Poprishchin is depicted as an insane character who is poor and insignificant in the society. His insanity is brought about by the frequent frustrations and humiliations from the authorities in leadership. His work is meaningless in the shape of sharpening pens hence he makes an insignificant amount of fortune. He is paid a little money and therefore has no luck with love. The author uses madness to show the frustrations he is passing through in life at the same time exposing reality about the social climate in Russia. The author uses madness and other nonsensical things in Poprishchin to show how various people in the society dealt with their frustrations in life as asserted by Petrenko and Bulgakov’s (2011).
Mental illness is used by the author to challenge the social order. Poprishchin criticizes the emphasis by the Russian authorities on earning and acquiring rank. The Russian society had a system of ranks where an individual could move through the 14 ranks with the 14th being the lowest and the first being the highest. With his madness, he was able to recognize rank as a sign of status and identity the culture of the Russian people (Gogol, 45). ‘Each rank came with accompanying rules for carriage, dress code, and honors. If anyone demanded greater laurels than appropriate for his or her rank, he or she was to be punished in the amount of two monthly allowances.’
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Poprishchin's boss, the chief has a dig at him when he tells him that he has not done anything worthwhile with his life even at his prime ages. Poprishchin replies in his diary that ‘Am I some nobody, a tailor's son or a sergeant's? I'm a noble man. So I can earn rank.' With all his perceived madness, Poprishchin can fight for his rights regardless of his position in the society. According to Gogol (45), he feels that he is worth the social status that comes with ranks and therefore he should not be neglected. The author uses that metaphoric comparison to give a wider picture of the societal needs of the marginalized.
Poprishchin with his madness decides to challenge the arbitrariness of the governance by claiming that he is the king of Spain. After appreciating himself as the king of Spain, he decides to change the dates of his diary to his convenience. He also boycotts going to work for a couple of days. When he goes back to work to meet the director, he was once idolizing he fails to line up to present himself like his colleagues because he sees himself as the king. Although some of his actions are rather meaningless, the truth about the society is revealed. He is against the governance of the day and feels that time is another form of arbitrariness. He visualizes himself as a king, hoping that one day he would liberate the people from bad leadership.
When Poprishchin is taken to an asylum, he is subjected to torture and ill-treatment. The treatment he receives at the asylum causes him much pain until at one point he cries to his mother saying ‘there’s no place for your son, they are driving him out' (Gogol 293). The depiction here was that that the society was biased and for that reason, some people were subjected to worse conditions than others. The asylum was supposed to be a correctional center, but instead, he was subjected to torture. The revelation here is that the authorities used their powers badly and in the process inflicted undue torture to people they ought to regard as patients. He also attributed his atrocities to questioning the authorities further revealing how the society was unkind to individuals who attempted to do so.
When Poprishchin learns that the girl she has always admired-Sophie has married another person, he develops the wildest fantasies and illusions never seen before. He had hoped to marry an upper-class girl, but now his dreams were shuttered. The author tries to explain how the social hierarchy was difficult to break in the Russian communities. Poprishchin was a man of little fortune, and there was no way his social class could have guaranteed him the marriage with a girl of a different and better social class. Madness is therefore used to represent the anger and frustrations of being denied a chance due to the societal structure.
The author uses mental illness as a tool to self-evaluate and to find the reason for specific feelings in a given person. Poprishchin gives a sensible analysis while evaluating the letters of the dogs. He wondered why the letters were so uneven and how they were filled with silliness. As his mind tends to deteriorate, he seems to be more sensible and critical in his reasoning. The author tries to associate madness with reason. It depicts a society that tries to slum every single logic or sound reasoning to madness simply because they do not share in the views (Petrenko & Michail, 2015)
The author is very successful in utilizing metaphor and critique in bringing out the true nature of the Russian society. However much Poprishchin seems insane, he uncovers some of the evils in the society and hence gives the readers a different definition of madness. Through his perceived madness he we can spot inequality, societal hurdles, poor governance, and brutality in the society.
References
Petrenko, S. A., & Fedotova, I. B. (2016). Influence of N. Gogol’s and M. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s Satire on Tucker, J. (2016). The Gogol-St. Petersburg Nexus. Canadian-American Slavic Studies , 50 (3), 277-298.
Petrenko, A. P., & Bulgakov’s, M. P. (2011). International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature , 6 (1), 20-28.
