Sasha Sokolov and N. Gogol: Character problematisation

Abstract

Sasha Sokolov in his novel A School for Fools focuses on Nikolai Gogol’s prose (The Overcoat, Dead Souls). Sokolov inherits some principles of work with the character system from Gogol. In The Overcoat we can observe how the boundaries between the character and the depicted world or the narrator’s speech are blurred. Bashmachkin loses his integrity, turning from an independent hero into an element of a St. Petersburg myth. In Sokolov’s novel we see a similar situation, for example, in the episode where the protagonist transforms into a water lily. The birth of some characters of A School for Fools from the speech of the narrator is interpreted as playing with Gogol’s method. In Dead Souls, the elements that are traditionally considered parts of a hero (name, actions, characteristics, etc.) often appear in the speech of the narrator, but the hero himself does not exist in the depicted world. Narrator’s digressions in A School for Fools show a similar situation. Thus, postmodern features of Sokolov’s poetics are actually associated with Gogol’s tradition. The origins of Gogol’s character problematisation lie in Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka. The loss of semantic integrity by some characters in Gogol’s prose contributes to the destruction of the boundaries between the narrative instances, and between the real world and the depicted one. Gogol strove for ambiguity, and Sokolov brings that aspiration to the limit: Sokolov implies that the main character of his novel “goes out” into an external reality, but at the same time Sokolov casts doubt on the very possibility of such transition.