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The grotesque in the Petersburg and other stories of Nikolai Gogol

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The grotesque in the Petersburg and other stories of Nikolai Gogol

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Content THE GROTESQUE IN THE
u
PETERSBURG AND OTHER STORIES OF
NIKOLAI GOGOL
by
Robin Dale Wonder
" i
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(Slavic Languages and Literatures)
January 1970
UMI Number: EP43086
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THESIS COMMITTEE
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PREFACE
Although this study deals only with eight of
Nikolai Gogol's short stories, the grotesque is not
confined to these stories. It is found in many of
his short stories and, certainly, in his novel,
Dead Souls.
This study was originally to deal with
Gogol's Petersburg stories. However, as the work
progressed, I felt it would be good to include two
other stories, The Carriage and Ivan Fiodorovich
Shponka and his Aunt.
I chose to include The Carriage because it is
sometimes linked with the Petersburg stories since it
is contemporary with them and was written in
Petersburg.
I have included Ivan Shponka because it is
connected with the Petersburg stories in style and
motif, although it, like The Carriage, takes place in
the south.
I have done the translations from the Russian
myself unless otherwise noted. I tried to make the
translations as literal as possible because of the
nature of this study.
ii
CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I INTRODUCTION ......................... 1
II NEVSKY PROSPEKT.......................13
III DIARY OF A M A D M A N .....................16
IV THE NOSE............................. 23
V THE PORTRAIT........................... 27
VI THE OVERCOAT........................... 38
VII THE CARRIAGE...........................48
VIII IVAN FIODOROVICH SHPONKA AND
HIS AUNT............................... 50
IX CONCLUSION............................. 55
BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................. 58
iii
1
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Prior to discussing the grotesque in the works
of Nikolai Gogol, it will be necessary to come to an
acceptable understanding of what is meant by the term
grotesque. This may sound more simple than it really
is. Different writers have different interpretations
of the grotesque and often seem to oppose each other's
theories.
It is generally considered that things
grotesque are in some way unnatural.
The word grotesque, with its artistic con
notation of "unnatural," would seem . . .
inapplicable to natural phenomena. Sir Thomas
Browne states flatly, "There are no Grotesques
in nature." The pejorative extension of the
word is made with a more limited idea of the
natural in mind than Sir Thomas Browne's, just
as we speak of the "unnatural behavior of Lear's
daughters, implying that though the daughters
may behave in such a fashion they ought not to
do so."l
In regard to the grotesque in social behavior,
Clayborough says,
In references to dress, manners, and so on, as
"grotesque," the word is used hyperbolically to
"^Arthur Clayborough, The Grotesque in English
Literature (Oxford, 1965), p. 8.
2
reprove that which is not consonant with what
is right and proper.2
The grotesque is often thought of as dealing
more with pictorial art. Clayborough, however,
states that it is "applicable to whatever is incon
gruous with the accepted norm, in life or art." He
goes on to say that "it may be employed to describe
any style of art which deviates from conventional
patterns." In other words, there is an "incongruity
3
with the real or the normal."
Used colloquially, the grotesque is
commonly associated . . . with the unintentionally
ridiculous and monstrous. In critical use, it may
be employed to describe any style of art which
deviates from conventional patterns.^
Dealing with the unnatural as it does, it is
not difficult to agree with Lee Byron Jennings who
said,
The grotesque thrives in an atmosphere of
disorder and is inhibited in any period charac
terized by a pronounced sense of dignity, an
3Ibid., p. 8.
3Ibid., p. 16.
^Ibid., p. 16.
3
emphasis on the harmony and order of life, an
affinity for the typical and normal, and a ^
prosaically realistic approach to the arts.
In Grotesque and Other Reflections, Mary
Cass Canfield mentions a primal terrifying intent of
the grotesque.
Apart from this . . . there is often in it a
more civilized emotion--the sharp laughter of
caricature. And here is an anomaly. For al
though the grotesque is an escape from the
actual, in the sense of being an exaggeration,
yet it is often but a heightening of external
aspects--a tumultuous piling up and an
exacerbation of all too familiar, distasteful
fact.6
An important word from the above is
"exaggeration." The grotesque is indeed an exag
geration of certain features of an individual. By
employing the grotesque, the author can very succinctly
make his point.
The one common factor to all theories of the
grotesque is that of some sort of change. In observ
ing examples of the grotesque, Jennings stated,
^The Ludicrous Demon; Aspects of the
Grotesque in German Post-Romantic Prose (Berkelev.
m 3 ) , pp. "26-27. ----------------------
6(New York, 1927), p. 6.
4
We can see at once what the standard form is
that undergoes change; it is that of the human
body and face .... Where combinations of
man and beast occur, the most grotesque are
undoubtedly those in which man predominates.
. . . The impression of humanness must not be
too strong, the distortion so great that it
obliterates all traces of the human figure; but,
on the other hand, it must show a drastic
departure from the elements of human appearance
and personality that we commonly experience.
This is shown in the case of the deformed per
son; the deformity must be sufficiently pronounced
that we momentarily forget that we have an actual
person before us. The grotesque object is a
figure imagined in terms of human form but
devoid of real humanity.'
Thus we see that there is a change involving
a combining of differing things. Jennings went on to
say,
It is significant that the grotesque figure
commonly displays a union of disparate parts
from the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms
or from the worlds of man and beast. The "original"
(the human form in general) is not so much dis
torted in the strict sense as it is destroyed
and rebuilt along new lines. There is a recom
bining of the elements of experienced reality to
form something alien to it; the norms of common
life are replaced by an "anti-norm."8
^Jennings, op. cit., pp. 8-9.
8Ibid., pp. 9-10.
/
5
Thus, the norms of.life as we know them are
changed in order to form the grotesque. The question
is, does it make any difference to what degree this
change exists? According to Jennings, it does make
a difference. He says there must be a
really thorough violation of the basic norms
of existence (e.g., personal identity, the
stability of our unchanging environment, the
inviolate nature of the human body, and the
separation of the human and nonhuman realms);
and the violation must be expressed in entirely
concrete terms. . . .9
From what has been thus far said, it can be
assumed that it would be possible to find grotesque
anywhere one wants to look. Generally, this is true.
Clayborough states that
Grotesqueness may appear in anything which
is found to be in sufficiently grave conflict
with the accepted standards to arouse emotion.
In theory, therefore, there is nothing which
might not be regarded as grotesque from some
standpoint: . . . In point of fact it is human
nature to regard some things--physical deformity
for instance, or creatures which in some way
suggest deformity like the ape or the snake--
as being more deeply or abidingly grotesque
than others. - * - 0
9Ibid., p. 18-19.
■^Clayborough, op. cit., p. 109.
In fact, Jennings goes so far as to suggest
that our imaginations can play an important part in
the grotesque. He gives the following information.
There seems to be a basic grotesqueness, . . .
in the figures often seen in any irregular
shapes, such as ink-blots, gnarled branches and
roots, clouds, rock formations, wisps of smoke,
and mottled wallpaper. These phenomena, of
course, merely serve as vehicles for our
imagination; the implication is that the
imagination has a natural tendency to cast up
grotesque forms.H
What kind of person would create' the
grotesque? It seems that such a person might have
some inner reason, for Mary Cass Canfield says the
grotesque is
torn from the creator by the extremity of his
suffering. It is as painful and intimate as
a wound. We shrink from its desperate under
scoring of the mediocre and the despicable,
conscious that this is a broken gesture, the
result of a man's failure to transcend his
bitterness . - * - 2
Mary Cass Canfield feels that humor is impor
tant in the grotesque and that this importance is quite
^^"Jennings , op. cit. , pp. 7-8.
12
Canfield, op. cit., p. 11.
/
relevant to the creator himself. She says,
Humor is the balancing pole with which
the distraught spirit rights itself. In the
grotesque, humor is pushed to the point of
frenzy. The grotesque is the artist’s revenge
upon what has hurt him too deeply.13
She goes on to say that the artist tries
to break away from the prosaic of life but runs into
trouble in so doing.
The artist is ill. Life is too literal
and he takes to his fancy. Life is too per
vasively discordant and so his fancy does not
soar, does not sanely and safely create
beautiful rhythms, but becomes infected with
unrest, turns ape to the actual, is a re-
bellious slave to what it would be free from.
She feels that, in spite of the short
comings of the grotesque, it does serve a useful
purpose.
Grotesques are damned. Yet their creation
is perhaps the safety valve of the artistic tem
perament. . . . Does it not spring from a too
long endured aesthetic disappointment, some
starvation of the artist's soul among the
aridities of materialism and the distracting
13Ibid., p. 10.
14Ibid.
8
hideousness of a machine-driven civilization?
The grotesque, in its most naive aspect,
springs from a primitive love and fear of the
unknown--a shuddering lust for the impossible. . . .
[It] is a denial of reality; it is a denizen
of that unreal world so necessary to those ^5
whose feet are bruised by the hard road of fact.
Jennings has more to say on this same subject
and seems to have similar opinions to those of
Canfield.
As a matter of particular importance with
respect to literature in the relation of gro
tesque material to an author’s general attitude
toward life and culture, there is a great deal
of confusion as to the nature of this relation
ship; alongside the older idea of the grotesque
as the product of a playful, whimsical, or
boisterously comic tendency there exists the
more modern view that it necessarily arises from
a pessimistic, fatalistic, or despairing frame
of mind, that it expresses the disharmony and
limitation of life and the suffering of its
creator.
Clayborough hints another, different reason
for the grotesque, particularly during the neoclassical
period. He says,
~ * ~ ~ * Ibid. , p. 9.
^^Ibid., pp. 4-5.
17
Jennings, op. cit., p. 22.
/
9
Burlesque, . . . employing the grotesque for
purposes of ridicule, provided the writers of
the Neoclassical period yith a socially accept
able outlet for fantasy. °
While Gogol was not of this period, there is no reason
this particular purpose might not have been involved
in his writing.
i What sort of reaction should be expected on
the part of the observer of the grotesque? Jennings
says that
a feeling of detachment arises as we become
absorbed in wonderment at the unfolding of
unheard-of events.... the threat of chaos
brings with it a terrifying vertigo and loss
of footing, but the footing is regained as we q
attain the superior vantage point of the observer.
He has more to say on this same subject.
but the outstanding feature is a feeling of
sovereignty over the object; we regard it from
a superior position and with an amused contempt
at its ridiculousness.20
Finally, Canfield mentions a feeling of pathos
on the part of the reader. She considers the
grotesque to be
18
Clayborough, op. cit., p. 10.
19
Jennings, op. cit., p. 18.
20Ibid., p. 11.
/
10
an evasion and therefore a defeat. We are
shocked at it, as at a dissipation; we pity
its creator. For it is the expression of a
man's frustrated imaginations, of his sub
conscious obsessions; . . .21
In explaining this feeling of shock by the
reader, Wolfgang Kayser says this is quite normal and
is expected.
The observer's bewilderment is in keeping
with the quality which all the aspects of the
grotesque . . . seem to have in common, namely,
that the artist himself did not intend a mean
ing but wanted to portray the absurd in all its
absurdity. . . . The grotesque world is--and
is not--our own world. The ambiguous way in
which we are affected by it results from our
awareness that the familiar and apparently
harmonious world is alienated under the impact
of abysmal forces, which break it up and
shatter its coherence .6.2
Kayser, in discussing Victor Hugo, Friedrich
Schlegel, and Jean Paul, says the opposite of grotesque
is the sublime.
■^Canfield, op. cit. , p. 11.
22
The Grotesque in Art and Literature
(Bioomington, 1957), pp. 36-37.
11
The true depth of the grotesque is revealed
only by its confrontation with its opposite, the
sublime. For just as the sublime (in contrast
with the beautiful) guides our view toward a
loftier, supernatural world, the ridiculously
distorted and monstrously horrible ingredients
of the grotesque point to an inhuman, nocturnal
and abysmal realm. . . . "infernal" and "satanic"
may be secondary meanings of grotesque: . . .
. . . Nothing that is inherently sublime or
grotesque is fused in a "beautiful" or "dramatic"
structure; rather the grotesque consists in the
very contrast that ominously permits of no
reconciliation.23
It can be seen that there is a wide spectrum
of definitions of the grotesque. It would be difficult
to say one is right and the others are wrong. Instead,
all of them are involved in the true grotesque. If
the reader feels uneasy about what he is reading and
cannot decide if it is comic or tragic, there is a
strong possibility it is grotesque.
Gogol is a writer of such stories. People
have been arguing about his works for years. Some
say he is a social critic; others say he is not.
He is difficult to categorize, and this is as he wanted
it. He wanted to keep people confused. The grotesque
^Ibid., pp. 58-59.
12
was a perfect means of writing what he wanted without
putting himself in the position of being vulnerable
to the prying of those who wanted to "understand"
what he wrote.
At one time he was the darling of the extreme
left and at another of the extreme right. At other
times he was greatly criticized by one and then by
the other.
Keeping in mind that it is difficult to
categorize Gogol, I shall endeavor to show that it is
possible to find many examples of the grotesque in
his works.
13
CHAPTER II
NEVSKY PRQSPEKT
The first mention is of a man with a head as
smooth as a silver dish. This is certainly a com
parison supported by the substitution of the non-human
for the human.' Gogol had observed the Nevsky Prospekt
and probably was amused by the various people he saw
promenading along the street.
The next grotesque idea in Nevsky Prospekt
is somewhat different. It deals with a theme which
apparently was very important to Gogol, namely, a
nose. This theme is found throughout his works. He
tells of people who have finished their domestic
duties, such as talking to the doctor about the
weather and the pimple that has come out on their
nose.
In telling some of the types of people one can
meet on Nevsky Prospekt, Gogol, instead of mentioning
the people, refers to them as unique whiskers, mar
velous mustaches, hats, dresses, kerchiefs, waists,
ladies’ sleeves--like two balloons.
He tells that it would be as easy for a lady
to float up into the air as it is for a glass of
14
champagne to be raised to the lips. These ladies are
referred to as butterflies. On the other hand, the
male sex is given the honor of being called beetles.
Kayser mentions dreams as a significant means
of presenting the grotesque. He mentions this as being
done by E. T. A. Hoffmann.
It is apparently quite easy to enter the realm
of the grotesque, but outside help is needed
if one wants to leave it. The grotesque pushes
one into an abyss, and if the story is to be
continued, another level is needed for its
enactment. Hoffmann likes to present grotesque
scenes in the form of dream experiences. The
dreamer wakes with a piercing cry but, getting
out of bed. moves on to a different level of
existence.
This sort of dream experience is found in
Nevsky Prospekt. Piskarev, one of the main characters,
dreams, trying to recapture a dream he has had of a
young prostitute he has fallen in love with. Instead,
he dreams only of a government clerk who is at the
same time a bassoon.
Gogol uses this dreaming of Piskarev as a
means of both starting and stopping the grotesque in
"^Kayser, op. cit ♦ , p. 72.
15
the story. Were it not for the dream, it would be
difficult to leave the grotesque.
Later there is a scene in which the German
bootmaker Hoffmann is about to cut off the nose of
Schiller, the ironmonger. The reason for this is
that Schiller wants to get rid of the nose because he
is spending too much money on snuff. Here again is
the nose theme. Also, it is a chance to make fun of
Germans, as Gogol often did.
16
CHAPTER III
DIARY OF A MADMAN
The grotesque is much more in evidence in
Diary of a Madman than in Nevsky Prospekt. It starts
right off with the main character, Poprishchin, des
cribing the chief of his section as a heron.
Poprishchin is very enamored of the director’s
daughter. When he happens to see her leaving her
carriage, he says that she darted out like a bird.
He later calls her a canary.
Just as the director's doctor enters a store,
Poprishchin hears the first of many dog conversations,
which certainly comes urider the classification of
grotesque. This idea of having the madman understand
the language of dogs and search for dog correspondences
was furnished Gogol by E. T. A. Hoffmann.1
The dog conversations are in such number that
all cannot be mentioned. However, after Poprishchin’s
initial surprise, he says it is quite natural. He
has heard of a fish in England jumping out of the
^Kayser, op. cit., p. 124.
17
water and uttering two words. Also, he knows of two
cows that entered a shop and asked for a pound of
tea.
In one of the last intercepted letters, the
madman finds that the dog is describing him.
It seems to me, if she could like this
gentleman of the Emperor's bed chamber, then
she will soon like that functionary that sits
in Papa's study. Ach, ma chere, if only you
knew, what an absolute turtle in a bag. . .
His surname is exceedingly strange. He
always sits and sharpens his quills. The hair
on his head looks very much like hay. Papa
always sends him out instead of a servant. . .
Sophie in no way can help laughing at him
when she looks at him.2
Poprishchin is here described for us in a
grotesque manner. Making it all the more grotesque
is the fact that this description is the opinion of
a dog.
Poprishchin is, naturally, incensed at
this letter. He has, throughout his eavesdropping,
held himself superior to these dogs. Of course,
he admires them, for he says only gentlemen by birth
2
Nikolai Gogol, Sobranie Sochineniy V. Shesti
Tomakh (Moscow, 1959), III, p. T87TI
18
can write well. He feels he writes well. Therefore,
by association, we are supposed to see that he is a
gentleman by birth.
Here, as in Gogol’s other work, the writer
makes fun of people he has.come in contact with. He
uses the grotesque as an acceptable way of criticizing
important people who could not so easily be criticized
directly.
Poprishchin, on certain occasions, describes
people in grotesque terms. He says that some people
who are jammed into the living quarters of a certain
building are squeezed in like dogs. On another occasion
he says many of his fellow clerks are pigs because
they do not like to go to the theater.
Gogol had himself been a clerk in Petersburg.
On several occasions he makes uncomplimentary remarks
about clerks. The general impression is that he did
not particularly like his fellow clerks. Janko Lavrin
states in Nikolai Gogol: A Centenary Survey,
As the author’s own exploits and mishaps in the
bureaucratic world were of recent date, it was
natural that he should have made an attempt to
lampoon the higher representatives of that
19
species; and above all to portray those office-
drudges who were not even allowed to have a self,
however humble, of their o w n .3
As Poprishchin’s madness progresses, and
obviously he is mad, he decides that the best way to
learn more about the director’s daughter is to inter
cept the correspondence between the dogs. This
correspondence is, of course, created in Poprishchin’s
sick mind.
It is possible the letters really exist.
However, instead of being written by the dogs, they
might have been written by Poprishchin himself. This
is evident in his high regard for the writing ability
of the dogs when he first starts reading the letters.
After the first interceptance he has this to say about
the letters.
The letter is written very correctly. The
punctuation and even the hard sign is everywhere
in the right place. Why, not even the chief of
our department can write like this, although he
explains that he studied at some university.^
^(London, 1951), p. 69.
^Gogol, op. cit., III, 181.
20
After reading a letter telling how Sophie has
a good time at balls, Poprishchin is not so compli
mentary .
What an utterly uneven style. It is immediately
obvious that a man did not write it. It begins
as it should but ends in a doggish manner.5
Since the letters reflect Poprishchin, it is
evident here that this poor clerk is becoming more
animal-like as the story progresses. This is perhaps
what Lavrin meant when he talked of the "office-
drudges who were not even allowed to have a self,
however humble, of their own.
Poprishchin1s former regard for the director
becomes scorn. This is a result of Poprishchin’s
belief that, instead of a clerk, he is the King of
Spain. On one occasion he says the director is not a
director but is, rather, a cork--a plain one such as
is used to cork a bottle.
This clerk who was formerly little more than
a dog is now the King of Spain. Both are equally as
^Gogol, op. cit., 183.
^Lavrin, op. cit., p. 69.
21
impossible. Both are equally as grotesque. It gives
the reader an uneasy feeling as Poprishchin goes on
about his new status in life.
The poor man is finally taken to a madhouse.
He thinks he is being secreted away to Spain. He sees
men with their heads shaven. He recognizes them as
high priests. The reader knows, however, that they
are other madmen, who have had their heads shaven as
part of the treatment.
Even during his bad treatment Poprishchin does
not realize what has really happened to him. He says
these are the ways in Spain. The sensations on the
part of the reader are that the situation is both
comical and tragic. There is an uncertainty how to
react. This is true of grotesque. It is neither comic
nor tragic; it somehow combines both.
The poor clerk later gets back to the subject
of noses, saying we can't see our noses because they
all live on the moon. He fears the earth is going to
sit on the moon and feels this will grind all our
noses to powder.
22
Even in the final line Gogol uses the theme of
the nose. Poprishchin, after a brief moment of
realization of his condition, returns to his fantasy
and says that the Dey of Algiers has a boil under his
nose.
Janko Lavrin concludes in Nikolai Gogol: A
Centenary Survey
The passage of Poprishchin's muddled state of
mind to one of madness is rendered by Gogol
with such intuition as if he himself had passed
through it. The process we watch is really a
short cut on the part of an utterly frustrated
human being back to infantilism by way of mad
ness as his only outlet from an unbearable
situation. Simultaneously Poprishchin's sense
less gibberish hides a great deal of erotic
symbolism as well--symbolism in which uncon
scious verbal associations play their part.
The grotesque character of his entries only
makes his case the more poignant, perhaps with
a scarcely disguised hint at Gogol's own
retarded and distorted erotics./
7Ibid., p. 70.
23
CHAPTER IV
THE NOSE
With all the mentioning of noses in The Diary
of a Madman it is perhaps fitting that the next
Petersburg story we look at is The Nose. It is a far
fetched story which is full of the grotesque. It
deals with a situation where a man's nose takes on a
personality, steals away from its proper location, and
gallivants around town, successfully doing all the
things its owner wants but is unable to do.
The first appearance of the nose is when the
barber who supposedly is responsible for the nose not
being on the owner's face discovers it in a loaf of
bread he is about to eat. He recognizes it as that of
the collegiate assessor Kovaliov. He is particularly
perplexed since he knows bread is something that is
baked whereas a nose is something quite different.
His wife is furious. In her scolding she calls
him various things such as a dried up crust of bread
and a stupid wooden log.
The nose's owner Kovaliov discovers his nose
is missing about the same time the barber learns of
it. He starts for the police to lodge a complaint.
/
24
On the way he sees, of all things, a gentleman he
recognizes to be his nose. The nose has the rank of
civil councilor. This is higher than Kovaliov*s
rank, and he does not know how to approach his own
nose. When they finally are able to talk, the nose
practically ignores Kovaliov.
A newspaper clerk refuses to place an ad for
the nose because he recently got in trouble for
accepting an ad by a government clerk. The ad was
for a poodle with a black coat. However, it turned
out the poodle was really the cashier of some
institution.
When Kovaliov shows the newspaper clerk where
his nose is supposed to be, the clerk says it is indeed
flat, like a pancake.
All the while that Kovaliov talks to the news
paper clerk, the clerk takes snuff. Finally, in a
thoughtless act of sympathy the clerk offers some snuff
to Kovaliov, which is more than the noseless fellow
can stand.
Kovaliov keeps meeting with failure in his
attempts to recover his nose. Finally, he makes the
7
25
comment that a man without a nose is neither fish
nor fowl nor human being.
When finally Kovaliov recovers his nose, the
description of his trying to get it to stay on is cer
tainly grotesque. He blows on it, he talks to it,
keeps trying to put it in place, but it will not
stick. The nose seems like wood. He drops it on the
table making a sound like a cork.
Kovaliov tries to discover the reason for his
misfortune and finally says only the devil himself
could understand it.
The Nose is full of the grotesque, but why
did Gogol choose to use this device here? Janko
Lavrin has an interesting explanation in Nikolai
Gogol: A Centenary Survey.
It is the most grotesque story Gogol ever wrote.
Its ambiguous symbolism, puns and jokes, on the
other hand, allude to inhibitions which can best
be discussed in medical terms and are therefore
of less concern to us. The story itself is thought
to be a parody of the romantic doubles a la
Hoffmann and probably also of Chamisso's Peter
Schlemihl--a tale in which the shadow ran away
from its owner. But apart from all this Gogol
here made literary use of the pattern of a
nonsensical (or seemingly nonsensical)
dream. . . . Needless to say, there existed by
that time a considerable "nosological” literature,
. . . It is known, moreover, that Gogol was fond
7
26
of listening to smutty anecdotes, and the
"symbolic" aspect of the nose may have in
trigued him precisely on account of its con
nexion with sex. In Evenings the story about
the undersexed Ivan Shponka remained deliberately
unfinished. So in The Nose Gogol resumed the
motif once again, and with all the unconscious
or half-conscious fear of impotence cropping up
in its ambiguous dream-symbolism. . . .
This phantasia on the^sex-theme in disguise
can be regarded as a surrealiste anticipation
of the psycho-analytical symbolism of dreams
applied to works of art. It may not appeal to
the average reader, yet there is more method in
its confusion than it might seem. Its plot
abounds in amusing satire. And the bits of
Petersburg life, whether bureaucratic or other
wise, add to the grotesqueness of the whole,
especially when flavoured with Gogol's tone and
accent.1
^Ibid., pp. 72-74.
27
CHAPTER V
THE PORTRAIT
- * - n The Portrait, as might be expected, there
is abundant mention of noses throughout the story.
The first is of generals with crooked noses.
There seem to be elements within The Portrait
that point to E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Die Elixiers des
Teufels, Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer, and Washing
ton Irving’s The Adventure of the Mysterious Picture.^
These stories have a grotesqueness which carries over
to The Portrait and even helps substantiate the fact
this is a grotesque story since these writers were
noted for employing the grotesque in their work.
The devil is often linked to the grotesque.
In The Portrait there is a true representative of the
devil in Petromikhali, the old usurer who is the sub
ject of the portrait. He ". . .is the agent of the
Evil One and . . . therefore emanates evil and ruins
2
all who have anything to do with him."
1Ibid., p. 62.
2Ibid., p. 63.
28
In describing some of the paintings in the
art shop the narrator says they look more like the
work of an automaton rather than a human being. The
artists then would be compared to non-living things.
In this manner, Gogol was employing grotesque to
indirectly criticize not only artists whose work is
often stereotyped but those who are interested in the
work of these artists.
Chartkov, the main character, is brousing in
an art shop. Gogol grotesquely describes a painting
of a Flemish peasant who looks more like a turkey
cock in frills than a human being.
Then Chartkov discovers the portrait about
which the story is told. The eyes seem to glare from
out of the picture. The intensity of the glare seems
to change in the same manner that the glare of a
living person changes.
Chartkov buys the portrait, which makes him
rather unhappy with himself. He walks home almost
mechanically. This could be an obscure reference to
the automaton mentioned earlier and as a hint that
Chartkov will soon be one of these automaton painters,
too.
29
No sooner does Chartkov get the portrait home
than he starts talking about his desires for financial
success. Suddenly something happens that frightens
him greatly. A terrible face is staring at him with
eyes that appear ready to devour him. This is the
portrait, which he has forgotten about for a moment.
The whole face seems to have nearly come to life. The
eyes are living, human eyes. It seems as though they
have been cut out of a living man and placed in the
canvas. There is the kind of strange liveliness in
the eyes that would light up the face of a corpse
that is getting up out of the grave.
This situation involving the terrifying look
of the face and the fear on the part of the artist
goes on for some time, certainly in a grotesque
manner.
Then the old man actually crawls out of the
picture frame and approaches Chartkov. This phantom
sits down at Chartkov’s feet and begins unwrapping
rolls of gold coins. Chartkov succeeds in getting
one of the rolls just as the old man is leaving, but
the phantom apparently finds out and comes back to
30
Chartkov. Suddenly Chartkov awakens.
There are several of these episodes where the
fantasy is explained by Chartkov's awakening. At
least this seems, at the time, to explain what has
happened.
After this experience, Chartkov, still quite
agitated, is described as being like a wet rooster.
Gogol soon puts Chartkov in the position of
being confronted by his landlord for the back rent.
It is obvi-ous Gogol has contempt for the landlord and
others of his kind. He has nothing good to say about
the man. He says he is a person whose character is
as difficult to describe as the color of a threadbare
frock-coat.
On several occasions the landlord, who is
certainly not particularly refined, refers to Chartkov
and other artists in general as pigs.
A policeman that the landlord has brought
along is inspecting Chartkov's paintings. He finds a
nude and mentions the black mark under her nose,
wondering if she took snuff. Chartkov replies that it
is a shadow.
31
The policeman then examines the portrait of
the old man. He accidentally grasps the frame too
hard and cracks it. A roll of one thousand coins
falls out. It happens to be exactly like the roll
of coins he saw in his dream. In this manner, Chart
kov gains his fortune. Of course, he is now indebted
to the old usurer.
The wealth immediately goes to Chartkov's
head. He starts buying nice things for himself and,
in short, becomes somewhat of a dandy. Following a
dinner at which he for the first time drinks
champagne, he struts down the street like the devil's
own brother. This is a reference to the fact that
since he has accepted the money, he has, in a sense,
sold his soul to the devil.
As he walks along, he sees his old professor
on a bridge. Chartkov then does an unforgivable act.
He rushes past the man pretending not to see him.
The poor man is very surprised. He stands rooted to
the spot, his face looking like a question, mark.
The grotesque in this instance is used to show the
baseness of such an act on Chartkov's part. The
professor once had been a positive influence on the
32
young man. Now that was questionable if not doubtful.
Perhaps the professor is only reflecting what
he sees in Chartkov--namely no face at all. The
devil is often shown in literature as being faceless.
Since Chartkov is now the devil's brother, he, too,
could be faceless.
Eventually Chartkov achieves fame. A lady
who comes to see him about a painting asks him if he
knows the great artist, Monsieur Nohl. Nohl means
zero in Russian. This might be another reference to
the selling of one's soul to a faceless devil.
The lady, who is difficult to deal with,
wants Chartkov to paint a portrait of her daughter.
She wants, however, to dictate how the painting should
be done. Gogol resented people tampering with the
arts; the government had certainly tampered with his.
He saw how some people pretended to be such
authorities on art when really they knew quite little
about it except for the names of painters and perhaps
to recognize their works.
The mother and daughter represent such people.
The mother does not want the girl to appear as though
33
she goes to halls or fashionable parties. She claims
balls ruin the spirit and feelings. It is then pointed
out that both the mother and the daughter have
obviously been to so many balls that they have become
waxen.
Finally the ladies end up with a portrait
they are quite happy with. This portrait brings
Chartkov fame and much business. The business is from
the wealthy class, of course. Gogol makes fun of
these people in how they want to be painted--not as
they really are, but vainly as what other people will
either envy or else fall in love with. One woman
insists on having her mouth look small. It finally
ends up as a point, no larger than a pinhead.
Chartkov paints these portraits as the people
want them. Eventually, however, he loses what talent
he once had. He becomes rich because the people know
nothing about art and only want paintings that flatter
them. Even though his work is now commonplace, they
are happy because their demands have been met.
Chartkov becomes worse and worse until he
finally resembles one of those human beings who seems
34
like a moving stone coffin with a corpse inside where
the heart should be.
Eventually he recognizes what has happened to
himself. He goes mad. When he sees the work of a
promising artist, he gnashes his teeth and devours it
with the look of a basilisk. What a monster he has
become. From a man to a horrible lizardlike monster
with a fatal breath and glance.
He begins buying the finest paintings at high
prices. He brings them home and leaps upon them like
a tiger, utterly destroying them. No ignorant monster
had ever destroyed so many works of art as Chartkov.
He becomes like the demon which Pushkin had described.
This is a demon which does not believe in love or
freedom, looks derisively on life, and wants to give
his blessings to nothing in all nature.
Chartkov even becomes like a Harpy. A Harpy is
another mythological monster which supposedly was
responsible for some unpleasant acts. It was said to
carry off the souls of the dead. A Harpy had the head
and trunk of a woman but the tail, legs, and talons of
a bird.
35
He becomes hopelessly insane and contracts
consumption. He is finally only a shadow of his
former self. He eventually dies, but not before he
reaches the point of sheer madness, seeing the por
trait everywhere. He dies in an agonizing fit of
suffering. His corpse is dreadful to see.
Thus ends the grotesque existence of
Chartkov, but it is not yet the end of the story. We
are given an explanation of the portrait itself.
The second part begins at an auction for the
belongings of some art connoisseur. The auction is
described as a funeral. The auctioneer is said to be
reciting the requiem for these poor works of art
which have met here together so strangely.
The portrait is at the auction, and it is
being actively bid on by two men. They are inter
rupted by a man who turns out to be the son of the
artist that painted the portrait.
This young man starts telling the story of
the portrait. He describes Kolomna district and the
people who live there. He mentions old women who,
like ants, drag old things to the flea market. In
36
short, the people there are very poor and have need
of a money lender. Of course, this would be the old
usurer in the portrait.
In his story he has reason to mention artists,
poets, and other learned men. He says, supposedly
quoting Catherine II, that they are the pearls and
diamonds in the imperial crown.
Long before the painter of the portrait had
ever started the work, he always said whenever he saw
the usurer, "A devil, a real devil."
When he is commissioned to do the portrait,
the usurer tells him he wants the portrait done so he
will not completely die when his time comes. As this
painting progresses, the artist becomes frightened and
at last runs away before finishing his painting.
The next day the painting is brought to the
artist with the explanation that theuusurer no longer
wants it. This sudden possession of the portrait is
not good for the artist or for anyone else.
The artist's temperament changes, and so does
his work. He finally plans to burn the picture, but a
friend takes it off his hands instead.
37
Later the friend comes and tells the artist
strange tales about the portrait. He says the artist’s
brush was a tool of the devil. The usurer's soul is
in the painting.
At the end, while the son is telling the
story, the picture disappears. It is not completely
clear if it is stolen or removed by some supernatural
power.
Thus we are left, at the end of the story, in
a rather unhappy situation. The evil portrait is still
at large. Anyone could come under its influence.
This very probably was a moral lesson Gogol wanted to
leave with his readers.
38
CHAPTER VI
THE OVERCOAT
is is the story of a poor little clerk.
He is quite insignificant but is satisfied with his
station in life.
His name, Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin, is
ringing with grotesque connotations. The name Akaky
has an unusual meaning.
Rather, we would suggest, Akaky is "Akaky"
(as was his father) because the name is so
suggestive, something of which the language
conscious Gogol could not conceivably have
been unaware; indeed, to a native Russian
who has never read or heard of the story, the
name is provocative, the resemblance to kaka
(defecator) being quite impossible to miss.
And Gogol's fondness for the word is evident
from a reading of the Russian text.1
The last name, Bashmachkin, comes from the
Russian word bashmak, which means shoe. A bashmachnik
is a shoemaker. Thus Akaky is made somewhat
synonymous with a shoe. These grotesque connotations
are used to show just how insignificant a person
Akaky is. In fact, it shows how insignificant his
Leonard J. Kent, ed. The Collected Tales
and Plays of Nikolai Gogol, by Nikolai Gogol (New York,
1964), footnote on p. 562.
39
whole family is. At one point it is mentioned that
all the Bashmachkins, even Akaky's brother-in-law,
wear boots. This man could hardly be named
Bashmachkin, but he is treated as though that is his
name.
As far as Akaky*s looks are concerned, he is
not particularly favored. He is short, pockmarked,
bald, and with a complexion which could be called
hemorrhoidal. This could be considered a reminder of
the connotation of the name Akaky.
In spite of the real possibilities of the
reason for the name Akaky, it is explained that his
godparents were unable to find a suitable name from
the calendar, so his mother said he would have to be
Akaky like his father.
The names of the godparents are interesting.
The godfather is named Yeroshkin, which in Russian
implies ruffles. The godmother is named
Bielobriushkova. This name could be roughly trans
lated as whitebelly.
Akaky's fellow workers have very little
respect for him. When he walks into the office, the
40
watchmen do not get up or even look at him. They
act no differently than if a fly has just flown into
the room.
Akaky loves his work as a copying clerk.
Certain letters are favorites for him. He is so
overjoyed by these letters that they seem to appear
on his face as he writes them.
Akaky lives for his job. He takes little
notice of other things. A description of his eating
habits is fitting here.
Arriving;home, he immediately sits down at
the table, quickly slurps his cabbage soup,
and eats a piece of beef with an onion; not
noticing their taste at all, he eats all this
with flies and with everything else that God
has sent him at this time.2
Petersburg is very cold during the winter.
Akaky needs a new overcoat. The tailor Petrovich
will make the overcoat for him. Petrovich is
sometimes called a one-eyed devil by his wife.
There are various references to facelessness
o
Gogol, III, op. cit., p. 132.
41
in this story. Petrovich has a snuffbox with the
picture of a general on it. Where the face should
be, it has been poked through by someone's finger;
thus the general has no face. This, again, is one
of the ways the devil can be shown in literature.
Kayser, discussing the three main types of
grotesque found in Hoffmann mentions this demonic
presence of the devil.
The third kind is constituted by the "demon-id"
characters whose appearance and behavior are
grotesque. . . . Even where they do not them
selves interfere with the action or bring their
supernatural powers into play, their mere
presence usually spells death and destruction.
They tend to possess uncanny mechanical skills
of a kind that enables them "to establish con
tact with the most secret mysteries of nature
and thus to produce effects which must remain
inexplicable," . . .3
Petrovich, while deciding to tell Akaky he
needs a new overcoat, is taking snuff from the snuff
box with the faceless general. Thus the devil may
have been involved in the crucial decision that
eventually leads to the end of Akaky Akakievich.
3
Kayser, op. cit., p. 106.
42
Akaky is made almost senseless by the news he
will need a new overcoat. Everything becomes blurred.
The only thing he can see is the faceless general on
the snuffbox of Petrovich. Here is another indication
of the demonic grotesque being involved in Akaky's
problems.
In fact, the devil is mentioned so often in
this story that there is undoubtedly a connection.
The next mention of him is when Akaky returns hoping
to brilpe Petrovich to change his mind about the new
overcoat. Petrovich is drunk, but the devil must
have nudged him because he refuses to go along with
Akaky's wi she s.
Finally, Akaky resigns himself to the fact
that he needs a new overcoat. He is able to get the
price down to eighty rubles--a rather high amount for
someone who earns only four hundred rubles a year.
Akaky has a little money saved and cuts
corners to get the rest of the eighty rubles. There
are not many corners to cut since he lives a meager
existence as it is. However, this deprivation causes
43
him to lead a fuller life. He becomes happy. It is
as though he has gotten married and the wife is the
overcoat itself.
Finally Akaky gets his overcoat. The other
clerks treat him almost civilly. He is invited to a
party. On the way home from the party he is robbed
of his overcoat.
The robbers have mustaches, but other than
that, they are faceless. It is assumed the robbers
are large, but the storyssays they are right under
Akaky's nose. This is unusual in that Akaky is
small.
Akaky is so shaken by the theft that he
really is unable to survive. He tries to get help
by going to the local police commissioner and to an
important personage.
These men give him no help and, in fact, make
the whole situation worse for him. The important per
sonage is particularly brutal with him. He is so
upset that he somehow gets outside the man's door but
falls in the snow. Here he gets chilled and contracts
his final illness.
44
He dies very pathetically, his office not
even being aware of it. His death is rather sadly
depicted.
A creature had vanished and escaped from this
earth; no one had stood up for him; he was
neither dear to anyone nor interesting to any
one; not even a natural scientist turned his
attention to him, although he would not let a
chance pass him by to place a common fly on a
pin and look at it under a microscope.
Here, as earlier, Akaky is again given no
more, indeed less, significance than a fly. Most
human beings find flies to be the lowliest of pests,
and, certainly, to be compared with a fly is
grotesque.
The one happy moment in the life of this
lowly man comes at the very end of his life when he
is visited by a radiant guest in the person of the
overcoat, lighting up for an instant his poor life.
This is not the end of the story of Akaky
Akakievich. The story now turns to the fantastic.
Before pointing out all the fantastic elements, it
4Gogol, III, pp. 154-155.
should be mentioned that there are differences in
various translations of Gogol as opposed to the
original Russian version.
Except for Constance Garnett, most trans
lations mention a ghost
But there is no doubt of Gogol’s intention.
He uses the word mertverts [sic] (corpse) and not
prividenye (ghostT^ To confuse the two is
damaging to Gogol’s delight in the fantastic,
and seriously alters the tone of the story.
Certainly, corpse has a more grotesque con
notation than ghost. For this reason and the fact
that corpse was the actual word used, I shall use the
word corpse rather than the often-used ghost.
Rumors get started about Petersburg that a
corpse is stealing overcoats from anybody and every
body. It is said to take the form of a clerk. One
of the clerks from the department recognizes the
corpse as none other than Akaky Akakievich.
The police are ordered to catch the corpse,
dead or alive. Finally, the corpse is caught, but
one of the policemen has to take snuff at the moment
^Kent, op. cit., footnote on p. 588.
46
because his nose has been frozen six times. The
corpse sneezes in the policemen’s faces and
disappears.
After that the police are even afraid to
bother the living. Then the clerk’s corpse begins to
be seen in more places.
Finally, the important personage is robbed
of his overcoat. He recognizes the robber as Akaky
and almost dies of fright. The episode is described.
The face of the clerk was pale, like snow,
and gazed at him absolutely like a corpse.
. . . The mouth of the corpse became crooked
and, puffing frightfully on him with the
breatji of the grave, pronounced these words.
• • •
The corpse reminds him of their former meeting and
takes his coat away from him.
The corpse is not seen again, although
stories sometimes crop up. One policeman claims to
have seen a ghost (prividenie). He follows it. The
description of this ghost shows that it is none '
other than the person who originally stole Akaky's
overcoat.
^Gogol, III, op. cit., p. 158.
47
What is the reason for this story and the
grotesque elements found in it? Very probably,
Gogol, as usual, is making fun of people and their
gullibility for stories.
48
CHAPTER VII
THE CARRIAGE
Strictly speaking, The Carriage is not a
Petersburg story in that the setting is in the South
rather than in Petersburg. In another sense, however,
it can be grouped with these stories since it was
written in Petersburg in 1835.
The first instance of grotesque in The Carriage
is at the beginning when town B is being des-
cribed. It is mentioned that the mayor calls the pigs
which are running about the street Frenchmen.
There is a regiment stationed at the town.
Following a party by the general of the regiment,
some of the guests have to be carried out as though
they are parcels of merchandise.
One of the guests is Chertokutsky, a local
landowner who. used to be in the military until he had
to retire fot some unpleasant reason. He invites the
general and the other officers to his home for dinner
the next day. He wants to show them his carriage.
When Chertokutsky gets home that night, or,
to be more correct, the next morning, he is so sleepy
that he goes to bed forgetting to tell anyone he has
49
invited guests for the next day.
When he awakes the next afternoon, the guests
are approaching his home. He utters a slight grunt
such as a calf gives when it is looking for its
mother's udders.
When he realizes the seriousness of the
situation in which he finds himself, he says, "Ach,
I am a horse!"
Even at the end, Chertokutsky, who has hidden
in his carriage to avoid the officers, is given a
status of something non-human. The general wants to
see the carriage even though the host is not at home.
He takes off the cover and discovers Chertokutsky.
He makes no more comment than, "Ah, you are here,"
and recovers him and leaves. This treats Chertokutsky
like a part of the carriage.
50
CHAPTER VIII
IVAN FIODOROVICH SHPONKA AND HIS AUNT
Ivan Fiodorovich Shponka and his Aunt is not
a Petersburg story but is, so to speak, a similar
ancestor to some of the Petersburg stories, namely
The Nose and The Overcoat.
This is the story of a rather meek officer
who receives a letter from his domineering aunt tell
ing him to retire and become a landowner. He does
whatever his aunt says, so with no more thought about
it, he retires.
There is not a great deal of grotesque in
the first part of the story, with the following
exceptions.
The story is being related by Rudy Panko, a
beekeeper Gogol uses as his narrator in Evenings on a
Farm near Dikanka, of which our story is a part. He
tells that the story was written down for him by a
man who waves his arms about when he walks. He is
said to be a windmill.
The name of Ivan's Russian grammar teacher
was Dieyeprichastie, which means "participle." It is
most common in the works of Gogol to find names
51
having meanings which stand for something else but
fit the character. Gogol was a master at doing this.
As a matter of fact, the name Shponka means
"dowel" (one used like a cotter pin to hold the wheel
on an axle).
An elderly lady, Mrs. Storchenka, is des
cribed as a veritable coffeepot. Ivan Shponka is
visiting the lady's son, Grigory Grigorievich Stor-
chenko. There is another visitor, Ivan Ivanovich.
Ivan Ivanovich wears a frock coat with a high
standup collar. This collar covers up the whole back
of his head so that it appears his head is sitting
in a britska. This particular idea about the britska
is repeated several times in the story.
GogdT was able to paint grotesque pictures
with words. Here is a translation of his description
of Ivan Ivanovich. He was
in a longskirted frock-coat with an enormous
high collar, which covered up the whole back
of his head, in such a manner that his head • .
sat in the collar as if it were in a britska.
^Gogol, I, op. cit., p. 206.
52
It is difficult to read that passage without
imagining what Gogol has described. Certainly the
picture in our minds is a grotesque one of some sort
of carriage with a head sitting in it.
Ivan's aunt has visions of getting him to
marry the younger sister of Grigory Grigorievich
Storchenko.
When Ivan realizes this, he is highly upset.
He does not want to get married. He certainly has had
no experience with women and wants none. The thought
of sharing his bedroom with a woman haunts him to
distraction.
The following selection is from The Collected
Tales and Plays of Nikolai Gogol, edited by Leonard
J. Kent.
He went to bed earlier than usual but in
spite of all his efforts he could not go to
sleep. But at last sleep, that universal com
forter, came to him; but such sleep! He had
never had such incoherent dreams. First, he
dreamed that everything was whirling noisily
around him, and he was running and running, as
fast as his legs could carry him. . . . Now he
was at his last gasp . . . All at once someone
caught him by the ear. "Aie! who is it?" "It
is I, your wife!" a voice resounded loudly in his
ear--and he woke up. Then he imagined that he
was married, that everything in their little
house was so peculiar, so strange: a double bed
53
stood in his room instead of a single one; his
wife was sitting on a chair. He felt strange;
he did not know how to approach her, what to
say to her, and then he noticed that she had
the face of a goose. He turned aside and saw
another wife, also with the face of a goose.
Turning in another direction, he saw still a
third wife; and behind him was still another.
Then he was seized by panic: he dashed away
into the garden; but there it was hot. He
took off his hat, and--saw a wife sitting in
it. Drops of sweat came out on his face. He
put his hand in his pocket for his handkerchief
and in his pocket too there was a wife; he took
some cotton out of his ear--and there too sat a
wife. . . . Then he suddenly began hopping on
one leg, and his aunt, looking at him, said with
a dignified air: "Yes, you must hop on one leg
now, for you are a married man." He went toward
her, but his aunt was no longer an aunt but a
belfry, and he felt that someone was dragging
him by a rope up the belfry. "Who is it pulling
me?" Ivan Fiodorovich asked plaintively. "It is
I, your wife. I am pulling you because you are
a bell." "No, I am not a bell, I am Ivan
Fiodorovich," he cried. "Yes, you are a bell,"
said the colonel of the P infantry regiment,
who happened to be passing. Then he suddenly
dreamed that his wife was not a human being at
all but a sort of woolen material, and that he
went into a shop in Mogiliov. "What sort of
material would you like?" asked the shopkeeper.
"You had better take a wife, that is the most
fashionable material! It wears well! Everyone
is having coats made of it now." The shopkeeper
measured and cut off his wife. Ivan Fiodorovich
put her under his arm and went off to a Jewish
tailor. "No," said the Jew, "that is poor
material! No one has coats made of that now.
«2
• • •
2
Kent, op. cit., pp. 196-197.
54
There are various possible reasons for this
grotesque dream. Perhaps there were psychological
reasons of which Gogol was not aware. Perhaps the
thought of marriage would have caused a similar dream
for Gogol, since he was known to have little interest
in women.
Regardless of the reasons, this dream is very
grotesque. It has human and non-human qualities
mixed together. It has both the comic and tragic
aspects.
55
CHAPTER IX
CONCLUSION
The fact that these references to the devil,
references to noses, and substitution of the non-human
for the human happen so often in Gogol is no accident.
He probably did not sit down and say that he was going
to use the grotesque. However, he surely must have
been aware that the method he used could show certain
problems that would take much longer to explain and
would be less effective if he were to use a different
approach.
Lavrin mentions in a note that V. V.
Vinogradov, in his book, The Evolution of Russian
Naturalism (Leningrad, 1929), points out Janin's
Lt'&ne mort et la femme guillotinee as having in
fluenced Nevsky Prospekt.^
Lavrin again points to Hoffmann as probably
having inspired Gogol in Diary of a Madman, which
2
was originally to be called The Diary of a Musician.
There can be little question that the
grotesque exists in Gogol. Leonard Kent explains
■^Lavrin, op. cit., p. 168, footnote 17.
_________^Ibid., p. 68 . ___________________________________
56
his beliefs as to why Gogol used the grotesque.
The frame of reference within which these
characters move and function is very real in
deed. Poshlost is real; so is corruption; so
is injustice; so is selfishness. Gogol's
intensive detailing accounts for its recogniz-
ability, and even his hyperbolic distortion of
it cannot mask it. . . . Laugh as we will at
Ivan Fiodorovich or Akaky Akakievich or the two
old-world landowners or the two Ivans, the mean
ness of the world that reduced them to what they
are is disturbing.
Stylistically, we understand how Gogol
accomplished his grotesque. But what motivated
him, what kind of personality can work in this
genre with such unerring brilliance? We quote
two of the many comments Gogol offered retros
pectively :
"All is disorganized within me. I see, for
example, that somebody has stumbled; my
imagination immediately grasps the situation and
begins to develop it into the shape of most
terrible apparitions which torture me so much
that I cannot sleep and am losing all my
strength."
His deep-rooted neurosis explains not only
the choice of subject, but explains its treat
ment, its density, its forcefulness, its
microscopic vision.
". . .in order to get rid of them [fits of
melancholy] I invented the funniest things I
could think of. I invented funny characters in
the funniest situations imaginable."
It is easy to appreciate the cathartic
function of his fiction. What is "funny" to a
psychopathic personality may be viewed as
grotesque by others. We may laugh when a fat
man slips and lands in a puddle of water, but
our normalcy insists we stop laughing when we
realize that he may, after all, have hurt him
self; but to laugh, as Gogol does, despite the
fact that he may be in pain, or to laugh pre
cisely because he is in pain, is something else
57
3
again. It is the world of the grotesque.
That Gogol wrote the grotesque seems quite
definite. Why he wrote it is open to question. I
would tend to accept Kent’s contention. Gogol put
people in grotesque situations because it gave him
pleasure to see them that way. He did not particularly
like people, and they did not like him. Here is a
perfectly acceptable way to get even without hurting
anyone. Here is Gogol the tragedian; here is Gogol
the comedian; but especially, here is Gogol the
writer of the grotesque.
3
Kent, op. cit., pp. xxvii-xxviii.
58
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Canfield, Mary Case. Grotesques and Other Reflections.
New York: Harper and Brothers, 192?.
Clayborough, Arthur. The Grotesque in English
Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965.
Driessen, F. C. Gogol as a Short Story Writer. trans.
Ian F. Finlay. The Hague: Mouton and
Company, 1965.
Gogol, Nikolai. The Collected Tales and Plays of
Nikolai Gogol, ed. Leonard J. Kent, trans.
Constance Garnett, revised by editor. New
York: Pantheon Books (Random House), 1964.
Gogol, Nikolai. Sobranie Sochineniy V. Shesti
Tomakh. Moscow: State Publishing House of
Belies-letters, 1959.
Jennings, Lee Byron. The Ludicrous Demon: Aspects
of the Grotesque in German Post-Romantic
Prose. University of California Publications
in Modern Philology, vol. 71. Berkeley and
Los Angeles, University of California Press,
1963.
Kayser, Wolgang. The Grotesque in Art and Literature,
trans. Ulrich Weisstein. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1963.
Lavrin, Janko. Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852): A
Centenary Survey. London: Sylvan Press,
T^ r_ --------
O’Connor, William Van. The Grotesque: An American
Genre and Other Essays. Carbondale: Southern
Illinois University Press, 1962.

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Creator Wonder, Robin Dale (author)

Core Title The grotesque in the Petersburg and other stories of Nikolai Gogol

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Slavic Languages and Literatures

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

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