Ambiguity in absurdity : Gogol's the nose and the overcoat.

• Main Author: Yixin, Huang.
• Other Authors: Terence Richard Dawson
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: DRNTU::Humanities::Literature
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/45366
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

When one thinks of Russian literature, names such as Fyodor Dostoevsky, Alexander Pushkin, and Vladimir Nabokov come to mind. A name which deserves to be added to the list but is often denied equal credit is Nikolai Gogol. Best known for his novel Dead Souls, Gogol is deemed as a better writer than Pushkin by Nabokov: “The prose of Pushkin is three-dimensional; that of Gogol is four-dimensional, at least.” (Nabokov 145). In 1835, Gogol published a collection of short stories reflecting the life of St. Petersburg. Often collectively known as the Petersburg Tales, these novels have generated the interest of many critics. Two short stories from the Petersburg Tales will be discussed – The Nose and The Overcoat. There are many critics who have made the attempt to create meaning out of the two short stories, but to date, there does not seem to be much overarching interpretations which are distinctively Gogol. The innumerable amount of interpretations each makes a claim which might be true, but at the expense of other aspects of the short stories. By doing this, proper justice is not being made to the text, because only the fitting aspects are picked and the unfitting ones thrown out of the window.