"Gogol's world is sharply dualistic; there exists two realities-one is the reality of dreams, ideals and the imagination; the other is terrible reality' or terrible life', the Kingdom of the Prince of this world- (K Mochulskiy).
Discuss this comment in the context of at least two of the stories studied.
Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol was born at Mirgorod (Ukraine) in 1809. Born in the provinces of Russia, Gogol always considered himself a provincial writer; indeed his early work (Evenings on a farm near Dikanka-published in 1831/1832) is mainly concerned with the rural idyll and superstitions of provincial life.
In 1828, Gogol moved to St Petersburg and became acquainted with Alexander Pushkin, who encouraged Gogol's literary ambitions. At this point in time, Russia was under the rule of Nicholas I- a czar who censored subversive ideas. The years 1831 through to 1836 was Gogol's most prodigious period and helped him to establish his literary reputation.
In 1842, Gogol published his collected works; from this point on Gogol's health in body and mind deteriorated rapidly until February 1852 when he starved himself to death-his last wish being for all of his work to be destroyed.
"The best known cliché ever applied to Gogol's art is laughter through tears'- .
That is the claim of Richard Peace in his 1981 book The Enigma of Gogol. Gogol is a writer whose work cannot be pigeonholed. .
When Gogol published Diary of a Madman in 1835, it was claimed to be Russia's premiere work on realism. This is Gogol's only work of a continued narrative told in the first person, and is a prime example of Gogol's dualistic narrative-the reader is at once torn between laughing at Poprischin' and crying for the pain he is meant to endure:.
"What have I done to them? Why do they torture me so? What can they want .
from a miserable wretch like me?- .
Poprischin's madness can be seen as a crisis of identity; the culmination of his madness being that he imagines himself to be the King of Spain.
