The manifestation of Gogol's fantastic realism in the story “The Nose. Fantastic and real in the works of Gogol

Fantasy is a special form of displaying reality, logically incompatible with the real idea of ​​the world around. It is common in mythology, folklore, art, and in special, grotesque and "supernatural" images expresses a person's worldview. In literature, fantasy developed on the basis of romanticism, the main principle of which was the image of an exceptional hero acting in exceptional circumstances. This freed the writer from any restrictive rules, gave him the freedom to realize his creative possibilities and abilities. Apparently, this attracted him, who actively used fantastic elements in his works. The combination of the romantic and the realistic becomes the most important feature of Gogol's works and does not destroy the romantic convention. Description of life, comic episodes, national details are successfully combined with the lyrical musicality characteristic of romanticism, with a conditional lyrical landscape that expresses the mood and emotional richness of the narrative. National flavor and fantasy, appeal to legends, fairy tales, folk legends testify to the formation of a national, original beginning in the work.
This feature of the writer is most clearly reflected in his collection Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka. Here, folklore demonology and fantasy appear now in a grotesque form ("The Missing Letter", "The Enchanted Place", "The Night Before Christmas"), now in a tragically terrible ("Terrible Revenge").
The folklore beginning 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 the obstacles that stand in the way of lovers, in the unwillingness of relatives to marry a girl to a loved one. With the help of "evil spirits" these obstacles, as a rule, are overcome.
Unlike many romantics, in 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 elements of the people.
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 proper, 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. On the example of almost all of his works, the evolution of science fiction can be traced, 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 steady 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, focus on Slavic demonology. It seems that this point of view needs to be revised.
believes that Gogol's early work, if you look at it from a spiritual point of view, opens 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 the struggle between good and evil takes place, and good always wins, and sinners are punished.
In a truly encyclopedic world of "Evenings ...", the life, customs, legends of the Ukrainian people, as well as the foundations of their worldview, are reflected. Pagan and pre-Christian motifs in Gogol's artistic system are given in their synthesis and at the same time are sharply opposed, and their opposition is not perceived as invented and artificial.
Let us first turn to specific examples and start with the question of what pre-Christian beliefs and ideas are reflected in Gogol's "Evenings ...". It is known that the pagans perceived the world as living, spiritualized, personified. In Gogol's stories, nature lives and breathes. In the "Ukrainian" stories of Gogol, the writer's inclination towards myth-making was fully manifested. 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 the artistic world of Gogol is played by such demonological characters as devils, witches, 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 the supernatural force into an evil, unclean force.” "Unclean" - the constant name for the devil in Ukrainian stories - is contrasted by Gogol with the Christian soul, in particular, the soul of a Cossack-Cossack. We observe this antithesis in The Enchanted Place, Terrible Vengeance and other works of the early period.
Crap- one of the most popular characters of Ukrainian demonology, personifying evil forces. In accordance with the popular ideas of pagan times, he looks like Chernobog (the opposite of Belobog). Later, "he was represented as a foreigner, dressed in a short jacket or tailcoat, narrow pantaloons." It was believed that he was afraid of the cross. The description of the devil in Gogol's stories corresponds to ancient folk beliefs: "the front is completely German<…>but behind him he was a real provincial attorney in uniform. The demonological character in this context is reduced and personified. “Folk culture of laughter over the course of several centuries has developed stable traditions of simplification, de-demonization and domestication of Christian mythological images of evil,” he notes. A vivid example of the de-demonization of the image of the devil is the story "The Night Before Christmas", where he is presented in an emphatically comic vein with a muzzle that constantly twirls and sniffs everything that comes in its way. The clarification - "the muzzle ended, like our pigs, with a round patch" - gives it the features of homeliness. Before us is not just a devil, but our own Ukrainian devil. The analogy of demonic and human is intertwined, emphasized by the writer in the depiction of evil spirits. The devil in "The Night Before Christmas" is "a nimble dandy with a tail and a goat's beard", a cunning animal that steals the moon, "grimacing and blowing like a peasant who took out a fire for his cradle with his bare hands." He “builds love chickens”, drives up a “little demon”, takes care of Solokha, etc. A similar description is found in the story “The Lost Letter”, where “devils with dog muzzles, on German legs, wagging their tails, hovered around the witches, as if boys around red girls. In the Sorochinsky Fair, from separate references to the “red scroll” and an inserted episode (the story of a godfather), the image of a devil-reveler who was expelled from hell appears because he sat 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". Here Gogol uses the motif of selling one's soul to the devil in exchange for wealth and money, which is common in world literature. This story, like many others from the cycle "Evenings ...", can be regarded as a religious teaching. The author does not declare the idea that an alliance with evil spirits has sad consequences, brings misfortune. He presents it in a figurative form, demonstrating its justice throughout the course of the development of the action.
The question of the sources of the image of the devil in Gogol's "Evenings ..." requires a separate consideration and cannot be resolved unambiguously. Gogol took advantage of the wandering plot, which is a complex product of international communication. Of course, 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.
he 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 a comic role." The researcher's assumption is also convincing that the comic image of the devil could have appeared in Gogol under the influence of nativity plays of the Ukrainian theater: "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 bizarre fantasy, nighttime, dark. At the same time, fantasy in Gogol is connected with mythology, and this connection is so close that one can speak of 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 simultaneously. Solokha is a witch, and an ordinary woman. She can fly on a broomstick, meet the devil and quite real fellow villagers. The journey to hell is made by the hero of The Lost Letter, where he is subjected to "demonic swindle".
The sorcerer has many faces in Terrible Revenge: he is both a Cossack, and Katerina's father, and a creature opposed to the people, an enemy, a traitor. The sorcerer is able to perform various miracles, but before Christian symbols, shrines and covenants, he is powerless. 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 is an old and a young witch. In Gogol's "Evenings ..." different types of this character, common in Ukrainian demonology, are also presented. In "May Night" the centurion's young wife, "ruddy and white in her appearance," turns out to be a stern stepmother, a terrible witch, capable of turning into other creatures and doing evil: she brings the lady out of the world. In The Missing Letter, the witches are "discharged, smeared, like pannoki at a fair." In The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala, the witch “with a face like a baked apple” is a terrible witch 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 enchant 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 broomstick, collect stars and is the devil's mistress.
Mermaids- the goddesses of reservoirs in Slavic mythology are depicted by Gogol in the story "May's Daughter". The story of Pannochka-Verenitca" 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 person! 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 bizarrely intertwined in the artistic fabric of "Evenings ...".
We also observe the synthesis of pagan and Christian motifs in the depiction of holidays, which is especially pronounced in “The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala” and “The Night Before Christmas”. In particular, the phrase "Ivan Kupala" in the title of the story is reminiscent of the pagan holiday of Kupala, common among the Slavic peoples. Which was celebrated on the night of 6 to 7 July. With the introduction of Christianity, the feast of St. John the Cross appeared), and in the popular mind, 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, 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, sprinkles and holy water. At first glance, the mention of them in the text of Gogol's stories takes up little space, but they play an important role in the author's conception of the world, of which Christian culture is an integral part. The Christian elements are especially tangible in the stories told by the deacon of the Dikan church, Foma Grigorievich. For example, mentioning his grandfather in the story “The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala,” the narrator does not forget to add “God rest his soul!”, And, remembering the evil one and his tricks, “so that his dog’s son would dream of a holy cross.” We encounter similar accents in The Enchanted Place. In all the "tales" 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 “an enemy of the Lord Christ, who cannot be trusted…”. The motive of selling the 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 Athanasius walked around the village with holy water and drove the devil with an aspergator”. In "The Missing Letter" - a story about "how the witches played the fool with the late grandfather" - the hero manages to win and save the missing letter due 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, Vakula is opposed to the devil, whose piety the author repeatedly emphasizes: “a God-fearing person”, “the most pious person from the whole village”, who painted images of saints, in particular, the Evangelist Luke. The triumph of his art was a picture in which “he depicted St. Peter on the day of the Last Judgment, expelling an evil spirit from hell; the frightened devil rushed about in all directions, foreseeing his death ... ". Since then, the unclean 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 money as much 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 Revenge" is one of the key stories in the collection, it summarizes the Christian motives that are reflected in it. An important role is played in it by the motive 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 of two Cossacks - Peter and Ivan, which was told by a blind bandura player. In this insert legend, which concludes the story, in the foreground is the motive of betrayal, which goes back to biblical archetypes. After all, Peter betrayed his brother, like Judas. With the image of the sorcerer in the story, the image of a foreign land, barely outlined at its beginning, is connected. The miraculous power of icons helps to reveal the true appearance of the 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 associated not only with the image of the sorcerer, but also with his ancestors, "unclean grandfathers", who "were ready to sell themselves for money to Satan with a soul." The sorcerer - "brother of the devil", like an unclean one tempts the soul of Katerina, 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 into the caves, put on a stiff sackcloth on my body, I will pray to God day and night.” The false oaths of the sorcerer are opposed in this episode by the motive of holiness. A sorcerer capable of many miracles cannot pass through the walls that the holy schemer built.
The significance 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 characters. The surreal night world, inhabited by devils, witches, mermaids and other characters of ancient Slavic mythology, is evaluated 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 given in synthesis as opposite poles that characterize the people's worldview.

"Grotesque - the oldest artistic technique based, like hyperbole, on exaggeration sharpening the qualities and properties of people, objects, natural phenomena and facts of social life "However, not every exaggeration is grotesque. Here it has a special character: it is depicted absolutely fantastic, unrealistic, implausible and in no way possible in real life.

Along with hyperbole, the grotesque was widely used in various myths, legends and fairy tales (for example, one can recall such a fairy-tale hero as Koschey the Immortal).

The effect of grotesque images is enhanced by the fact that they are usually shown on a par with ordinary, real events.

If we talk about the story of N.V. Gogol's "The Nose", then there is also a combination of an absurd story with the disappearance of the nose and the everyday reality of St. Petersburg . Gogol's image of Petersburg qualitatively different from those that were created, for example, by Pushkin or Dostoevsky. Just as for them, for Gogol it is not just a city - it is an image-symbol; but Gogol's Petersburg is the focus of some incredible power, mysterious incidents happen here; the city is full of rumors, legends, myths.

To depict Petersburg, Gogol uses such a technique as synecdoche- the transfer of signs 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 an exhaustive idea of ​​​​a particular person. A person in the city becomes depersonalized, loses individuality, becomes part of the crowd

It seems that Gogol not without reason made St. Petersburg the scene of action of the story "The Nose". In his opinion, only here the indicated events could "occur", only in St. Petersburg they do not see the person himself behind the rank. 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, respectively his status . Yes, and Kovalev himself - the owner of the runaway nose - behaves in exactly the same way.

Gogol built his plot in such a way that this incredible event - the sudden disappearance of the nose from the face and its further appearance on the street in the form of a state adviser - either does not surprise the characters at all, or surprises, but not in the way it should, according to the logic of things. For example, a venerable gray-haired official from a newspaper expedition listens to Kovalev's request with absolutely indifference. Kvartalny, who returned his nose to Kovalev, also did not see anything strange in this situation and even out of habit asked him for money.

But what about Kovalev? He is not at all worried that without a nose, in principle, he should be deprived of the opportunity to breathe, and the first thing the major does not run to is a doctor, but to the chief police chief. He worries only about how he will now appear in society; throughout the story there are very often scenes when the major looks at pretty girls. Thanks to a small author's description, we know that he is now choosing 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 contacts. Surely this is an exaggeration to show the reader what is real value for the St. Petersburg official.

Nose behaves as it should" important person" in the rank of State Councilor: makes visits, prays in the Kazan Cathedral, calls in the department, is going to leave for Riga on someone else's passport. Nobody cares where he came from. Everyone sees in him not only a person, but also an important official . 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.

Grotesque in the story is also in surprise and, one might say, absurdity . From the very first line of the work, we see a clear designation of the date: "March 25th" - this does not immediately imply any fantasy. 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 an equally sharp change in the size of the nose. If on the first pages it is found by the barber Ivan Yakovlevich in a pie (that is, it has a size that is quite consistent with a human nose), then at the moment Major Kovalev sees him for the first time, his nose is dressed in a uniform, suede trousers, a hat, and even has himself a sword - which means that he is as tall as an ordinary man. The last appearance of the nose in the story - and again it is small. The quarterly brings it wrapped in a piece of paper. It didn't matter to Gogol why the nose had suddenly grown to human size, and it didn't matter why it shrunk again. The central moment of the story is precisely the period when the nose was perceived as a normal person.

The plot of the story is conditional the idea itself is ridiculous , but this is exactly what Gogol's grotesque consists of and, despite this, is quite realistic. Gogol extraordinarily pushed the boundaries of conventionality and showed that this conventionality serves admirably for the knowledge of life. If in this in an absurd society, everything is determined by rank, then why can't this fantastically absurd organization of life be reproduced in a fantastic plot? Gogol shows that it is not only possible, but also quite expedient. And thus art forms ultimately reflect life forms.

How do the features of Gogol's "fantastic realism" appear in the story "The Nose"? - Exactly absurdity and fantasy caused such abundant criticism of the writer. But it should be understood that this story has a double meaning, and Gogol's intention is much deeper and more instructive than it seems at first glance. It is thanks to such an incredible plot that Gogol manages to draw attention to an important topic at that time - the position of a person in society, his status and the dependence of the individual on him . From the story it becomes clear that Kovalev, who for greater importance called himself a major, all his life dedicates to career and social status, he has no other hopes and priorities.

In Russian literature, the grotesque was widely used to create vivid and unusual artistic images N. V. Gogol ("The Nose", "Notes of a Madman"), M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin ("The History of a City", "The Wild Landowner" and other fairy tales ) , F. M. Dostoevsky ("Double. The Adventures of Mr. Golyadkin").

What does the loss of the nose mean for the hero of the story? - Kovalev is losing his nose - something that, it would seem, cannot be lost for no apparent reason - and now he cannot appear in a decent place, in a secular society, at work and in any other official institution. But he fails to agree with the nose, the nose pretends that it does not understand what its owner is talking about and ignores it. With this fantastic story, Gogol wants to emphasize the flaws of the then society, the shortcomings of thinking and consciousness of that layer of society , to which the collegiate assessor Kovalev belonged.

The grotesque is an unprecedented, special world that opposes not only everyday life, but also the real, the real. Here the grotesque borders on fantasy, unrealism. It shows how absurdly the terrible and the funny, the absurd and the authentic collide.

Such is the world of Gogol's story "The Nose". Is it possible in our time for the inexplicable disappearance of Major Kovalev's nose, his flight from his rightful owner, and then an equally inexplicable return to his place. Only using the grotesque-satirical genre, Gogol was able to show this ill-fated nose, which exists both as part of the face and in the form of a state adviser serving in the scientific department. What is surprising to us, does not surprise the rest of the characters in the comedy. Unusual occurrences make us angry, and everyone looks at it as if it were a planned action. In the end, we understand that the grotesque can exist without fantasy. If you think about it, then indeed some officials walk around with their noses up, and sometimes you think that their nose controls them. To some extent, Gogol described our society, he combined the real with the absurd, the funny with the terrible.

The story "The Nose" is one of the most fun, original, fantastic and unexpected works of Nikolai Gogol. The author did not agree to the publication of this joke for a long time, but his friends persuaded him. The story was first published in the Sovremennik magazine in 1836, with a note by A.S. Pushkin. Since then, heated debates have not subsided around this work. The real and the fantastic in Gogol's story "The Nose" are combined in the most bizarre and unusual forms. Here the author reached the pinnacle of his satirical skill and painted a true picture of the mores of his time.

Brilliant grotesque

This is one of the most favorite literary devices of N.V. Gogol. But if in early works it was used to create an atmosphere of mystery and mystery in the narrative, then in a later period it turned into a way of satirical reflection of the surrounding reality. The story "The Nose" is a clear confirmation of this. The inexplicable and strange disappearance of the nose from the physiognomy of Major Kovalev and its incredible independent existence separately from the owner suggest the unnatural order in which a high status in society means much more than the person himself. In this state of affairs, any inanimate object can suddenly acquire significance and weight if it acquires its proper rank. This is the main problem of the story "The Nose".

Features of realistic grotesque

In the late works of N.V. Gogol, the realistic grotesque prevails. It aims to reveal the unnaturalness and absurdity of reality. Incredible things happen to the heroes of the work, but they help to reveal the typical features of the world around them, to reveal people's dependence on generally accepted conventions and norms.

Gogol's contemporaries did not immediately appreciate the satirical talent of the writer. Only having done a lot for a correct understanding of the work of Nikolai Vasilyevich, he once noticed that in the "ugly grotesque" that he uses in his work, there is an "abyss of poetry" and "an abyss of philosophy", in its depth and authenticity worthy of "Shakespeare's brush".

"The Nose" begins with the fact that on March 25, "an unusually strange incident" happened in St. Petersburg. Ivan Yakovlevich, a barber, discovers his nose in freshly baked bread in the morning. He throws him off the St. Isaac's Bridge into the river. The owner of the nose, collegiate assessor, or major, Kovalev, waking up in the morning, does not find an important part of the body on his face. In search of the loss, he goes to the police. On the way, he meets his own nose in the garb of a state councilor. Pursuing the fugitive, Kovalev follows him to the Kazan Cathedral. He tries to return his nose to its place, but he only prays with "the greatest zeal" and points out to the owner that there can be nothing in common between them: Kovalev serves in a different department.

Distracted by the graceful lady, the major loses sight of the rebellious part of the body. Having made several unsuccessful attempts to find the nose, the owner returns home. There he is returned the loss. The police chief grabbed his nose while trying to escape to Riga on someone else's documents. Joy Kovalev does not last long. He cannot put the body part back in its original place. The summary of the story "The Nose" does not end there. How did the hero manage to get out of this situation? The doctor can do nothing to help the major. In the meantime, curious rumors are creeping around the capital. Someone saw the nose on Nevsky Prospekt, someone - in As a result, he himself returned to his original place on April 7, which brought considerable joy to the owner.

Theme of the work

So what is the point of such an incredible plot? The main theme of Gogol's story "The Nose" is the loss by the character of a piece of his "I". Probably, this happens under the influence of evil spirits. An organizing role in the plot is assigned to the motive of persecution, although Gogol does not indicate the specific embodiment of supernatural power. The mystery captures readers literally from the first phrase of the work, it is constantly reminded of, it reaches its climax ... but there is no clue even in the finale. Covered in obscurity is not only the mysterious separation of the nose from the body, but also how it could exist independently, and even in the status of a high-ranking official. Thus, the real and the fantastic in Gogol's story "The Nose" are intertwined in the most unthinkable way.

Real Plan

It is embodied in the work in the form of rumors, which the author mentions all the time. This is gossip that the nose regularly makes a promenade along Nevsky Prospekt and other crowded places; about how he seemed to be looking into the store and so on. Why did Gogol need such a form of communication? Maintaining an atmosphere of mystery, he satirically ridicules the authors of stupid rumors and naive belief in incredible miracles.

Characteristics of the main character

Why did Major Kovalev deserve such attention from supernatural forces? The answer lies in the content of the story "The Nose". The fact is that the protagonist of the work is a desperate careerist, ready to do anything for a promotion. He managed to get the rank of collegiate assessor without an exam, thanks to his service in the Caucasus. The cherished goal of Kovalev is to marry profitably and become a high-ranking official. In the meantime, in order to give himself more weight and significance, he everywhere calls himself not a collegiate assessor, but a major, knowing about the advantage of military ranks over civilian ones. “He could forgive everything that was said about himself, but did not apologize in any way if it related to rank or title,” the author writes about his hero.

So the evil spirits laughed at Kovalev, not only taking away an important part of his body from him (you can’t make a career without it!), But also endowing the latter with the rank of general, that is, giving it more weight than the owner himself. That's right, there is nothing real and fantastic in Gogol's story "The Nose" makes you think about the question "what is more important - a person or his status?". And the answer is disappointing...

Hints of a brilliant author

There are many satirical subtleties in Gogol's story, transparent allusions to the realities of his contemporary time. For example, in the first half of the 19th century, glasses were considered an anomaly, giving the appearance of an officer or official some kind of inferiority. In order to wear this accessory, a special permit was required. If the heroes of the work exactly followed the instructions and corresponded to the form, then the Nose in uniform acquired for them the importance of a significant person. But as soon as the police chief "left" the system, violated the severity of his uniform and put on glasses, he immediately noticed that in front of him was just a nose - a part of the body, useless without its owner. This is how the real and the fantastic are intertwined in Gogol's story "The Nose". No wonder the author's contemporaries read this extraordinary work.

Many writers noted that "The Nose" is a magnificent example of fantasy, Gogol's parody of various prejudices and people's naive faith in the power of supernatural forces. Fantastic elements in the works of Nikolai Vasilyevich are ways of satirically depicting the vices of society, as well as affirming a realistic beginning in life.

Date added: 09 November 2011 at 13:31
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Fantasy is a special form of displaying reality, logically incompatible with the real idea of ​​the world around. It is common in mythology, folklore, art, and in special, grotesque and "supernatural" images expresses a person's worldview.

In the story "The Nose", Gogol completely removes the carrier of fantasy - the personified embodiment of unreal power. But the fantasy itself remains. Hence the impression of mystery from the story. Even startling weirdness.

A list of attempts to find the cause of the mysterious behavior of Kovalev's nose could make a long and curious list. The answer has not yet been found. And it's unlikely to succeed. Perhaps there is more sense in the words of Kovalev himself: “And let them be chopped off in the war or in a duel, or I myself was the cause; but after all, he disappeared for nothing, for nothing, wasted in vain, not for a penny! ... "

The meaning of the events of "The Nose" is in their unprovokedness. There is no direct culprit. There is no pursuer. But the persecution itself remains.

The singularity of Gogol's story enters into its relationship to the mystery. Romantic fiction is inseparable from mystery, from the poetics of mystery. Usually the narrative begins with some strange inexplicable event, that is, the reader is placed in front of a mystery from the first lines. The tension of the mystery increases more and more, until the will or the influence of the bearer of fantastic power is finally revealed in the mysterious. In works with veiled fiction, a similar process of identifying fiction with supernatural power takes place, with the difference that the possibility of a second (“real”) reading is retained. In those cases when the fantastic plan gave way to the real in the course of the narrative, the removal of the secret also took place with the help of real-causal (sometimes even everyday) explanations.

How does Gogol's story relate to these various forms of the existence of mystery?

"The Nose" belongs to those works that put the reader in front of a mystery literally from the first phrase. "On the 25th of March, an unusually strange incident happened in St. Petersburg." If unusual, then there will be an explanation, a clue? The nose behaves as befits a "significant person" who has the rank of state councilor: he prays in the Kazan Cathedral, walks along Nevsky Prospekt, calls in the department, makes visits, is going to leave for Riga on someone else's passport. Where it came from, no one, including the author, is interested. Any, even the most delusional, assumption is not excluded. The main thing is different - in the "two-facedness" of the nose. According to some signs, this is definitely the real nose of the collegiate assessor Kovalev, but the second “face” of the nose is social, which is higher in rank than its owner, so they see the rank, but not the person. In one place, Gogol simultaneously plays with both faces of the nose: the policeman, “who at the beginning of the story stood at the end of St. . But, fortunately, I had glasses with me, and I immediately saw that it was a nose, ”etc. No artist can illustrate this metamorphosis, because he is obviously called upon to make visible what should remain elusive and unexplained. The fantasy of "The Nose" is a mystery that is not found anywhere and which is everywhere.

The mystery reaches its climax, but there is still no solution to it. Finally, in the finale, where there was a last opportunity to reveal the cards, the narrator suddenly steps aside and begins to be amazed together with the reader: “Perfect nonsense is being done in the world. Sometimes there is no credibility at all.”

The function of rumors also changes in the story. “Meanwhile, rumors about this extraordinary incident spread throughout the capital and, as usual, not without special additions ... They soon began to say that collegiate assessor Kovalev’s nose was walking along Nevsky Prospekt at exactly 3 o’clock ... Someone said that the nose seemed to I was in the Juncker's store ... Then a rumor spread that it was not on Nevsky Prospekt, but in the Tauride Garden ... ”, etc. “The rumors are placed in an unusual context. They do not serve as a vehicle for veiled fiction. But they are given and not against the backdrop of just canceled science fiction. Rumors appear against the backdrop of a fantastic incident, filed as reliable. This complicates the picture. Gogol skillfully retained the power of mystery, ridiculing the authors of rumors, he discovered in life something even more wrong and fantastic than what any version or any rumor could suggest.

The subtlest irony of Gogol's story is that it constantly plays on the expectation of unraveling a romantic mystery, parodying its poetics and further and further luring the reader into a trap. With one blow, Gogol breaks with all possible forms of removing romantic secrets. And this is logical: after all, he eliminated the carrier of fantasy, the identification of which consisted in revealing the secret. At the same time, Gogol is far from removing the secret with a real plan, with the help of real-causal motivations.

This story was a kind of apotheosis of the glorification of the nose as such in the work of Gogol. The writer often (so often that it seems a little strange) resorted to the image of this organ throughout his entire literary career. It is precisely this problem that Vladimir Nabokov draws attention to in his article on Gogol. It turns out that the writer's nose is far from the last role. The image of the nose, the idea of ​​the nose, everything connected with this organ haunted Nikolai Vasilyevich until his death. In Nabokov's description of the writer's illness and death, the nose is endowed with some fatal, fatal properties.

What is the further fate of the development of Gogol's fiction? This question is part of another: are there elements in Gogol's non-fantastic works that are adequate or close to the considered forms of fantasy?

Refraining from general conclusions for the time being, we note only one thing. Such elements can no longer be explained by the concept of a miracle or a mystery arising from the direct intervention of the carrier of fiction, from his influence from the past, or from some unknown cause. They are already located in the plane not unreal, but rather strange and unusual.

Description

Fantasy is a special form of displaying reality, logically incompatible with the real idea of ​​the world around. It is common in mythology, folklore, art, and in special, grotesque and "supernatural" images expresses a person's worldview.
In the story "The Nose", Gogol completely removes the carrier of fantasy - the personified embodiment of unreal power. But the fantasy itself remains. Hence the impression of mystery from the story. Even startling weirdness.

The story "The Nose" is included in the third cycle of works by N.V. Gogol called "Petersburg Tales". Petersburg, the capital of the Russian Empire, appears before the reader. In the story, the life of people in its typical manifestations is revealed with the help of satire and grotesque techniques. The latter technique is often based on a combination of real signs of life and their fantastic perception.

What is real in the story? Before us is Petersburg, Nevsky Prospekt, along which people scurry about. And here is the main character, Major Kovalev, a dandy and fashionista looking for a warm place in the capital. Nothing fantastic! Solid prose of life!

The fantasy begins at the moment when the major on Nevsky Prospekt suddenly sees ... his nose! The hero is dumbfounded, amazed! Yes, and how not to experience this, if his own nose "was in uniform", rode a cab, prayed in church ... Kovalev "almost lost his mind." He pursues his nose, trying to persuade him to return to his place ... Yes, where is it! The nose behaves independently and denies belonging to Major Kovalev. Fantastic! Pure fantasy! Who is responsible for the mysterious separation of Kovalev's nose is not indicated in the story. There is no persecutor, no culprit, but persecution is felt all the time. The mystery captures the reader literally from the first sentence, it is constantly reminded of, it reaches a climax, and there is no solution to this mystery. Mysterious is not only the separation of the nose, but also how it existed on its own. Do you think that at the end of the story we will find out how this entertaining story ended? Not! The finale of the story retains a fantastic intrigue: "But here the incident is covered with fog, and what happened next is absolutely unknown."

Thus, I can conclude that fantasy and reality go hand in hand in the story and serve one thing: to depict the monstrous power of servility, to show the absurdity of human relationships in conditions of despotic-bureaucratic subordination, when the individual, as such, loses all significance.