Multifaceted Metaphor: Gogol's Portrayal of St. Petersburg in "Dead Souls"

Abstract

In an early letter to his mother, Nikolai Gogol observed that St. was not truly Russian: Petersburg is not at all like European capitals or Moscow. In general, every capital is characterized by its people, who throw their stamp of nationality on it; but has no such character-stamp: the foreigners who settled here have made themselves at home and aren't like foreigners at all, and the Russians in their turn have turned into foreigners-they aren't one thing or the other (29).' This quotation provides an important insight into Gogol's personal disillusionment with St. which he expressed through increasingly elaborate and veiled means in his great works that culminated in Dead Souls. A close reading of Dead Souls in light of letters and biographical information highlights how Gogol purposefully subverted the glamorous representation of St. typical of his day with the hope that his fellow countrymen would in turn examine their superficial and indolent lifestyles. Although written to his contemporaries, Dead Souls remains important because it continues to be read in schools and by the larger Russian population. Thus, a critical study of Gogol's portrayal of St. highlights an imperative aspect of the historical and contemporary consciousness that has been shaped by Russians around its cultural and artistic capital. While scholars and readers alike acknowledge the importance of Dead Souls, this classic has received less critical attention than it merits; further, critics have not yet investigated the role of St. in it. Yet the culminating effect of Gogol's portrayal of St. in Dead Souls becomes an extended and complex metaphor that should be considered one of the great accomplishments of Gogol's writing career. Through repetition and association, the capital comes to represent what is false, foreign, and deceitful about fashion, culture, the Enlightenment, and the upper class. This portrayal, however, is not overt but rather cloaked in the portrayal of the village of N. that is at once the opposite of the ideal capital and a satirical copy. The village of N. mimics St. by trying to be like foreign capitals, especially Paris. Falsity becomes more false until it is comi