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Illustrated portrait of Vera Wassilijovna

A character in Darkness at Noon

Vera Wassilijovna

Vera is Wassilij’s daughter and a representative of the younger Soviet generation shaped by official language.

The book

Cover of Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
Darkness at NoonArthur Koestler, 1940

A revolutionary is arrested by the state he helped create and ordered to confess to crimes he did not commit.

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Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

Vera is Wassilij’s daughter and a representative of the younger Soviet generation shaped by official language. She accepts the prosecution’s version of Rubashov and presses her father to respond correctly. Her fate is not given. Her role is to show how the regime’s narrative enters ordinary homes and separates generations.

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