The role of fiction in works. Fantasy is a genre in literature

Nomination:

Essays in Russian

Gogol... Is there mysticism in his works? Absolutely yes. Take, for example, the stories “Portrait”, “Viy”, “The Nose”. Only a blind person would not notice that the events described here are not entirely plausible, or even better, that they are in fact impossible at all. Who could now answer why Gogol, who is most often called a realist, began to use fantasy?

One can easily say that this phenomenon is the fruit of literary fashion. The Golden Age of Russian Literature. Late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. More and more writers are beginning to move away from the strict, ordinary and boring ideals of classicism. It cannot, of course, be said that the classicists did not use mysticism at all. The fact is that they did not focus attention on it, but within the framework of romanticism that had begun to develop, this way of expressing thoughts seemed very effective and relevant. Following Derzhavin, who was the first to cross the thresholds of classicism, domestic romantics and sentimentalists appear. With his ballads “Lyudmila” and “Svetlana,” Zhukovsky opens for the Russian reader the world of romanticism - a universe where heroes strive to change the surrounding reality, resist it, or reject it, run away from it. In addition, the heroes of romanticism represent people obsessed with a certain idea that differs from the traditional ones. Misunderstood by one reality, they try to find another, ideal, but non-existent. As a result of the rejection of reality, mysticism appears. In reality, such people in Russia, in the world of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, were an absolute minority, if not to say that they did not exist at all. Since in those years it was not customary to be different from society and to live differently from previous generations, the romantic hero for Russia is already a real fantasy and mysticism. As for the romantic heroes, I think that to some extent one can call such characters unimaginable for readers of the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, because until now a person who tried to do something differently than others caused a sharp and radical disapproval of society. For a long time, people could not afford to leave the traditional way of life and views on things, so the free thoughts and actions of a romantic hero could easily seem incomprehensible and, quite possibly, fantastic.

And yet most readers were attracted to completely different things. If the work contained mystical motives, then all the attention of the average reader was not directed at all to the main character, not to his unusualness, rebellion and the like, but to the surreal event itself. This interest can be explained quite simply. People who had been developing a very limited outlook for centuries wanted to get closer to something unknown, to touch with their minds, and if possible, with their souls, things that they could not even imagine before. Wasn’t it interesting for the common reader to observe how in Gogol’s story the portrait played the role of a living character and, in fact, decided the destinies of people, seducing and dooming their souls to suffering? Undoubtedly, this caused a certain excitement, because, in fact, one of the main characters is a painting, an inanimate thing. A big role in the philistine interest of the reader of the Golden Age is played not simply by the presence of something mystical, but by the encounter with it of an ordinary mortal person.

“Cold sweat poured over him all over; his heart beat as hard as it could beat; her chest was so tight, as if her last breath wanted to fly out of her. “Was it really a dream?” he said...” This is the picture of a person’s first meeting with an otherworldly force face to face, which Gogol vividly shows us in the story “Portrait.” It is precisely this point that is of main interest to readers. A simple person is left alone with something incomprehensible and unknown. The 19th century reader is carried away by this because, most likely, he puts himself in Chartkov’s place, and it turns out that he is no longer observing the main character himself, but, in fact, himself in the person of the main character. In this case, the reader wants to find out what feelings will be experienced, what actions the hero will take in an unfamiliar situation and, using their example, feel similar, close feelings. He wanted to look somewhere on the other side of life, but only in a narrow sense, since most people only wanted to make sure that something mystical existed, that it was nearby, but not to figure out what it was. In this same small fragment of the work, Gogol also begins to play with the reader. Not only does he quite colorfully describe Chartkov’s panic attack, he also creates a “dream within a dream.” And this, of course, is no longer entirely fantasy, because similar things happen in reality, but from such a technique we finally lose sobriety and the perception of the objectivity of what is happening inside the story, because it becomes impossible to distinguish a dream from reality. We already believed that the moneylender from the portrait is walking around the artist’s room, that Chartkov is holding in his hand a scroll that the old man dropped, but this turns out to be a dream. Then another nightmare, but it is also a fiction. And so on. With this Gogol attracts the reader even more.

“... his whole face almost came to life, and his eyes looked at him so that he finally shuddered and, backing away, said in an astonished voice: “He looks, he looks with human eyes!” - writes Gogol. There is one interesting feature in this: at the same time when Gogol creates for us a picture of some demonic force in the form of an animated portrait, he tells us that the face of the moneylender has all the features of a person and, perhaps, even resembles him more, than some real people. Perhaps Gogol makes a certain hint, a message to readers, which, most likely, the vast majority went unnoticed. And yet, putting otherworldly forces on the human body, he says that all demons and devils, despite their supernaturalism, can hide in one single person, that otherworldly forces are here, not millions of kilometers away, but somewhere very close, almost always, they are next to each of us, and even inside us. Everyone has their own demons and angels deep down, constantly fighting for the human soul. Isn't this an otherworldly force? She's the one! Only it is located on the other side of our body: in our consciousness, thoughts, emotions, ideas and actions, to which all of the above inclines us. This speaks to the duality of the nature of mysticism. On the one hand, it is distant, inaccessible and incomprehensible, and on the other, it is so close that it constantly remains unnoticed by anyone.

This is why fantasy literature attracted readers in the 19th century. Everyone wanted to look into the eyes of otherworldly power, and some wanted to figure out what it really is and where to look for it. Cities, technologies, ideologies changed, but the reader remained the same. Mystical literature was in demand in the reading society of the 19th and 20th centuries, which means that the authors could well have been carried away by the trends of the era and literary fashion.

Is the answer to this question really so simple and banal? No, it’s too early to exclaim “eureka!”, because, as it seems to me, it is unlikely that an author with at least a share of talent and common sense can only afford to follow a certain fashion without investing any meaning in his works. What then prompted Gogol to use mystical motifs in his works? Let us assume that the genre of the work dictated his use of mysticism. Of course, Gogol, when choosing the genre of a mystical story, had to include fantastic elements. A nose walking separately from its owner in Gogol’s story of the same name, a revived painting from “Portrait,” “ghouls and ghouls” from “Viy.” Would these works have worked without the elements of mysticism? Perhaps yes, but in that case they would definitely be less bright and would not have the same artistic impact. However, it is incorrect to say that the mysticism in all works is determined only by their genre. Now it is important to say something else: in what style did he write? Gogol in his early years, as is known, gravitated towards romanticism, but later realistic tendencies began to dominate in his work. There is an erroneous common opinion that realism does not tolerate mysticism at all. This is certainly not true. There are mystical elements there, of course. Another question is why and for what purpose realist authors use fantasy in their works.

During the time of the romantics, many did not accept their works, but realism found even less understanding in society. “The nineteenth-century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban when he saw his reflection in the mirror. The nineteenth-century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban at not seeing his reflection in the mirror,” says Oscar Wilde in The Picture of Dorian Gray. That is, it can be assumed that people did not like romantic heroes because they seemed implausible, society could not compare these characters with themselves, the heroes of the works were different from the readers, and often even better than them, and therefore caused dissatisfaction. But the heroes of realism were too similar, and readers, knowing that this also affected them, did not want to accept the hero’s flaws that became noticeable, and sometimes perceived them as a personal insult. Here, mysticism in works is a way of expressing reality. This is a mask in which the author dresses reality, wanting to convey its real meaning to people. “Nose completely hid his face in a large standing collar and prayed with an expression of the greatest piety. “How to approach him? - thought Kovalev. - From everything, from his uniform, from his hat, it is clear that he is a state councilor. The devil knows how to do it!” He began to cough near him; but the nose did not leave its pious position for a minute and bowed,” this is how Gogol describes Kovalev’s meeting with his own nose. At first glance, a completely absurd situation. A person is afraid to approach his nose. But still we see that the nose is higher in rank than its owner. In this story, the nose is a projection of the hero's desires. Kovalev always wanted to become a state councilor, he prepared for this, but when he saw his nose in such a rank, he felt horror. Perhaps this suggests that Kovalev was afraid of his desires and was not as important and great as he felt. Can we talk about any kind of greatness of a person: spiritual or physical, if he was afraid to approach his own nose only because the latter had a higher rank? In life, Kovalev raised his nose so much that he eventually separated himself and became, indeed, taller than him. To those readers who did not delve into the deep meaning of the story, it seemed like an absurd joke; to those who penetrated further, this meaning was revealed. And all this was done with the help of mysticism. For the first, it distracted from what was hidden inside; for the second, on the contrary, these events were signs to understand the work. One of the purposes of mysticism in literature is to hide the meaning of a work from those who are unable to understand it correctly.

But we should not forget that almost all of the previously mentioned reasons are exclusively external in nature, that is, based on some extraneous conditions: features of the genre, fashion for fantastic literature, and so on. At the same time, there are a number of other reasons, individual for each author. And above all, it was allegorical and allegorical. Every mystical event or character has its own meaning; they cannot exist inside a work just like that. In the story “Portrait,” Gogol, with the help of mystical elements, directly starts a conversation with the reader on a philosophical topic. “This was no longer art: it even destroyed the harmony of the portrait itself. These were alive, these were human eyes!” He talks about what art is and what is the role of the creator? “Or is slavish, literal imitation of nature already an offense and seems like a bright, obscene cry?” These lines, as well as the entire story, contain a rather simple meaning. The whole story with the portrait is a big allegory. That is, when we are told about a supposedly demonic portrait, in fact we are talking about the artist’s betrayal of his talent. Gogol directly tells us that art is something more than blind copying of nature. It involves improving nature, investing every part of it with meaning. An artist, sculptor, writer - any real creator who is not mediocre and does not do everything just for the sake of money and fame, must not only recreate an accurate picture of nature, but also fill it with meaning, otherwise it will not be art, there will only be “slavish imitation” . The phrase used by Gogol suggests that a person who makes an absolute copy is literally in captivity of his mediocrity, he does not have enough talent to realize what art really is. This is probably one of the answers why realist authors need science fiction. If you simply describe events, then art will not work; it will still be the same “slavish imitation.” We see such thoughts in the lines of Gogol’s “Portrait”. Fantasy here is an allegorical way of presenting the author’s thoughts about the nature of art. Besides all this, Gogol describes a very interesting thing in this story. He turns the moneylender into a demonic portrait, and, on the contrary, makes the image of Psyche human. That is, he creates a devilish otherworldly force from an ordinary mortal, and turns Psyche, who was considered the muse and goddess of the soul in Greek mythology, into an ordinary person. It’s difficult to say what sign Gogol gave by this, but for some reason, it seems to me that here we are talking about how the souls of true creators with real talent were destroyed, because, in fact, both of these artists changed their art for the worse. Chartkov lowered the goddess to a man, adding a drop of nature, and the one who painted the portrait reduced the man to a demon, copying nature exactly. This is confirmed later, when Chartkov sees a picture drawn by his friend, something from the past awakens in him. The artist paints a fallen angel, and what, if anything, can speak of the fall of the human soul and the loss of talent.

If we go further, then all this, both Chartkov’s interaction with the portrait and Gogol’s very attempt to understand what art is, is a chance for an ordinary person to look into the unknown, to see reality hidden from the eyes of the majority. Mysticism is an attempt to rethink the conventional reality that everyone perceives, and to discover something new within oneself. But sometimes such forces turn out to be too great, and attempts to interact with it can break the hero’s psyche, force him to change his values, persuading him to succumb to temptations. For Chartkov, it all ended exactly like this - the artist went crazy. The situation is exactly similar to this in the story “Viy” by Gogol. Khoma Brut looks into the eyes of the demonic force, and since the eyes are the mirror of the soul, it turns out that he looked into the otherworldly force directly into the soul. Having comprehended the soul, you can learn a large amount of information; Khoma Brut, apparently, learned too much about otherworldly force, and it, in turn, destroyed his physical body. With these works, Gogol poses another interesting question: should a person even try and want to see something on the other side or should he moderate his curiosity? All these are attempts to look into the dark abyss, which in almost all works turn out to be unsuccessful for the heroes. And mysticism plays a vital role in this. It serves as a kind of crooked bottomless mirror that helps authors convey the essence of reality, distorting its surface, that is, the reality that most readers are accustomed to perceive. At the same time, if we get too carried away by it and consider in this mirror what we are simply not allowed to know, then it can kill or deprive both the heroes and the readers of their sanity. In this mirror, despite the fact that the image is distorted, that is, reality is described using fantastic motifs, the reader can examine himself and the reality familiar to him. Appealing to mysticism “shatters” in some sense the reader’s perception; such images have a great artistic impact.

N. Rybina

Fiction is a special form of representing reality, which is logically incompatible with the real idea of the world around us. It is widespread in mythology, folklore, art and expresses a person’s worldview in special, grotesque and “supernatural” images. In literature, fantasy developed on the basis of romanticism, the main principle of which was the depiction of an exceptional hero acting in exceptional circumstances. This freed the writer from any restrictive rules and gave him freedom to realize his creative potential and abilities. Apparently, this attracted him, who actively used fantastic elements in his works. The combination of the romantic and realistic becomes the most important feature of Gogol's works and does not destroy the romantic conventions. Descriptions of everyday life, comic episodes, national details are successfully combined with the lyrical musicality characteristic of romanticism, with a conventional lyrical landscape expressing the mood and emotional richness of the narrative. National color and fantasy, reference to legends, fairy tales, and folk legends testify to the formation of a national, original principle in creativity.
This feature of the writer is most clearly reflected in his collection “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka”. Here, folk demonology and fantasy appear either in a grotesque form (“The Lost Letter”, “The Enchanted Place”, “The Night Before Christmas”), or in a tragically terrible form (“Terrible Revenge”).
The folklore origin can be traced both in the plot of the stories and in the essence of the conflict - this is a traditional conflict, which consists in overcoming obstacles standing in the way of lovers, in the reluctance of relatives to marry a girl to a loved one. With the help of “evil spirits” these obstacles are usually overcome.
Unlike many romantics, for whom the fantastic and the real are sharply separated and exist on their own, Gogol’s fantasy is closely intertwined with reality and serves as a means of comic or satirical depiction of heroes; it is based on the folk element.
Gogol’s fantasy is built on the idea of two opposite principles - good and evil, divine and devilish (as in folk art), but there is no good fantasy, it is all intertwined with “evil spirits”.
It should be noted that the fantastic elements in “Evenings...” are not an accidental phenomenon in the writer’s work. Using the example of almost all of his works, the evolution of fantasy is traced, and the ways of introducing it into the narrative are being improved.
Pagan and Christian motives in the use of demonological characters in the collection “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka”

In literary studies devoted to creativity, there is a consistent tendency to emphasize the features of the Christian worldview when it comes to the last years of the writer’s life, the period of “Selected Places...” and, conversely, when analyzing his early stories, to focus on Slavic demonology. It seems that this point of view requires revision.
believes that Gogol’s early work, if you look at it from a spiritual point of view, opens up from a side unexpected for ordinary perception: it is not only a collection of funny stories in the folk spirit, but also an extensive religious teaching, in which there is a struggle between good and evil, and good invariably wins, and sinners are punished.
The truly encyclopedic world of “Evenings...” reflects the life, customs, legends of the Ukrainian people, as well as the foundations of their worldview. Pagan and pre-Christian motifs in Gogol’s artistic system are presented in their synthesis and at the same time sharply contrasted, and their opposition is not perceived as fictitious and artificial.
Let us first turn to specific examples and start with the question of what pre-Christian beliefs and ideas were reflected in Gogol’s “Evenings...”. It is known that pagans perceived the world as living, spiritualized, personified. In Gogol's stories, nature lives and breathes. In Gogol’s “Ukrainian” stories, the writer’s penchant for myth-making was fully demonstrated. Creating his own mythical reality, the writer uses ready-made examples of mythology, in particular Slavic. His early works reflected the ideas of the ancient Slavs about evil spirits.
A special role in Gogol’s artistic world is played by such demonological characters as devils, witches, and mermaids. I. Ognenko pointed out that Christianity not only brought new names and Ukrainian demonology (devil, demon, Satan), but also changed the very view of it: “it finally turned supernatural power into an evil, unclean force.” “Unclean” - a constant name for the devil in Ukrainian stories - is contrasted in Gogol with the Christian soul, in particular, the soul of the Cossack Cossack. We see this antithesis in “The Enchanted Place”, “Terrible Vengeance” and other works of the early period.
Crap– one of the most popular characters in Ukrainian demonology, personifying evil forces. In accordance with popular ideas of pagan times, he is similar to Chernobog (the antipode of Belobog). Later, “he was presented as a foreigner, dressed in a short jacket or tailcoat and narrow trousers.” It was believed that he was afraid of the cross. The description of the devil in Gogol’s stories corresponds to ancient folk beliefs: “in front he is completely German<…>but behind him he was a real provincial lawyer in uniform.” The demonological character in this context is reduced and personified. “Over the course of several centuries, folk laughter culture has developed stable traditions of simplification, de-demonization and domestication of Christian-mythological images of evil,” notes. A striking example of the de-demonization of the image of the devil can be the story “The Night Before Christmas,” where he is presented in a distinctly comic manner with a muzzle that constantly twirled and sniffed everything that came in its way. The clarification - “the muzzle ended in a round little snout like our pigs” - gives it a homely quality. Before us is not just a devil, but our own Ukrainian devil. The analogy of the demonic and the human is intertwined, emphasized by the writer in the depiction of evil spirits. The devil in “The Night Before Christmas” is “an agile dandy with a tail and a goat’s beard,” a cunning animal that steals the month, “grimacing and blowing, like a man who got fire for his cradle with his bare hands.” He “builds love hens”, drives up as a “little demon”, cares for Solokha, etc. A similar description is found in the story “The Lost Letter”, where “devils with dog faces, on German legs, twirling their tails, hovered around the witches, as if guys around red girls.” In “Sorochinskaya Fair”, from individual references to the “red scroll” and an inserted episode (the godfather’s story), an image of a devil-reveler appears, who was expelled from the inferno for sitting in a tavern all day until he drank his “red scroll”. In “The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala” Bisavryuk is also a reveler. But it evokes a feeling of fear. This is “the devil in human form”, “demonic man”. Gogol uses here the motif of selling the soul to the devil, widespread in world literature, in exchange for wealth and money. This story, like many others from the “Evenings...” series, can be considered as a religious teaching. The author does not declare the idea that an alliance with evil spirits has sad consequences and brings misfortune. He presents it in a figurative form, demonstrating its validity throughout the course of the action.
The question of the sources of the image of the devil in Gogol’s “Evenings...” requires separate consideration and cannot be resolved unambiguously. Gogol took advantage of the wandering plot, which is a complex product of international communication. Of course, it is also the fact that the creator of “Evenings...” was strongly influenced by Ukrainian folk legends, beliefs, as well as literary sources. According to P. Filippovich, the image of the devil in Gogol’s first collection goes back to Gulak-Artemovsky’s ballad “Pan Tvardovsky,” which was very popular.
saw the source of the comic image of the devil in hagiographic and ascetic literature, noting that “the holy ascetics, indulging in prayer and hardship, triumphed over all the temptations and tricks of the devil,” who “turned into a simple-minded demon playing the comic role.” The researcher’s assumption that the comic image of the devil could have appeared in Gogol under the influence of nativity plays of the Ukrainian theater also seems convincing: “the devil of the Little Russian theater is of a harmless nature and plays a service and comic role near the Cossack.”
As in the works of other romantics, the artistic world in Gogol’s works is bifurcated: the real, real, earthly, daytime world and the world of fanciful fantasy, night, dark. At the same time, Gogol’s fantasy is connected with mythology, and this connection is so close that we can talk about its mythologized character.
The fragmentation of the world in Gogol is emphasized by the fact that people and mythological creatures are in the same space and exist at the same time. Solokha is a witch and an ordinary woman. She can fly on a broom, meet with the devil and with very real fellow villagers. The hero of “The Lost Letter” makes a journey to hell, where he is subjected to “demonic deception.”
The sorcerer in “Terrible Revenge” has many faces: he is both a Cossack, and Katerina’s father, and a creature opposed to the people, an enemy, a traitor. The sorcerer is capable of performing various miracles, but he is powerless before Christian symbols, shrines and covenants. In the perception of Danil Burulbash, he is the Antichrist, and even his own daughter Katerina sees him as an apostate.
Demonological motifs are very important in the artistic structure of the stories “May Night, or the Drowned Woman,” “The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala,” “The Night Before Christmas.” Image plays an important role here witches.
In folk tales and legends there are old and young witches. Gogol’s “Evenings...” also presents different types of this character, widespread in Ukrainian demonology. In “May Night,” the centurion’s young wife, “blushing and white,” turns out to be a stern stepmother, a terrible witch, capable of turning into other creatures and doing evil: she drives the little lady away from the world. In “The Missing Letter,” the witches are “discharged, smeared, like little ladies at a fair.” In “The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala” the witch “with a face like a baked apple” is a terrible sorceress who appears in the form of a black dog, then a cat and pushes Petrus Bezrodny to commit a crime. Gogol's Solokha does not make such a terrible impression, perhaps because she lives in two worlds. In everyday life, she is a “kind woman” who “knew how to charm the most sedate Cossacks to herself.” Portly and loving, she belongs to the category of witches on the grounds that she loves to fly on a broom, collect stars and is the devil's mistress.
Mermaids- goddesses of reservoirs in Slavic mythology are depicted by Gogol in the story “The May Daughter”. The story of the little lady-Verenitsa" href="/text/category/verenitca/" rel="bookmark">rows running out of the water. They are extremely attractive. However, Gogol’s enthusiastic description of the mermaid ends with the author’s warning: “Run, baptized man! her mouth - ice, bed - cold water; it will tickle you and drag you into the river." The antithesis of the mermaid - "unbaptized children" and "baptized person" emphasizes the hostility of pagan elements and Christian ideas.
Most of the images of Ukrainian demonology are of pre-Christian origin. Christian and pagan motifs are intricately intertwined in the artistic fabric of “Evenings...”.
We also see a synthesis of pagan and Christian motifs in the depiction of holidays, which is especially clearly manifested in “The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala” and “The Night Before Christmas.” In particular, the phrase “Ivana Kupala” in the title of the story recalls the pagan holiday Kupala, widespread among the Slavic peoples. Which was celebrated on the night of July 6-7. With the introduction of Christianity, the holiday of John of the Cross appeared, and in the popular consciousness, pre-Christian and Christian traditions were combined, which was reflected in the celebration of Ivan Kupala.
The author of “Evenings...” shows an increased interest in Slavic demonology. But in all the stories where there is an evil spirit - the embodiment of evil - it turns out to be defeated and punished. "<…>Overcoming the devil is one of the main themes of “Evenings...”, he notes. In the fight against it, the importance of Christian shrines and symbols is emphasized, in particular, the cross, the sign of the cross, prayer, sprinkler and holy water. The mention of them in the text of Gogol’s stories takes up little space at first glance, but they play an important role in the author’s concept of the world, of which Christian culture is an integral part. The Christian elements are especially noticeable in the “truths” told by the sexton of the Dikan Church, Foma Grigorievich. For example, having mentioned his grandfather in the story “The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala,” the narrator does not forget to add “the kingdom of heaven to him!”, and, remembering the evil one and his tricks, “so that his son of a dog dreams of the holy cross.” We encounter similar accents in “The Enchanted Place.” In all the “episodes” told by Foma Grigorievich, the only salvation from evil spirits is the sign of the cross. In “The Enchanted Place,” the grandfather puts up crosses if he hears about the “cursed place.” Here the devil is “the enemy of the Lord Christ, who cannot be trusted...”. The motive for selling one’s soul to the devil is one of the key ones in the story “The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala”, in the finale of which the sign of the cross is mentioned several times as the only salvation from evil spirits: “Father Afanasy walked throughout the village with holy water and drove the devil with sprinklers.” In “The Lost Letter” - a story about “how the witches played fool with their late grandfather” - the hero manages to win and save the missing letter thanks to the fact that he guessed to cross the cards. The theme of overcoming the devil is one of the key ones in the story “The Night Before Christmas.” Here the devil is contrasted with Vakula, whose piety the author repeatedly emphasizes: “a God-fearing man,” “the most pious man of the entire village,” who painted images of saints, in particular, the Evangelist Luke. The triumph of his art was the painting in which “he depicted Saint Peter on the day of the Last Judgment, expelling an evil spirit from hell; the frightened devil rushed in all directions, anticipating his death...” Since then, the evil one has been hunting for Vakula, wanting to take revenge on him. However, he failed to buy Vakula’s soul, despite promises (“I’ll give you as much money as you want”). The sign of the cross created by Vakula made the devil obedient, and the blacksmith himself turned out to be much more cunning than the devil.
The story “Terrible Vengeance” is one of the key stories in the collection; it summarizes the Christian motives reflected in it. An important role is played in it by the motif of God’s righteous judgment, which is repeated twice: first, Katerina’s soul warns her father that “the Last Judgment is near,” then in the story about two Cossacks, Peter and Ivan, which was told by a blind bandura player. In this intercalated legend that concludes the story, the foreground is the motif of betrayal, which goes back to biblical archetypes. After all, Peter betrayed his brother, like Judas. The image of a foreign land, barely outlined at the beginning of the story, is connected with the image of the sorcerer. The miraculous power of icons helps to reveal the true appearance of a sorcerer. Under the influence of holy icons and prayer, the unkind guest “appeared”. The motive for selling the soul to the devil in this story is connected not only with the image of the sorcerer, but also with his ancestors, “unclean grandfathers” who “were ready to sell themselves to Satan for money with their soul.” The sorcerer - “brother to the devil”, like the evil spirit, tempts Katerina’s soul, asks to be released from the cell where Danilo Burulbash imprisoned him. And in order to win her over to his side, he starts talking about the Apostle Paul, who was a sinful man, but repented and became a saint: “I will repent: I will go to the caves, put a stiff hair shirt on my body, day and night I will pray to God.” The motive of holiness is contrasted in this episode with the false oaths of the sorcerer. The sorcerer, capable of many miracles, cannot pass through the walls that the holy schema-monk built.
The importance of Christian motifs in Gogol's first collection cannot be underestimated. The Christian worldview is an integral part of the characteristics of the author and his heroes. The unreal, night world, inhabited by devils, witches, mermaids and other characters of ancient Slavic mythology, is assessed from the point of view of Christian ideology, and its main character - the devil - is ridiculed and defeated. Christian and pagan motifs and symbols in Gogol’s “Evenings...” are sharply contrasted and at the same time presented in synthesis as opposite poles that characterize the people's worldview.

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol is a completely unique writer, unlike other masters of words. There is a lot in his work that is striking, arousing admiration and surprise: the funny is intertwined with the tragic, the fantastic with the real. It has long been established that the basis of Gogol’s comic is carnival, that is, a situation where the heroes seem to put on masks, display unusual properties, change places and everything seems confused, mixed up. On this basis, a very unique Gogolian fantasy arises, rooted in the depths of folk culture.

Gogol entered Russian literature as the author of the collection “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka.” The material of the stories is truly inexhaustible: these are oral stories, legends, stories on both modern and historical topics. “If only they would listen and read,” says beekeeper Rudy Panko in the preface to the first part of the collection, “but I, perhaps, because I’m too damn lazy to rummage, can get enough of ten such books.”

The past in “Evenings...” appears in an aura of fabulousness and wonder. In him the writer saw a spontaneous play of good and evil forces, morally healthy people, not affected by the spirit of profit, pragmatism and mental laziness. Here Gogol depicts Little Russian folk, festive, fair life.

The holiday, with its atmosphere of freedom and fun, the beliefs and adventures associated with it, takes people out of the framework of their usual existence, making the impossible possible. Previously impossible marriages are concluded (“Sorochinskaya Fair”, “May Night”, “The Night Before Christmas”), all kinds of evil spirits become active: devils and witches tempt people, trying to prevent them.

The holiday in Gogol's stories is all kinds of transformations, disguises, hoaxes, and the revelation of secrets. Gogol's laughter in "Evenings..." is genuine fun, based on rich folk humor. He is able to express in words the comic contradictions and incongruities that are numerous both in the holiday atmosphere and in ordinary everyday life.

The originality of the artistic world of stories is associated, first of all, with the widespread use of folklore traditions: it was in folk tales, semi-pagan legends and traditions that Gogol found themes and plots for his works. He used the belief about a fern blooming on the night before Ivan Kupala; a legend about mysterious treasures, about selling the soul to the devil, about flights and transformations of witches and much, much more. In a number of his stories and tales there are mythological characters: sorcerers and witches, werewolves and mermaids and, of course, the devil, to whose tricks popular superstition is ready to attribute any evil deed.

“Evenings...” is a book of truly fantastic incidents. For Gogol, the fantastic is one of the most important aspects of the people's worldview. Reality and fantasy are intricately intertwined in people's ideas about the past and present, about good and evil. The writer considered the penchant for legendary-fantastic thinking to be an indicator of people’s spiritual health.

The fiction in “Evenings...” is ethnographically reliable. Heroes and narrators of incredible stories believe that the entire region of the unknown is inhabited by wickedness, and the “demonological” characters themselves are shown by Gogol in a reduced, everyday guise. They are also “Little Russians”, but they live on their own “territory”, from time to time fooling ordinary people, interfering in their life, celebrating and playing with them.

For example, the witches in “The Missing Letter” play the fool, inviting the narrator’s grandfather to play with them and, if lucky, return his hat. The devil in the story “The Night Before Christmas” looks like “a real provincial attorney in uniform.” He grabs the month and gets burned, blowing on his hand, like a man who accidentally grabbed a hot frying pan. Declaring his love to the “incomparable Solokha,” the devil “kissed her hand with such antics as an assessor for a priest.” Solokha herself is not only a witch, but also a villager, greedy and loving for fans.

Folk fiction is intertwined with reality, clarifying relationships between people, separating good and evil. As a rule, the heroes in Gogol's first collection defeat evil. The triumph of man over evil is a folklore motif. The writer filled it with new content: he affirmed the power and strength of the human spirit, capable of curbing the dark, evil forces that dominate nature and interfere in people's lives.

The second period of Gogol’s work opened with a kind of “prologue” - the “St. Petersburg” stories “Nevsky Prospekt”, “Notes of a Madman” and “Portrait”, which were included in the collection “Arabesques”. The author explained the title of this collection as follows: “Confusion, mixture, porridge.” Indeed, a variety of material is included here: in addition to novels and short stories, there are also articles and essays on various topics.

The first three of the “St. Petersburg” stories that appear in this collection seem to connect different periods of the writer’s work: “Arabesques” was published in 1835, and the last story, completing the cycle of “St. Petersburg” stories, “The Overcoat,” was written already in 1842.

All these stories, different in plot, theme, and characters, are united by the location of action - St. Petersburg. With him, the writer’s work includes the theme of a big city and human life in it. But for the writer, St. Petersburg is not just a geographical space. He created a vivid image-symbol of the city, both real and illusory, fantastic. In the destinies of the heroes, in the ordinary and incredible incidents of their lives, in the rumors, rumors and legends with which the very air of the city is saturated, Gogol finds a mirror reflection of the St. Petersburg “phantasmagoria”. In St. Petersburg, reality and fantasy easily change places. The daily life and destinies of the city's inhabitants are on the verge of the believable and the miraculous. The incredible suddenly becomes so real that a person cannot stand it - he goes crazy, gets sick and even dies.

Gogol's Petersburg is a city of incredible incidents, ghostly and absurd life, fantastic events and ideals. Any metamorphosis is possible in it. The living turns into a thing, a puppet (such are the inhabitants of the aristocratic Nevsky Prospect). A thing, object or part of the body becomes a “person”, an important person, sometimes even with a high rank (for example, the nose that disappeared from the collegiate assessor Kovalev has the rank of state councilor). The city depersonalizes people, distorts their good qualities, highlights their bad qualities, changing their appearance beyond recognition.

The stories “The Nose” and “The Overcoat” depict two poles of St. Petersburg life: absurd phantasmagoria and everyday reality. These poles, however, are not as far from each other as they might seem at first glance. The plot of “The Nose” is based on the most fantastic of all city “stories”. Gogol’s fantasy in this work is fundamentally different from the folk-poetic fantasy in “Evenings...”. There is no source of the fantastic here: the nose is part of St. Petersburg mythology, which arose without the intervention of otherworldly forces. This is a special mythology - bureaucratic, generated by the omnipotent invisible - the “electricity” of the rank.

The nose behaves as befits a “significant person” who has the rank of state councilor: he prays in the Kazan Cathedral, walks along Nevsky Prospect, visits the department, makes visits, and plans to leave for Riga using someone else’s passport. Where it came from is of no interest to anyone, including the author. One can even assume that he “fell from the moon,” because according to the madman Poprishchin from “Notes of a Madman,” “the moon is usually made in Hamburg,” and is inhabited by noses. Any, even the most delusional, assumption is not excluded. The main thing is different - the “two-facedness” of the nose. According to some signs, this is definitely the real nose of Major Kovalev. But the second “face” of the nose is social, which is higher in rank than its owner, because they see the rank, but not the person. Fantasy in The Nose is a mystery that is nowhere and is everywhere. This is the strange unreality of St. Petersburg life, in which any delusional vision is indistinguishable from reality.

In “The Overcoat,” the “little man,” the “eternal titular adviser” Akaki Akakievich Bashmachkin becomes part of St. Petersburg mythology, a ghost, a fantastic avenger who terrifies “significant persons.” It would seem that a completely ordinary, everyday story - about how a new overcoat was stolen - grows not only into a vividly social story about the relationship in the bureaucratic system of St. Petersburg life between a “little man” and a “significant person”, but also develops into a work of mystery, posing the question: what is a person, how and why does he live, what does he encounter in the world around him?

This question remains open, as does the fantastic ending of the story. Who is the ghost who finally found “his” general and disappeared forever after tearing off his greatcoat? This is a dead man avenging the insult of a living person; the sick conscience of a general who creates in his brain the image of a person offended by him who died as a result of this? Or maybe this is just an artistic device, a “bizarre paradox,” as Vladimir Nabokov believed, arguing that “the man who was mistaken for the overcoatless ghost of Akaki Akakievich is, after all, the man who stole his overcoat”?

Be that as it may, along with the mustachioed ghost, all the fantastic grotesqueries disappear into the darkness of the city, resolving themselves in laughter. But a very real and very serious question remains: how in this absurd world, the world of alogism, bizarre entanglements, fantastic stories that pretend to be very real situations of ordinary life, how in this world can a person defend his true identity, preserve a living soul? Gogol will seek the answer to this question for the rest of his life, using completely different artistic means.

But Gogol’s fiction forever became the property of not only Russian, but also world literature, and entered its golden fund. Contemporary art openly acknowledges Gogol as its mentor. The capacity and devastating power of laughter are paradoxically combined in his work with tragic shock. Gogol seemed to have discovered the common root of the tragic and the comic. The echo of Gogol in art can be heard in the novels of Bulgakov, and in the plays of Mayakovsky, and in the phantasmagoria of Kafka. Years will pass, but the mystery of Gogol’s laughter will remain for new generations of his readers and followers.

Description

Expressive means are the main technique with which the author of a literary work has the opportunity to convey to the audience an idea that excites him. Finding verbal expression, heroes, an idea also needs a special way of presenting the material in order to be as accessible as possible to readers.

The work consists of 1 file

Introduction

One of the most effective means of expression is the grotesque. It allows you to express the author’s intention in a unique form, point the reader to certain events, phenomena, features of human relations; In addition, the grotesque allows the author not to speak directly, and allows the reader to think, to independently come to the conclusions that the author intended for him.

One of the outstanding writers who used the grotesque was Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. In this work we will look at the grotesque in two of his works - “The Nose” and “The Overcoat”.

Objectives of this work:

Define grotesque

Identify the role of the grotesque in the works of N.V. Gogol's "Nose" and "Overcoat".

When writing this work, critical materials from the works of N.V. were used as a theoretical basis. Gogol, reference literature on literary criticism. The texts of the stories “The Nose” and “The Overcoat” were used as an empirical basis.

1. The concept of the grotesque in literature

Grotesque (French grotesque, literally - whimsical; comical; Italian grottesco - whimsical, Italian grotta - grotto, cave) - a type of artistic imagery that comically or tragicomically generalizes and sharpens life relationships through a bizarre and contrasting combination of the real and the fantastic, verisimilitude and caricatures, hyperbole and alogism 1. Grotest has been inherent in artistic thinking since ancient times, it was in the works of Aristophanes, Lucian, and later - F. Rabelais, L. Stern, E. T. A. Hoffmann, N. V. Gogol, M. Twain, F. Kafka, M. A Bulgakova, M.E. Saltykova-Shchedrin. In the work “The History of a City” by Saltykov-Shchedrin and “The Nose” by Gogol, the grotest is the “dominant of the style” 2.

When used in conversation, the word grotesque usually means strange, fantastical, eccentric, or ugly, and thus is often used to describe strange or distorted forms, such as masks at Halloween or gargoyles in cathedrals. By the way, regarding visible grotesque forms in Gothic buildings, when not used as drainpipes, they should be called grotesques or chimeras, not gargoyles.

The word grotesque came into Russian from French. The primary meaning of the French grotesgue is literally grottoic, relating to a grotto or located in a grotto, from grotte - a grotto (that is, a small cave or depression), goes back to the Latin crypta - hidden, underground, dungeon. The expression originated with the discovery of ancient Roman decorations in caves and burial plots in the 15th century. These "caves" were actually the rooms and corridors of Nero's Golden House, an unfinished palace complex founded by Nero after a great fire in 64 AD. e.

In literature, the grotesque (Italian grottesco from grotto - grotto) is one of the types of comic devices in literature that combines the terrible and the funny, the ugly and the sublime in a fantastic form, and also brings together the distant, combines the incongruous, interweaves the unreal with the real, the present with the future, reveals the contradictions of reality. As a form of the comic, the grotesque differs from humor and irony in that in it the funny and amusing are inseparable from the terrible and sinister; As a rule, images of the grotesque carry a tragic meaning. In the grotesque, behind the external improbability and fantasticness, lies a deep artistic generalization of important phenomena of life.

The term "grotesque" became widespread in the fifteenth century, when excavations of underground rooms (grottoes) revealed wall paintings with intricate patterns that used motifs from plant and animal life. Therefore, distorted images were originally called grotesque.

As an artistic image, the grotesque is distinguished by its two-dimensionality and contrast. Grotesque is always a deviation from the norm, a convention, an exaggeration, an intentional caricature, therefore it is widely used for satirical purposes.

2. The meaning of the grotesque in the works of N.V. Gogol's "Nose" and "Overcoat"

Let's consider the role of the grotesque in N.V.'s story. Gogol's "Nose" and "Overcoat".

In the story “The Nose” we see St. Petersburg, or rather, its “wrong side”. Gogol shows us the wretched thinking of the inhabitants of an outwardly brilliant, well-groomed city, the deplorable pursuit of high rank, since only having a rank above the eighth can one expect that the owner of this rank will be considered person.

The main character of the story is the collegiate assessor Kovalev. A collegiate assessor is that cherished eighth rank in the table of ranks, which opens the door to a better life, full of recognition and respect. So it's no surprise that Kovalev is so proud. And it is also not surprising that Gogol chose St. Petersburg as the scene of action in the story, because where else can one not notice a person, but notice only his rank, if not in the capital? Gogol brought the situation to the point of absurdity - the nose turned out to be a fifth-class official, and those around him, despite the obviousness of his “inhuman” nature, behave with him as with a normal person, in accordance with his status. And Kovalev himself, the owner of the runaway nose, behaves in exactly the same way. “From the plumed hat one could conclude that he, the nose, was considered to be in the rank of state councilor,” 3 and this is what surprises Kovalev most of all.

To depict St. Petersburg, Gogol uses a technique such as synecdoche, which involves transferring the characteristics of the whole to its part. Thus, it is enough to say about a uniform, an overcoat, a mustache, sideburns - or a nose - to give a comprehensive idea of a particular person. A person in the city becomes depersonalized, loses his individuality, becomes part of the crowd, which perceives those around him “in an official way” - in accordance with their position.

Gogol structured his plot in such a way that this incredible event - the sudden disappearance of the nose from the face and its subsequent appearance on the street in the form of a state councilor - either does not surprise the characters at all, or surprises, but not with what it should surprise, according to the logic of things. For example, a respectable gray-haired official from a newspaper expedition listens to Kovalev’s request with absolute indifference, just as he accepts advertisements for the sale of a dacha or a courtyard wench. The only thing that arouses his curiosity (not even interest!) is what the former location of the nose now looks like - “completely smooth, as if a just baked pancake.” Kvartalny, who gave Kovalev his nose back, also did not see anything strange in this situation and even, out of habit, asked him for money.

Kovalev, in turn, is not at all worried about the fact that without a nose he is, by and large, deprived of the ability to breathe, and the first thing the major does is not to the doctor, but to the chief of police. He is only worried about how he will appear in society now; Throughout the story there are very often scenes when the major looks at pretty girls. Thanks to the author's short description, we know that Kovalev is busy looking for a bride for himself. In addition, he has “very good acquaintances” - state councilor Chekhtareva, staff officer Pelageya Grigorievna Podtochina, who obviously provide him with useful connections. When trying to explain himself with his nose in the Kazan Cathedral, Kovalev makes it clear why this situation is unacceptable for him: “Some merchant who sells peeled oranges on the Resurrection Bridge can sit without a nose; but, having in mind to receive...moreover, being familiar with ladies in many houses..." 4. Undoubtedly, this is an exaggeration to show the reader what is the real value for a St. Petersburg official.

The nose behaves as befits a “significant person” with the rank of state councilor: he makes visits, prays in the Kazan Cathedral “with an expression of the greatest piety,” visits the department, and plans to leave for Riga using someone else’s passport. Nobody cares where he came from. Everyone sees him as an important official, that’s enough. It is interesting that Kovalev himself, despite his efforts to expose him, approaches him with fear in the Kazan Cathedral and generally treats him as a person. So, for example, the nose prays, hiding “its face in a large standing collar.” The situation is also very indicative when Kovalev decides where to complain: “... to seek... satisfaction from the authorities of the place in which the nose declared himself to be an employee would be reckless... for this man nothing was sacred and he could also lie in in this case..." 5.

The grotesque in the story also lies in the unexpectedness of the narrative, in a certain absurdity. From the very first line of the work we see a clear indication of the date: “March 25th” - this does not imply any fiction. And then there’s the missing nose. There was some kind of sharp deformation of everyday life, bringing it to complete unreality. The absurdity lies in the equally dramatic change in the size of the nose. If on the first pages he is discovered by the barber Ivan Yakovlevich in a pie (that is, he has a size quite corresponding to a human nose), then at the moment when Major Kovalev first sees him, the nose is dressed in a uniform, suede trousers, a hat and even has a himself a sword - which means he is the height of an ordinary man. The last appearance of the nose in the story - and it is small again. The quarterly brings it wrapped in a piece of paper. It didn’t matter to Gogol why the nose suddenly grew to human size, and it didn’t matter why it shrank again. The central point of the story is precisely the period when the nose was perceived as a normal person.

In the story “The Overcoat,” Gogol raises the same problem - the perception of ranks, not people. Here we see an official of a slightly different kind. Before us is a modest, decent man who finds himself in certain circumstances. Gogol says that Akaki Akakievich had such a destiny - to be a low-ranking official: “Well, I can see,” said the old woman, “that, apparently, this is his destiny. If so, it would be better for him to be called like his father. The father was Akaki, so let the son be Akaki.” This is how Akaki Akakievich came to be. The child was baptized, and he began to cry and made such a grimace, as if he had a presentiment that there would be a titular councilor” 6.

Akakiy Akakievich is even sympathetic to the reader in some ways. He is a responsible person who treats his work with sincere love. He really enjoys rewriting letters because letters are his only friends. Akakiy Akakievich communicates with living people only when necessary, because these people are empty for him. Akaki Akakievich does not pursue rank, respect for superiors, etc., he simply does his job, lives in his own world and is happy with what he has.

A leaky overcoat is an unfortunate incident in his life. Living in his own world, he would not have noticed the wear of his overcoat if he had not started to freeze. Since then, he had a Goal - a new overcoat.

In essence, the story told by Gogol in The Overcoat is very deep. It describes not only injustice, but also the punishment for it. We see “a very significant person” who “was a kind person at heart, good with his comrades, helpful, but the rank of general completely confused him. Having received the rank of general, he somehow became confused, lost his way and did not know at all what to do. If he happened to be with his equals, he was still a proper person, a very decent person, in many respects not even a stupid person; but as soon as he happened to be in society, where there were people at least one rank lower than him, there he was simply out of hand: he was silent, and his position aroused pity, especially since he himself even felt that he could have spent his time incomparably better . Sometimes one could see in his eyes a strong desire to join some interesting conversation and circle, but the thought stopped him: wouldn’t this be too much on his part, wouldn’t it be familiar, and wouldn’t he thereby lose his importance?” 7

Gogol showed how, in general, good people, under pressure from circumstances and against their own will, behave the way they do. For this, the grotesque is an indispensable means of expression. Bashmachkin showed strength of character, reached the most “significant person”, but experienced extreme stress from undeserved scolding, which was the reason for his death. Perhaps, if the “significant person” had not raised his voice so much against Akaki Akakievich, his death would have been avoided. However, in St. Petersburg this was a completely unthinkable scenario: a “significant person” uses all his resources of “significance” against a pathetic person, from his point of view, Akaki Akakievich cannot stand it. Anyone with a rank lower than eighth could have been in his place, and most likely with the same outcome.

Conclusion

With the help of the grotesque, Gogol showed us a fairly typical state of affairs in the metropolitan society of his time. In the stories “The Nose” and “The Overcoat” we see two sides of the situation: in the first, the author seems to be conducting an experiment on the population of Peterurg, depriving a low-ranking official of his nose and placing this nose in the uniform of a state councilor, in the second, he tells the story of one official who mortally unable to withstand injustice. Gogol depicted exaggerated scenes brought to the point of absurdity, and did this with the sole purpose: to illustrate the feature of human nature that he despised, when people cease to be people, the highest stage of evolution, and become its dead-end branch, immediately losing all the best in front of the idols they created in the form high ranks. Gogol, with the help of the grotesque, showed all the wretchedness and bad outcome of this path. Let us note that other means of expression could not convey with such poignancy all the author’s pain from the state of affairs he saw in society. He reminded readers that even in the capital, where people are just cogs in a huge bureaucratic functional machine, they must remain people.

Bibliography

Vinogradov V.V. Poetics of Russian literature. M., 1976.
Dobin E.S. Life material and artistic plot. L., 1958.
Knigin I. Dictionary of literary terms. M., 2006.
Gogol N.V. Nose // Gogol N.V. Favorites. M., 1989

Gogol entered Russian literature as the author of the collection “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka.” The material of the stories is truly inexhaustible: these are oral stories, legends, stories on both modern and historical topics. “If only they would listen and read,” says beekeeper Rudy Panko in the preface to the first part of the collection, “but I, perhaps, because I’m just too damn lazy to rummage, have enough for ten such books.”

The stories “The Nose” and “The Overcoat” depict two poles of St. Petersburg life: absurd phantasmagoria and everyday reality. These poles, however, are not as far from each other as they might seem at first glance. The plot of “The Nose” is based on the most fantastic of all city “stories”. Gogol's fantasy in this work is fundamentally different from the folk-poetic fantasy in “Evenings...”. There is no source of the fantastic here: the nose is part of St. Petersburg mythology, which arose without the intervention of otherworldly forces. This is a special mythology - bureaucratic, generated by the omnipotent invisible - the “electricity” of the rank.

The nose behaves as befits a “significant person” who has the rank of state councilor: he prays in the Kazan Cathedral, walks along Nevsky Prospect, visits the department, makes visits, and plans to leave for Riga using someone else’s passport. Where it came from is of no interest to anyone, including the author. One can even assume that he “fell from the moon,” because according to the madman Poprishchin from “Notes of a Madman,” “the moon is usually made in Hamburg,” and is inhabited by noses. Any, even the most delusional, assumption is not excluded. The main thing is different - the “two-facedness” of the nose. According to some signs, this is definitely the real nose of Major Kovalev. But the second “face” of the nose is social, which is higher in rank than its owner, because they see the rank, but not the person. Fantasy in The Nose is a mystery that is nowhere to be found and is everywhere. This is the strange unreality of St. Petersburg life, in which any delusional vision is indistinguishable from reality.