Saturday, November 17, 2007

The stories so far

I've read The Overcoat, The Nose, and The Diary of a Madman, considered to be Gogol's short-story masterpieces. I've also read The Carriage (very short and VERY boring) and am nearing the end of Taras Bulba which is another very famous, much-lauded Gogol piece.

I have drawn up a few similarities between the tales.

- His chief protagonists are always male.
- His treatment of female characters is distinctly wary; never once does he create a tangible multifaceted female character.
- The antiheores of his stories are often heavily flawed/hopeless low-ranking members of society who suffer at the hands of those in higher positions.
- Rank and standing are major concerns in every story.

"And Petersburg remained without Akaky Akakievich, as if he had never been in it."
- The Overcoat, following the death of the beleaguered lonely clerk Akakievich.

"But youth and old age see things differently, and cannot communicate."
- Taras Bulba, on the different views of young upstart Cossacks to those of their experienced elders.

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