The little man in the Gogol's tradition of Dahl's story

Ogourtsova Valeriya Sergeevna ORCID: 0000-0002-3294-3586 Postgraduate student of the Department of General Literary Studies and Journalism, Saratov National Research State University named after N. G. Chernyshevsky 410012, Russia, Saratovskaya oblast', g. Saratov, ul. Astrakhanskaya, 83 lera.ogourtsova@gmail.com

Almost all writers of Dahl's contemporaries had their own "little man" in literature. According to Belinsky, Mann, Lotman and many other researchers, Gogol introduced this fashion.  "We call such a literary type a supertype, since, having arisen in the work of one writer, in one of his works, he then subordinates for some time the thoughts of writers of an entire generation, "migrates" from work to work, changing his individual features, some details of his fate and position, but retaining the general meaning of his characteristics. The very fact that later for decades, turning to the image of a person crushed by poverty and social oppression, writers invariably repelled from this type created by Gogol in the "Overcoat" and developed by the natural school, speaks of the proximity of the form of his literary existence to the specific function carried by some world types in the history of art, especially in the literature"^[6].  Gogol invented his hero – a little man, made him the maximum exponent of the traits of his generation. And it so happened that this image became the source for the composition of characters by many contemporary writers. Everyone wanted to create their own Akaky Akakievich. And Dahl created it. Despite the fact that the image of a little man appears in several works of Dahl and Gogol at once, only two texts become the basis of the study: Gogol's "Overcoat" and Dahl's "Human Life, or a Walk along Nevsky Prospekt".

The starting point is the article by P. A. Strunin "The Creative Dialogue of N. V. Gogol and V. I. Dahl"^[11], as well as the theses of the report by L. P. Bryuzgina "The image of a "little man" in the novels of N. V. Gogol "The Overcoat" and V. I. Dahl "The Life of a Man, or a Walk along Nevsky Prospekt" (the experience of typological analysis)" ^[1]. Yu.P. Fesenko addressed the same topic in his research ^[12]. These works offer a brief comparative analysis devoted to similar features of works and heroes.

Gogol's "Overcoat" was published in 1841. "The Life of a man, or a Walk along Nevsky Prospekt" by Dahl – in 1843. It took Vladimir Ivanovich two years to repeat Gogol's story. The similarities that exist in the works of these writers, on the one hand, can be attributed to the context of the literature of that time itself. All the authors were inspired by the best examples, and Gogol was such a model, undoubtedly, he was the initiator of traditions. Therefore, it makes sense to talk not about literary borrowing, but about creative dialogue. On the other hand, in this particular work, the dialogue becomes almost a mirror image. However, it has some fundamentally new accents. In this kind of dialogue, a stable genre tradition will be formed. Everything, from the name, the place of action, household details and ending with the name of the main character, indicates that Dahl tried to make his work as similar as possible to the text of Gogol's "Overcoat". It can be assumed that there are a number of reasons that prompted Dahl to this kind of open artistic paraphrase. The first is an undoubted desire to develop the theme of a natural, "natural" person. The second is the desire to connect their own talents with the emerging promising and topical literary trend. The third is an open imitation of Gogol, whom Dahl revered as the greatest writer. The fourth is the intention to provoke, even provoke Gogol into a full–fledged creative dialogue. Which of the reasons prevailed?

The Dalevsky character turns out to be the receiver of Gogol's hero in a number of fundamental moments in the transfer of artistic details. The first is a rare name. "There is a nipple in the mouth, a copper calf on the neck, and a note was found in the washcloth, written by some semi–author: "we ask you to accept this baby, named Homer, who is very good to the family!" ^[5]. Later it turns out that the baby's name was not Homer at all, but Joseph, just the people who threw the child were obviously illiterate. So Dahl has two names left for the main character. Recall the fact that two names are a Christian rite, according to which a child is given both a secular name and a name according to the saints ^[10]. This could have happened to Akaky Akakievich, whom his mother wanted to name after the saints, but the names of the mother of the main character did not like. "The maternity hospital was given a choice of any of the three, which she wants to choose: Mokkia, Session, or name the child in the name of the martyr Khozdazat... They also turned the page and came out: Pavsikakhy and Vakhtisiy. “Well, I can already see," said the old woman, "that it seems to be his fate. Even if so, it would be better if he was called like his father. The father was Akaki, so let the son be Akaki"" ^[2]. The hero of Dahl has a different story – according to the saints, his name is quite usual, whereas the secular name – Homer – is borrowed from Greek history. Which, on the one hand, makes the character more sublime, on the other, travests, reduces his image. Homer, who finds himself in St. Petersburg, loses his real appearance and becomes a man without distinctive properties, just like Robert Musil in the novel "A Man without Properties" ^[9].  He lives as he lives, without any exceptional incidents, and if such a thing happens, the whole life immediately comes to an end. To enhance the effect of travesty and even comicality, Dahl constantly mentions both names of the hero, so phrases like: "Homer, aka Oska" appear. The story with the name is not limited to the main character. It is enough to recall the vocabulary of his adoptive father, a German baker. "His name, of course, was Ivan Ivanovich, and even at that time all Germans were called bakers and sausage makers; Ivan Adamovich were, as you know, educators, teachers; Karl Ivanovich or Ivan Karlovich doctors, and German employees; and the names: Adolf, August, Gusta and others, more intricate, were the property of German artists and musicians. Ivan Ivanovich was also an artist in his craft; but, as a very modest and arrogant person, he was content with the name and patronymic of Ivan" ^[5].

Little is known about Akaky Bashmachkin's parents. His mother appears only at the very beginning of the story, when she gives the child such an unusual name. And if the story of Bashmachkin becomes known only from the second half of his storyline life, when he already serves in the department, then in the case of Homer – Joseph Dahl, there is an opportunity to trace the entire path of becoming a "little man". And this path is unusual, first of all, the hero has an interesting fate: being thrown by a child, he finds himself in the family of a successful merchant who tries in every possible way to take care of his son. Secondly, before the hero enters the office at the end of the story, where he finds himself in a story that strongly resembles the plot with a greatcoat, he manages to change a lot of jobs, while not experiencing significant discomfort. "The wonderful fate of this man! To go forward with gigantic steps, to walk the entire length of the Nevsky, to the corner house on one side, and to return on the other, without recoiling anywhere, below half a span to the side!" ^[5]. Events developed in such a way that Homer was first trained by a tinsmith, where he did not achieve much success. At the same time, his father concludes that the boy is obviously a noble family, therefore he cannot work with his hands. Then he is attached to the princely house as a clerk. Nothing like this could happen to Gogol's character, he was initially tightly tied to his copyist's desk and there is no question of any upward movement in the service. Having begun as an imitation of Gogol, Dahl's story begins to unfold in a different way: the writer attracts a favorite fairy-tale motif about overcoming obstacles by Ivan the fool. The hero of Dahl, doomed from birth to an unhappy fate, by the will of fate, turns out to be quite successful for the time being, until the story of career growth turns back into a story about a little man.

In itself, the story of Homer's career is fantastic. A child of an unknown kind gets into a good family, grows up in a hall, studies well. And this despite the fact that Dahl enhances the effect of the character's misery due to his physical injury: "And so Oska turned out to be a hunchback; opinions about the causes of such a bodily deficiency, or rather excess, were not the same. Anna Ivanovna believed that the sin lay on the conscience of Ivan Ivanovich, who felt the shovel or bundle carelessly thrown on the porch with his foot, and, so to speak, wrung his pet's neck at the first meeting with him" ^[5]. This is the key difference of the Dalevsky hero. Despite severe physical injuries and low social status, he does not feel like an outcast of society. On the contrary, he diligently learns languages, shows interest in the sciences, which is not at all characteristic of Akaky Akakievich. So "Joseph learned two languages, Russian and German, learned to read and write, and Andrei Kosolapov ate his sitniks and crackers for a reason. Oska began with the psalter and the hour-book, and at the age of 12 he was already reading fluently at the top of every church and 'civil' letter" ^[5].  In general, it seems that Dahl, having written most of the work, still did not know how to complete it. A sharp change of intonation to absolutely Gogol occurs closer to the finale.

Another significant difference between the characters is that the hero of Dahl is persistently moving up the career ladder, starting from a tinsmith and ending with service in the ministry. At the same time, it cannot be said that he himself is eager to get a promotion. He acts on his father's advice and almost does not rely on feelings. They wake up in Homer already at the end of the work, when, having got into a difficult situation, he gets lost, not knowing what way out to find. "And so Oska was given to a tinsmith, on the street opposite Anichkin Bridge. Thus, the ascent of this sun continued, and he gradually moved higher and higher along Nevsky Prospekt, and knocked, soldered and riveted with great zeal, although the honest tinker prophesied to his namesake, baker Ivan Ivanovich, that Joseph would not make a single brilliant coffee pot in his whole life, because in the depths of his soul this Joseph does not conceal the subtle sense of elegance necessary for any riveting and tin work" ^[5].  Despite the lack of a sense of elegance, so necessary in the work of a tinsmith, Joseph does not hesitate to take up this case, but it does not bring him any particular joy or disappointment.

  Dalevsky's way of portraying the character of the "little man" is manifested in the fact that, describing the seemingly prosperous path of the hero up Nevsky Prospekt, the writer emphasizes his doom on this path, because Joseph himself does not solve anything. Humility guides his behavior to such an extent that even the slightest deviation from the norm and order for him is akin to a catastrophe. It seems disastrous to Akaky Akakievich the manner of rewriting documents not as it was originally established, as they taught, as they used to: "One director, being a kind man and wanting to reward him for his long service, ordered to give him something more important than ordinary rewriting ....this gave him such a job that he sweated completely, rubbed his forehead and finally said: "No, better let me rewrite something""^[2]. Joseph also speaks about this: "Joseph, Osip Ivanovich was also a peaceful citizen of this world, shunned all brave considerations and enterprises, such as: running along Fontanka to Gorokhovaya, crossing the avenue without any need, and walking along the left aristocratic side of it, and so on."

For Akaky Akakievich, the very idea of a new overcoat becomes a kind of beginning of the path, the beginning of the ascent along the Nevsky. But for Joseph, this path is determined by his parents. The way up is both a formal movement of the plot and a metaphor. Changing jobs, Joseph is getting closer to the most notable part of Nevsky. The prince's office becomes the next reference point in the hero's life: "Even higher, on the same right side of the Nevsky, not far from the Police Bridge, Prince Trukhin – Soloshin lived at that time. Ivan Ivanovich put crackers, rolls and pretzels in his house, and was briefly acquainted with the prince's butler. In this way, Homer was attached as a scribe to the prince's house office, and 'the hunchback moved another hundred yards higher along Nevsky Prospekt' ^[5].   Dahl, diligently following Gogol, is trying to create his "little man", using folk wisdom in the image. Homer seems to live by the proverb "You drive more quietly – you will go further." The service in the princely house lasted 15 years. "Osip Ivanovich, he was not conceited in the princely house: he was still quiet and humble, occasionally he was only late for business, gawking, according to his usual habit on the street. For fifteen years he served in the household office of Prince Trukhin–Soloshin, on the last day as on the first, and did not hear a bad word or a good one" ^[5]. At the same time, there is no tragedy and sadness in the intonation of the Dalevsky narrative that Gogol has. There is, rather, doom, but not catastrophic, but convincing, as if it is necessary. From this, the impression of tragedy only intensifies. If Akakia was easily able to shake up the story with the Overcoat, then the life of the hero Dahl continues to go by inertia for some time after the shock. In this sense, the Dalevsky character is even more "small", because the writer leaves nothing at all for him to decide on his own. Homer can't even marry Nevsky. His tightness in the proposed circumstances is so strong that he is afraid of any surprises. "He got so used to the street of his homeland, residence and service that he spoke, from stories and by hearsay, about other parts of the city, as we sometimes talk about New Holland. Everything that lay outside the avenue, Osip Ivanovich called foreign" ^[5]. And with all these obstacles and character traits, he still moved imperceptibly up the Nevsky and along his own career. The event that unsettled Akaky Akakievich and became a symbol of his spiritual rise and fall at the same time – the dream of a new overcoat – was the only significant event in his life. Dahl does not stop at just one episode of his hero's life. Showing her in development, he designates a number of episodes that could have changed the existence of the character, but for some reason did not change. The motif of fate and fate can be seen here, as in Gogol. "The death of his named father and the departure of his mother back to his homeland, to Silesia, put Joseph for some time in great perplexity, however, he got used to his new position, which in essence again contributed only to his production to a higher place" ^[5]. On the one hand, this quality of the hero can be to be considered for the limitations of a small person, however, contemporary writers have never denied such characters the sincerity of feelings and the depth of experiences. They pitied their heroes for the impossibility of living otherwise. Dahl, it seems, does not regret his Homer at all. Because formally there is no reason for pity. But Dahl explains, unlike Gogol, the motivation for his actions. "Do not blame this meager adventure, insignificant first half of Osip's life: so it was, and we undertook only to convey what happened; to show in what quiet and serene solitude a person's life sometimes flows, among the noisy, crackling and bustling capital." ^[5].   The first part of the story resembles the beginning of the "Overcoat", where the hero appeared in his humble state and daily labors. That is, Gogol's composition itself is as follows: the slow course of the hero's life – the appearance of a dream – the path to its realization and spiritual growth – the destruction of a dream – the destruction of life. Dahl's is somewhat different – it's a double structure: the first part – the hero moves by inertia up through life and along the avenue as a symbol of this life. It reaches its peak – the symbol of which is the shoemaker's room near the Palace Square. And then his movement begins back to his death. The shocks in the life of the hero Dahl are much more than those of the Gogol character. But the reaction to them is weaker – he doesn't seem to notice them. It is important that Dahl defines the life of his hero as a duty: "This time the whole disaster of Osip Ivanovich could have ended this time, if a precautionary fate had not prepared for him another kind of trial or punishment, for daring and self-willed deviation from the pillar path of life, from Nevsky Prospekt" ^[5]. This is again Gogol's trait of doom and a foregone conclusion of fate, deviation from which threatens death. This happens both with Bashmachkin and with Joseph-Homer.

A distinctive feature of Dahl's story is that the author is trying to write the fate of his hero into the history of the country. What Gogol refused, making the character universal, was fundamentally important for Dahl. So, a significant change in the life of the hero was due to the war of 1812 and the need to change the location in case of an attack by the French. Homer had already advanced in the service of the Provincial Government, and therefore worried about the need to move to another capital with the arrival of Napoleon. But this event did not change his life either. The first changes took place only after the flood, only then did the hero begin to evaluate the events with all the evidence: "... vanity of vanities and all kinds of vanity, everything is perishable, everything is perishable, and our life is never safe, and it is necessary to die someday. From that disastrous day, O.I. began involuntarily and often to reflect and reason about death" ^[5]. The plot of the flood makes Homer related to the hero of Pushkin's "The Bronze Horseman", whose life also changed after the revelry of the elements.

Dahl gives his Homer another Gogol characteristic: "for too two decades, this day alone O.I. was not in office." And then, after this seemingly outstanding moment in the life of the hero, he adds: "So events after events rushed past O.I., and despite the strength of their impressions, they barely touched him with the edge of the floor, without producing any revolution in his uniform life" ^[5].   In the story of Bashmachkin, the beginning of the fundraising process for a new overcoat is surprising, how slowly the hero collects money for the desired purchase. The process becomes almost sacred. Dahl's hero seems to have enough money to live decently and not deny himself his needs. But he is not interested in this – he does not want to stand out from the general background. It is as if he becomes a small person, but of a higher order, self-sufficient, above the worldly needs to which Gogol's hero was sometimes drawn.

The difference between the hero of Dahl is also that the author gives him the opportunity to express himself by publishing Joseph's diary, which contains a description of the event that changed his life. But in addition, there are also curious notes in it, for example, the hero's attitude to his work. "Having served in this rank for so many years, but if anyone has the courage to go into such details day after day from morning to night and burden his memory, you can go crazy" ^[5]. It is exactly Gogol's.

From Joseph's diary we learn about the most terrible day in his life. January 13, which has been fatal for him for three years in a row. "The third year, the dog tore his overcoat — this is how it is recorded — last year, at night, in the dark, he mistakenly took a sip from a bottle of ink, instead of sour cabbage soup, and very bad, it can be seen with vitriol" ^[5]. The hero himself, sharing his own experiences, notes that his heart stops beating from such events. The overcoat as a truly Gogol image appears, provoking one of the incidents, but its loss does not have a catastrophic effect on Homer, unlike Akaky Akakievich. There are worse things for the Dalevsky hero.

The episode Homer is talking about is not out of the ordinary. After staying at a party, he goes at night with new acquaintances, believing the promises that he will be given a ride home. However, the funny actors, forgetting about the fellow traveler, go on, fight, make up, sing. The hero managed to raise his voice only when he found himself on a strange side of the city – at the Resurrection Bridge, while he needed a Policeman. "I fell silent and wept bitterly for myself."^[5] The adventure ended quickly, Joseph, having hired a cab, returns home. And what's more, the next day he goes to work: "I was very ill and dragged myself to the Board today; the screaming and noise made my head spin, and with fear I was confused in my soul and darkened in my eyes. No, he swore an oath not to give in to the persuasion of people for whom a person's life is for nothing" ^[5]. But something has changed in the fate of Joseph. From this moment, the hero's extinction begins. Gogol chose the overcoat as a symbol of loss and death, a symbol of the little man's doom. Dahl chose as such a symbol the departure of the hero outside the city, that is, the designated space to which Joseph is doomed by his philistine existence.

The theme of the little man in the Russian literature of the XIX century directly correlates with the attitudes of the natural school, which deliberately introduced heroes from the lower strata of society into the narrative space. It is not surprising that Gogol was the model in the image of such a character for Dahl. In the center of his "Walk...", a work that even by name correlates with Gogol's, Osip Ivanovich, whose life is connected with Nevsky Prospekt, along which he walks every day, first to study, then to work, is quite associated with Gogol's Bashmachkin, who runs daily to work, which has become synonymous with life for him: "So events after events rushed past Osip Ivanovich, and, despite the strength of their impressions, they barely touched him with the edge of the floor, without producing any revolution in his monotonous life" ^[5]. The culmination of both stories is an event that changed the usual course of things. Such was Gogol's purchase of a greatcoat, and Dal's was Osip Ivanovich's visit to a friend, which turned out to be the first time he was so far from home: "It was a terrible moment for me! Alone in the white world, on a strange, distant side" ^[5]. The difference between these events is that for Gogol's hero, buying a greatcoat is thought of as an attempt to break out of the usual way of life, and for Dalevsky's character, going beyond Nevsky is like leaving the usual way of life. This exit turns into a real tragedy.

Of course, the tragedy of Bashmachkin is much deeper, and the character himself is much more significant and interesting than Dalevsky. What happened to Osip Ivanovich haunted him for a long time, but no more. The fact did not become a turning point in his life, but was indicative only for readers. Homer lived on Nevsky for a long time, went to work and even moved from the left side of the avenue to the right, but the changes remained purely external. For Dahl, the most important thing was to note the social rootedness of his hero, the conditionality of his life and behavior precisely by his position in society. His little man, having lived quietly, dies quietly, remaining almost invisible to other people: "All this was not written in the diary or in the spiritual life of Osip Ivanovich, the secret was not exposed by anyone. She died with our hero!"^[5]. The fate of such a person is determined initially by his origin and social status, there is no depth of tragedy in it, rather, some sad regularity. It is not so with Gogol: "the concept of his (Bashmachkin's) downtroddenness does not fit into any social determinism, as it expands it to the limit. Before us is a being, as if alienated by nature itself from the human community, placed in relation to it on the other side of the barrier" ^[7]. Gogol's little man is, first of all, the man himself with his belonging to fate and fate, whereas in Dahl he becomes the embodiment of the fate of his class. However, in another work by Dahl ("The Petersburg Janitor"), in which the theme of the little man is stated even in the title, this person opens up to the reader as an amazing character, an original type of personality, and not at all as a representative of his profession or his class. Gogol's influence in the depiction of the little man in this essay is also obvious. This gives reason to talk about the creative dialogue of the main characters Gogol and Dahl as one of the parallels of their writing activities. And this parallel is not the only one.