In their short stories, both Gogol and Dostoyevsky give the reader a snapshot into the life of two different couples and in doing so, present marriage in a way that is perhaps peculiar and unflattering to a modern reader. To a contemporary reader, however, these short stories would have been much more relevant, as along with a large amount of other Russian literature at the time, these two short stories are taken from real-life experience, and therefore, anyone can relate to the characters; for example, Dostoyevsky’s ‘A Gentle Creature’ was based on a local news item that many reading the short story at the time would have been aware of. Neither marriage is presented as a simplistic one and as two short stories written by Russian authors during the same period, one might assume that the ideals in ‘Old World Landowners’ and ‘A Gentle Creature’ might be somewhat similar. However, while these short stories contain many similarities, such as their tragic end, the two texts differ greatly in their representation of marriage and therefore one must consider how this affects the texts as a whole.
Upon first reading “A Gentle Creature” and “Old World Landowners” one might consider the two texts to be very different in style; “A Gentle Creature” initially appears to portray an unhappy, forced marriage whereas “Old World Landowners” appears to portray a couple who have been happily married for years. It is not until one delves deeper in to each text that it becomes apparent that the two marriages are not so different after all. Possibly one of the most obvious similarities between the marriages in each text is that neither couple has children: There are a number of possibilities as to why this could be and it is when we exp...
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...erhaps, these ‘abnormal’ relationships would not have seemed so to a contemporary reader, one must also remember that a relationship so strained and miserable that it results in suicide would not be accepted by either a contemporary or modern reader and perhaps this is the message that both Dostoyevsky and Gogol are trying to give.
Bibliography
Primary Sources:
Gogol, N., (1985) 'Old-World Landowners', The Complete Tales of Nikolai Gogol, ed. by Leonard Kent, vol. 2 (Chicago: Chicago University Press) p 1-22.
Dostoevsky, F., (1995) 'A Gentle Creature', in A Gentle Creature and Other Stories (Oxford: Oxford UP) 57-103
Secondary Sources:
Grayson, J., (1989) Nikolay Gogol: Text and Context. (New York: St. Martin's Press).
Putney, C. R., (2003) Nikolai Gogol's "Old-World Landowners": A Parable of Acedia. The Slavic and East European Journal, 47(1), 1-23.
Davis addresses various important factors in a peasant’s life. She highlights many components of peasant society, including their social classes and how their society values property in different ways. Davis also includes the peasants’ culture. She elaborates on the importance of children and the consequences of not being able to produce children. She also explains typical marriage procedures and customs. Lastly, Davis talks about some of the laws and common uses of the judicial system by peasants. By incorporating these factors into her book Davis is successful at recreating life for peasants in France during the sixteenth century.
Jackson J. Spielvogel, Western Civilization: Volume I: To 1715, 8th Edition, (Boston: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2012), 90.
The role of the Gogolian narrator is an unassuming revealer of what is hidden in the world. Revelations can be the world’s evils, morality, or a nation’s ultimate purpose. Gogol’s narrator is merely a puppet of his imagination and is kept within certain boundaries. Sometimes the narrator’s lack of transparency can make a story seem like a parable or folk tale like in “The Nose” and “Nevsky Prospect.” We can see this in what limited information the narrator is allowed to reveal to the reader and I will examine this theme in Gogol’s “Nevsky Prospect,” “The Nose,” and Dead Souls.
The short story, “Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka and His Aunt”, explicates the life of a man named Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka. We see him briefly in his young years, followed by his life in the army, and his return to the farm where his strong characterized aunt resides. We can see immediately that this man lives in constant cleanliness and dutiful paranoia; these are some of his desires that he wishes to exhibit to others. We can also see his fears, which reside in the confiscation of his masculinity and independence. This short story has many elements that resemble others in the Nikolai Gogol collection.
... Folk-Tales: Primitive Literature of the Empire of the Tsars. London: The C.W. Daniel Company. 1925. pg. 674
The Norton Anthology World Literature Volume 2: 1650 to the Present. Ed. Martin Puchner. Shorter 3rd ed. New York: Norton, 2013. Print
Nikolai Gogol's masterpiece novel, Dead Souls, remains faithful to the Gogolian tradition in terms of absurdity, lavish detail, and abundant digressions. Although these three literary techniques coexist, interact, and augment each other-the focus of this analysis is to examine how Gogol (or the narrator) deviates from the plotline, the significance of it, and what aesthetic purpose comes from the digression.
Turgenev, Ivan. Fathers and Sons. Ed. & Trans. Michael R. Katz. 1862. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996.
5) Grossman, Leonid. Dostoevsky: His Life and Work. New York: the Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1975.
Gömöri, George. "Czeslaw Milosz: Overview." Reference Guide to World Literature. Ed. Lesley Henderson. 2nd ed. New York: St. James Press, 1995. Literature Resource Center. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.
Greenblatt, Stephen, and M. H. Abrams. "The Dream of The Rood." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8th ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. 27-29. Print.
The conflict between good and evil is one of the most common conventional themes in literature. Coping with evil is a fundamental struggle with which all human beings must contend. Sometimes evil comes from within a character, and sometimes other characters are the source of evil; but evil is always something that the characters struggle to overcome. In two Russian novels, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment and Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, men and women cope with their problems differently. Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment and the Master in The Master and Margarita can not cope and fall apart, whereas Sonya in Crime and Punishment and Margarita in The Master and Margarita, not only cope but pull the men out of their suffering.
Marriage is a powerful union between two people who vow under oath to love each other for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. This sacred bond is a complicated union; one that can culminate in absolute joy or in utter disarray. One factor that can differentiate between a journey of harmony or calamity is one’s motives. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is a novel of manners, where Elizabeth Bennet and her aristocratic suitor Mr. Darcy’s love unfolds as her prejudice and his pride abate. Anton Chekhov’s “Anna on the Neck” explores class distinction, as an impecunious young woman marries a wealthy man. Both Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Anton Chekhov’s “Anna on the Neck” utilize
“There is no perfect relationship. The idea that there is gets us into so much trouble.”-Maggie Reyes. Kate Chopin reacts to this certain idea that relationships in a marriage during the late 1800’s were a prison for women. Through the main protagonist of her story, Mrs. Mallard, the audience clearly exemplifies with what feelings she had during the process of her husbands assumed death. Chopin demonstrates in “The Story of an Hour” the oppression that women faced in marriage through the understandings of: forbidden joy of independence, the inherent burdens of marriage between men and women and how these two points help the audience to further understand the norms of this time.
Literature of the Western World, Volume 2. 4th edition by Brian Wilkie and James Hurt. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1997.