The Role of Evil in the Short Fiction of Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol and Nathaniel Hawthorne-Roxana...

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CONTENTS:

Introduction.page 3

The role of evil in the short fiction of Nathaniel Hawthorne......page 5

The role of evil in the short fiction of Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol...page 18

Conclusions..page 30

Bibliography....page 32



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INTRODUCTION

Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (1809-1852) and Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) are twowriters whose names invariably seem to appear in critical discussion of romantic literature. Very

few critics have chosen to examine the works of Gogol and Hawthorne in direct comparison with

one another, a fact that seems an even more striking oversight given the voluminous amount of

criticism produced on both Gogol and Hawthorne in comparison to Hoffmann or Tieck. In an

attempt to remedy this critical shortfall, I will examine the short fiction of Hawthorne and Gogol

together, comparing the manner in which each author uses symbolic and physical embodiments of

evil in his work. These authors consistently present their audiences, either explicitly or implicitly,

with demonic figures.

Although both writers create their devils and kindred evil spirits within fairly standard

Christian moral and ethical frameworks, there are significant differences in the ways in which the

evil entities they depict go about their nefarious work. Hawthorne's fiends and devils, rarely

presented in corporeal form, generally prove to be a force that corrupts mankind in the realm of the

psyche, whereas Gogol's devils initially tend to produce their effects in a way that is physically

observable (either through bodily harm or otherwise material manifestations of evil), corresponding

to their tangibly substantial presentation. Then, as Gogol's authorial aims become more moralistic,

his devils become less physical and more symbolic (often being represented or suggested by

animals or even inanimate objects like the famous overcoat of Akaky Akakyevich Bashmachkin),

resembling Hawthorne's internal devils.

This variance correlates largely with the differences in the religious and cultural background

between the two authors. Hawthorne was a member of the overtly moralistic society of New

England, which derived its ethical precepts from seventeenth-century Puritanism and German

Calvinist Protestantism, with its doctrine of election, before that. In contrast, Gogol was born and



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bred into the religious traditions of the Russian Orthodox Church, albeit one with some regional

variants particular to Ukraine. Coupled with this baseline religion are the idiosyncratic (not to say

heretical) additions that Gogol made regarding his relationship to God. These led him, especially in

later life, to occasional heights of somewhat hubristic religious ecstasy in which he believed

himself to be God's chosen mouthpiece. Both writers' works demonstrate a conflict between

personal faith and devotion to the dogma of the religious training they underwent in their younger

years. This conflict often manifests itself in their writing in the form of a struggle between a fallible

human character and an embodiment of demonic force.

My comparison of demonic themes begins by focusing on several representative short

works by Hawthorne, most notably the tale Young Goodman Brownfrom the collection Mosses

from an Old Manse(1846) andRappiccinis Daughter. I will then use examples from each of the

three types of demonic tales that Gogol wrote during his early career to demonstrate the ways in

which the influence of the romantics is idiosyncratically adopted and altered by both writers in

order to suit their differing authorial intentions.



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The role of evil in the short fiction of Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, joining an old New England

family residing in perhaps the most infamous village of American Puritan history. As he would later

relate in his introduction to the Scarlet Letter(1850), his kinsman John Hawthorne had presided over

spurious witch trials in Salem in 1692, thus directly linking the author's familial bloodline with the

persecution of supposedly demonic forces in society. Hawthorne refers to his family as having been

stained by the blood spilled during the "martyrdom of the witches" and hopes that his literary expression

can serve as a repentance of some sort:

I know not whether these ancestors of mine bethought themselves to repent, and ask pardon of Heaven

for their cruelties; or whether they are now groaning under the heavy consequences of them, in another

state of being. At all events, the present writer, as their representative, hereby take shame upon myself

for their sakes, and pray that any curse incurred by them-as I have heard, and as the dreary and

unprosperous condition of the race, for many a long year back, would argue to exist-may be now and

henceforth removed.

Georges Bataille attempted to determine the relationship between literature and evil nearly a

hundred years after the peak years of Hawthorne's creative output. The expression of evil that is present

through literature is for Bataille one of the most effective communicative acts possible, because itestablishes a communal knowledge and recognition of evil between author and audience based upon the

mutual participation in the morality of the written text. In the introduction to Literature and Evil, he

writes, "Literature is either the essential or the nothing. I believe that the Evil-an acute form of Evil-

which it expresses has a sovereign value for us.... Literature is communication. Communication requires

loyalty. A rigorous morality results from complicity in the knowledge of Evil, which is the basis of

intense communication".

Hawthorne's apparent inability (or, more accurately, unwillingness) to depict evil in a moralistic



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way stems from his denial of the kind of "complicity in the knowledge of Evil" about which Bataille

writes.

The idea of a "haunted" or otherwise bedeviled work of creative art is a common theme among

romantic writers or their descendants. For example, Hawthorne, Gogol, Ann Radcliffe, Poe, and

Hoffmann-and many others of lesser literary reputation-are numbered among the ranks of authors who

produced stories that conflate demonic themes with a work of art, usually a painting. Stein's comments

about Hawthorne's "narrative interests" likewise correspond to the assertions of scholars who have

examined Hawthorne's reading habits. Alfred H. Marks notes that "[t]here is more evidence... that

Hawthorne, from early in his career as a writer of tales, read whatever he could find by and about Tieck

and Hoffmann in English-and perhaps also in French-and used much that he gleaned from those sources

in fashioning his fiction" . Similarly, Allienne Becker examines Hawthorne's early storyAlice Doane's

Appealin comparison with Hoffmann's seminal romantic novelDie Elixiere des Teufels("The Devil's

Elixir"). She establishes Hawthorne's firsthand knowledge of Hoffmann's work through an examination

of his library borrowings from the Salem Athenaeum and concludes that "[f]or a literary man like

Hawthorne, it would have been impossible not to have read much of what Hoffmann wrote" . Indeed,

Poe and numerous other contemporaries of Hawthorne even accused him of being excessively

influenced by or even plagiarizing from the German Romantics (Lundblad 27).

While repetition of stock themes, characters, and situations among writers of romantic tales is

certainly not uncommon, the similarities between some of Hawthorne's stories and those of his

precursors are striking enough to lend some credence to the charges of excessive influence in some of

his works. Hawthorne's first published work,Fanshawe, came out anonymously in 1828, the same year

in which Gogol's highly derivative poemHanz Kuchelgartenwas published. Drawing heavily on both

the Faust myth and "tak[ing] no pains to conceal his borrowings from Charles Robert Maturin's Melmoth

the Wanderer" Stein 52), this work is an early and unpolished exploration of a number of themes that

Hawthorne would revisit repeatedly in his later writings. Ironically,Fanshawesuffered from the same

censorship at the hands of its then-anonymous author thatHanz Kuchelgartendid, as both Hawthorne

and Gogol attempted to recover and destroy all the copies of their initial works not long after to their

publication. The similarity between Hawthorne's fiery retraction ofFanshaweand Oberon's destruction

of "the hellish thing" (his manuscript) in The Devil in Manuscriptis especially significant, as it provides

an early example of Hawthorne fictionalizing his own life as an author in terms of a relationship with a

demonic entity.

Stein notes that some of Hawthorne's early stories (such as "Peter Goldthwaite's Treasure" or

"Mrs. Bullfrog," both written in the mid-1830s) explore the narrative possibilities of a more playful



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approach to the devil: "In lighter variations of diabolic myth, as represented in the didactic folk tale, he

found his prototype in the puckish demon. This incomparable artificer, who was not at all interested in

immortal souls, tempted his victims into laughably gigantic follies" (69). There is a notable similarity

between Hawthorne's mention of the devil in these stories and that of the annoying yet relatively

impotent devils of Gogol's stories "A Bewitched Place" and "The Lost Letter" fromEvenings on a Farm

near Dikan'ka, although the devil is not actually embodied in Hawthorne's stories as he is in Gogol's.

The names Old Scratch and Old Nick, taken from Anglo-American folk traditions, appear only in

reference to explanations that characters in the tales give for unusual events. We do not see the devil

stealing the moon and putting it in his pocket or being ridden to Catherine theGreat's courtas we do in

Gogol'sDikan'ka stories, a difference of depiction that will be maintained consistently throughout both

writers' early works. Stein also plays down the importance of these tales, describing them as "an

experiment in technique" that "could not preoccupy Hawthorne long" . It is

impossible to read much of Hawthorne without realizing that what interested him perhaps more than

anything else about human beings is our capacity for evil, our capacity to act out the part of Satan. His

novels and stories are filled with characters such as Ethan Brand ofEthan Brand, Goodman Brown of

Young Goodman Brown, Reverend Hooper of The Minister's Black Veil, Dr. Heidegger of Dr.

Heidegger's Experiment, and Professor Westervelt of The Blithedale Romance who are portraits of

human darkness.

There is no character, however, which fits the description of a demon more fittingly than old

Roger Chillingworth of The Scarlet Letter. In the following passage, Chillingworth speaks of himself

and is described in such a way that it is all but impossible not to see that he is a human turned fiend and

thus, in Hawthorne's view, in himself a cautionary tale.

But he knew not that the eye and hand were mine! With the superstition common to his brotherhood, he

fancied himself given over to a fiend, to be tortured with frightful dreams, and desperate thoughts, the

sting of remorse, and despair of pardon; as a foretaste of what awaits him beyond the grave. But it was

the constant shadow of my presence!--the closest propinquity of the man whom he had most vilely

wronged!--and who had grown to exist only by this perpetual poison of the direst revenge! Yea, indeed!-

-he did not err!--there was a fiend at his elbow! A mortal man, with once a human heart, has become a

fiend for his especial torment!"

The unfortunate physician, while uttering these words, lifted his hands with a look of horror, as if

he had beheld some frightful shape, which he could not recognize, usurping the place of his own image



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in a glass. It was one of those moments--which sometimes occur only at the interval of years--when a

man's moral aspect is faithfully revealed to his mind's eye. Not improbably, he had never before viewed

himself as he did now. The characters in the novel frequently debate the identity of the Black Man, the

embodiment of evil. Over the course of the novel, the Black Man is associated with Dimmesdale,

Chillingworth, and Mistress Hibbins, and little Pearl is thought by some to be the Devils child.

The characters also try to root out the causes of evil: did Chillingworths selfishness in marrying

Hester force her to the evil she committed in Dimmesdales arms? Is Hester and Dimmesdales deed

responsible for Chillingworths transformation into a malevolent being? This confusion over the nature

and causes of evil reveals the problems with the Puritan conception of sin. The book argues that true evil

arises from the close relationship between hate and love. As the narrator points out in the novels

concluding chapter, both emotions depend upona high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each

renders one individual dependent . . . upon another. Evil is not found in Hester and Dimmesdales

lovemaking, nor even in the cruel ignorance of the Puritan fathers. Evil, in its most poisonous form, is

found in the carefully plotted and precisely aimed revenge of Chillingworth, whose love has been

perverted. Perhaps Pearl is not entirely wrong when she thinks Dimmesdale is the Black Man, because

her father, too, has perverted his love. Dimmesdale, who should love Pearl, will not even publicly

acknowledge her. His cruel denial of love to his own child may be seen as further perpetrating evil.

Hawthorne shows that sin isolates a person from her community and from God. When he uses

the color gray to describe Hesters clothes, he is insisting Hester and her lover are hiding their secret of

their love affair. The theme is sin and how it affects the characters. Hester learns to cope with her

punishment, Pearl is the embodiment of the sin, and Dimmesdale dies as a result of guilt.TheScarlet

Letterrepresents the sin of passion that is committed. Hawthorne repeatedly penetrates the thought that

guilt within the person stays if not caught. Hester thinks that she can just cast off her ignominy,

removing guilt as easily as the letter was removed. However, she is truly repentant for her sins. Pearls

whiteness is not an evil mark, but only that of purity. Pearl is the product of sin and has to live through

the bumps she encounters. Hesters sin causes her daughter to live through the torture given by the town.

If Hester is able to change the meaning of the evil Adulteress to Able, then Pearl will be able to

outlive the isolation from the community and God. For isolation, terrible enough in itself, is one of the

many effects of sin.

In Young Goodman Brown, Nathaniel Hawthorne tells the tale of a man and his discovery of

evil. Hawthornes primary concern is with evil and how it affects Young Goodman Brown. Through the

use of tone and setting, Hawthorne portrays the nature of evil and the psychological effects it can have



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on man. He shows how discovering the existence of evil brings Brown to view the world in a cynical

way.

The story is set in seventeenth-century Salem; the same as in The Scarlet Letter, a time and place

where sin and evil were greatly analyzed and feared. The townspeople, in their Puritan beliefs, were

obsessed with the nature of sin and with finding ways to be rid of it altogether through purification of the

soul. At times, people were thought to be possessed by the devil and to practice witchcraft. As

punishment for these crimes, some were subjected to torturous acts or even horrible deaths. Hawthornes

choice of setting is instrumental in the development of theme. Taken at a literal level, the story is about a

man who goes on a journey to the forest and encounters various strange situations. However, the narrator

is working on two levels. There are objects and characters in the story which are representative of

something else. For instance, Browns wife, Faith, represents religious faith. She also exemplifies what it

means to be a good woman and wife. He worries that Faiths dreams are warnings although she is his

only justification for making the evil journey. She is his hope for an excellent future. Brown describes

her as, blessed angel on earth and promises that after this one night, he will, cling to her skirts and

follow her to heaven (2207). When Brown, in utter despair, cries out, My Faith is gone, (2212) he

refers not only to his wife but also his faith in God. He also alludes to his wife Faith as his spiritual faith

when he tells the stranger, Faith kept me back awhile (2208). Literally, he means that he arrived late as

a result of the conversation with his wife. However, because we know the implications of Hawthornes

tone, we realize he was kept back by something more. We can assume that it is because deep down,

possibly through a surfacing of his unconscious, he knows that he is not commencing a harmless

journey.

Hawthorne creates a serious and somber tone throughout much of the story. From the start, the

audience gets a sense that Brown will go through relentless agony from the devilish stranger. His diction

in the opening paragraphs is a good indicator of this. He uses words such as melancholy, evil,

dreary, and grave to evoke a certain mood in the reader. There is little relief from this seriousness

that would suggest that Hawthornes attitude about the story be hopeful. Browns attitude and actions

portray a negative view of Salem and its people. He ponders the hypocrisy of the town as well as that of

the Puritans. He examines the possibility that evil and corruption exist in a town that is supposedly

characterized by piety and devout faith. He uses contrast as a means to portray the village as good and

the forest as bad. This adds significance to the fact that Brown begins his journey in the town and

proceeds then to the forest. The use of imagery captures the appearance of the forest as well as lending a

sense of foreboding towards the impending evil. Hawthorne says of Brown, He had taken a dreary road,

darkened by the gloomiest trees of the forestIt was all as lonely as it could be (2208). Immediately



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following this description, Brown speculates that he may not be alone in the forest. He fears that there

may be a devilish indian or the devil himself in his presence (2208). He is disturbed by the fact that

he knows not who may be concealed by the innumerable trunks and the thick boughs overhead; so that

with lonely footsteps he may yet be passing through an unseen multitude (2208). This suggests to the

reader that he is no longer feeling the comfort and safety he felt at home and is suspicious of what lies

ahead. Brown is fearful of his mission even before leaving. However, in leaving the village, he leaves

religious order, the familiarity of the scenery, and his beloved Faith. Upon entering the forest, he

becomes victim to the possibility of the discovery and consequences of evil. In fact, it is in the forest

where evil manifests itself to him in the form of an older man of the same dress and class as Brown. It is

this experience which ultimately affects his outlook of the world. Salem symbolizes order and the rules

that its inhabitants are guided by. It is an extremely religious town where wrongdoing is not tolerated.

On the other hand, the forest, where Brown ventures, is seen as evil and full of sinners. As he travels

farther into the woods, he becomes aware of the abundance of sinners within the community. Like the

forest, the ominous stranger he encounters as well as his staff, represent evil. The description of the staff

is much like that which we associate with the devil. The staff, bore the likeness of a great black snake,

so curiously wrought that it might almost be seen to twist and wriggle itself like a living serpent (2208).

On more than one occasion, the stranger offers it to Brown for support and as encouragement to pursue

the walk. His acquaintance says You will think better of thisand when you feel like moving again,

here is my staff to help you along (2211). Brown knows the stranger is the devil and the staff will only

lead him to evil. The fact that he has this knowledge suggests that he is struggling with the temptation of

evil. These symbols interacting together along with the plot set the stage for Brown to confront this evil.

The old man/devil begins his temptation of Brown subtly, telling him "[t]ake my staff, if you are so soon

weary" ("Young Goodman Brown" 151). Brown, however, tries to resist the advances of the devil. He

invokes some measure of righteousness (even as he performs his unstated "present evil purpose" [150])

derived both from his family's upstanding past and also from the moral instruction he received from the

society in which he was raised: "My father never went into the woods on such an errand, nor his father

before him. We have been a race of honest men and good Christians, since the days of the martyrs. And

shall I be the first of the name of Brown, that ever took this path and kept-" (151). The devil quickly

undermines the validity of Brown's protest by explaining, through a catalogue of historically

recognizable incidents, the long relationship he has had with both the Puritans in general and with the

relatives whose virtue Brown extols:



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"Such company, thou wouldst say," observed the elder person, interrupting his pause. "Well said,

Goodman Brown! I have been as well acquainted with your family as with ever a one among the

Puritans; and that's no trifle to say. I helped your grandfather, the constable, when he lashed the Quaker

woman so smartly through the streets of Salem. And it was I that brought your father a pitch-pine knot,

kindled at my own hearth, to set fire to an Indian village, in King Philip's War. They my good friends,

both; and many a pleasant walk have we had along this path, and returned merrily after midnight. I

would fain be friends with you, for their sake." (151-52) .

As James Williamson points out, the devil's manner of refuting Brown's "sentimental view of his

ancestral past ... is a satiric, parodic mode of expression that reduces Brown's arguments to a child's

recitations" (157). The devil uses the morally "easy" (but oversimplified and faulty) division of things

into good and evil (or elect and preterit, "us," and "them") that under girds Brown's typically Puritan

logic and plays it against him, constantly demonstrating how the models of good that Brown upholds are

actually in the service of evil. This technique not only destroys their value as positive contrasts to the

devil, but makes Brown passively complicit, since one after another of the exemplary Puritan figures are

shown to be evil at the core. The devil presents Brown with information regarding the wickedness not

only of his father and grandfather, but also that of the deacons (many of whom "have drunk the

communion wine" with the devil), the governor, the judges, and even Goody Cloyse, "a very pious and

exemplary dame, who had taught him his catechism in youth" (153). Still somewhat disbelieving, Brown

sees Goody Cloyse walking towards him: "But, with your leave, friend, I shall take a cut through the

woods, until we have left this Christian woman behind. Being a stranger to you, she might ask whom I

was consorting with, and whither I was going" (153). The devil, knowing the truth of the situation,

assents to this, and Young Goodman Brown watches from the bushes as the devil and Goody Cloyse

renew their acquaintance:

"The devil!" screamed the pious old lady. "Then Goody Cloyse knows her old friend?" observed

the traveller, confronting her, and leaning on his writhing stick. "Ah, forsooth, and is it your worship,

indeed?" cried the good dame. "Yea, truly is it, and in the very image of my old gossip, Goodman

Brown, the grandfather of the silly fellow that now is. But-would your worship believe it?-my broomstick

hath strangely disappeared, stolen, as I suspect, by that unchanged witch, Goody Cory, and that, too,

when I was all anointed with the juice of smallage and cinque-foil and wolf's-bane-" (153)

Goody Cloyse's subsequent comment (made prior to flying off on the devil's staff) that "there is a

nice young man to be taken into communion tonight" (153) makes clear the nature of Brown's errand,

and he becomes despondent after her departure, again couching his speech in the double-entendre of the



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literal story as well of the metaphorical allegory: "'Friend,' said he, stubbornly, 'my mind is made up. Not

another step will I budge on this errand. What if a wretched old woman do choose to go to the devil,

when I thought she was going to Heaven! Is that any reason why I should quit my dear Faith, and go

after her?'" (154). The devil leaves Brown to ponder awhile, giving him a maple stick that he has

acquired to replace the serpentine staff upon which Goody Cloyse sped off.

Brown sits and watches as the town's minister and Deacon Gookin, identified as one of his

spiritual mentors, pass by, discussing some meeting in the forest that night at which "there is a goodly

young woman to be taken into communion" (156). Brown is even more shaken but resolves to resist the

evil he has seen: "With Heaven above, and Faith below, I will yet stand firm against the devil!" (156).

As he prays, he sees a pink ribbon, attributed earlier in the tale to Faith, flutter down from the sky and

runs off in search of his beloved. In his despair he takes up the devil's staff and speeds off, in the process

becoming more like the devil than the devil himself. All through the haunted forest, there could be

nothing more frightful than the figure of Goodman Brown ... brandishing his staff with frenzied gestures,

now giving vent to an inspiration of horrid blasphemy, and now shouting forth such laughter, as set all

the echoes of the forest laughing like demons around him. The fiend in his own shape is less hideous,

than when he rages in the breast of man. (157) He comes to a gathering of "grave and dark-clad

company" (159) in the forest, at which are present all of the villagers already mentioned. Either the

sudden gleams of light, flashing over the obscure field, bedazzled Goodman Brown, or he recognized a

score of the church-members of Salem village, famous for their especial sanctity.... But, irreverently

consorting with these grave, reputable, and pious people, these elders of the church, these chaste dames

and dewy virgins, there were men of dissolute lives and women of spotted fame, wretches given over to

all mean and filthy vice, and suspected even of horrid crimes. It was strange to see, that the good shrank

not from the wicked, nor were the sinners abashed by the saints. (159)

Brown still fails to recognize the fallacy of his moral division between sinners and saints and he

would likely have continued to do so but for the sight of Faith being brought forth to be initiated into the

fold of "fiend-worshippers" during a black mass being presided over by the devil himself, now in the

form of "some grave divine of the New-England churches" (160). The devil gives a sermon-like oration

to the crowd as the initiates are brought forth, one that clearly elucidates the moral weight of the story:

"Depending upon one another's hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were not all a dream! Now are ye

undeceived! Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness. Welcome, again, my

children, to the communion of your race!" (161 ). Evil, then, is innate to humankind, and Goodman

Brown's exhortation to Faith to "Look up to Heaven, and resist the Wicked One!" (162) is ultimately

beside the point. Upon pronouncing those words, Goodman Brown finds himself waking up, as from a



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dream, although a nearby twig is mentioned as having "been all on fire" (162). Hawthorne again allows

for a wholly rational explanation of the events described in his tale through the use of the dream trope, as

common to fantastic tales as car chases are to modern action movies (cf. Todorov). For example, Gogol

uses dreaming as a potentially natural solution to a seemingly supernatural situation inThe Lost Letter

and to some extent in the later version of The Portrait. The results of Young Goodman Brown's

experience, however, are the same for him as though the events had been real. He walks back into Salem

with his trust in Deacon Gookin, the minister, the governor, and even his dear Faith completely

destroyed. He eventually becomes a "stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate

man" at whose death "they carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone; for his dying hour was gloom"

(163). The psychological effect of the demonic scene is as pervasive as any actual interference on the

part of Satan could be, leading Brown not only to abandon his faith (and his Faith), but also to hear only

"an anthem of sin ..." that "drowned all the blessed strain" (163) within the precepts of his religion. The

devil, in the form of doubt and duplicitous thoughts, has done his work within the heart and soul of

Goodman Brown, even if the physical details of the story are merely a reverie. Hawthorne removes the

mask of piety from his characters to show that the real devil is the one lurking within each individual.

Hawthorne hopes for repentance through his writing but is unsure that writing is a means by

which evil can be overcome-either the evil he assigns to his ancestors' actions or that which he believes

they would want him to combat by "glorifying God, or being serviceable to mankind." This positive

association of writing with repentance almost directly contradicts the more traditionally romantic theme

that Hawthorne expressed fifteen years earlier in his semi-autobiographical tale "The Devil in

Manuscript"(1835), in which writing is associated with devilish work:

"I do believe," said he, soberly, "or, at least, I would believe, if I chose, that there is a devil in

this pile of blotted papers. You have read them, and know what I mean-that conception, in which I

endeavored to embody the character of a fiend, as represented in our traditions and the written records

of witchcraft." (171)

In The Haunted Mind, a "sketch" first published in 1835, Hawthorne makes one of his first and

clearest symbolic associations between a moral concept and a devilish force. Here he allegorizes good

and evil, much more in the manner of Spenser or Goethe than that of his American literary

contemporaries Melville or Poe. He describes a vision: Hope, Passion, and Feeling pass in a funeral

procession to be supplanted and mourned by Shame, Disappointment, and Fatality, which is described as

"an emblem of the evil influence that rules your fortunes; a demon to whom you subjected yourself by

some error at the outset of life, and were bound his slave forever, by once obeying him" (413). Delivered



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entirely in the second person, the piece reads much like a sermon of the type delivered by Hawthorne's

Puritan forbears Cotton Mather or Jonathan Edwards. Witness the language of the following passage:

Pass, wretched band! Well for the wakeful one, if, riotously miserable, a fiercer tribe do not surround

him, the devils of a guilty heart, that holds its hell within itself ... What if the fiend should come in

woman's garments, with a pale beauty amid sin and desolation, and lie down by your side? What if he

should stand at your bed's foot, in the likeness of a corpse, with a bloody stain upon the shroud?(413)

Although the image of the devil is invoked and even has its embodiment described in physical

terms, the image remains on the level of a symbol, never taking a full form and stepping into the frame

of the narration. Since this sketch is a non-fictional work, the appearance of the devil in a tangible

corporeal form is perhaps not expected, but the technique employed in this piece is similar to that which

Hawthorne uses throughout the body of his work.

Notable exceptions to this pattern are two of Hawthorne's best-known tales, Young Goodman

BrownandAlice Doane's Appeal. The latter story, a somewhat incomplete-seeming outline of a tale, is

as much an early exercise in metafiction and ghost-storytelling technique as a coherent narrative. It

presents the reader with a wizard (identified explicitly as such) whose influence causes a young Puritan

man to murder his sister's suitor. While the tale's frame story is set in the present, its primary narrative

action is set in roughly the same time period during which Hawthorne's ancestors committed the acts for

which he believed he must atone. Stein argues that, from the writing of this tale, Hawthorne learns (like

his fictionalized stand-in within the tale itself) the "value of the mythic image of the devil as

psychological symbol" (56). The "devil" in this manuscript is not the evil represented by the wizard in

the actual tale of Alice Doane, which comprises less than one-third of the text of this story. It is instead

embodied in the effect of evil on the psyche of the characters in the frame story.

AlthoughAlice Doane's Appealcontains a somewhat underdeveloped subtext involving

incest between Leonard and his sister Alice, the central metaphor of evil in the story involves the way in

which humans are subject to "hatred and smiles of scorn, passions that are to devils what love is to the

blest" (136). The storyteller and his "two young auditors" (136) are seated on the hill where the gallows

upon which the witches were hanged once stood. He is relating the story of the Doane siblings to them,

but interrupts his story at several points to describe how the mood of the story changes the perception of

its teller and hearers. At one point, the storyteller describes the vision that Alice and Leonard have of the

souls of those buried in the graveyard near to where they are sitting. Importantly, he describes the scene

in terms of his own agency as the teller of the tale rather than in straight third-person narration: "I took



15

courage, and led the fated pair to a new-made grave, where for a few moments, in the bright and silent

midnight, they stood alone. But suddenly there was a multitude of people among the graves" (134). After

concluding the tale of Leonard and Alice, the narrator turns to the two young women to whom he has

been reading and quite literally calls forth the devil from his manuscript:With such eloquence as my

share of feeling and fancy could supply, I called back hour antiquity, and bade my companions imagine

an ancient multitude of people, congregated on the hill-side, spreading far below, clustering on the steep

old roofs, and climbing the adjacent heights. (137)

A parade of souls, like that witnessed by the Doanes in the framed story, follows, almost entirely

in the form of the narrator's description rather than in a physical manifestation. The effect on the young

listeners is like that which the narrator described as the result of Alice and Leonard's previous sojourn in

the graveyard: "But here my companions seized an arm on each side; their nerves were trembling; and,

sweeter victory still, I had reached the seldom trodden places of their hearts, and found the well-spring

of their tears" (138-39). This story is one of the most telling examples of Hawthorne's belief in the

writer's ability to embody evil within a piece of writing. The psychological devils embedded within the

narrative are every bit as effective (if not more so) as the wizard who leads Leonard Doane to commit

his grievous sin, although they do their work in the realm of the mind rather than the body. This kind of

abstract devil-by-description, by which melancholy, hatred or sorrow are directly attributed to the

intercession of some diabolical force that is not necessarily incarnated, is a favorite technique of

Hawthorne. His works are thoroughly peppered with such adjectives as "devilish," "demonic,"

"fiendish," and "hellish" (and their corresponding noun forms) in synonymous usage with "awful,"

"horrible," or "sorrowful."

Nathaniel Hawthorne employs the recurring idea of contrast in his story,Rappiccinis Daughter,

in order to tie everything together with his most critical motif. Hawthorne exemplifies the dualism of

good and evil by providing the following antithetical characteristics and ideas: life versus death;

perfection versus imperfection; innocent versus deadly; anecdote versus poison; and altruistic versus

selfishness. Nathaniel Hawthorne effectively employs the motif of contrast throughout his story to

accentuate the good and evil attributes that exist in the various characters and in objects of the story.

One of Hawthornes compelling attempts to exhibit the good and evil characteristics applied

within the story is by incorporating the contrast of life versus death. Beatrice, Rappaccinis daughter, is

actually brought to life, by her father, with poison. He also grows a beautiful purple shrub, from the

identical poisons that make up his daughter, the day that she is created. The shrub is the most brilliant

flower in the entire garden that Rappaccini owns. The peculiar thing about his garden is that all of the

plants and flowers are created from poison. Typically, gardens represent life and flourishing, but in this



16

case, this garden is a sign of death. In Hawthornes story, he tells us how Beatrice [looks] redundant

with life, health, and energy but in contrast, she is actually lethal when touched. Giovanni, who just

moved into a room overlooking this garden, is crazy about Beatrice; but he notices with horror that an

insect buzzing near her suddenly falls dead, and that a bouquet he tosses her seems to wither as she

catches it and grows suspicious of her. The death of the insect and of the flower shows that this girl,

who is brought to life with poison, actually kills any living thing that she comes in contact with. The

shrub, nourished with the same poison, proves to be just as deadly when a few drops of moisture from

the stem drop on an orange lizard killing it instantly (Bloom). So throughout his story, Hawthorne uses

contrast to show that this life he creates causes death, and that in every good, there too is evil.

The dualism of good and evil is also evident as the author associates perfection with

imperfection. Giovanni isnt the first guy to fall head over heals for Beatrice; practically every guy is

infatuated by her. She is simply gorgeous, and appears to be flawless. Despite her perfection, her

poisonous is revealed, actually making imperfect. Once Giovanni discovers her flaw, she then doesnt

solely allure him, but instead he vacillates between absolute reverence for her perfection and fear of her

effect on him . Even though Beatrice appeared to be perfect, her imperfection is discovered; therefore

even though her heart is good, her overall effect is evil.

Hawthorne contrasts innocent versus deadly, as another strategy of emphasizing the good and

evil characteristics in his story. This recurring theme is first addressed with Beatrice herself. Although

Giovanni attempts to get physical, she avoids touching him because she fears contaminating him . In

this case, good and evil is obvious. The positive side to Beatrice is her soul or spirit, which Hawthorne

shows to be . . . uncorrupted, but then again, the evil is uncovered as she unintentionally causes

Giovanni to be poisonous like her. Another time these contrasting aspects are relevant is through

Baglioni, a professor who tells Giovanni all about Rappaccini and his daughter. Baglioni seems to be

innocent, he makes Giovanni trust him since he was a friend of Giovannis father. He gives Giovanni an

anecdote, which he claims will make Beatrice no longer poisonous. Although it typically would cure

poison, Baglioni knows that this remedy will in turn kill Beatrice since she is composed of poison. He

wants Giovanni to give her this potion, because her death would be a suitable way of getting revenge on

her father. After all, her father took Baglionis place as the best scientist, leaving him bitter. Hawthorne

uses people who appear innocent, but are actually deadly as another way of articulating the evil that

stems from the good in his story.

The anecdote, which kills Beatrice, is Hawthornes way of bringing about the motif of contrast,

as the anecdote is actually poison. The mixture that Baglioni supplies would cure poison on a normal

human being. The only reason that this potion kills her is because she is made up of poison, so poison is



17

actually essential for her to live. Giovanni thinks that this anecdote will cure her, and intending to help

her, he gives her the drink. She dies instantly, which demonstrates how this anecdote which is supposed

to be good, is actually not.

Hawthorne emphasizes good and evil and he uses the motif of contrast to address the idea of

altruism versus selfishness. One example of this is how Rappaccini is so wrapped up in his own findings

that he would have no qualms about sacrificing his daughter or Giovanni in the name of science

(Bloom). As we are informed, he loves science more than mankind, and thats why he will trade

anything for a little more knowledge. Another example of this recurring contrast is illustrated through

Giovanni. At first, he is completely infatuated and in love with Beatrice, but then gets caught up in

finding out if Baglionis right or not about her being poisonous. He then sacrifices his love for her with

his own selfishness, demonstrating how the good results with evil. Beatrice is altruistic, but although

she is willing to sacrifice her life for him, he is willing to sacrifice nothing for her, and that is where his

selfishness triumphs (Brenzo). The motif of contrast reinforces the point that everything good results in

something bad.

Hawthorne demonstrates the good and bad that is evident throughout the story. He cleverly

utilizes the motif of contrast to incorporate this dualism in his story. The contradictory characteristics of

life and death, perfection and imperfection; innocence and deadliness, anecdote and poison, and

altruistic and selfishness, are all used to help develop this overall motif of contrast. Hawthorne

incontestably does a good job emphasizing how someone or something can appear to be good, but

actually be evil.

Hawthornes concern about human beings was our capacity for evil, our capacity to act out the

part of Satan. In his short stories he succeeded to show us, the readers, how fiends and devils, rarely

presented in corporeal form, prove to be a force that corrupts mankind in the realm of the psyche.



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The role of evil in the short fiction of Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

The writing Gogol produced in the later stages of his career demonstrates a considerable affinity

for this sort of metaphorical internalization of the devil and of devilish forces. A technique using verbal

associations or allusions rather than direct depictions to bring a demonic element into his writing

displays a significant refinement of the somewhat derivative stories of folk-devils and witches that he

wrote earlier in his career. A quick comparison of the two versions of his story The Portraitillustrates

how Gogol's narrative mode evolved from one in which the devil is clearly named and identified to one

in which he is merely alluded to. The revision of the name of the main character of the first portion of

the tale is a telling example of this transformation. The Chertkovof the 1835 version is a significantly

more suggestive linkage to "chert," (the Russian word for "devil") than the Chartkov of the 1842

revision. Also the character of the evil moneylender from the second portion of the story changes from

one who is defined as "possessed of the devil" and whose "money possessed the power of being

incandescent and burning through things, and ... marked with strange symbols" (The Portrait[vers. 1]

146) to one described as causing "a strange fate [in] all those who had borrowed money from him: all

came to a miserable end" (The Portrait). While his character in the second version is still associated

with evil and even with demons and devils (the painter describes him as "the model of the devil" [2: 295]

for his portrait of The Prince of Darkness), he is no longer directly and explicitly described as being in

the service of the devil (and bearing physical signs thereof, in the form of the money).

Sylvie Richards maintains that Gogol's aim in creating this story is the same as is Hawthorne's in

his similarly-themed sketch The Prophetic Pictures: "the artist becomes at once diabolical creator and

also self-creation within the framework of his art, seemingly shifting from two dimensions to three

dimensions" (311). This idea corresponds with Hawthorne's already-- cited ideas about the moral

ambiguity of artistic creation, and Gogol's use of it in the 1835 version ofThe Portraitcorresponds not

only with his own unfixed ideas about the moral role of the author-artist but also with the standard



19

romantic topos of incarnating evil through the act of artistic creation. The direct influence of Hoffmann,

Tieck, Sir Walter Scott, Washington Irving, and other writers of Gothic romances has been catalogued

extensively by Gogol scholars, but Gogol eventually outgrew the artistic possibilities for expression that

the heavily- coded formula of the romantic/fantastic mode afforded him. This artistic development

pushed him in the direction of works like The Inspector General or Dead Souls, in which the relationship

between good and evil is considerably more complicated and ambiguous than in most of the stories of

Evenings on a Farm Near Dikan'ka or Mirgorod. Even the so-called "Petersburg" tales show a

considerable degree of distancing from the standard conventions employed by the German Romantics

and their descendants.

Gogol's early writings-those composed prior to or contemporaneously with the first version of

"The Portrait"-are filled with devils in the flesh, however. Of the eight stories contained within the

collectionEvenings on a Farm Near Dikan'ka, six contain an explicit depiction of a devil, demon, or

other incarnate minion of evil. Of the remaining pair, one ("The Fair at Sorochintsy") uses a folk tale

about the influence of the devil as its central motif, and the other ("Ivan Fyodorovich Shpon'ka and

His Aunt") contains a number of symbols and associative terms that have led Christopher Putney,

Gogol's most recent scholarly demonographer, to read the devil directly into that story as well. The

demonic demographic decreases somewhat in Gogol's second collection of tales, Mirgorod, in which

only the classic story Viy deals explicitly with the influence of material demons and evil entities on

humans. This story, along with A Terrible Vengeance, however, is perhaps the most thorough and

detailed exploration of the devilishly supernatural, containing evil beings of several kinds.

As Gogol moves into his Petersburg tales, though, clear-cut depiction of the devil of the sort found in the

story Christmas Evehas been replaced by a less tangible evil force, although one that is perhaps more

effective and pervasive. When Gogol writes at the close ofNevsky Prospektthat "the devil himself lights

the street lamps to show everything in false colors" (2: 238), the devil becomes a symbolic flourish,

intended to highlight the artifice and falsity of Petersburg life, rather than a supernatural creature from a

folk tale like A Bewitched Place or Viy. While Gogol often puts even his embodied devils to some

allegorical use (A TerribleVengeance is by no means simply a modernized folk tale), the later, less

corporeal devils, like Hawthorne's devils in the heart, are much more difficult, if not impossible, to

outwit and overcome. In his landmark essay "The Nose," Ivan Yermakov uses the psychoanalytical

context of an introspective quest to describe a transition in Gogol's work:

In the complex and interesting course of Gogol's search for his unique, Gogolian self, there is a natural

demarcation of two phases, although they are very intimately interconnected. The first one is of open



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self-ridicule; the second finds him directing his gaze more deeply into the hidden recesses of his own

experiences and seeking out the "nastiness" there. [ ... ]

Two sides of Gogol's personality are revealed in the first phase of the development of his work as a

satirist: his attempt to depict both comic and terrible things. Here his tendency to try to discredit other

people does not go beneath the surface ... [.]

The second phase is marked by ... the dark and terrible side of life, which was localized in the

countryside in the Dikan'ka stories, [and] is now transformed into universal evil, of which every man is

the vehicle. (160-161)

Although Yermakov specifically relates this division to Gogol's use of satire, it is almost equally

applicable to his fictional use of devils, which is often, but not always, an element of Gogol's satirical

technique. Close comparison of several notable depictions of devils from throughout Gogol's career

demonstrates this binary structure, although it is not necessarily a chronological development in the way

that Yermakov claims. Gogol's early devils come in several varieties, but most fit smoothly into

Yermakov's "both comic and terrible" dichotomy. Like Hawthorne, Gogol was eminently capable of

writing stories in which a relatively harmless devil appears, only to be outwitted by a crafty human.

These stories are relatively unmoralistic (i.e., the person who outwits the devil is not necessarily a saint,

or even particularly associated with goodness in any way other than opposition to the devil) and

generally feature the most physical manifestations of devils. It is in this class of story that Gogol most

clearly achieves the goal that Dmitry Merezhkovsky attributes to him: "My sole concern has long been

that after my work people should have a good hearty laugh at the Devil" (qtd. in Merezhkovsky 57).The

devils in these stories are often laughably impotent figures, whose defeat at the hands of a peasant or

simple Cossack is a source of derisive laughter. For example, Christmas Eve and The Lost Letter

contain evil entities who can at times cause minor complications for human characters, but are in turn

easily subdued by a simple gesture of control such as making the sign of the cross. The devils of both

tales are generally examples of "the tiny and protean imp found in medieval iconography" (Putney 164),

and the other witches and sorcerers, while not entirely benign, are generally no match for the stories'

more virtuous (if only relatively so) protagonists. Whereas the devil of The Lost Lettersteals a piece of

mail intended for Catherine the Great, the devil of Christmas Eveis identified with a more pointed and

religiously-defined malevolence than the impish naughtiness of the devil who takes Granddad's letter:



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[Vakula] was a God-fearing man and often painted icons of the saints.... IT]he triumph of his art was a

picture painted on the church wall in the chapel ... [in which] the frightened devil was running in all

directions, foreseeing his doom.... While the artist was working at this picture and painting it on a big

wooden board, the devil did all he could to hinder him; he gave him a nudge on the arm, unseen, blew

some ashes from the forge in the smithy and scattered them on the picture; but in spite of it all, the work

was finished...and from that day the devil had sworn to revenge himself on the blacksmith. (1: 94-5)

The devil seems as much slighted by Vakula's depiction as he is metaphysically threatened by its

representation, and his power to sabotage Vakula's icon is relatively minimal, limited to poltergeist-like

pranks rather than forcible coercion. Although there is at least some religious component to the devil's

anger at Vakula, the blacksmith's extreme piety is apparently not necessarily required to escape this kindof devil's guile. In The Lost Letter, Granddad is described as a man who drinks, swears, and engages in

all sorts of other behavior that is sanctioned by the Cossack ethos (if not necessarily by Russian

Orthodox dogma), yet even he is able to command the relatively powerless devils and witches to do his

bidding. Even the theft of the moon by the devil ofChristmas Eveis diminished in importance when the

moon escapes from his unbuttoned pocket while he is amorously chasing a witch down a chimney. The

means needed to defeat the devil in this class of story are relatively simple, and the degree to which the

devil can cause harm is correspondingly slight, more on the level of mischief and annoyance than actual

injury. The efficacy of these devils generally depends on the inattentiveness of the humans they

encounter, as they cause most of their problems when someone is asleep, distracted, or otherwise

incautious.

In other stories, though, the devil and his servants have considerably greater power to affect the

world around them. In these stories, Merezhkovsky's definition of the Gogolian Devil is approached:

"The Devil is the denial of God and consequently the denial of the infinite as well, the denial of all

beginnings and all ends" (57). For example, in bothA May Night and The Fair at Sorochintsy, the

might and the intent of the evil entities depicted by Gogol constitutes a considerably greater threat to the

humans who come into contact with them. Even though the devil of the latter story is only a part of a

rumor circulating around the fair concerning a cursed red jacket, the effect of this rumor on the

superstitious characters who populate this story is as real as though he actually had returned to reclaim

his garment. The physical perils associated with the devils, witches, and rusalki (water-nymphs) of these

stories are often along the lines of a life-or-death struggle (or at least livelihood, as is the case inThe

Fair at Sorochintsy), with death at their hands clearly intended as an allegory for succumbing to the

power of evil. Still, the devils in these stories can be successfully resisted and even defeated, since they



22

prey upon their victims rather than working from within. To accentuate this point, both stories end with a

traditional comic resolution, a wedding (or at least the promise of one the next day inA May Night) in

which the protagonists are happily united. In typically Gogolian fashion, though, the devil does seem to

have some mild influence over the wedding that concludes The Fair at Sorochintsy, as a fiddler's music

impels the assembled crowd to dance "as if a puppeteer were tugging at the strings that held his wooden

puppets". A similarly mild devilish curse occurs at the end ofThe Lost Letter, and Putney notes that "the

motif of the devil's forcing his prey to dance is not unknown in Russian medieval literature" (136).

Nevertheless, the devilish influence here is minor, especially compared to the more threatening form it

takes earlier in the story. A final class of story deals with the darkest and most sinister forms

of devils and fiends imaginable, those who can overcome both the physical protections of a chur (a

boundary that evil forces cannot breach; cf. Putney 58) and the moral shield of virtue.A Terrible

Vengeance, St. John's Eve, and Viy all fall into this category, with each story containing a devilish

creature able to overwhelm the entire panoply of defenses that human characters can use against them.

The moral thrust of these stories is not as consistent (as a class, at least) as is found in the other two

groups, with little or no opportunity afforded the reader to "have a good hearty laugh" at a terrible

demon like the title character of Viy or the wizard ofA Terrible Vengeance. The devils are triumphant

in all of these stories with the qualified exception ofA Terrible Vengeance, in which a very non--

canonical (by Russian Orthodox standards) God has the final say about the fate of the "Antichrist". Even

in that tale, though, the sorcerer wreaks considerable havoc on the "good" characters, destroying Danilo

and his family (as well as a saintly hermit) before being sent to his eternal torment. As Putney aptly

states, this tale "takes place in a paranoid cosmos to which Gogol would only rarely return in his fiction,

and never again with the same intensity" (180). Vsevolod Setchkarev agrees, claiming that this story is

"so gloomy and horrible that even in Gogol's dreadful fantasy world it occupies a special position' (110).

Both the superior strength of the devilish forces in these stories and their direct relation to human nature

mark A Terrible Vengeance and Viy as belonging to Yermakov's "second phase," in which

introspection turns to despair at humanity's complicity in the perpetuation of (rather than their

victimization by) evil.

The comparatively straightforward moralism of St. John's Eve, though, shows that strong devils

are not necessarily the defining characteristic of this latter stage. This story features Basavriuk, a vodka-

swilling, fully incarnate devil who is the most material force of evil in the entire Dikan'ka collection of

tales. He is described in terms that clearly establish both his demonic nature and his corporeality:



23

In this village there often appeared a man, or rather the devil in human shape....He drank and made

merry, and then vanished as though he had sunk into the water....Sometimes he'd set upon the girls, heap

ribbons, earrings, necklaces on them, till they did not know what to do with them....A plague take them,

then, his fine presents! And the worst of it was, there was no getting rid of them: if you threw them into

the water, the devilish necklace or ring would float on the top and come straight back into your hands .

(1: 35-36)

The unreturnable presents form part of a dominant motif derived from the Faust story, and F. C.

Driessen points out some of the other models that Gogol had in mind when constructing this story:

"There is consequently a connection with popular literature.... The disastrous devil's property, the search

for a treasure, the bracken, which bears its red flower on St. John's Eve only, these are all motifs takenfrom the world of the fairytale and popular belief'. He also notes the similarity between this tale and

Tieck's "Liebeszauber," although he argues compellingly against reading Gogol's story as a simple

russification of the German original. Nevertheless, St. John's Evefits into the genre of the horror story

fairly well, although didacticism also is present in rather conventional moral injunctions against

drunkenness, materialism, and dealing with the devil. Basavriuk and the witch who assists him

(reminiscent of the "Baba-Yaga" figure from Russian folklore) are both relatively common types taken

from popular literature. Their physically-manifested evil results in the deaths of Petro and Ivas and the

withering of Pidorka from a lively, beautiful young girl to merely the rumor of a "nun ... wasted to a

skeleton". Despite the extremely bloody efficacy and the lingering presence (the tavern in which Petro

met Basavriuk is possessed by evil spirits at the story's end) of the evil forces in this tale, evil is still

primarily situated outside humanity in this story. A devil like Basavriuk can corrupt a person like Petro,

but the evil resides clearly in the former, since Petro turns to ashes (and the gold he received from

Basavriuk turns into pottery shards) upon the realization of his own wicked deeds.

Alternately,A Terrible Vengeancecloses with a framing story that explicates the unusual death

of the sorcerer, providing details that both explain the tale's title and differentiate it significantly from

stories like "St. John's Eve" or "The Lost Letter." The story, as told by the "old bandore player in the

town of Glukhov", of God's implementation of Ivan's curse on Petro16 creates an effect similar to that

which the narrator's parade of souls has on his audience at the end ofAlice Doane's Appeal.

The blind man had finished his song; he began thrumming the strings again and singing amusing

ballads about Khoma and Yerioma and Stykar Stokoza ... But his listeners, old and young, could not

rouse themselves from reverie; they stood still with bowed heads, thinking of the terrible story of long

ago. This awed, morbid reflection on the part of the blind storyteller's metaphorically "deaf" and



24

"confused" audience reminds the reader that this story is a cautionary moral call to vigilance if one is to

avoid the dreadful fate that befalls the sorcerer. Since God, not the devil, carries out this grim retribution

at the request of a vengeful human (who forfeits his own claim to heaven in devising the sorcerer's

torment), the story points out the self-- devouring capacity for evil that resides within people. As Valery

Bryusov notes, "Ivan ... horrified even God with the intensity of his hatred" (113).

Although moralistic, the tale is ultimately not a didactic one. Gogol does not explain how one

can avoid evil, since everyone who comes in contact with the sorcerer (even a supremely devout

anchorite) meets a bad end. In this way, the end ofA Terrible Vengeanceechoes the mood of somber

gloom in the face of pervasive and potent evil within humanity that closesYoung Goodman Brown.

Viypresents perhaps the least ambiguous and least morally didactic example of a tale in which

evil is victorious. In this tale, Gogol tells the story of the seminary student Khoma Brut who

unknowingly kills a witch and is, in turn, destroyed by a mysterious grotesque embodiment of evil

known only by the odd moniker Viy. Gogol sets this up as another retelling of a legend from Ukrainian

folklore, but no literary or cultural historian has been able to find mention of a figure named or

resembling Viy(cf. Stilman 377). Khoma Brut first encounters the witch in the typical form of an old

woman when she comes to him in the pigpen where she has boarded him for the night. He resists her

seemingly sexual advances, saying (rather untruthfully), "I am a man who wouldn't sin in a fast for a

thousand gold pieces". She will not be swayed from her goal, however, and proceeds to force him into

letting her ride on his back. He then realizes and verbalizes the truth of the situation: "Aha! she's a

witch!" (140). She flies aboard him through the air, during which time he sees below him a rusalka, the

same kind of occasionally malevolent nature spirit found inA May Night.Once he regains his senses

somewhat he goes "through all the exorcisms against evil spirits" and descends back to earth. He turns

the tables on the old witch, riding her through the sky after gaining control over her through his

invocations, after which he proceeds to beat her to death. After dying, the witch returns to her true form,

that of a beautiful young woman who turns out to be the daughter of one of the Cossack chiefs. Khoma

Brut is summoned by this chief to fulfill the dying wish of the girl, namely to have Khoma perform the

three-day ritual of reading prayers over her body before burial. After agreeing to do so under the threat

of violence by the girl's father, Khoma is assailed each night by the animated corpse of the witch within

the church where he is performing the ritual, and each successive night's attack becomes increasingly

difficult to resist. Khoma resists her attacks by performing traditional acts that serve as a chur against

devilish forces, first "[drawing] a circle around him[self]" and then "reading the prayers and pronouncing

the exorcisms which he had been taught by a monk who had all his life seen witches and evil spirits"

(159). Gogol writes that "it was clear that she had not the power to cross" (2: 159) the line that Khoma



25

has drawn, just as the wizard inA Terrible Vengeancecannot leave the cell that has been "constructed

by a holy hermit, and [from which] no evil power can deliver a prisoner" ("A Terrible..." 1: 154) until

Katerina frees him out of an ultimately misguided, if sincere, sense of Christian charity and daughterly

love. Physical and metaphysical barriers provide protection from evil in these cases, but, just as inA

Terrible Vengeance, the evil forces ultimately succeed in penetrating Khoma's defenses when he

somewhat unwittingly allows them to. On the last of the three nights, Khoma is again resisting the

witch's attempts to get to him when "a squat, thickset, bandy-- legged figure ... covered all over with

black earth" (167) is brought into the church. As soon as Khoma looks at him, his protective spell is

broken and "all pounced upon the philosopher together. He fell expiring to the ground and his soul fled

from his body in terror" (167). Leon Stilman notes that Khoma ignores (or is unable to listen to) an

"inner voice" that warns him not to look at Viy and suffers as a result: "Khoma is betrayed by his own

glance, so that `not to look' here means to be 'invisible': you must not look at something horrible; the

temptation is great, but you must not yield to it; if you do look, then you yourself will be seen, and there

is no salvation for you" (377) John Kopper reinforces this reading in terms of Kantian philosophy rather

than religion, but the effect is ultimately the same. Khoma Brut, tellingly called "the Philosopher,"

confronts two exclusive orders of magic, the divine and the diabolic. When the divine unmasks the

diabolic, the diabolic cannot see the human subject. Revelation removes the subject from any

imprisoning, objectifying gaze. As soon as Khoma Brut recites his prayers, for example, the dead girl is

revealed as a decaying corpse, but at that moment the girl cannot see him. At the climax of the story,

however, Viy is hustled in and the tale ends with the institution for the first time of reciprocal sight,

which causes the Philosopher's death. Having dealt almost exclusively hitherto with the masks and

disguises of the "noumenological plot," the Philosopher comes face-to-face with the "thing-in-itself" and

Gogol's message is clear. The "thing-in-itself" cannot be known. (51-52)

Whether interpreted through theological or philosophical means, Khoma's encounter with Viy

represents a dangerous reaching for knowledge that he should not and, perhaps, cannot apprehend, much

as Adam and Eve transgressed their limits in eating the forbidden fruit at Satan's urging. As inA

Terrible Vengeance, evil does not get the last laugh, though, as all the "gnomes" and other evil creatures

are petrified and entombed within the church when they fail to return to wherever they came from by

sunrise. This ending, reminiscent of both Cinderella and Dracula, again points to the dark fairytale

nature of this story. Gogol appears to be trying his hand at writing a folk-tale ex nihilo with this story,

using the kinds of devils who do their work purely in the realm of the physical (excluding, of course, the

terror they cause Khoma as they assail him). Such devils are rebuffed largely with physical or semantic

gestures rather than a more abstract concept of virtue (for, although Khoma recites psalms, his conduct



26

in the opening passages of the story clearly eliminates the possibility of mistaking him for a saint). The

story is not a call for moral behavior, since moral behavior is either absent or predominantly based on

gestures of churin this tale. Sergei Bocharov notes that Gogol has Khoma himself admit the tragic flaw

in his personality, thus pointing out the difficulty of (and dangers of) doing what Yermakov calls

"seeking out the 'nastiness'" in one's own soul: After telling of his orphanhood ... [Khoma] offers a

definitive characterization of himself: "And I don't have the right kind of voice, and I myself am the

Devil knows what [sam ia chart znaet chto]." . . . This is an important admission when it comes to

explaining what happens to him: in Viy, for the first time in Gogol (simultaneous with the first

Petersburg stories) there appears a protagonist who must solve an inner problem; he has been chosen for

an ordeal by the mysterious powers of life, and he is presented with a demand on his personality .... Thus

in making such an admission about himself, he is speaking of the inner deficiency that will determine his

fate. (31-32) If any moral instruction exists in Viy it is simply a wholesale condemnation of any

interaction-from as slight an act as looking at evil to the sexual encounter symbolically implied by

Khoma's nocturnal flight with the witch-with the devil. Since humanity's nature is so inherently debased

(we are all "the devil knows what" in Gogol's eyes) that evil will inevitably weaken its resolve and

triumph if given any chance. The more abstract and less material the devils in Gogol's work become, the

more they serve as didactic elements. The physicality of the devils and witches in folk tales is often too

comic or too overtly fantastic to function effectively as moralistic allegory. When Gogol begins to take

seriously his mission of pastoral care through literature, there is a significant diminution of the number

of devils incarnated in his stories, with a corresponding increase in the number of metaphorical

associations made between characters. That is, Gogol no longer calls characters "devils" and "witches";

he begins to refer to them as "devilish" or "fiendish." The only instances of characters being referred to

as devils occur when characters make such hyperbole-laded accusations within the dialogue of a work,

such as Chichikov repeatedly calling his servant a devil in Dead Souls. These instances are usually rather

ironic as well, since it is Chichikov who resembles the devil in that work much more than the rather

inconsequential tippler who drives his brichka.

As Gogol's technique of demonization switches from that of the first draft of The Portraitto that

of the second draft, his semantic and symbolic inclusion of devils and deviltry moves more into line with

Hawthorne's more metaphorical and reflexively ironic usage. The devil becomes more difficult to spot

once all the stories are colored with the light from the lamps that the devil has lit, since everyone then

looks like (and acts like) him.

For Gogol, the (usually) demonic intervention into ordinary reality followed distinct patterns

based on the location of the tale. Those set in the vast Russian countryside treated the Devil as a



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menacing though still ordinary part of life, but in that rural setting the Devil still had a playful as well as

horrific quality. He could be bargained with and occasionally bested, and, while the Devil was

dangerous, the blows he struck were rarely altogether fatal. Furthermore, the Devil could be seen; his

disguises were rarely sufficient to fool the peasants and Cossacks who were always on the alert for him.

In St. Petersburg, the Devil was an invisible and brooding presence who aimed to seduce souls to evil

and often succeeded. In "the northern capital of our spacious empire," the Devil had a fearful

psychological edge to him; there was no playfulness about him, he could not be bested, and your soul

was at stake.

In The Fair at Sorochintsy, the opening tale in the first volume ofEvenings on a Farm near

Dikanka(1831), it is no surprise that the Devil, like the Cossacks and gypsies, has come to the fair. He

is seen by a reliable witness, a drunken old woman (who better to be on the lookout for the Devil dressed

in a red jacket and "in the shape of a pig"?) The Devil steals the moon in Christmas Eve, a tale in the

second volume ofEvenings on a Farm near Dikanka(1832), but is captured by the hero, who uses him

as transportation to St. Petersburg to obtain the Czarinas slippers for his sweetheart. In the last tale in the

secondDikanka volume,A Bewitched Place, the Devil inhabits a plot of ground where nothing would

grow, and a respectable Christian grandfather could never finish his dance. InSt. John's Eve, in the first

Dikanka volume, the Devil appears in human form as Basavriuk, to ruin the lives of two lovers. The

Devil is "an enemy of the Church of Christ and of the human race," but he is also familiar; with care and

grace, he can be avoided (36).

St. Petersburg was a different place. Here the Devil hid, occasionally to be spotted by a

policeman, as in a terrifying encounter in The Overcoat(1842). Most terrible of all, the Devil inhabited

a painting of a man in an Asiatic robe, a man who came alive filled with evil, as if in a dream, but it was

no dream. The Portrait(1835, 1842) depicted the perdition of a soul, with substantial collateral damage

to art, which to Gogol was a sacred thing. In St. Petersburg, more than elsewhere in the Russian world,

"the devil himself lights the street lamps to show everything in false colors" (452). Metonymy and a

comic touch could alone indicate the seriousness and finality of the Devil in St. Petersburg.

Gogol's blending of comic, grotesque, realist, and fantastic elements inTheOvercoathas led to a

wide range of opinions concerning the story's themes and the significance of its ending. The work has

been interpreted variously as a story of social injustice, as tale of urban alienation and human isolation,

and as a love story, with the coat serving as a metaphor for the love interest. The theme of the "little

man" against "the system" was a popular one among Russian writers in the nineteenth century, and "The

Overcoat" is one of many stories featuring the figure of the impoverished and mistreated government

clerk. One significant way in which Gogol's story differs from others of this type, however, is its



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presentation of the main character. It is unclear whether the reader should feel sympathy for the poor

clerkthe typical response toward such charactersor whether one should regard this as ultimately a

comic tale with fun being made at Akaky Akakyevich's expense. It is also not precisely clear whether

Akaky is victorious against the system. Despite such ambiguity, critics have consistently noted the

resonant irony and lyrical power with which Gogol invested this story.

Demonic intervention in the ordinary course of the natural world appears on three levels

in A Bewitched Place," the short concluding tale in the secondDikanka volume. Presented as "a true

story told by the Sexton," and thus, one must suppose, hardly open to doubt, at least on the existential

level, it recounted both the ordinary and the exceptional in the life of the narrators grandfather.

"Grandad" planted a patch of vegetables and melons by the roadway so he could sell them to wagon

drivers and converse with them about the news of the day. The merchants with their wagons were

"people, you know, who have seen life: if one of them wants to tell you anything, you would do well to

perk up your ears, and to Grandad it was like dumplings to a hungry man" (199). For Gogol, the rent in

the natural law and order that could reasonably be attributed to the Devil never really closed. The

memory of horror and confusion always remained as a souvenir of the genuinely real world, the magical

world of cause rather than the ordinary, seemingly real world of mere effect. And Grandad, a genuine

folk hero, understood the relationship between the two worlds. He held to the faith, and remained always

alert to the wiles of the Devil. The Devil always lies, he told his grandsons, and can never be trusted.

When the crisis came, and the Devil scrambled the natural world, Grandad received cosmic justice, an

occasion so unusual that a parable, such as this one, was told about it. Grandad received the reward from

the "enemy of mankind" that the honest ought, a cauldron of filth, for such are the Devil's gifts. For

Chartkov, the painter in Gogol's "The Portrait" (1835, 1842), who loved neither God nor his art, the

Devil's reward was far worse; it was gold, and the Devil's gold is never free.

A Bewitched Place falls into the chronologically early and substantially religious form of

magical realism, where the fundamental reality is the Devil, and the natural law is merely a veil over

truth. We recall the second book of theAeneid, where Aeneas can suddenly see all of reality, and

discovers that it is not men but the gods who are destroying Troy. So it is with Gogol's tales; the magical

realism itself is clear enough, but what is the realism and what is the magic is always the question.

Gogol had a huge and enduring impact on Russian literature, but his works were appreciated

differently depending on the background of the reader. Belinsky, for instance, berated his horror stories

as "moribund, monstrous works", while Andrei Bely counted them among his most stylistically daring

creations. Nabokov singled outDead Souls, The Government Inspector, andThe Overcoatas the works

of genius and dismissed the remainder as puerile essays. The latter story has been traditionally



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interpreted as a masterpiece of "humanitarian realism", but Nabokov and some other attentive readers

argued that "holes in the language" make the story susceptible to another interpretation, as a supernatural

tale about a ghostly double of a "small man". Of all Gogol's stories, The Nosehas stubbornly defied all

abstruse interpretations: D.S. Mirsky declared it "a piece of sheer play, almost sheer nonsense".

Gogol's oeuvre has also had a large impact on Russia's non-literary culture, and his stories have

been adapted numerous times into opera and film. Russian Composer Alfred Schnittke wrote the eight

part Gogol Suite as incidental music to The Government Inspectorperformed as a play, and composer

Dmitri Shostakovich set The Noseas his first opera in 1930, despite the peculiar choice of subject for

what was meant to initiate the great tradition of Soviet opera.



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CONCLUSIONS

Both Hawthorne and Gogol get a considerable amount of mileage out of a set of symbols

derived from a mode of literary expression that often verge on the pedestrian. The "low" literature of

folk-tales and the simple allegorical platitudes in which the virtuous resist the devil's waysparticipate in the symbolism of devils and demons as fully as the more "elevated" fantastic/ romantic

literature that sold so well during the active years of these two writers' careers. Gogol and

Hawthorne derive a more substantial utility from these symbols by exploring a number of different

ways in which they can serve to deliver a message. From the atonement that Hawthorne apparently

sought (but was far from sure of receiving) through his writing, to the odd, yet moralistic instruction

that Gogol came to incorporate into his later works, each writer experiments liberally with the image

of the devil in his manuscripts in order to attempt to come to some conclusion about his place within

life and the nature of the existence of evil

The Role of Evil in the Short Fiction of Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol and Nathaniel Hawthorne-Roxana...

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