29 pages • 58 minutes read
Nikolai GogolThe Carriage
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1836A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Performance of Class
While “The Carriage” may seem a straightforward satire of class divisions, the story is actually critiquing the disastrous consequences of reckless, performative social climbing. As a Slavophile who vocally supported the ruling House of Romanov and did not believe that Russia should become a constitutional monarchy, Gogol often expressed surprise that readers interpreted his texts as indictments of the tsarist economic and political order. Rather, his stories use humor to discuss the potential perils of disrupting the status quo. In “The Carriage,” this is true for both locals living in the town of B— and the officers serving in the cavalry regiment: Each person has their designated place, and any attempt to move beyond that place can lead to catastrophic results.
Until the events of the story, Chertokutsky has behaved as “proper” landowner, which means that he has married a wealthy woman, purchased some lavish but unnecessary accouterments for their home, and demonstrated willingness to put the 400 peasants who belong to him “in hock for the sake of some commercial dealings” (185). In other words, he has completed the social, political, and economic rituals his class status requires of him. However, as his conversation with the general demonstrates, he acquired the titular carriage in an unusual fashion: Rather than inheriting or purchasing it, he won it in a card game. This is the first Incident that undermines normative social and economic practices, making it all the more significant that it is Chertokutsky’s misguided, highly emotional attachment to the carriage that leads to his downfall. In his persistent attempts to “perform” beyond his existing status, he humiliates himself in the eyes of his superiors.
In fact, the peasants seem to be the happiest, most productive characters in the story. Although none of them are major figures, they do their jobs without complaint and thus do not face the same dire consequences other characters might. Chertokutsky’s coachman, valet, and maid are competent, professional caretakers who effectively help their dysfunctional master and mistress complete extremely rudimentary tasks. While the villagers enjoy the presence of the regiment in B—, they are also perfectly satisfied with rural life when the soldiers are not billeted there, never plotting to change the social order or raise themselves up in any way. Thus, the story does not criticize the existence of the class structure, but rather punishes those who scheme to alter it and rewards those who are willing to accept it.
The Hazards of Consumption
Throughout the story, scenes of consumption—particularly, but not exclusively, of food and drink—point toward a concern with the dangers of greed, selfishness, and excess. For these characters, overconsumption, driven by a lack of boundaries or self-control, can result in a disconnection from reality and an uncertainty about one’s very subjectivity. This happens most notably at the general’s dinner party, but the narrative hints at it long before that. When the regiment settles in the village, the neighboring landowners flock to it:
[Men] of whose existence no one could have guessed hitherto started coming to the district town more frequently, in order to see the gentleman officers and sometimes to play a game of faro, the rules of which were only foggily preserved in their heads, so preoccupied with planting, their wives’ errands, and hares (183).
For these men, the overwhelming desire to visually consume the regiment and materially consume card games results in a sudden mental jumble: They can no longer keep the details of their everyday lives distinct from those of recreational pleasures. Additionally, the men’s very “existence” is tenuous (or at least ambiguous) before they become engaged in conspicuous consumption. The notion that a character’s objective presence is determined by what, when, and how they consume suggests that the story places a great deal of both ethical and literary weight on what those acts of consumption look like.
At the general’s dinner party, Chertokutsky becomes the ultimate victim of his own unmediated desire. His willingness to violate social norms and invite the general and gentleman officers to his home sets the stage for disaster. After his overture is accepted, Chertokutsky “[begins] addressing [the men] in a more familiar fashion, and his voice [gets] more relaxed. It [is] a voice laden with pleasure” (188). After consuming the lavish meal the general provided, he has now consumed the social goodwill of the other guests, and the latter has a more profound effect on him than the former. As the evening continues, Chertokutsky experiences a strange metaphysical split: He desperately wants to leave the dinner so he can prepare his home for the following day’s gathering, but he has lost the ability to control his body. He even picks up his hat, ready to walk out the door, but “strangely it somehow turn[s] out that he stay[s] for a while” (189). Words like “strangely” and “somehow” imply that even the narrator cannot explain what is happening to Chertokutsky. Eventually, the men begin playing cards and drinking heavily, and “it seem[s] to [Chertokutsky] to be very incompatible with the rules of social life to refuse” (189). Finally, Chertokutsky realizes that although he has won a large amount of money playing cards, he has not actually pocketed any. Throughout this scene, desire has bred consumption which has simply bred more desire: No feeling of want or need that these characters experience can ever be satisfied. The sense of emptiness they feel—of having won something but never actually attaining the trophy, of barely having a physical body or a guarantee that they exist—indicates the dangers of limitless consumption.
Depth and Shallowness
The story repeatedly condemns shallowness and inauthenticity, particularly among the characters who insist on donning the trappings of wealth and power. An emphasis on appearance emerges in the story’s first sentences. These linger on the drab exterior of B—’s houses, which are made of “crumbling” clay and have patchily faded in color. The narrator does not describe the houses’ interiors, which (like the carriage) are presumably as unimpressive as their outer walls, but rather notes that the mayor “long ago ordered that the little groves be cut down, to improve the view” (181). On the face of it, this is an absurd statement; nothing in the description of B— suggests that it is worth “viewing.” However, the action establishes the hollowness of vanity. The mayor’s idea of improving the town’s appearance not only highlights its dilapidation but is defined by absence—the removal of the trees.
Figuratively, the devotion to appearance over substance—much like an uncontrolled desire to own or consume things—leads the characters to solipsistic self-involvement and robs them of emotional and spiritual depth. Chertokutsky’s wife, for example, catches a glimpse of her reflection and loses track of time while admiring herself: “She looked at herself twice and saw that she was quite pretty today. This apparently insignificant circumstance caused her to spend exactly two hours sitting in front of the mirror” (191). This same character will later fly into a panic when she realizes she and her husband are unprepared for the approaching guests. Their twinned tendencies toward disconnection and self-involvement—he has been sleeping, and she has been staring into the mirror—lead directly to the disastrous chain of events at the climax of the story.
The tension between the illusion of depth and the reality of superficiality culminates in the symbolism of the carriage. Unimpressed with the cheapness of the carriage, the general insists on looking inside to see if there is “something special” hidden there (195). Upon seeing Chertokutsky, he simply says, “Ah, you’re here!” and walks away (195). Not only does Chertokutsky’s description of the carriage lack depth and authenticity, but the man himself has been shown to be as empty and unoriginal as his own words; while there is “something” in the carriage, it proves no more impressive or meaningful than anything else in the story.
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