Summary and synopsis of "Diary of a Madman" and "The Nose"
Nicolai Gogol (1809-1852)Wikipedia.
Following "Nevsky Boulevard," Gogol published "Diary of a Madman" in 1835 and "The Nose" in 1836. These two works are also well-known as representatives of the "Petersburg style.
I read "Diary of a Madman" and "The Nose" in "The Complete Works of Gogol 3: Novels in Medium Length" translated by Hashio Yokota, published by Kawade Shobo Shinsha.
I'd love to give you a synopsis of each of them right away, but it's hard to ...
I can still manage "Diary of a Madman", but when it comes to "Nose", the contents are so outlandish and surreal that I am at a loss to explain them. Unfortunately, there is no synopsis in the commentary at the end of the book.
It was difficult to write, but let's start with the synopsis of "Diary of a Madman".
The protagonist, Poplyushkin, is a low-ranking official who is in love with the Secretary's daughter. However, his status is so different and he is not attractive as a man that it is impossible for him to make things work out. He tries to win the favor of the Secretary, but he is still a bit of a bore. It seems that he will not be able to succeed in this situation.
This work is the story of Poplyushkin's mental derangement and madness as seen through his diary.
One day he suddenly starts hearing dogs talking and tries to read a letter from the Secretary's house dog. (It already makes no sense.)
After a while, he would believe that he was the heir to the throne of Spain, and in the end he would be taken away to a mental hospital.
The great thing about this work is that it is not a portrayal of a person going mad from the outside by another person, but a first-person portrayal of the thoughts, words, and actions of a person who is going mad right now without being aware of it.
It's all well and good until you hear the dog's voice, but it starts to get pretty creepy when he claims to be the heir to the throne of Spain. The Gogol-style humor is in full swing and you can't help but chuckle, but when you think about it for a moment, a spine-tingling sense of eeriness comes over you.
Here are just a few of the places where this is the case.
Year 2000. April 43.
Kawade Shobo Shinsha, The Complete Works of Gogol 3: Medium Length Novels, translated by Hataho Yokota.P296
Today is a very happy day! There was a king in Spain. I found him. And that king is me. Today, for the first time, I knew. To put it bluntly, it hit me like a bolt of lightning. I don't understand how I could have ever thought I was a ninth-grade official. How in the world had such a crazy, insane fantasy ever entered my head? I was lucky that no one had yet thought of committing me to a mental institution. Now everything was clear to me. I can see everything so clearly now that I can almost see it in my mind's eye. But until now, everything was like a fog, and I couldn't understand anything. The reason why this was so is because people think that the human brain is in the head, which is not true at all.
Notice the date. You can already see that it is no longer quite so crazy.
The last words, "The human brain marrow is sent by the wind from the Caspian Sea." The last words are out of the ordinary. This work is written in the style of a diary and moves along rather smoothly. The first half of the story is still understandable, but the last half of the story is like this.
It is so outlandish, and Poplyushkin writes it so seriously, that it is incredibly surreal. It is so surreal that you can't help but laugh at the surrealism of it all, and it is quite eerie.
Now, I would love to introduce you to "Diary of a Madman," but let's move on to the next one, "The Nose.
The protagonist here is also a man named Kowaljow, a low-ranking official, who wakes up one day to find that his nose is gone.
He goes outside to visit the police commissioner, but what he encounters there is "his own nose" coming down from a streetcarriage.
He makes up his mind to call out to the nose, but is met with a slight and runs away.
So what is the fate of Kowaljof!
How do you feel about that? I have no idea what's going on. I don't know what to say either.
First of all, it is a mystery that his nose disappears when he wakes up in the morning. It is even more unintelligible that his own nose comes down from the carriage, starts walking, and even converses with him.
It is difficult to even imagine, isn't it? What kind of scene would it be to see a nose getting out of a carriage? What about the body? Does it have legs? What about the torso? Hands?
But strangely enough, I somehow find myself reading smoothly after this, as if the nose were alive and moving just like ours. This is the amazing thing about Gogol.
The theme of the Petersburg one is that anything can happen in the fantastic city of St. Petersburg.
It is precisely this work that seems to express the wonder of the fantastic city of Petersburg to the highest degree.
Connection to Dostoevsky's "Dual Personality
Dostoevsky's "Double Personality," published in 1846, is his debut novelThe Poor.This is the second work by the man who became a darling of the literary world with the spectacular success of
As translated in other editions under the title "alter ego," the plot of this work is about a low-ranking official, Golyatkin, who suffers a mental breakdown and sees his alter ego appear before him.
This clearly shows the influence of Gogol. Poplyushkin's "Diary of a Madman," in which a low-ranking official goes insane, and Kovalyov's "The Nose," in which his own nose appears before his eyes as if it were his alter ego, are the basis for this work.
Motylski'sA Critical Biography of Dostoevsky.The following is what they have to say about this in the following section.
Dostoevsky has not left the confines of the magic of Gogol's figures and words. The young writer's battle with the author of "Diary of a Madman" continues. Once again imitating Gogol, he tries to overcome this illusion. His contemporaries saw the imitation but did not notice the "rebellion. （The "rebellion" was not noticed by his contemporaries, who saw the imitation but not the "rebellion.)
Dostoevsky has madness as a basic theme, and from the first chapter he depicts a protagonist who shows signs of going mad. In Gogol's case, the motif of madness was simply an elaborate stylistic game (diaries, dog correspondence).
Dostoevsky delves deeply into the psychology of the madman, the onset of the disease and its progression. From the fantastical grotesque style of his teacher Gogol, he creates a psychological novel.
The schizophrenic motif is implied from another of Gogol's novels, The Nose. The sixth officer, Kowalyov, is also "split in two". Parts of his body have become independent entities, and he wears a uniform and rides around in a carriage. The nose, separated from its owner, becomes his alter ego.
Kovalyov explains to the newspaper's advertising department: "I am not advertising a poodle dog. I am not advertising a poodle dog. It's about my own nose. So it's almost about me, isn't it?
Dostoevsky created his own "alter ego" by combining two of Gogol's themes, Poplishtin's madness and Kowalyov's schism. Perhaps, while perusing the fantastic middle novel of the author of "The Dying Soul," he tried to grasp the idée in his own way.
How did Populistin go mad? How did Kovalyov become schizophrenic? How could this happen? Dostoevsky set himself the task of "reimagining" Gogol.
Motulisky, "Critical Biography of Dostoevsky," translated by Yutaka Matsushita and Kyoko Matsushita, p. 5.1-52
Some line breaks have been made.
Dostoevsky's contemporaries failed to understand Dostoevsky's intentions and condemned the work as a mere imitation of Gogol.
But in Dostoevsky's mind, he intended to write this work for something completely different.
Let's look at another explanation.
Ninth officer Yakov Petrovich Golyatkin is a product of the dank fog of Petersburg, a phantom living in a fantastic city.
He inhabits the bizarre world of government offices, bureaucratic offices, correspondence, outgoing documents, administrative "reprimands," authoritarianism, officialdom, and the superior's report. He is a small "cog" in the machine of the state, a sandbag buried amidst the hordes of bureaucrats.
The bureaucracy of Nicholas I crushes human individuality with its rock-like weight. The state knows a person's number and rank, but not the person itself.
The value of every human being is replaced by a grading system. All officials are indistinguishable from one another, and their importance is determined not by their internal, moral character, but by their external, positional status or office.
People's relationships have become mechanized, and people themselves have become objects. When Golyatkin's alter ego appears in a government office, not one of the officials notices this "miracle of nature. They do not see the face of the person, but they wonder if things have faces at all. Things are replaced by each other, so no one is surprised when Golyatkin is replaced by his alter ego.
Motulisky, "Critique Dostoevsky," translated by Yutaka Matsushita and Kyoko Matsushita, p. 52.-53
Some line breaks have been made.
Indeed, Dostoevsky has moved on from the problems depicted in Gogol's "Petersburg Things." Dostoevsky, like Gogol, saw the reality of Petersburg, the capital of China, and was disillusioned.
Gogol presented it to the world as a humorous satire, but Dostoevsky delved into it to a serious degree to create his own work.
This work comes to us with a depth that makes it far more than a mere Gogol imitation.
In "Dostoevsky: A Critical Biography," Dostoevsky describes the meaning of his work "Dual Personality" as follows. This is a very important point for those of us living today, so I will quote it here, even though it is a bit long.
What kind of person can a person be who has been crushed and devastated by the bureaucracy? What kind of person must suffer the gradual loss of his or her own personality?
He cannot help but realize that outside of this kingdom of "papers" he has no real connection with people, that he is placed in a void and infinite solitude.
These people have to live in fear and under total threat.
How can he defend himself and prove that he is who he is, that he is unique, that he is unique, that he is unique, that he cannot be replaced or substituted?
How can he prove that he is who he says he is?
Golyatkin is trying to save his character by fencing himself in, separating himself from the immersive group, and spending time in solitude. Like a cornered rat, he cowering in his hole. He is Dostoevsky's first "underground dweller.
He wants to stand "apart" so that no one can touch him, and he wants to be "just like everyone else" so as not to attract anyone's attention.
I'm trying to say this," he muses, at a loss. I am walking my own path, a different path from others. I am different. As far as I know, I'm not under anyone's care. ...... I am a quiet man, but my path is different from others" (Chapter 2).
The sneers and cowardice of a man deprived of his individuality are described in a manic-depressive tone. I'm fine. I'm an independent person like everyone else. In any case, my hut stands apart. ...... I don't want to know anyone. Don't let anyone touch me. I won't touch me either. I'm 'standing apart' ......
In this "standing apart" is a cowardly helplessness that crackles. Golyatkin knows that he is powerless to defend himself, that he cannot even quickly hide in his hole, that he has no "solid character," that his personality has long since been shattered. Fear of life and the responsibility of living gives rise to a feeble desire to "slink away," to "disappear.
Motulisky, "Critical Biography of Dostoevsky," translated by Yutaka Matsushita and Kyoko Matsushita, p. 5.3-54
Some line breaks have been made.
This work was written in 19th century Russia. However, what is described here is no different from what we are going through today in Japan. We and Dostoevsky suffered from the same things and felt the same difficulties in life.
Dostoevsky throws it at us through Golyatkin.
I myself was very moved by this work. Personally, I love "Dual Personalities" so much that it ranks high among Dostoevsky's works.
I don't fit in well with others. I want to fit in, but I also don't want to fit in. What am I? Why am I the way I am? What should I do? Why am I so mean? Is there something wrong with me? How can I live? Why do I have to suffer so much?
If you have such a problem, this is the work you should read. Here is a drama of human beings with the same problems. Dostoevsky is on the side of such people.
I remember reading this work and feeling a strange sense of relief that there were others who endured the same suffering, even though I sympathized and suffered with them.
Of course, this piece does not have a happy ending.
But it is a work that leaves a deep impression on our hearts.
Dostoevsky was strongly influenced by Gogol's "Diary of a Madman" and "The Nose" to create "Double Personality.
It seems to me that reading Gogol's work makes it more clear what Dostoevsky was trying to say.
As works of art, "Diary of a Madman" and "Nose" are very funny. It may be said to be the ultimate in surreal laughter.
If you like surreal laughter, you will be hooked first.
I highly recommend this work as it is by far the most readable of Gogol's works.
These were the representatives of the "Petersburg stuff" that strongly influenced Gogol's "The Nose," "Diary of a Madman," and Dostoevsky's "Double Personality.
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