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Diana Parizon
English 226 - Honors
Dr. Hobbs
23 February 2010
Entry Ticket 3

1. In “The Nose”, why would Kovalyov rather lose his arm or leg or even his ears? Why would he have rather lost his nose in war or in a duel?

A: Kovalyov does not feel like himself without his nose. The nose is the most prominent part of every person’s face. The nose is the farthest facial part of the face, so it is leading the person. The nose leads a person to the sources of pleasant aromas, and when sensing unpleasant scents the nose will “tell” the person to avoid the path that would lead to this unpleasant source of smell. If he lost an arm or a leg or even an ear, he still would have one of each left. He is disappointed; he did not lose his nose in war or in a dual because he would have felt heroic. For Kovalyov, his nose is very important since we learn in the end he has a sharp nose that is indicating he has a very keen sense of smell. This is the reason he did everything he could to get his dominant facial part – his nose – back.

2. On page 14, in “The Diary of a Madman” the mad man is reading one of the letters between the two dogs. One of the dogs writes that love is a second life. What does the dog mean with this line? And what could the speaking dogs represent?

A: A person lives with their every day routine; but if one day that person fell in love, he or she would need to make space for the loved one somehow in their already tightly scheduled life. The dog has his duty to follow and carry out his duties before he could take time for his heart desire. Love just cannot exist in their real life as it exists - only in another life. Real life is work, work, and work – everything is practical and things that make sense. Love does not fit into this world of daily working life. Dogs could be seen as representing the lower classes of Russian society at this time. A person owns and leads a dog, so the third class is owned and lead by the higher ranks. However, Gogol allowed the dogs in this story to have the ability to speak, read, and write. It is a symbol for a possible change in the social circle. If the third class starts having education, the first class would not be able to control them as easily.

Muriel Clemens
Dr. B. Lee Hobbs
ENG 226 Survey of English Literature II (Honors)
February 21, 2010
Entry Ticket #3

Nikolai Gogol’s The Diary of a Madman and Other Stories

Question 1
In the story The Nose we are given two different dates. The first is March 25 and the second is April 7. What do these dates mean and how do they relate to the story?

Answer 1
March 25 on the Julian calendar and April 7 on the Gregorian calendar are the same day. According to Priscilla Meyer the dates fall on Annunciation Day in the Orthodox church. Meyer states that this is a story that could have been about a conversion, a bad man turned good and turning toward faith. Instead it’s a story about the failure of Kovalyov to change. Just as the two dates are the same day, Kovalyov is the same man he was before and after finding his nose.

Question 2
In the story of The Overcoat, what does the overcoat represent?

Answer 2
The overcoat represents temptation. The coat itself is a necessity but it is turned into an obsession. The “idea” of the coat becomes more important than the actual coat. Akaky becomes a different man and because of this he stays late at the party given for him by his co-workers in celebration of his new coat. The coat has become a status symbol and the cause of Akaky’s death.

Works Cited
Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll's House and Other Plays (Penguin Classics). New York: Penguin Classics, 1965. Print.
Tikos, Laszlo. Gogol's art A search for identity. Bati, 1997. Print.

Mary Strand
Dr. Hobbs
February 20, 2010

Entry Ticket #3

Question #1: What is the significance of Poprishchin’s entry on November 8th, concerning his trip to the theater?

Answer #1: In this short and simple journal entry, Gogol is able to express to the readers a number of characteristics of Poprishchin, as well as the time period. Gogol is able to present another prime example of Poprishchin’s arrogant and pompous attitude towards those of the perceived lower class; merchants and journalists, and all others who will never have such a complimenting place in society as he does, holding the position of clerk to the director. Poprishchin also makes a stab at those among his ranks that are not of his standards; those [greedy] clerks who do not indulge in such things as the theater like he does. Theater was a fine way to pass your time and spend your money during his time. And, at the very end, the trailing thoughts about the maiden he remembered from the play, not only for her voice, but for other reasons he must remove from his train of thought, show the reader the respect he lacks for the opposite sex; as did many men during his time.

Question #2: Why do you think Kovalyov refers to the devil as knowing how to approach the nose on page 31?

Answer #2: I believe that in Kovalyov’s attempts to confront the state councillor about his nose, he looks to the knowledge of the devil so as to make a point of his social class. Having lost his nose, Kovalyov is now nothing to those around him (especially the women he is trying so hard to impress) and Gogol is making the point that evil was associated with the lower class. When deciphering between good and evil within the text, the lower class was seen as inferior and therefore we classified as evil. With his nose, Kovalyov would not have turned to such courage from the knowledge of the devil, but that of the ‘good’ power. The social class of a person could have potentially rendered them a stigma as being an evil/bad person during this time.

Dana Jennings
Dr. Hobbs
ENG-226
2-23-10

Entry Ticket 3: Gogol

1. In The Overcoat, does Akaky receive his due?

A. Akaky has his revenge on society at large and presumably his robber, but this can be analyzed in different ways. He can be said to have gotten his due, but another view could be that he has been cursed, as he had cursed others. Whether he has found peace is debatable.

2. The narrator of The Nose states that the story is unreliable and the events cannot happen, does Gogol do this to undermine his story or to give an added dimension to the story?

A. Gogol clearly understands that his narrator stating that events cannot happen gives an odd feeling to the reader, and will affect how they understand and receive the story. He is giving the story a life of its own, as simply the story about the nose is absurd, but the story about the narrator narrating the story is a method of delivering a lesson and meaning.

Branka Trivanovic


ENG 226 [HONORS]


Due February 23, 2010

Entry Ticket #3

Q. 1) Why did Akaky Akakievich’s insist on repairing the old overcoat instead of just buying a new one? What finally persuades him to do so?


A. 1) His salary did not leave him much money to spend on materials for a new coat. He knew that without a change in his earnings he would never be able to afford a new overcoat. After being denied several times by Petrovich, he decides to live on a strict budget so that he can save up enough money for a new overcoat. After a while he becomes obsessed with the prospect of a new overcoat that he does not think about much else. Finally, a holiday bonus at work gives him enough money to afford new material for a new overcoat and the rest is history, as they say.

Q. 2) For what reason, if any, do you think that the barber Ivan Yakovlevich found Major Kovalyov’s nose in his bread? Do you believe that he had anything to do with it disappearing in the first place? In other words, was he one of the people that emasculated Kovalyov, as discussed in class?


A. 2) I do not believe that the barber had anything to do with the loss of nose, or emasculation of Kovalyov. I think that his position as a drunk and a barber, AND the fact that he holds peoples noses when he shaves them, makes him an accessible character to place blame on. Considering the emasculation aspect of the story, if anything it would have been Kovalyov that made Yakovlevich feel like the lesser man. He always pointed out that Yakovlevich hands “stink” when he shaved him. So, no, I do not think that Yakovlevich had anything to do with the nose disappearing. Just another, “in the wrong place at the wrong time” kind of events.

Jeremy Doty
Dr. B. Lee Hobbs
ENG 226 Honors Survey of World Literature II
23 February 2010, Entry ticket

The Overcoat,
How was the over coat taken and what was the final outcome of the situation?
Two men put a fist in Akakys’ face and made him be quiet, then they kicked him in the chest with a knee and left him in the snow without the over coat. That lead to him talking to an “important personage” and after that lead nowhere, Akaky caught a cold and died. The coat made him extremely happy and consumed his life and then he died without it.

The Diary of a Madman
What is the main obsession of Kovalyov, the main character?
He is obsessed with rank and the rank of every object and the rank of the owner of an object. Rank is what is consuming his life and already being a crazy man; he is making himself even crazier by obsessing so much.

Antonette Boynes
HON ENG 226: Survey of World Literature
Dr. Hobbs
02-22-2010
Diary of a Madman and Other Plays Entry Ticket #3
Q1) What conflict is evident in the plot of Diary of a Madman?
A1) In Diary of a Madman by Gogol, Aksenty Ivanovich Poprishchin has demonstrated a decline in his sanity throughout his very descriptive journal entries. This internal struggle that Poprishchin has experienced is obviously a man vs self conflict. Because there are many things that he can’t seem to fathom and then makes up things in his head, Poprishchin also may have a serious case of schizophrenia.

Q2) How has this conflict affected the play?

A2) The exaggeration of Poprishchin’s insanity in the book is pathetic. It is so ridiculous it seems to almost want to make the audience want to have sympathy for his foolishness. In most cases like this a reader such as myself will be upset that someone could be so simple. This conflict gave the play an annoying mood in my opinion. I had to force myself to continue especially since things were not getting better for Poprishchin. I felt almost like I was living his sorry life.

Katherine Ganning
B.L. Hobbs
ENG226H: Survey of World Literature II
23 February 2010
Entry Ticket 3: Ukrainian Tales
1. In each of Gogol’s short story, he uses smoke to represent the devil or super natural in two stories. Name and describe each story in which these events take place.
In The Nose, although Kovalyov does not show feelings of religious faith, the doctor is portrayed as the devil is hopes of buying his soul. While in The Overcoat, Petrovich is the tailor is presented in a cloud of smoke and is represented as the devil’s apprentice, so to speak. Gogol uses smoke as a way to “obscure vision, whether through sneezing, a haze of smoke, or the distraction of snuff taking […]. (Gogol 226).
2. How does the “nose” represent the actions of how people posses things during the 19th century and today.
There are many different reasons as to why one obsesses over objects, even though they are just things that sometimes are temporary. For example; Linus Van Pelt’s blanket represents his insecurity about life or a textbook represents the student’s visual knowledge of what to learn. In a way, we rely on objects to encourage our feelings, either way we are able to walk away without the security of something.
 
Works Cited

Gogol, Nikolai. The Diary of a Madman and Other Stories. New York: Signet Classic, 2005.

Patricia Pothier
ENG 220 World Lit
Dr. Hobbs
Entry Ticket 3

1. How does Poprishchin view his peers and what do his opinions say about Russian society?
a. It is evident even at the outset of the novel that Poprishchin holds much resentment towards his fellow workers and peers. The very first page of the story we are given a glimpse of the hostility Poprishchin feels when he discusses the chief of his department. He calls the chief a heron and states that he is just envious. This theme of paranoia and disdain is continuous throughout the short story. Though in the end we discover that Poprishchin suffered from schizophrenia, we can look to the book to understand the Russian society Gogol was trying to depict. Poprishchin was a lowly clerk who, despite losing his mind, still in the beginning understood his place in the social hierarchy. He prides himself on being the one to sharpen the quills of His Excellency, so he does appreciate the status of the King. This comprehension begins to unravel when Poprishchin mentions that he is unhappy about being a titular councilor. Also on page 14 he is vexed because everything that is good seems to go to chamberlains and generals. This increases his contempt for the hierarchy. He also never speaks of Her Excellency without scolding himself which shows that he recognizes that she is above him. This short makes the reader privy to the inside workings of the Communist system. Though Poprishchin is terribly unhappy and does not like his status or the people around him he never dares to voice his true opinions aloud. The fact that the short is also written as diary entries might suggest that Poprishchin found comfort in his diary as he could not truly express himself to others. Communism certainly does not promote the individual but society as a whole therefore the diary format seems fitting.
2. What impression does The Overcoat give of Russian bureaucracy?
a. Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin is a lowly government clerk and despite the fact that his work is so monotonous and menial he is entirely devoted to doing it. He is a copier which provides little opportunity for advancement. Of course when a promotion opens up he is much too afraid to accept it. This leaves him as a copier and no one pays him any mind because his work is of little value. In a system where the good of the community is promoted over the good of the individual this story provides a prime example of this. When he buys the overcoat and it is stolen, the entire system is taken into account. Akaky runs to the police commissioner who is less than sympathetic. When Akaky goes to meet an important person he is once again made fun of. The story is devastatingly tragic as Akaky dies without finding his overcoat. No one helped him regardless of all the years he spent being so thorough at his job.

Antonette Boynes
HON ENG 226: Survey of World Literature II
Dr. Hobbs
02-28-2010
Gogol Reading Response
At first, I thought the Diary of a Madman would be an interesting read for me, and it was, just not in the sense that I thought it would be. It was more difficult that I thought and at times had me discombobulated, however I grasped the main concept: pure insanity!
In Diary of a Madman by Gogol, Aksenty Ivanovich Poprishchin has demonstrated a decline in his sanity throughout his very descriptive journal entries. This internal struggle that Poprishchin has experienced is obviously a man vs self conflict. Because there are many things that he can’t seem to fathom and then makes up things in his head, Poprishchin also may have a serious case of schizophrenia. Some of the elements incorporated with his delusions could be his love affair and his sham royalty. These could have been the initial stages of his progress or may have taken it overboard. It seems like his love affair was part of the start and then as he realized that his love was not interested in him, it took him off the deep end. In many instances love is the cause of someone going crazy.
On the other hand, at some points it seemed as though Poprishchin knew what he was doing and even knew that he was losing some of his screws. Poprishchin notes in his diary that he thinks he hears two dogs talking to each other in Russian. He further notes: “‘It can’t be true, I must be drunk.' But I hardly ever drink.” He admits that the idea of dogs talking to be absurd, but then later on submits himself to the thought that the dogs were writing letters, proving that he is in actuality a lunatic. Gogol did a good job very good job in satisfying the requirements that would certify Poprishchin as mentally unstable such as delusions, hallucinations, gross disorganization, and catonic behavior. He even took it further creating it in such a way that we would feel mercy.
The exaggeration of Poprishchin’s insanity in the book is pathetic. It is so ridiculous it seems to almost want to make the audience want to have sympathy for his foolishness. In most cases like this a reader such as myself will be upset that someone could be so simple. This conflict gave the play an annoying mood in my opinion. I had to force myself to continue especially since things were not getting better for Poprishchin. I felt almost like I was living his sorry life.

Diana Parizon
English 226 – Honors
Dr. Hobbs
2 March 2010
Olfactory
Gogol accentuated clearly in “The Nose” the importance of olfactory. The loss of eyesight could be replaced by sense of touch, and sign language could be used if one is disabled to speak. However, losing the sense of smell is really hard to substitute. Even if one looses one arm or a leg, one is still left to be used. Throughout the story, Kovalyov tries everything to find his nose while realizing the importance of it.
Kovalvyov is very ashamed of what happened to him, waking up without a nose and not remembering how this happened. There is not even evidence that it was cut off. The space between his eyes is simply flat as if the nose would have never existed before. The proof for his humiliation for the loss of his nose is when he goes on foot outside; he was “wrapped in his cloak and covering his face with a handkerchief, giving the impression that he was bleeding” (Gogol 30). Kovalvyov seems to be a very proud man due to his preference to be called “Major,” a military title even though he is only one of the plebian. Ironically, when Kovalyov meets his own nose, which is dressed in military uniform of higher rank than a Major, he learns that the nose is on its own. There is a saying that one should not hold their nose too high, it leads to arrogance. The nose represents arrogance as he says to Kovalyov: “judging by the buttons on your uniform, you must work in another department” (Gogol 32). After Kovalyov has his nose miraculously returned he has more confidence in himself because of his sharp nose; he has good humor, smiles, and pursues all the pretty ladies.
It is amusing when Kovalyov goes to the Board of Security to release a search warrant for his lost nose. He learns from the clerks while talking about a lost girl, that instead of publishing information about the lost person, one should hire a good dog to search for the person. The dog would use his olfactory to find the missing person. This knowledge of the dog’s ability to find lost people, or things, by using his sense of smell reminded Kovalvoy now important his own nose was.
Having this confrontation with his own nose let Kovalvoy realize the importance of his sense of smell. It leads him to his goals. He trusts his senses but especially his sense of smell. If something smells good he follows the source of this scent. By losing this particular tool of smell, he learns to appreciate it once he has it back. Even though strange things happen in life, he hopes this dilemma will not occur again.

Work Cites
Gogol, Nikolai. The Diary of a Madman. London: Signet Classics, 2005. Print.

Muriel Clemens
Dr. B. Lee Hobbs
ENG 226 Survey of English Literature II (Honors)
Reading Response #3

The Power of Words
Gogol’s Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
Words are a powerful tool. We can use them to complement someone, or to cut them down to size. We use them to make peace or to go to war. In the right hands words can be magic. In the hands of a good writer words can transport us to another place or another time. In Gogol’s stories we are taken to Petersburg Russia before the Revolution to a time that was not so easy. Gogol uses a wonderful bouquet of words that when laying on the page are simply buds but once they are read become beautiful blossoms. Equivoque is one of those words.

The word equivocal is used in Gogol’s The Diary of a Madman. Poprishchin, the protagonist, is talking about his employer “His Excellency” and what he says is:
I would like to find out what he thinks about most; what’s going on in
that head. I would like to have a closer look at the life of these gentlemen,
all these equivoques and court doings, what they’re like, what they do
in their set-that’s what I’d like to find out!

The word equivoque means using words in such a way that it causes ambiguity and uncertainty. Poprishchin is a very paranoid man and the use of this word in reference to his employer and men like him is further evidence of his paranoid delusions. The etymology of equivocation is that it is from Old French equivocation, and from Late Latin aequivocationem and means “the fallacy of using a word in different senses at different stages of the reasoning” (Online Etymology Dictionary). Do you see how the word blooms?

Words written by the right person can do so much and they are something we take for granted. Gogol is an artist with words and he knows how to paint a picture with them. I hope I can someday learn this art.

Works Cited
"Equivocate | Define Equivocate at Dictionary.com." Dictionary.com | Find the Meanings and Definitions of Words at Dictionary.com. Web. 02 Mar. 2010. .
Gogol, Nikolai. The Diary of a Madman and Other Stories. New York: Signet Classics, 2004. Print.
Online Etymology Dictionary. Web. 02 Mar. 2010. term=equivocation>.

Mary Strand
Dr. Hobbs
February 28, 2010

Significance of Vocabulary in Gogol’s Work

Throughout The Diary of a Madman, The Nose, and The Overcoat, Nikolai Gogol makes use of specific vocabulary, to further make known the underlying theme of classism seen in all three of his short stories. For example, on page six of The Diary of a Madman, the main character Poprishchin ignores the fact that anyone is walking down the street, yet he proceeds in describing people of lower classes and what they are wearing. The existence of the bourgeois class peoples is unbeknownst to him, yet he himself (being a clerk of some unknown sort) could be considered bourgeois himself. On page 30 of The Nose, Major Kovalyov goes into St. Petersburg to try and find his lost nose, and makes known, in brief, his view on marriage. He states that he would not be opposed to marrying a woman, so long as she came with a large capital for him to share with her; he himself is not of any great social status, and his goal was to make that climb at anyone’s sake.
Along with these examples of classism identified in the text, Gogol also uses word choice to make known the social status of people. Within the three short stories Gogol uses vocabulary that would pinpoint the class of an individual using the word, or being talked about. Words such as boudoir and lorgnette were used in reference to women in the stories. Boudoir is a fancy way of speaking of a woman’s private room or bedroom, and only a woman of upper class status would have a room solely for herself. A lorgnette is a pair of glasses on a stick mainly used by woman op upper class at the theatre or an opera. In randomly using these two vocabulary words within his text, a reader would know that these women are of a higher social class than most. In another instance Gogol uses the words confrere and soiree to indicate an individual’s colleague and a social gathering that one of the characters was attending. These two vocabulary words would not have been used by plebeians of the time.
With these few in text examples and specific instances of word choice that Gogol used to indicate classism, it is made known that this was an issue during his time, and a continuous theme throughout his writings.

Work Cited
Gogol, Nikolai. The Diary of a Madman and Other Stories. New York: Penguin, 2005.

Branka Trivanovic


ENG 226


Due March 2, 2010




READING RESPONSE 3




For what reason, if any, do you think that the barber Ivan Yakovlevich found Major Kovalyov’s nose in his bread? Do you believe that he had anything to do with it disappearing in the first place? In other words, was he one of the people that emasculated Kovalyov, as discussed in class?




I do not believe that the barber had anything to do with the loss of nose, or emasculation of Kovalyov. I think that his position as a drunk and a barber, AND the fact that he holds peoples noses when he shaves them, makes him an accessible character to place blame on. Considering the emasculation aspect of the story, if anything it would have been Kovalyov that made Yakovlevich feel like the lesser man. He always pointed out that Yakovlevich hands “stink” when he shaved him. So, no, I do not think that Yakovlevich had anything to do with the nose disappearing. Just another, “in the wrong place at the wrong time” kind of events. In the beginning of the story, Yakovlevich wonders how the nose could have gotten in the bread. He concludes that, “The devil knows…” He could not remember whether he came home drunk or not the night before but even then, “bread is a baked affair, while a nose is something entirely different. Another reason that leads me to believe that Yakovlevich had nothing to do with the actually disappearance of Kovalyov’s nose is the possibility that it was all actually a dream that Kovalyov had. On page 48 it is stated, “suddenly the very nose which had been riding around… showed up again, just as if nothing had happened…” If it was all a dream then anyone and anything in the story was all part of an elaborate and twisted workings of the mind and not reality which seems much more plausible than to say that someone’s nose became a separate entity and was running around town acting like a high rank officer. In the end, Gogol does not want to reveal to the reader what had actually happened, but instead ends the story with a shroud of mystery around it. “No matter what anyone says, such things happen in the world; rarely, but they happen.”

Jeremy Doty
Reading response 3
ENG 226H Survey of World Literature II
Dr. B.L. Hobbs

Halberd: other names are Halbert, Swiss Voulge, Viking ax. One belief is that it is of German origin and the name is derived from (halm) meaning staff or pole and (barte) meaning ax,(pole ax).
A halberd is a two handed weapon that was popular beginning during the 14th century and was used through the 16th century as a standard weapon. It is a spear, or pike like weapon that is usually around 6 feet long and has an ax at the tip along with the spear head. It is good for keeping distance between you and your opponent and is great for de-horsing knights. The hook on the back side of the ax is good for grading armor and pulling the horseman off the horse. The head of the weapon was usually made from iron or steal. Training with the weapon normally consisted of swinging and thrusting the weapon at the opponent.

Katie Ganning
Dr. B. L. Hobbs
ENG 226: Survey of World Literature II
2 March 2010
Little Jobs, Big Thoughts.

According to the dictionary, Subaltern is someone who is lower in rank. During the first half of 18th century Russia, the world had already undergone a transition of living known as the Industrial Revolution, whereas Russia stayed economically and socially behind. While this was taking place in the world, Nikolai Gogol was writing his short stories of St. Petersburg which is shown of his finest work of Russian men during the present time of Gogol; these men were known to be of lower rank, or subalterns.
In each of Gogol’s short stories, the men are each of subaltern rank. Usually, men are stereotypically known to want respect and to have earned it, with each man in each story, it drives them each to the point of materialistic thoughts which lead to each of them going semi-insane or completely insane. What people should remember is that although there rank in the social life might be low, we are all apparatchiks in each society 
Works Cited
Gogol, Nikolai. The Diary of a Madman and Other Stories. New York: Signet Classics, 2005.

Dana Jennings
Dr. Hobbs
ENG-226
3-2-10

Ogle Gogol

I enjoyed Gogol’s stories, as I am almost convinced the man was slightly insane either prior to or at the time of writing them. He has a distinct style of being able to write as a madman without disengaging and being objective, as in Diary of a Madman, “Today is a day of the greatest jubilation! There is a king in Spain. He has been found. I am this king. Only just today did I find out about this” (16). He is clearly mad, but the narrator doesn’t need to be objective and separate himself from the character, as that is not Gogol’s style, and it works well in his stories.

Gogol has an interesting method of taking objects from one story to the next, changing a mundane object into an important and central reflector in the next. In Diary of a Madman he states monotonously “I put on my old overcoat . . . because it was pouring rain” (2), and then in The Overcoat more dramatically he states “One should know that Akaky Akakievich’s overcoat also served as an object of merriment for the clerks: they took away even its honorable name of overcoat and called it a housecoat” (73). The way Gogol has laced his stories with connecting factors allows for good discussions on his intent, as in if his stories are meant to be connected or if he simply had objects that he used in all his stories.

Gogol uses a style of writing that is rough on the eyes and counter to someone who likes to take their eyes off of the page and drink coffee. This is because he stretches his paragraphs longer than most authors, and it is hard to find pausing points or stop and restart frequently. For example, the first paragraph of The Overcoat begins on page 67 and ends at the top of page 70. Even with his rough use of length and wordiness, with a spattering of insanity, I enjoyed Gogol’s stories as they are fun and engaging to read.

Work Cited
Gogol, Nikolai. The Diary of a Madman and Other Stories. New York: Signet Classics, 2004. Print.

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