The Diary of a Madman by Nikolai Gogol
Reviewed by J.C.
At the very start of The Diary of a Madman by Nikolai Gogol, it begins to look like it is a
simple retelling of everyday situations and events experienced by a main character, Aksenty
Ivanovich Poprishchin. Right away the storyline becomes obvious that Poprishchin has an
average lifestyle as an office worker that is among a distinct amount of typical people from
middle to upper class citizens which does not look like something is right. This making it seem
as if the title of this text has an interesting transition in the whole creation and making of the plot
of this text. Based on textual evidence, one can declare that Poprishchin is mad from the
beginning of the tale, which highly relates to the title of this text that one would assume it
foreshadows what could possible explained throughout this text.
Fictional and imaginary elements arise early in the text and make it unique for the person
reading the text to question Poprishchin’s whole storyline. At the start of the text, right away you
can tell the he is separating from reality in Poprishchin’s first diary entry when he states that a
woman Poprishchin is attracted to has this dog that for some reason he mentions is acting and
talking as if it was a human being. When he is faced with this situation, the reader starts to
assume that the text was created as a fiction and mystic realm as a thing that he would think is
completely and naturally fine to the human eye in Poprishchin’s world. As the diary entries pass,
the dog is once again mentioned multiple times as if the dog is trying to tell Poprishchin
something that we have yet to understand, but it seems to be a question that he has been wanting
to understand. Throughout the timeline of the text, the reader starts to realize that the dog is seen
writing to another dog that is mentioned in the text, which a reader would find strange since it is
not possible in real life. Poprishchin starts to become very intrigued with all the clues to finding
his question’s answers from the dog and starts to think about stealing the dog’s letters where at
the same time he looks pathetic doing so in public since it would normally never be happening in
reality. He then gains of the dogs notes, where he learns that the dog has been writing about him
in a negative way and has also mentioned that this woman he is trying to find more information
about is already in a relationship seeking marriage which ends up being his bos...
