Gogol's discourse in Dostoevsky's works (by Gogol's Diary of a Madman and Dostoevsky's Notes from the Dead House)

The main idea of this workis researching of the problem of Gogol's discourse in Dostoevsky's novel Notes from the Dead House.We talk about the genre of "notes", one of Dostoevsky's favourite genres, which Gogol uses just once:in his "Diary of a Madman". This genre makes the hero of "The Diary of a Madman" a new type ofhero, self-analysing and thinking "little person"; that is why we can call him the prototype ofDostoevsky's heroes. In The Notes from the Dead House Dostoevsky used not only the genre of"notes", but also the semiosphere of madness, which Gogol created in "The Diary of a Madman" andwhich Dostoevsky re-created."The Diary of a Madman" is a phenomenon of literary process of the 1830s. Though this tale isnot big, it becomes a specific semiosphere of madness, which includes different layers and creates anew picture of the world. Gogol showed different aspects of Russian reality: department, the house of"His Excellence", the flat of an official, the psychiatric hospital; and all these aspects were absurd.Madness and absurd are very important categories in the context of the tale because the author needsthem for making the absurd picture of the world. In the context of Gogol's tale the theme of madnessbecomes a "world-creating" theme.Dostoevsky wrote a few novels in the genre of "notes" but in the context of "The Diary of aMadman" it is interesting to research The Notes from the Dead House. Special features of the genre arevery important. Like Gogol's "Diary" Dostoevsky's genre of "notes" is a poly-genre type, whichincludes elements of physiological essay, self-biography, confession, short story, satirical article asinserting constructions. In Dostoevsky's novel there is also a self-analysing narrator, the author ofnotes, - Alexander Petrovich Gorjanchikov. His mind is the core of the work. Besides, the dominatingmotives are not only the motives of expiation and revival from the dead, but also the motives ofmadness and hell, which prevail in prison. With the help of Gorjanchikov, who is one of the manyunknown victims of "the Dead House", Dostoevsky showed the absurd and futile system ofpunishment, which cannot improve and revive people's souls, but it can pervert and make them angry.Thus, the stories of both writers discuss the same problem - the absurd of the Russian reality,which the heroes cannot escape.