27 pages • 54 minutes read
Nikolai GogolDiary of a Madman
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1835A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Calendar Dates
The diary entries begin with the dates on which the entries are recorded. Poprishchin can go a few days in a row writing in his diary before he takes a break of a few weeks. In this way, it is clear that certain ideas retain their importance in spite of time lapses and the situations that spur him to write continuously. The time between the beginning of the story and the time where he begins entertaining the idea that he might be the king of Spain is just over two months. Toward the end of the story, the disturbance caused by Sophie’s real thoughts and desires has not lost its sting for Poprishchin, as a month passes and he still cannot bring himself to terms with this information. The dates, finally, become clear markers of Poprishchin’s perception breaking from reality, as he no longer records real dates and instead uses nonsensical ones, as if he no longer even has a grip on the ordinary passage of time.
Street Names and House Names
The use of street names and house names places the story in the real world. Gogol uses places that would have been recognizable to his contemporaries. Nevsky Prospect, on which Poprishchin sees the emperor pass in his carriage toward the end of the story, was and continues to be Saint Petersburg’s main boulevard. Additionally, Poprishchin notes that Fidèle lives in the Zverkov House, a large apartment building that would have been known to the city’s inhabitants, after he follows the dog and her owners home. He also notes which street a barber of a conspiracy of his lives on, who would seem to be the same barber mentioned in Gogol’s story “The Nose.” This setting of a real-world Saint Petersburg also makes the satire more effective, since it appears in this way to be directed at the people walking around what was then Russia’s capital city. Moreover, Gogol mixes real world places into his story to bring greater attention to the supernatural elements and make their presence appear even more out of place.
The Dogs’ Letters
The letters that the dogs supposedly exchange with one another are mentioned at the beginning of the story when Poprishchin first sees the dogs outside the shop and overhears them talking. His encounter with the dogs is the “most extraordinary” happening that prompts him to begin his diary and thus the story. The letters provide the means by which Poprishchin hopes to gain some insight into the affairs and ideas of Sophie and the director. Finally, their revelations provide the impetus for Poprishchin’s descent into complete “madness.” The letters also provide the only space in which we hear at some length the words of somebody other than Poprishchin, assuming they are not hallucinations of his. Given that the diary form is also a document from a first-person perspective, but one which is meant for no audience, the letters related within the diary entries bring even more attention to the form in which the story is conveyed. Ultimately the reader only receives through writing the words of a man with unreliable perceptions and of a dog. This again demonstrates the absurdity of the events.
Related Titles
By Nikolai Gogol
