A Brief Analysis of Gogol's Petersburg Stories

In the mid-1830s, Gogol's popularity was growing rapidly. After the publication of the two-volume collection "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka" Nikolai Vasilievich pleased the readers with several more collections, each of which also consisted of two volumes.

The appearance of an unusual book

The first one was called Mirgorod. It includes novels "Viy", "Old-world landowners", "Taras Bulba", "The Tale of how Ivan Ivanovich quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich." And then there is another book, very unusual. It is called "Arabesque". And it includes not only works of art, but articles and essays by Gogol. This is something like a collection of motley chapters, if we rephrase the quotation of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin.

It is in this collection that three stories are printed, which in the criticism were called St. Petersburg (in the place of action plot lines). The very same Nikolai Vasilyevich did not call them that. However, this phrase has been fixed for many decades, it is still actual today.

The stories included in the collected works

Carrying out an analysis of Gogol's Petersburg novels, it is necessary to mention the works "Nevsky Prospekt", "Portrait" and "Notes of a Madman". Although this cycle of stories is perceived somewhat differently, since today's reader is more likely to include in it some more creations of Nikolai Vasilyevich.

This work "The Nose", which was first published in the Pushkin magazine "Contemporary". Another "Overcoat", which came to the public already in 1842, when the author was preparing to publish his first lifetime cycle of works. While doing an analysis of the story of Viy Gogol, Portrait and other creations of Nikolai Vasilievich, all reading Russia already knew and understood that this writer was Pushkin's successor. He is the literary man who must take the relay from Aleksandr Sergeevich.

Analysis of Gogol's Petersburg Stories

Nikolai Vasilyevich is a man and a writer of three cultures: Little Russian, Russian and Italian. And when he comes from his Poltava region to Petersburg, he looks at this world of the Russian capital through the eyes of a guest and an outsider. That's why the name "Petersburg" in this cycle of stories means something more than just a place of action.

All the events described in these wonderful works are very simple, there are many everyday sketches. However, doing an analysis of Gogol's "Petersburg stories", we see that the author consciously went to simplify the plot and texture. He attached great importance to this.

According to the writer himself, the more ordinary the object, the more talent and imagination is needed to make from it something extraordinary, but at the same time not devoid of truth. Namely, it was an important task for Nikolai Vasilyevich to give the reader not only pleasure in reading his books, but also to bring him as close to this truth as possible.

Famous description of the historical part of the city

Petersburg is a place where opposites collide, good and evil turn out to be mixed in a bizarre way. Making an analysis of Gogol's novel "Nevsky Prospekt", the reader first of all sees the brightest, most famous description of this part of the city. It can easily be compared with the lyrical images of the Dnieper or the Ukrainian night from the cycle of stories "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka".

But at the very beginning of the description there is a phrase: "I know that none of the pale and bureaucratic inhabitants of it ..." While making an analysis of Gogol's Petersburg stories, it is necessary to pay attention to it. The words "pale" and "bureaucratic" point to the fact that Nevsky Prospekt is the place where a person faces deception.

In another part of the narrative, Nikolai Vasilyevich speaks straightforwardly harsh and frightening words: "Some demon has crumbled the whole world into many different pieces and mixed everything together without any help." The world of Nevsky Prospekt is an image devoid of wholeness, and something demonic looks out from behind every turn.

Subject and Ideological Lines

What ideological lines contain Gogol's Petersburg Stories? The analysis of stories tells that in them the temptation of temptation is very clearly indicated. For example, in Nevsky Prospekt one of his heroes, the artist Peskarev, following the beauty, suddenly realizes that her outward charm does not at all mean virtue. Cute tinsel does not mean the inner essence.

Surface and depth properties in man are divided. And this is very clearly seen here, in the center of St. Petersburg, on Nevsky Prospekt, where every day people are walking around - janitors, high officials, or the poor. And this is the paradoxical essence of this center of the Russian capital.

The plot line of the work "The Nose"

Making an analysis of Gogol's story "The Nose", the reader encounters an even more bizarre world. Here we are talking about absolutely impossible events. The nose, separating from its owner, an official who calls himself a major, begins to drive around the streets. This text is very difficult to perceive.

How, for example, to understand such a phrase as "Nose hid his chin in the collar". This is an amazing property of Gogol's reality, which leads to very different reflections.

No matter how unusual it may seem for the reader is the life depicted by Gogol's Petersburg novels, the analysis of the works shows that practically in every story of this cycle there is a certain parable. In the "Nose", for example, it is realized through the grotesque. This very word denotes something fantastic, a comical, ugly beginning, which is inherent in reality itself, but is not in clear form.

Analysis of the story of Gogol "Nose" makes you wonder where is the measure that forces a person to feel defective. What should I lose in order to stop feeling myself - reputation, family, career? In the work "The Nose," the character who has lost this part of the body loses its dignity, weight in the eyes of society, and it was this defectiveness that the author transmitted through the grotesque.

The image of a little man

After analyzing the story of Gogol's "Overcoat", the reader will immediately compare the image of Akaky Akakievich with the Pushkin stationmaster. A small man is the core hero of Russian literature, which appears later in so many works of various prose writers.

A small person is a rather complex person. A person seems to be turned into a thing by this big city, which is incomparable with the needs of a particular character. He either needs sympathy, or is a man a righteous and oppressed external reality, which is alien and cold to him.

It is this metaphor that is key to the story. And maybe it's just a primitive personality, which requires simple indulgence. In fact, it is a simple person who needs a piece of warmth and attention, like all beings that fill the world. And not finding it, he, unfortunately, dies.

Mysterious and majestic city

Not only an analysis of Gogol's story "The Notes of a Madman" leads the reader to the idea that St. Petersburg Nikolai Vasilyevich is a city where the fantastic and the real are close by. In every creation of the author, which is in the cycle "St. Petersburg stories," the most unusual occurrences are possible.

Here, career and money seekers co-exist alongside sincere and pure people. Fever, madness and death are close to a high service to art, any good qualities of a person. This opens the writer the true appearance of this mysterious and magnificent city.

The 1830s, when the Petersburg Stories appeared, is the peak period of Gogol's work. Then it starts quite a different time. Nikolai Vasilyevich faces various difficulties, he is already perceived as a tragic figure. Namely in these years the author is perceived as the successor of Pushkin, as the main Russian writer, which is a reference point for all Russian literature.