Passion versus habit in old world landowners

Julian Graffy

pp. 34-49

in: Jane Grayson, Faith Wigzell (eds), Nikolay Gogol, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1989

Abstract

The first word in Gogol's story Old World Landowners is "I" (Ya), which alerts us to the importance of the "third" character in the story, the narrator.¹ The first three words in the Russian, "I very much love" (Ya ochen" lyublyu) tell us that this will be a story about the narrator's tastes.