and was able to do this by being stronger in the ownership over his own art. This ties in with the public humilatons and the conflicts he works up in his own characters. 57

Z also uses a "pride aping humility move" 60.