Grotesque in the works of Gogol. To help a schoolchild

Relevance of the study is due to the fact that literary grotesque is a phenomenon that exists in both ancient and modern literature. Over time, the idea of ​​what the grotesque is has developed and changed. However, to date, the theory of the grotesque has not been fully built, and without it it is impossible to adequately evaluate various shapes grotesque, variability of the grotesque artistic thinking.

Despite huge amount research, monographs, scientific articles and dissertations dedicated to the work of N.V. Gogol in general and the grotesque in his works, interest in the writer currently does not fade, since those questions, problems and contradictions that interested Gogol are insoluble to this day. The poetics of the writer’s works contains many fantastic elements that require their own scientific explanation, analysis of their mythopoetic basis, the functions they perform in the works, and their relationship with Christian elements.

N.V. Gogol appeared in Russian literature at a time when romantic and mysterious stories were becoming unusually fashionable and popular: society began to read the works of E.T.A. Hoffman, various frightening stories were told about witches and sorcerers, about the dead who rise from their graves.

In Russian literary criticism, certain views have developed on Grotex in the works of N.V. Gogol, who in his work developed trends in the field of the fantastic, coming in Russian literature from A.S. Pushkin. The fantastic in Gogol's works was interpreted by researchers both as something supernatural and as something incomprehensible and inexplicable.

Gogol felt contradictory human nature, its duality, the nature of its tragic sides human existence, in which people find themselves. The Divine in Gogol’s concept is natural, it is a world that develops naturally. On the contrary, the demonic is the supernatural, the world going out of its way. However, the writer understood that to describe this inconsistency there was something missing that would be attractive to the reader. And in Gogol the fantastic, fabulous, incredible becomes so attractive.

IN fantastic works Gogol, the action takes place in the real, ordinary world, in which inexplicable, irrational events also happen. There are no clear boundaries between the real and the unknown, between the world of the living and the other world, between life and death; it is inhabited by ghosts, witches, strange characters, monsters. Inner world Gogol shows his heroes in a state of anxiety, anxiety, fear; his characters lose their sense of reality, their “I” when encountering inexplicable phenomena.

However, everything mysterious and fantastic in Gogol occurs against the backdrop of the real, the writer never exceeds a sense of proportion, and fantastic images are psychologically motivated. Gogol's fantastic is not so much images of evil spirits as a description of the devilish principle inside a person.

Subject of research In this work, the grotesque appeared as a form of artistic thinking of the era of romanticism.

Object of study – grotesque as a way artistic expression fantastic in the stories of N.V. Gogol.

Purpose of the study – analysis of the grotesque as a device of romanticism in the story by N.V. Gogol "Evenings on a farm near Dikanka".

This goal involves solving the followingtasks :

1. analysis of the grotesque as a literary device;

2. identifying the features of the romantic grotesque;

3. analysis of the specifics of Gogol’s fiction;

4. analysis of fantasy as a grotesque device in “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka”;

5. identifying the role of the grotesque in the plot and compositional organization of the cycle.

The following were used in the workresearch methods : analysis theoretical literature on the research topic, analytical method, comparative method.

Material for research served as a story by N.V. Gogol "Evenings on a farm near Dikanka".

Work structure . The work consists of an introduction, two chapters, a conclusion and a list of references.

Chapter 1. Theoretical foundations studying the grotesque

1.1 Grotesque as a literary device

The word "grotesque" comes from the French "grotesque", which means "comical, bizarre." In literature they call it grotesque special welcome, a type of verbal imagery in which elements of reality are combined in fantastic combinations.

IN domestic literary criticism Two approaches to the study of the grotesque dominate:

1. the grotesque is defined as a component of the worldview (M.M. Bakhtin, L.E. Pinsky, D.S. Likhachev);

2. grotesque is defined as artistic technique(Yu.V. Mann, B.M. Eikhenbaum, D.P. Nikolaev, A.S. Bushmin, Yu.B. Borev, O.V. Shaposhnikova, etc.).

One point of view does not contradict another (an artistic worldview can only exist in a formed form, as art form, as a reception; on the other hand, the technique is a formalized worldview, a model of the world - as the artist builds it), but their possible synthesis does not give an unambiguous, satisfactory answer to the question about the poetic nature of the grotesque .

Grotesque techniques are used by writers in order to generalize and aggravate life relationships and problems, mixing verisimilitude and caricature, the beautiful and the ugly, the comic and the tragic, fantasy and reality.

Literary scholars have traced the evolution of the grotesque from antiquity to the present day, determining how the basic idea it embodies changed with the changing era, and noting its features characteristic of a particular time.

The origins of the grotesque are in the distant past, at the very beginning of civilization. Already in ancient Egypt and in ancient world The motifs of transformation and animal symbolism were popular, that is, transformation and confusion are the main features of the grotesque. But it was only during the Renaissance that grotesque imagery became part of the literary tradition.

The carnival grotesque of the Renaissance, combining opposites - beauty and ugliness, birth and death, low and high - embodied the “contradictory unity of the dying and reborn world.” The grotesque subjected social norms and contradictions to carnival ridicule and debunking, while destruction implied subsequent revival and renewal. Some writers of that era, like F. Rabelais (“Gargantua and Pantagruel”), who criticized all the foundations of their modern public life, generally used the grotesque as the main literary device.

Writers of the Enlightenment era glorified reason and harmony and denounced ignorance; the grotesque in their work became satirical, as in the works of D. Swift (“The Adventures of Gulliver”); This tradition was continued by realist writers of the 19th century (M.F. Saltykov-Shchedrin). In realistic grotesque characteristic feature is a careful reproduction of numerous details of the grotesque world.

In the grotesque of modernism romantic idea and the tradition continues, while the grotesque is often deprived of its usually comic features, expressing a nightmarishly delusional perception of reality, which can be seen, for example, in the works of Franz Kafka.

There are many various options classification of types of grotesque developed by researchers of literary theory, each option considers one aspect of the grotesque. After studying the content-psychological correspondence of grotesque images with types of awareness of the world, a division into the varieties listed above (carnival, realistic, romantic, etc. grotesque) appeared. After studying the formal and content features of the grotesque, a method of dividing into comic and tragic appeared; this classification option is the most famous.

Comic grotesque is the highest degree of the comic, manifested in the form of caricature distortion, excessive exaggeration, often to the level of the fantastic. Also used to achieve a comic-grotesque effect compositional contrast, a sudden shift from the serious, tragic to the plane of the funny.

In turn, according to its objectives, comic grotesque is divided into subtypes, such as satirical, humorous and ironic grotesque. Satirical grotesque ridicules and exposes negative aspects life, depicting them in a ridiculous way. Humorous grotesque is close to it, but, unlike satire, the author's ridicule does not have an angry character. Ironic grotesque is special kind comic, when the meaning - negative or positive - is hidden behind the external, opposite form of the statement.

The difficulty of studying the category of the comic lies in its multidimensionality, which is reflected in the widespread use of many similar terms: humor (humor), laughter (laugher), comic (comic), funny (absurd), ridiculous (ludicrous), funny (funny), wit (wit), cheerful (cheerful), joke (joke), absurd (absurdity), irony (irony), sarcasm (sarcasm), satire (satire), etc.

The following are used as synonyms in stylistics: humor, irony, satire, sarcasm, grotesque, and in literary criticism the following comic genres are used as closely related ones: comedy, satire, burlesque, joke, epigram, farce, parody, caricature. Techniques for creating comic effect: exaggeration, understatement, play on words, double meaning, iconic and funny gestures, situations, positions and many others. .

In general, the concept of the comic is defined as a complex multi-level cognitive model, or frame, consisting of 4 slot subframes: humor, irony, sarcasm and satire, each of which has its own frame (slot) structure, open to filling with terminal components .

Currently, the interpretation of the comic comes down to defining it as a category of aesthetics, expressing in the form of ridicule the historically determined (complete or partial) inconsistency of a given social phenomenon, the activities and behavior of people, their morals and customs with the objective course of things and the aesthetic ideal of progressive social forces .

Thus, the comic is an aesthetic category that implies the reflection in art of phenomena containing incongruity, incongruity, surprise, and illogicality. The intellect that is inclined to play is most capable of perceiving such properties of the world and man.

Tragic grotesque indicates the objective impossibility of realizing values ​​in reality of different nature. To achieve a tragic-grotesque effect, techniques such as deliberate destruction of the plot through insertions and rearrangements are used various parts narratives and verbal effects designed for a contrasting effect (inconsistency of tone with content, use of metaphors in a literal sense, violation of a serious tone by illogical conclusion, etc.).

If in a work or in its individual episodes the number of comic and tragic grotesque elements is approximately the same, then such grotesque is called tragicomic .

The integrity of the grotesque is a paradoxical integrity, an integrity forcibly imposed on the image. That is why researchers note its alogism (Mann) and the logic of “paradox” (Pinsky) as the main feature of the grotesque. .

D. Chiaro main comic device also considers alogism, which is understood as a violation of compatibility at various language levels, and L.M. Vasiliev believes that the author's occasionalisms created by the writer with the help of a witty combination different words, are the most important linguistic stylistic techniques for creating comic .

The cognitive shift observed in the grotesque leads to shifts at the surface (linguistic) level of the realization of the comic effect. Displacements (violations of norms) affect both the area of ​​pragmatic relations (inadequate expression of the situation) and the area of ​​intratextual connections .

1.2 Features of the romantic grotesque

Main idea romantic grotesque - the incompatibility of the ideal and reality, which represents a tragic dissonance; Among the writers who used the techniques of the romantic grotesque, we can mention E.T.A. Hoffman (“Little Tsakhes”), Edgar Poe and N.V. Gogol.

The romantic grotesque, being forcedly physical (physiologized, naturalistic), does not become as large-scale as the Renaissance grotesque (grotesque body as “ folk body" - MM. Bakhtin). In the romantic (and post-romantic - realistic, avant-garde, modernist) grotesque, the bodily is individualized, it refers to a “private” and not a “generic” person. Like the romantic carnival (“a carnival experienced alone” - M.M. Bakhtin), the romantic and post-romantic grotesque is a grotesque within the framework of which a solitary “I”-consciousness creates its own “I”-mythology and, accordingly, “ I"-corporeality .

This is Quasimodo from the novel “Cathedral” Notre Dame of Paris", whose physicality, accentuated by ugliness and incredible physical strength, does not include anyone in its sphere - in contrast to the corporeality of Rabelaisian heroes extending to the whole world. The secondary nature of the romantic grotesque in the image of Quasimodo is realized through his likening to the monsters guarding the cathedral created by the medieval artistic consciousness. The combination of the incompatible (spiritual purity, naive “childhood”) and a terrifying appearance, hyperbolically brought to the limit of ugliness (Quasimodo is like a harpy, he is the harpy guarding the cathedral) - these are the textual “traces” of incompatible mental spaces colliding in a single grotesque image .

According to the observation of M.M. Bakhtin, “laughter in the romantic grotesque was reduced and took the form of humor, irony, and sarcasm” . At the same time, it is necessary to take into account the special role that the comic plays in romanticism.

Inconsistencies that convey the essence of the comic can be reduced to two fundamental points: “inconsistency” and “deviation from the norm.” The first of these concepts is, in turn, generic in relation to the concepts of “contrast” and “contradiction”.

This opinion is consistent with the point of view of researchers, for whom the comic in literature can be the result of “contradictions between the essence of reality and the nature of language, between the depicted object and the means of representation”, “between the idea and reality”, since the contradiction– it is a failure to conform to an ideal or a deviation from rules, norms, or conventional ideas about life.

Obviously, the romantic grotesque with its ambivalence is formed on the basis of romantic irony, which takes on total forms, becomes a criterion for knowledge of the surrounding world and human self-knowledge, a platform for romantic consciousness (the solitary “I”-consciousness) and the structural basis of the grotesque. It is romantic irony that overcomes the ontological “chamberness” of the romantic grotesque image and returns the grotesque to its status as a way of understanding the world and the basic principle of organizing the artistic world.

The most characteristic of the romantic grotesques, based on romantic irony and realizing the latter, is the image of a pot from the story by E.T.A. Hoffmann's "Golden Pot". This is a forcefully reduced, purely “human” image; it focuses on the idea of ​​natural (in in this case– about digestive processes. And even though the pot is made of gold, it is still a pot. A beautiful lily grown in a golden pot as the embodiment of spirituality, beauty, as an attempt to embody a romantic ideal is the second side of this grotesque image, antinomically opposed to the first. The antinomy resolved in romantic irony brings the romantic ideal to new level: yes, the vision in which Anselm is blissful in Atlantis “disappeared, as it were, into a fog” , but, on the other hand, true vision can exist as such only outside of vision; The physiology of the pot defamiliarizes and destroys the romantic ideal that was embodied, but this is precisely what proves its existence - beyond the boundaries of the empirical world with all its pots, even golden ones.

The physiological principle implied in the image of the golden pot is fundamentally individual; it characterizes a person as a monad, detached from the “ancestral body”, as a true bearer of solitary consciousness (and “solitary” physiology). It is reduced, reduced to the sphere of individual existence, and in this - fundamental difference Rabelaisian physiology, which became the basis of the Renaissance grotesque, from romantic physiology, and, accordingly, the Renaissance grotesque from the romantic grotesque. There is a “national body” (Bakhtin), here is an individual body, the body of a “private” person; there – the body as a “macrocosm”, here – as a “microcosm” .

Chapter 2. Using the grotesque technique in the story by N.V. Gogol's "Evenings on a farm near Dikanka"

2.1 Features of Gogol’s fiction

Gogol's works, which contain magic and fantasy, are divided by Yu. Mann into 2 categories depending on the time to which the action belongs . The first category is works about the “past” (“The Missing Letter”, “The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala”, “The Night Before Christmas”, “An Enchanted Place”, “Strange Revenge”, etc.).

The fiction in them is “permeated with irony, somewhat caricatured”, or “given quite seriously” . Magical fantastic forces openly interfere in life; these are images in which the evil principle is personified. Fantastic events are reported by the author or character who is the narrator, using legends, folk jokes, memories of ancestors, etc. Gogol's fiction has no background.

In works of the second type: “Sorochinskaya Fair” and “May Night, or the Drowned Woman,” the action takes place thirty years ago, i.e. it's almost contemporary to Gogol time. They experience a state of expectation of something unusual; this expectation is presented in the form of rumors. However, there is no direct indication of the unreality of the events, that is, there is no direct fantasy. Actually, fantastic events in these works are attributed to the distant past.

In Gogol's early works, fantasy is connected in to a greater extent with folklore, in “Portrait” the Russian writer came closest to the Hoffmann tradition and at the same time rejected it. In “The Overcoat” and “The Nose,” fantasy appears as a grotesque device.

The idea of ​​the spiritual and moral impact of art on a person and the theme of the artist’s moral responsibility for his creation are central to Gogol’s story “Portrait”.

Almost the entire second half of the story - the story of the artist's son - serves as a fantastic backstory. Some of the fantastic events are reported in it in the form of rumors, but most of the fiction is associated with the image of the narrator, who reports on miraculous events as if they actually took place: “the old man moved and suddenly leaned against the frame with both hands. Finally he raised himself up on his hands and, sticking out both legs, jumped out of the frames<…>. With his mouth open and his breath frozen, he looked at this terrible tall phantom, in some kind of wide Asian robe, and waited to see what he would do. The old man sat down almost at his very feet..." .

Only this portrait passes into the modern time plan, and fantastic events are eliminated. All strange events are reported in a vague tone.

Chartkov's vision of a strange old man is given in the form of a half-dream, half-waking. Along with the dream, forms of veiled fiction are introduced into the narrative - coincidences, the hypnotizing effect of the portrait on people, where the main motive of the portrait is the eyes. The eyes of the old man in the portrait are “wonderful”, “strange”, they look as if they are “destroying” the “harmony of the portrait itself”, they are as if “carved out of a living person”, eyes that amazed with their extraordinary “liveness”, eyes that “felt "Then Chartkov throughout his life and finally drove him to madness.

It is interesting that the motif of eyes is also present in the image of the artist Chartkov, whose eyes “enviously” looked at many things that he longed to buy, but could not. Gogol reduces all accidents to a single pattern - the picture of an old man with “terrible” eyes could only go to a person like Chartkov, a person with “envious” eyes. Moreover, for Gogol, the fact with which eyes the artist himself looks at the world is important. A person with demonic, envious eyes cannot create, create works of art. This is confirmed by the fate of Chartkov, who wasted his talent.

In Gogol's grotesque (satire, humor) there is absolutely no kind of romantic philosophical irony that is characteristic of Hoffmann and Western romantics. Moreover, Gogol polemicizes with her in his work (“Portrait”). The same applies to romantic categories (longing, dreams, etc.), which are also not characteristic of the work of the Russian writer.

Gogol avoids the synthesis of genres and displacement of types characteristic of Western writers; he does not share the Western romantic experiment. In his picture of the world, the accumulation of “vulgarity” and its exposure occurs in all genres, by all possible artistic means.

2.2 Fantasy as a grotesque device in “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” by N.V. Gogol

N.V. has all the evil spirits. Gogol is the embodiment in terrible fantastic images of an evil force, mortally hostile to people - the power of the nobility, the lordship, the damned force that strangles a person, torments him in sophisticated devilish ways, striving to saddle, conquer, and if a person does not give in, then completely destroy him from this world .

All the fantastic images presented in the stories of N.V. Gogol’s “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” can be divided into several types:

1. fantastic creatures that do not exist in real life, fictional, invented;

2. heroes/characters who have a dual nature: having the appearance of a person, they can transform into creatures and people from the “other” world;

3. heroes/characters in any way connected with evil spirits.

Let us consider each of the selected groups in more detail.

1. Fantastic creatures that do not exist in real life, fictional, invented (witches, devils, monsters).

In the story “The Night on the Eve of Ivan Kupala,” Basavryuk, the “demonic man,” is helped by a witch into whom a cat turns. Sparks fly from the old woman's mouth when she stamps her foot - flames burst out of the ground.

In the story “The Missing Letter,” the shaver tells his grandfather the way to hell (“there you will see who you need; don’t forget to put in your pockets what the pockets were made for... You understand, both devils and people love this good.” ).

However, when the grandfather approaches the fire, he sees that “there were people sitting near the fire, and such cute faces that at another time God knows what he would not have given to escape this acquaintance.” . For a long time they do not seem to notice their grandfather. But as soon as he throws money at them, witches and demons immediately flock to them.

However, it is not fear that causes this “demonic tribe” in the grandfather, but only laughter. He agrees to play “fool” with them, is not afraid of them, and even agrees to have a meal with them.

In the story “The Night Before Christmas,” the devil stole the month.

Involuntarily, the devil helps Vakula the blacksmith get the queen’s slippers for Oksana: it is on the devil that Vakula flies to St. Petersburg.

2. Heroes/characters who have a dual nature: having the appearance of a person, they can transform into creatures and people from the “other” world (Basavryuk, Solokha, stepmother-witch).

The characters of the stories classified as this type, on the one hand, behave like ordinary people, those around them may not be aware of their real essence, but in fact they belong to the “evil spirit” and have supernatural abilities. The rest of the characters in the stories easily come into contact with such “werewolves”.

In the story “The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala” such a character is Basavryuk - “a man, or better, a devil in human form” . The duality of this character is especially emphasized by Gogol: outwardly he looks and behaves like a person (“walks, gets drunk,” “prowls the streets of the village,” “picks up the Cossacks he meets: laughter, songs, money pours in, vodka is like water...”), however, he has the abilities of the devil: he can help Peter with money in exchange for him selling his soul to him.

In the story “May Night, or the Drowned Woman,” Levko tells Hanna the story of the centurion’s daughter, who was killed by her witch stepmother. In the form of a black cat, the stepmother comes to her stepdaughter to kill her, but the lady cuts off her paw and hand with her father’s saber, after which the father kicked his own daughter out of the house, and she drowned herself. After this, “one night she saw her stepmother near the pond, attacked her and dragged her into the water screaming. But the witch was found here too: she turned under the water into one of the drowned women and through this she escaped from the whip made of green reeds, with which the drowned women wanted to beat her.” .

The mother of Vakula the blacksmith, Solokha, in the story “The Night Before Christmas” is a witch, a “devil woman” . In her “earthly” life, Solokha is a good housewife, an exemplary mother, she attracts many men from the village. However, “the boy Kizyakolupenko saw her tail from behind, no larger than a woman’s spindle; that the Thursday before last she crossed the road like a black cat..." . The sly mockery with which Gogol portrays Solokha allows us to perceive fantasy as conventional grotesque, humor; it switches to the everyday, satirical plane. Despite the fact that as a witch Solokha is hypocritical, but as an ordinary village woman she is charming and beautiful, many other women envy her.

In the story " Terrible revenge“Katerina’s father is a sorcerer, a devil who invades a defenseless world.

At the beginning of the story, the heroes of the story do not yet realize that the terrible sorcerer is Katerina’s father, because he cares about his daughter and wonders why she returns home so late. However, Danile intuitively feels that his father-in-law is a difficult person. When he looks at the sorcerer in his tower, he sees: “He looked into the face - and the face began to change: the nose stretched out and hung over the lips; the mouth rang to the ears in a minute; a tooth peeked out of his mouth, bent to the side, and the same sorcerer who appeared at the wedding of the captain stood in front of him.” .

3. Heroes/characters in any way connected with evil spirits (Cossack, Pot-bellied Patsyuk).

In the story “The Missing Letter,” the Cossack acts as an intermediary between “his” and “someone else’s” space, which is marked by the semantics of “threshold”; in addition, there is a direct indication of the character’s connection with hell: “Do you know that my soul has long been sold to the unclean.” The grandfather’s response demonstrates not only his closeness to demonic characters, but also the ease with which a hero can become a prey to demonic forces: “What an incredible thing! Who in his life has not had contact with the unclean? This is where you need to walk in the dust, as they say.” .

In the story “The Night Before Christmas,” Vakula comes to Pot-bellied Patsyuk, “he, they say, knows all the devils and will do whatever he wants. I’ll go, because my soul will still have to disappear!” . Patsyuk has inhuman, unusual abilities, for example, he can simply whisper something to relieve a person’s illness. When Vakula comes to him asking him to show him the way to hell, Patsyuk says indifferently: “He who has the devil behind him doesn’t have to go far.” . At the same time, Vakula holds on his shoulder a bag in which the devil hid.

Thus, three types of fantastic images in the stories “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” were conventionally identified.

2.3 Grotesque and plot-compositional organization of the cycle

Authors of “History of Russian Literature”XIXcenturies" note: "In fact, only in two stories ("The Evenings on the Eve of Ivan Kupala" and "Terrible Revenge") the fantastic takes on a sinister (in the latter - with a touch of mystical) character. The fantastic image here expresses the evil, hostile forces existing in life." .

These stories are distinguished by an ominous motive, and the hostile force in them is shown as a dangerous and disastrous element for humans.

The story “Terrible Revenge” is distinguished by its mystical flavor, hostile and mysterious elements. But in this case, the tragic plot and a clearly expressed line of horror acquires, on the one hand, a somewhat abstract expression in the form of a raging evil force, and on the other hand, the author’s hint at the global nature of the enmity, expressed in the clash of two fighting universal forces: the divine and the devil, is obvious. Christian and anti-Christian .

A hero symbolizing evil, a mysterious sorcerer, represents a terrible, hostile to people strength. At the same time, he is Catherine’s father, but an evil and insidious father towards her. He becomes envious of Katerina’s opportunity to find her happiness, resists this happiness, fights against his own daughter, and thereby against himself.

“Terrible Revenge” is especially distinguished by its terrible flavor. And this flavor is reflected in the name itself. The words “horror” and “terrible” are used very rarely in this story. They are replaced with the word “terrible”, but the essence does not change.

The beginning of the narrative of the story “Terrible Vengeance” sets the main textual opposition: the hidden confrontation of world forces, the desire of destructive evil to assert its power in the world. Holy icons for blessing the newlyweds - a sign of God's presence - denounce the sorcerer, the “image of Satan,” whose appearance at the moment of wedding means a threat to cosmic unity. The mention of a sorcerer standing “in the middle of the crowd,” likened to the sea (“they went, they went and made noise like the sea in bad weather, talk and talk among the people”), refers to the thirteenth chapter of the Apocalypse: the vision of a beast “coming out of the sea,” that is, according to the interpretations of the book, from the sphere of the human race, which waves like the sea . The demonic, Antichrist traits are emphasized in the sorcerer himself: “hissing and snapping his teeth like a wolf, the wonderful old man disappeared” .

The fantastic, nightmarish and terrible in this story received their highest concentration, which is facilitated by the exotic plot of internal family feud itself. Moreover, there is one peculiarity in this plot, which is expressed in the ambiguity of the initial situation: the sorcerer seems to be Katerina’s father, and at the same time is not him, since, quite obviously, unlike Katerina, he belongs to the otherworldly, dark world. It's not entirely clear why he killed his own wife, Katerina’s mother, and what he wants from Katerina herself.

Therefore, there is a certain ambiguity here. The reader begins to assume that the sorcerer is not her father at all, and that behind all this there is another, secret story. Through the presentation of this series of riddles, the effect of a nightmare situation arises, in other words, horror. Although in general it is clear that this is an artistic convention, behind which there is a certain idea about the struggle of Christianity with otherworldly anti-Christian forces. So, in one of the places in the story, Katerina’s father is called the Antichrist. All this creates a flavor of tragedy and, moreover, horror, expressed in exotic paintings, mystery, understatement and accompanied by colorful sketches, sharp contrasts, etc.

At the end of the story, another mysterious force inhabits the sorcerer: the image of a horseman appears, who with a terrible hand lifted him into the air. The sorcerer dies, but even after death he turns out to be alive. But, despite this, “he was already a dead man and looked like a dead man. Neither the living nor the resurrected one looks so scary.” . He is in some other state: he is neither alive nor resurrected.

Gogol very clearly conveys the horror of this situation: “He turned around with his dead eyes...”. The dead are waking up around him, “like two peas in a pod with faces similar to him” who sink their teeth into him. In this fantastic scene, everything is expressed very brightly and colorfully, in the form of a nightmare, an endless bustle of evil principles. Everything was mixed up in some kind of endless chaos. The sorcerer simultaneously dies and comes to life in this chaos, but in a different capacity: he is in the world of the dead, and the dead are the victims of the sorcerer who take revenge on him. Evil in its fury destroys itself - this is Gogol’s fundamental thought .

In Gogol's stories based on folk legends, the expression of the terrible has different levels: from playing the fantastic to presenting naturalistic paintings and scenes saturated with the terrible, with detailed description violence and evil merciless actions of evil spirits towards innocent people.

Conclusion

The narration in “Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka” is told on behalf of the beekeeper Rudy Panka. This allows Gogol to give free rein to his imagination, without worrying about authenticity, to unfold phantasmagoric pictures.

Gogol’s fantastic grows out of popular beliefs, folklore, rumors, legends, fairy tales, which he artistically reinterprets.

Unlike many romantics, for whom the fantastic and the real are sharply separated and exist on their own, in Gogol the fantastic is closely intertwined with the real and serves as a means of comic or satirical depiction of heroes. Fiction and reality in Gogol's stories are organically intertwined not only in every episode, but sometimes in every phrase.

Gogol's evil spirits are not scary; on the contrary, they are even funny. Despite the fact that she tries in every possible way to harm a person, evil spirits turns out to be powerless, because man is stronger than any devilry. And this is the life philosophy of Gogol the science fiction writer: he believed in man, in the people and their strength, in the final victory of good over evil.

Gogol's romantic two-worlds in a special way reconciles laughter and tears, reality and mysticism, Christian humility and fight against God, the accuracy of everyday details and boundless fantasy, connecting living and inanimate, real and fictional worlds.

Fantastic images in Gogol's stories were conventionally divided into three types: fantastic creatures that do not exist in real life, fictional, invented (devils, etc.); heroes/characters who have a dual nature (having the appearance of a person, they can transform into creatures and people from the “other” world) (witch-stepmother, sorcerer, etc.); heroes/characters in any way associated with evil spirits (Cossack, Pot-bellied Patsyuk, etc.).

Gogol’s romanticism in “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” is characterized by the harmony of the world and man. The writer depicts a life filled with harmony, which is violated by hostile, otherworldly forces. Gogol embodies these forces in fantastic images: the devil looking for the red scroll (“Sorochinskaya Fair”), Basavryuk (“The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala”), mermaids and the witch-stepmother (“May Night, or the Drowned Woman”), Solokha (“Night before Christmas"), the sorcerer ("Terrible Revenge"). Many other characters are also close to evil spirits.

In Gogol's stories, the fantastic is a logical continuation of the everyday, the real, it does not come into conflict with it. Transcendental and real worlds They complement each other, they are a mirror image of each other, they strive to subjugate a person, not paying attention to his desires and aspirations.

List of used literature

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Gadzhieva T.B. Moral and aesthetic ideal N.V. Gogol in the stories of the Mirgorod cycle: Diss. ...cand. Philol. Sci. – Makhachkala, 2008. – 139 p.

Gogol N.V. Evenings on a farm near Dikanka. – Cheboksary: ​​Cheboksary Book Publishing House, 1980.

Gogol N.V. Collected works in 8 volumes / N.V. Gogol. – M., 1984. – T. 3.

Goffman E.T.A.Collected works: in 6 volumes - M., 1991. - T. 1.

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Zamanova I.F. Space and time in art world collection by N.V. Gogol “Evenings on a farm near Dikanka”: Diss. ...cand. Philol. Sci. – Orel, 2000. – 186 p.

History of Russian literatureXIXcentury. 1800-1830s. – M.: Education, 1989.

Kardash E.V. Figurative structure“Evenings on a farm near Dikanka” N.V. Gogol in the context of romantic historiosophy and aesthetics: Diss. ...cand. Philol. Sci. – St. Petersburg, 2006. – 233 p.

LavlinskyS.P., Pavlov A.M. Fantastic // Poetics: a dictionary of current terms and concepts / Ed. N.D.Tamarchenko. – M.: Kulagina Publishing House; Intrada, 2008. – pp. 278-281.

LotmanYu.M. Art space VproseGogol // Lotman Yu.M. At schoolpoeticwords: Pushkin. Lermontov. Gogol. – M., 1988.

Mann Yu. Poetics of Gogol / Yu. Mann. – M., 1988.

Panina M.A. Comic and language means his expressions: Dis... cand. Philol. Sci. – M., 1996.

Trofimova I.V. “Evenings on a farm near Dikanka” N.V. Gogol: Features of plot structure and symbolism of the cycle: Dis. ...cand. Philol. Sci. – St. Petersburg, 2001.

Utkina A.V. Cognitive models of the comic and their representation in Russian and English languages(comparative and comparative analysis). – Pyatigorsk, 2006.

Philosophical Dictionary / Ed. I.T. Frolova. – M.: Politizdat, 1991.

Alice P. Grotesque in Literature [ Electronic resource] // Access mode: http://samlib.ru/p/patrik_e/grotesk.shtml.

Dormidonova T.Yu. Grotesque as a type of artistic imagery (from the Renaissance to the avant-garde era): Abstract. dis. ...cand. Philol. Sci. – Tver, 2008. – P. 7.

Utkina A.V. Cognitive models of the comic and their representation in Russian and English languages ​​(comparative analysis). – Pyatigorsk, 2006. – P. 14-15.

Trofimova I.V. “Evenings on a farm near Dikanka” N.V. Gogol: Features of the plot and symbolism of the cycle: Dis. ...cand. Philol. Sci. – St. Petersburg, 2001. – P. 93.

"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: what is depicted is absolutely fantastic, unreal, implausible and in no case 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 by N.V. Gogol’s “The Nose”, here there is also a combination of an absurd story with the disappearance of a nose and the everyday reality of St. Petersburg . Gogol's image of St. Petersburg qualitatively different from those created, for example, by Pushkin or Dostoevsky. Just like for them, for Gogol it is not just a city - it is an image-symbol; but Gogol’s Petersburg is the center of some incredible power, mysterious incidents happen here; the city is full of rumors, legends, myths.

To depict St. Petersburg, Gogol uses the following technique: synecdoche- 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

It seems that it was not without reason that Gogol made St. Petersburg the setting for the story “The Nose.” In his opinion, only here could the indicated events “happen”; only in St. Petersburg they do not see the man himself behind his 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, accordingly his status . And Kovalev himself, the owner of the runaway nose, behaves in exactly the same way.

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 in the way it should, according to the logic of things. For example, a respectable gray-haired official from a newspaper expedition listens to Kovalev’s request absolutely indifferently. Kvartalny, who returned Kovalev’s nose, also did not see anything strange in this situation and even, out of habit, asked him for money.

What about Kovalev? What worries him is not that without a nose, in principle, he should be 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 he is now choosing a bride for himself. In addition, he has “very good friends” - state councilor Chekhtareva, staff officer Pelageya Grigorievna Podtochina, who obviously provide him with useful connections. Undoubtedly, this is an exaggeration to show the reader what is real value for a St. Petersburg official.

The nose behaves as it should" significant person" in the rank of state councilor: he makes visits, prays in the Kazan Cathedral, visits the department, and plans to leave for Riga using someone else’s passport. Nobody cares where he came from. Everyone sees him not only as a person, but also as 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 also lies in surprise and, one might say, absurdity . From the very first line of the work we see a clear indication 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 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 his 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.

The plot of the story is conventional, the idea itself is ridiculous , but this is precisely what Gogol’s grotesque consists of and, despite this, is quite realistic. Gogol unusually expanded the boundaries of convention and showed that this convention remarkably serves 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 advisable. And thus art forms ultimately reflect life forms.

How do the features of Gogol’s “fantastic realism” appear in the story “The Nose”? - Exactly the absurdity and fantastic nature of the plot caused such abundant criticism of the writer. But it should be understood that this story has double meaning, and Gogol’s idea 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 - a person’s position in society, his status and the individual’s dependence on him . From the story it becomes clear that Kovalev, who for greater importance called himself a major, all his life devotes himself to his career and social status, he has no other hopes or priorities.

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

What does the loss of his 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 secular society, at work or in any other official institution. But he cannot come to an agreement with the nose; the nose pretends that it does not understand what its owner is talking about and ignores him. With this fantastic plot, Gogol wants to emphasize the shortcomings of the society of that time, the shortcomings of thinking and consciousness of that layer of society , to which collegiate assessor Kovalev belonged.

The grotesque is an unprecedented, special world, opposing not only everyday life, but also the real, actual one. Here the grotesque borders on fantasy and unrealism. It shows how absurdly the scary 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, its flight from its rightful owner, and then its equally inexplicable return to its place? Only by using the grotesque satirical genre was Gogol able to show this ill-fated nose, which exists simultaneously as part of the face and in the form of a state councilor serving in the scientific department. What is surprising to us does not surprise the rest of the characters in the comedy. Unusual incidents make us indignant, 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, some officials actually walk with their noses in the air, 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 scary.

The story "The Nose" is one of the most fun, original, fantastic and unexpected works of Nikolai Gogol. The author did not agree to publish 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 drew true picture morals of his time.

Brilliant grotesque

This is one of N.V.’s favorite literary devices. 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 satirically reflecting the surrounding reality. The story "The Nose" is a clear confirmation of this. The inexplicable and strange disappearance of the nose from Major Kovalev’s face and his incredible independent existence separately from his owner suggest the unnaturalness of the 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 the proper rank. This is the main problem of the story "The Nose".

Features of realistic grotesque

In the late work of N.V. Gogol is dominated by realistic grotesque. It is aimed at revealing the unnaturalness and absurdity of reality. Incredible things happen to the heroes of the work, but they help reveal typical features the surrounding world, to identify people’s dependence on generally accepted conventions and norms.

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

“The Nose” begins with the fact that on March 25, an “extraordinarily 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, the 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 another department.

Distracted by an elegant lady, the major loses sight of the rebellious part of the body. After making several unsuccessful attempts to find the nose, the owner returns home. There they return what was lost to him. The police chief grabbed his nose while trying to escape using someone else's documents to Riga. Kovalev's joy 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't help the major. Meanwhile, curious rumors are creeping around the capital. Someone saw the nose on Nevsky Prospekt, someone saw it on Nevsky Prospect. 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 character's loss of a piece of his self. This probably happens under the influence of evil spirits. The organizing role in the plot is given to the motive of persecution, although Gogol does not indicate the specific embodiment of supernatural power. The mystery captivates readers literally from the first sentence of the work, it is constantly reminded of it, it reaches its climax... but there is no solution even in the finale. Covered in the darkness of the unknown is not only the mysterious separation of the nose from the body, but also how he 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 unimaginable way.

Real plan

It is embodied in the work in the form of rumors, which the author constantly mentions. This is gossip that the nose regularly promenades along Nevsky Prospekt and other crowded places; that he seemed to be looking into the store and so on. Why did Gogol need this 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 point is that main character works - a desperate careerist, ready to do anything for a promotion. He managed to receive the rank of collegiate assessor without an exam, thanks to his service in the Caucasus. Kovalev’s cherished goal 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 superiority of military ranks over civilian ones. “He could forgive everything that was said about himself, but he 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 (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 - the personality or its status?" And the answer is disappointing...

Hints from a brilliant author

Gogol's story contains many satirical subtleties and transparent hints at 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 inferiority. In order to wear this accessory, special permission was required. If the heroes of the work strictly followed the instructions and corresponded to the form, then the Nose in the Uniform acquired for them the importance of a significant person. But as soon as the police chief “logged out” of the system, broke the strictness 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 intertwine in Gogol’s story “The Nose”. No wonder the author’s contemporaries were engrossed in 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 belief in the power of supernatural forces. Fantastic elements in the works of Nikolai Vasilyevich - these are ways of satirically displaying the vices of society, as well as affirming the realistic principle in life.

The impressions caused by Gogol's life in St. Petersburg were reflected in the so-called "Petersburg Tales", created in 1831-1841. All stories are connected by a common theme: the power of officials and money. All of them have a typical main character - a commoner, a “little” person. The leading pathos of the stories is the corrupting power of money, the exposure of the blatant injustice of the social system. They truthfully recreate a generalized picture of St. Petersburg in the 30s of the 19th century.

Gogol especially often turns in these stories to fantasy and his favorite technique of extreme contrast. He was convinced that "the true effect lies in the sharp opposite." But fantasy is, to one degree or another, subordinated to realism here.

"Petersburg Tales" reveal an evolution from social and everyday satire ("Nevsky Prospekt") to socio-political pamphleteering ("Notes of a Madman"), from romanticism and realism with the predominant role of the latter ("Nevsky Prospekt") to more and more consistent realism ("Overcoat").

The story “The Nose” depicts the monstrous power of veneration. The writer shows the absurdity of human relationships in conditions of despotic-bureaucratic subordination, when the individual, as such, loses all meaning. And here Gogol skillfully uses fantasy. The plot of the story is conventional, the idea itself is absurd, but this is precisely what Gogol’s grotesque consists of and, despite this, is quite realistic. Chernyshevsky said that true realism is possible only by depicting life in the “forms of life itself.” Gogol unusually expanded the boundaries of convention and showed that this convention remarkably serves the knowledge of life

Gogol's "The Overcoat" is a grotesque and dark nightmare, punching black holes in the vague picture of life. A superficial reader will see in this story only the ponderous antics of an extravagant jester; a thoughtful person will not doubt that Gogol’s main intention was to expose the horrors of the Russian bureaucracy. But both those who want to laugh to their heart’s content and those who crave reading that “makes you think” will not understand what “The Overcoat” is written about. Give me a reader with a creative imagination - this story is for him. Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol created a fusion of satire and lyricism in his early work; he enriched realism with the achievements of romanticism. With all the power of his talent, he painted reality, while nurturing the dream of a wonderful person and the future of his country. Thus, he raised critical realism to a new, higher level compared to his predecessors.

In the finale of “The Overcoat,” as often happens in Gogol’s works, realistic authenticity merges with fantasy and grotesquery: rumors spread throughout the city about a dead man who, in search of an overcoat stolen from him, tore off the overcoats of everyone he met, without considering rank and title, until got to the “significant person”.

39 “Mirage World” of Gogol’s comedies. Poetics of the comic. "The Inspector General" as a new type of comedy

Using the example of the Auditor

“Mirage intrigue” is a term by Yu. V. Mann (the word “mirage” was borrowed from the last century critic Al. Grigoriev). It means that formally the intrigue occurs between Khlestakov and the officials, but in fact the officials interact not with Khlestakov, but with the absent Inspector General.

This imaginary idyll in which the city's residents live is disrupted by terrible news - the arrival of an auditor. In the chaos, frightened officials, trying to create the appearance of order and their honest service, mistake a passing St. Petersburg registrar for incognito, being confused by his self-confidence and the demeanor of a typical metropolitan official. The imaginary auditor Khlestakov, as he appears in the eyes of the mayor and other dignitaries of the city, Khlestakov, “who is on friendly terms with Pushkin,” who has one of the most famous houses in St. Petersburg, “where princes and counts, and sometimes the minister, gather” , Khlestakov, “whom the State Council itself is afraid of,” is a phantom. Officials begin to serve and please this ghost in every possible way, on whom Khlestakov’s false stories make a huge impression. In these stories we appear mirage world St. Petersburg, its crooked reflection, a ghost town, a city of officials, bribe takers, swindlers, cheats, gamblers, a city of Khlestakovs and Tryapichkins.

It must be said that Khlestakov occupies mirage position not only for officials, he himself is in illusions. Being just a registrar, Khlestakov considers himself an important person and is not even surprised at the increased attention and care of officials, considering this to be in the order of things. Everyone begins to show imaginary honors to the mayor, his wife and daughter, expressing false, insincere joy, envying and cursing in their souls. In the end, when the true state of affairs is revealed to the heroes, when Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky and other officials realize how cruelly they were deceived, a new ghost approaches them, an auditor, this time a real one...

Thus, the entire fantastic, if not paradoxical, plot of the comedy is driven by mirages, built on illusions. But, as I already said, the play “The Inspector General,” “this state ghost,” is a reflection of reality. Many signs of Russian reality are recognizable in the comedy. Bribery, embezzlement, deception of authorities - all these are realities not only of Gogol’s time. Illusory, mirage world the play, which hides the truth within itself, is like a Looking Glass, a reflection in a mirror that is addressed to the readers. This mirror allows us to see not only the mirages in which the heroes of the comedy live, but also a reflection of our own lives, gives us the opportunity to recognize ourselves, living according to false ideas about evil and good, about truth and lies, feeding illusions about own life and not seeing how deeply they are mired in deception, vulgarity, envy and pettiness.