Magical Realism in The Porcelain Doll and The Nose Essay Sample

📌Category: Literature
📌Words: 1153
📌Pages: 5
📌Published: 16 June 2022

Regardless of the fact that Magical Realism stories employ fictional elements that are unlikely to occur in real life, they contain themes and lessons that can be applied to life in different ways. The common themes of power, identity, and magic may be found throughout magical realism, but specifically in “The Porcelain Doll” and “The Nose”. “The Nose” depicts the story of a high ranking man who loses his nose, and subsequently his dominance and superiority follows. “The Porcelain Doll”, on the other hand, tells the story of how a man’s wife turns to a porcelain doll when they are alone in a room. Throughout this semester of magical realism, we have read numerous pieces of literature. Both Gogoal and Tolstoy convey similar themes throughout their texts, their writing styles heavily impacted by their upbringing.  

Both highly esteemed and reputable authors Nikolai Gogol and Leo Tolstoy have more in common than just being born in the same time period.  Despite the fact that Gogol was born in Ukraine, and Tolstoy in Russia, both of their upbringings had a significant influence on their writing. Leo Tolstoy was born the fourth of five children into an aristocratic family on September 9, 1828, in Russia. He has many experiences in traveling and the military. Everyone around him unfortunately passed away, starting with his mother, then his father, then his grandmother, and lastly his aunt. He dropped out of school and spent a few years gambling and drinking before joining the Crimean War. He got married around 30, and had a rocky relationship. “ He was deeply invested in the belief that good art should make us less moralistic and judgemental and should be a supplement to religion in terms of developing our reserves of kindness and morality”(The School of Life). Tolstoy’s writing serves as both entertainment and as a method of teaching his audience. The author of “The Nose” is Nikolai Gogol, born in Ukraine on April 1, 1809. His younger brother’s death had a major impact on him as a child. He was educated, yet he was an outsider in his class. This young storyteller rose to fame overnight. “Gogol became very religious, and concerned for the safety of his own soul and the burden of his sins. Urged on by a spiritual advisor called Father Matthew, and by Count Alexey Tolstoi, he made a burnt offering of his remaining manuscripts in his stove. He then starved himself to death, having lost the drive to live. He ended his life in agony, festooned with leeches and soaked in cold water”(Review: Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol). Living a difficult life carries on into his writing. He teaches to avoid getting caught up in the details and labels of life. To live for oneself rather than for others' perception of you.

“The Nose” is a narrative about the power of being less than someone, and it represents how we perceive social position. Set in St. Petersburg, the story starts by the main character Ivan finding a nose in a loaf of bread, recognizing that it is the Major’s. He tries to dispose of it several times yet never successfully. On the other hand, the Major, a very respected high class man, wakes up with a smooth face missing a nose. Without his nose he realizes he has no rank, and even sees his nose treat him below him.  “But there is nothing permanent in this world, and so the second minute of happiness is not as vivid as the first, and the third is even feebler, and finally happiness merges imperceptibly with the usual state of one’s soul. Thus, a water ripple caused by the fall of a pebble finally blends with the smooth surface” (The Nose 24).  In this quote Gogol is trying to convey to readers that no matter what your status is in life, one day it will disappear just like the ripple caused by a pebble. Although your status in life is important to an extent, people in our world get caught up in how they are perceived by others and what impression they give off. Based on this perception, people will think and behave in accordance. This can be seen in the short story.  “He was, as a child, dreamy and withdrawn and was deeply affected by the death of a younger brother”(Nikolai Gogol).  The loss of Gogol’s younger brother had a profound impact on his childhood. This death can allude to the ideas Gogol conveyed in his stories. At the end of the day, you are only a small individual on the giant planet, and the hierarchy of people means nothing. “But despite financial difficulties, he delayed entry into the civil service and attempted to make a name for himself in literature”(Nikolai Gogol). Even though Gogol did not originate from a wealthy family, he was able to make a name for himself.

“The Porcelain Doll” by Leo Tolstoy has a theme of lack of emotions and power dynamics. When the wife, Sonya, is alone with her husband she turns into a porcelain doll. The power balance between the husband and wife is a prominent subject in the novel. The husband was content with her being porcelain, which revealed his joy at being in a position of power. “Then I experience a strange feeling. I suddenly felt it pleasant that she should be as she was, and ceased to be surprised - it all seemed natural”(The Porcelain Doll 35). Her husband is happy with being in charge and making decisions without consulting Sonya. “I had written this letter when suddenly a terrible misfortune occurred. She was standing on the table when Natalya Petrovna pushed against her in passing, and she fell and broke off a leg above the knee with the stump” (The Porcelain Doll 36). Through this quote it is revealed that Sonya’s husband does not even view her as a real person, and when she is in her doll form, he has complete control over. Both of Leo Tolstoy’s parents had died when he was a child, and the shadow of death seemed to linger in his life, similar to the loss Gogol experienced. In terms of the way he portrays his characters, his childhood has had a significant influence on his writings. “His first diary begins by confiding that he may have contracted a ventral disease. The early diaries record a fascination with rule-making, as Tolstoy composed rules for diverse aspects of social and moral behavior. They also record the writer’s repeated failure to honour these rules, his attempts to formulate new ones designed to ensure obedience to old ones, and his frequent acts of self-castigation”(Leo Tolstoy).  His rule-making for social and moral behavior is relevant to this story because within Sonya and her husband’s interactions it is clear that he needs an unnatural sense of control. 

These authors were heavily influenced by their childhood and experiences with loss. This may be seen in how the two of these authors, Tolstoy and Gogol, have included lessons learnt throughout their lives in writing. Both authors having suffered throughout their lives, they were able to establish unique perspectives in their respective stories. Gogol chose to convey his contempt for the power of status in society, and Tolstoy was more revealing about his own personality relating to power. Both “The Porcelain Doll” and “The Nose” were magical realism texts about power, influenced by the past and upbringing of the authors.

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