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 collections, each of which also consisted of two volumes.
The appearance of an unusual book
The first was called Mirgorod. It included the novels "Viy", "Old World Landowners", "Taras Bulba", "The Story of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich." And then comes another book, very unusual. It is called arabesques. And it includes not only works of art, but Gogol’s articles and essays. This is something like a collection of motley chapters, to paraphrase the quotation of Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin.
It is in this collection that three novels are published, which in criticism have received the name Petersburg (according to the scene of the storylines). Nikolai Vasilievich himself did not call them that. However, this phrase has been fixed for many decades, it is relevant now.
Tales included in the collected works
When analyzing Gogol's Petersburg Stories, it is necessary to note the works Nevsky Prospect, Portrait, and Notes of a Madman. Although this cycle of stories is perceived somewhat differently, as today's reader is more accustomed to include several more works of Nikolai Vasilievich.
This is the work "Nose", which was first published in the Pushkin magazine "Contemporary". Another "Overcoat", which came to the public in 1842, when the author was preparing to publish his first lifetime cycle of essays. Making an analysis of the novel “Viy” by Gogol, “Portrait” and other works of Nikolai Vasilievich, all reading Russia already knew and understood that this writer was Pushkin’s successor. He is precisely the writer who must take the baton from Alexander Sergeyevich.
An analysis of Gogol's Petersburg Stories
Nikolai Vasilievich - a man and a writer of three cultures: Little Russian, Russian and Italian. And when he comes to Petersburg from his Poltava region, he looks at this world of the Russian capital through the eyes of a guest and an outsider. That is why the name "Petersburg" in this cycle of stories means more than just a scene.
All the events described in these wonderful works are very simple, there are many everyday sketches. However, making an analysis of Gogol’s Petersburg Stories, we see that the author deliberately went on to simplify the plot and texture. He attached great importance to this.
According to the writer himself, the more ordinary the subject, the more one needs to have talent and imagination in order to make something extraordinary from it, but at the same time not devoid of truth. And this is precisely what was for Nikolai Vasilyevich an important task - to give the reader not only pleasure when reading his books, but also to bring him as close as possible to this truth.
The famous description of the historical part of the city
Petersburg is a place where opposites collide, good and evil are mixed in a bizarre way. Making an analysis of Gogol’s novel “Nevsky Prospect”, the reader first of all sees the brightest, most famous description of this part of the city. It is easy to compare it with the lyrical images of the Dnieper or Ukrainian night from the cycle of novels “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka”.
But at the very beginning of the description there is a phrase: “I know that not one of the pale and bureaucratic inhabitants of it ...” When analyzing Gogol’s Petersburg stories, it is necessary to pay attention to it. The words "pale" and "official" indicate the fact that Nevsky Prospect is the place where a person is faced with deception.
In another part of the story, Nikolai Vasilyevich says bluntly and terribly straightforward words: "A demon crumbled the whole world into many different pieces and mixed up all to no avail." The world of Nevsky Prospect is an image devoid of integrity, and something demonic peeps out from behind every turn.
Subject and ideological lines
What ideological lines do Gogol's Petersburg Stories contain? An analysis of the stories suggests that the motive of temptation is very clearly indicated in them. For example, in Nevsky Prospekt, one of his heroes, the artist Peskarev, following the beauty, suddenly realizes that her outward charm does not mean virtue at all. Cute tinsel does not mean an inner being.
The superficial and deep properties in man are divided. And this is very clearly seen here, in the center of St. Petersburg, on Nevsky Prospekt, where different people walk every hour - either janitors, high officials, or the poor. And this is the paradoxical essence of this focus of the Russian capital.
The storyline of the work "Nose"
Making an analysis of Gogol’s story “The Nose”, the reader is faced with an even more bizarre world. Here we are talking about completely impossible events. The nose, having separated from its owner, an official who calls himself a major, begins to drive around the streets. This text is very difficult to read.
How, for example, to understand a phrase such as "The nose hid his chin in the collar." This is an amazing property of Gogol's reality, which leads to very different thoughts.
No matter how unusual the life that Gogol's Petersburg Stories depicts seems to the reader, an analysis of the works suggests that almost every story in this cycle has a certain parable. In Nose, for example, this is realized through a grotesque. This word itself means something fantastic, comic, ugly principle, which is laid down in reality itself, but is not in an explicit form.
An analysis of Gogol’s novel “The Nose” makes one wonder where the measure that makes a person feel flawed is. What do you need to lose in order to stop feeling like yourself - your reputation, family, career? In the work "Nose", a character who has lost this part of the body loses its dignity, weight in the eyes of society, and it is precisely this inferiority that the author transmitted through the grotesque.
The image of a little man
After analyzing Gogol’s novel “The Overcoat,” the reader will immediately compare the image of Akakiy Akakievich with the Pushkin station ranger. The little man is the pivotal hero of Russian literature, which then appears in so many works of various prose writers.
A small person is a rather complicated personality. It is as if a person was turned into a thing by this big city, which is not comparable with the needs of a particular character. Either he needs compassion, or he is a righteous man and oppressed by an external reality that is alien and cold to him.
It is this metaphor that is key to the story. And perhaps this is just a primitive person who needs a simple indulgence. In fact - this is a simple person who needs a piece of warmth and attention, like all creatures that fill the world. And not finding her, he, unfortunately, dies.
Mysterious and majestic city
Not only the analysis of Gogol’s novel “Notes of a Madman” leads the reader to the idea that Nikolai Vasilievich Petersburg is a city where the fantastic and the real are nearby. In each author’s creation, located in the St. Petersburg Tales series, the most unusual occurrences are possible.
Here, career and money seekers coexist alongside sincere and pure people. Delirium, madness and death are close to high service to art, any good qualities of man. Thus, the writer reveals the true appearance of this mysterious and magnificent city.
The 1830s, when the Petersburg Stories appeared, was the peak era of Gogol's work. Then completely different times begin. Nikolai Vasilievich 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, who is a guideline for all Russian literature.