Gogol's Witches
Gogol's Witches
Among the characters who inhabit early worksNikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, a great place is given to witches. And each of them has not only a completely individual appearance, but also its own character and way of life.
For the first time the image of a witch arises in Gogol in onefrom the most terrible stories of the cycle "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka" - "Evening on the eve of Ivan Kupala". The old witch, who appears on the bathing night, is more like Baba Yaga. Her wrinkled face looks like a baked apple, and her body is bent into an arc. In addition, she has the features of a werewolf and a ghoul. She runs out into a forest clearing in the guise of a big black dog, then turns into a cat and only after the cry of her friend Basavryuk takes the appearance of an ugly old woman. Witch's actions terrify their cruelty: first it is saturated with the blood of the unfortunate little Ivas, and then deprives the life of Peter, the protagonist of the story.
Witch from another story of the cycle - "May night,or Drowned Woman "- a typical evil stepmother of folk tales. Ruddy white-skinned beauty marries a rich centurion and, turning into a black cat with iron claws, tries to strangle her young stepdaughter. When the idea fails, the witch deceives her husband to drive her daughter out of the house, thereby pushing her to suicide.
Perhaps the prettiest of Gogol's witches -Solokha from the famous "The Nights Before Christmas". As well as it is necessary to the self-respecting witch, she flies at night on a broom and creates various dirty tricks: takes shape of domestic animals, frightening village women, steals milk from cows and even steals from a sky of a star on a Christmas night. However, Soloha's main goal is different. The forty-year-old beauty fascinates all local Cossacks: from the wealthy widower Chuba to the very head.
Having completed "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka", Gogolreturns to the theme of evil spirit in the story "Viy", which entered into his next cycle - "Mirgorod". It was here that the writer managed to create the most multifaceted and sinister image of a witch. A beautiful young pannochka with long eyelashes and a luxurious braid turns into an ugly old woman, then into a huge dog, drinks human blood and ruins unreasonable pairs. She does not calm down after death, rising from the coffin and calling all the evil spirits familiar to her, in order to take revenge on the unwitting culprit of her death, Homa Brutus.
There is a version that a great writerwas afraid of women, although he was not indifferent to their beauty. Perhaps that is why he often portrayed them in images of insidious, cruel and at the same time charming witches.
