"Little Man" in the context of the narrative structure of the work: "Overcoat" by N. V. Gogol and "Irrepressible Tambourine" by A.M. Remizov

Abstract

The subject of the study is the evolution of the "little man" as a literary phenomenon based on the novels "Overcoat" by Gogol and "Irrepressible Tambourine" by Remizov. It is noted that the content of the term under study is not limited to the semantics of the image, which contains a meaningful characteristic of a certain type of literary hero, but depends on the narrative structure of the work. This position of the "little man" in Gogol and Remizov is at the intersection of interrelated factors: details as a carrier of the grotesque in fictional reality and at the level of narrative instance, as well as modifications of a specific genre form, expressed in the original construction of the composition — Gogol overcoming the genre of physiological essay and Remizov household anecdote, respectively. The study shows that detail plays a key role in the poetics of the works of these authors and determines not only the dynamics of the image in a particular work, but also forms an appropriate aspect of influence. Remizov inherits the indirect characterization of a literary character through the details of the external world, adopted by Gogol, but in another way secures with their help the status of the main character of the "Irrepressible Tambourine" as a small person at the narrative level due to a more open organization of the horizon of readers' expectations.  The task required the synthesis of a historical and genetic approach with a genrological (genological) one, which made it possible to consider the category of "little man" as an element of poetics, reinterpreted by Remizov in "Irrepressible Tambourine" under the influence of Gogol's work, and its significance in connection with the transformation of the genre model with an individual author's approach to narration. The study showed that Remizov overcomes the epistemological uncertainty of the narrator in the "Overcoat" and, thanks to the details referring to the mythopoeic context (Ancient Russia, Eros), builds the image of a small man (Stratilatov), whose insignificance and mediocrity are less related to the plot of the "Irrepressible Tambourine" than with archetypal references that are carriers of narrative semantics stories and setting the meaningful direction of the author's thought. Thus, the unknowability of the foundations of being by the character is emphasized at the narrative level of the work, enhanced by the grotesque characterization. The corresponding conclusion, according to the author of the article, is relevant in analyzing the system of images of literary heroes in Remizov and his anticipation of the work of European expressionist prose writers with their emphasis on the existential, rather than social source of human suffering.