Nikolai Gogol
November 18, 2023 at 11:41 AM
***
Hello to all fans of the «Bungou Stray Dogs» anime and manga. "Why not write an article about my favorite character?" — I thought to myself before starting to ponder. The object of my study in this article will be... an eccentric clown-jester-maniac-murderer-terrorist whose name is Nikolai Gogol. Here I will try to give my understanding of this character, and in principle my thoughts about him and his problems. And, believe me, there is a lot to talk about. I've been studying Nikolai Gogol as a character for quite some time now (more than half a year), and it's only recently that I've realized and understood his problem, and I want to share my thoughts with you (which I haven't found anywhere else, by the way). Let's start with a breakdown of one of my favorite characters in this universe!—
We should probably start with the Wiki article about Gogol, with the part that describes his personality and character (note the highlighted text):«Gogol is sadistic and loves to speak in great theatrics. One of his main traits is his tendency to pose questions (oftentimes rhetorical threats) as "quizzes". He is also skilled in disguises, deceiving Tonan as his secretary. Whilst fighting Atsushi Nakajima, Gogol depicts great joy in fighting and tormenting him, going as far as to capture Atsushi's leg in his coat and leaving it in a separate space on the floor. Gogol hints that his eccentric persona may or may not be real. The side of him feeling no remorse in murdering others is just as real as the side that feels guilt, well aware of how wrong and cruel his actions are. He claims to want to soar as freely as birds do. Nonetheless, both sides appear evident. However, even if he does feel guilt, he acts as if he bears no hard feelings towards Fyodor Dostoevsky, whom he nicknames "Dostoy"».
© Wiki article about Nikolai Gogol
Many people already know this information, but just in case I will repeat it here. Here I will deal with such questions as "Why does Gogol want to become a bird and why is it a bird?", "Why does Gogol kill?" and "What does freedom mean to Gogol?". But first, I will begin my analysis with the question "Why do people kill each other and why shouldn't they?". People have a biological nature and a social nature that are sort of "fused" together. But what if I say that biological nature is something invented by nature, and social nature is something invented by people? Well, actually, that makes sense. The biological nature of humans is evident in their anatomy and physiology. Nature gave humans the need to breathe, eat, move, reproduce, irritate, sleep, display instincts, and so on. This is what unites man with animals. Man is a part of nature. Much in him is laid by nature itself. Therefore, there are properties that unite man and animal. Social nature is what is invented and created by man. All human emotions, feelings, goals, terms, morals, laws, languages, problems, and so on are all invented by humans, not nature. There is no need to kill humans because humans simply do not need themselves in order to survive. Many animals have a food chain, but humans do not. Nature decided to endow humans with more advanced thinking, intelligible speech, the ability to fulfill other biological needs, and most importantly, the absence of a food chain. To be exact, people also have a food chain, but they do not need to eat similar (or not necessarily with this condition) living organisms to live, because most often people first kill animals, make meat out of them, and only then eat. Man is an omnivorous organism, and can eat both plant and animal food to survive, but humans and their meat man does not need. Every living organism on Earth is a protein organism, and all protein organisms do not live forever. Human protein life is already limited to only one century of life! Going against social nature is still somehow possible (at least for animals, which have only instincts and no social nature. This is possible only if you are a completely antisocial person), but against biological nature you cannot go against it, because it is impossible. Biological needs are something that absolutely every living organism has, including humans. Nature is just a word for the material world of the Universe and everything that is on it, and everything that surrounds is. So, to the question, "Why does Gogol want to be a bird?" I can answer that: As we know, many animals have a food chain (birds, among others), and in order to survive, they have to eat members of their own kind (or not necessarily), not because it is morally right or wrong, but because it is a necessity and a necessity. So, Gogol wants in this way to free himself from the social nature in his subconscious, which people have invented for themselves and within which they have driven themselves. For Gogol, the skull is a cage from which he wants to escape. The skull is consciousness, which also distinguishes people from animals. Man is also an animal, but of a "higher order," so to speak. Nature has made humans "an order of magnitude higher" than animals by giving them the ability to think, articulate speech, and so on. (Author's note: Honestly, even this article of mine, my literary language that I'm using to express my thoughts at the moment — it's all made up by people as well). Nature did not envision this, it gave humans the property (like animals) to make sounds, and only then they turned sounds into words, words into speech, and speech into language. Thus, Nikolai Gogol wants to get rid of the social world in his head, the world invented by society, which in fact never existed. He wants to become a bird because he does not want to experience human feelings and emotions, he does not want to belong to the moral framework and laws that society has imposed on people. Gogol realizes that it is all invented by people, he realizes that it does not exist. He does not distinguish between good and evil, or rather does not want to distinguish, but he is forced to do so because of the framework of society. Only when he appears to us as a ruthless killer, then he looks incomprehensible of moral values and laws, but both in the anime and in the manga it was said that he is a completely normal person and feels guilt. But also, Gogol has little (or no) understanding that freedom from social nature cannot actually be achieved so easily. Why? Let me explain... There is no way to escape from society and its framework if you are a person who is already adapted to society and trained in character and feelings with emotions. The only way out is either to die or to become an animal (in Nikolai's case — a bird). Do you know what blocks Gogol's path to absolute freedom? His own desire for this very freedom. It is this desire that already makes him unfree. He contradicts himself, as it were. (Author's note: by the way, remember the moment in the anime where Gogol talks to Dostoevsky, where Nikolai says that Fyodor sees the truth? I'll draw attention to that a little further on) That is, to put it simply, Gogol distinguishes between truth (biological nature) and falsehood (social nature), unlike humans, who are driven into the framework of society with its moral values and laws. As you realize, animals cannot speak in words or master human language. That is why he sees other humans as "birds born in captivity", he sees them as being born into "lies" and not even knowing that they can be free from those "lies". Now let's deal with the questions "Does Gogol have feelings?" and "Why does Gogol kill?" Gogol, of course, has feelings and emotions. Gogol has feelings and emotions, of course he has feelings and emotions, and he talks about it in both the manga and the anime (the moment he reveals his true identity to Atsushi). Gogol, unlike Dazai, has only one mask, that of a sadistic clown. He hid all his feelings and emotions with his mask, presenting himself to people as a ruthless terrorist maniac. (Author's note: By the way! I also want to add here that before getting the real answer for Atsushi, Nikolai removes the card from his eye, showing both eyes. I assume that when Gogol covers his eye with the card, it's his false side, the side that he's trying to achieve or shows his desire to achieve freedom, and when he doesn't cover it, it's his true side, the side that feels emotions and guilt because they've been imposed by society and he can't really get rid of them. He even has imperceptible tears coming out in the manga because of this. Maybe he realizes that he can't really get rid of society's framework, maybe he realizes that he's contradicting himself, but that only makes him weaker? So he is hurt by this bitter truth so much that he doesn't want to believe it anymore?) Why does he kill? As I wrote above about the food chain in animals, for Gogol killing someone is the food chain, but not literally the food chain (i.e. he doesn't eat people). For some unknown reason Gogol is not a cannibal and doesn't eat people, but I can say that people don't need to eat people to survive. This food chain is more in terms of human fear, fright, and fear for life. He sort of feeds off of people's fear of their death and in order to make it easier for the victim to accept their fate, he played the role of a maniacal jester in front of them. Now about freedom... What does freedom mean to Nikolai Gogol? To be honest, I doubt that freedom = death for him, even though he said so himself. If that were true, he would have killed himself a long time ago. (But btw, it could be that by killing other people he is giving them, in his opinion, "freedom"...). But what keeps him going? As I wrote above, he is held back by his own desire for absolute freedom, which is actually meaningless and useless. Freedom for Gogol = becoming a bird. That is, freedom for him = becoming an animal without a social nature, without human feelings and emotions, without the generally accepted moral framework of society and without laws. Okay, but then why does Gogol want to become a bird and not some other animal? To answer this question, I had to do some digging in Wikipedia, in the article about birds and their characteristics. From there I learned that birds have a special structure of respiratory and digestive organs, which is closely related to their ability to fly. As I previously wrote, birds have a food chain, and for Gogol, killing is food, but food not by the people themselves in the literal sense, but food by their fear and fear for life. Gogol said in the anime that birds are truly free, and that gravity has no power over them. In order to stay in the air, feathered birds need to counteract gravity somehow. Birds can counteract this force with their wings in order to fly. Since birds have a special digestion (which is closely related to their flight), Gogol, when he kills, he both "feeds" on human fear and "flies", that is, he becomes free of people and society. It's like a metaphor: birds counteract the force of gravity with their wings for the freedom of flight, and Nikolai Gogol counteracts the social nature of human by killing people for the freedom of will. It turns out that for Gogol flying is also freedom. By the way, of the other characters in the BSD, only Fyodor Dostoevsky understands Nikolai, and it can be argued that Nikolai is a very lonely man, and loneliness can lead to madness (and perhaps it is because of his loneliness that he cannot understand that the desire for freedom already makes him unfree, cannot understand that he contradicts himself). It is as if nature has decided to mock people, making them perfect and imperfect at the same time. Gogol understands this perfectly well, but he doesn't realize that you can't escape from social nature if you are already connected to society in any way (or he does, but it hurts him so much that he simply doesn't want to believe it). (Author's note: By the way, here is another interesting fact related to the real prototype of Gogol — Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. The writer consisted of contradictions, he despised what his contemporaries loved, and adored what seemed ugly to those. Also with Gogol from BSD — he despises what everyone loves, namely the social nature of human, and adores what seems ugly to everyone, namely killing people for free will). Conclusion: Nikolai Gogol is an extremely lonely man who does not fit into the framework of human society, who thinks that social nature is false, and a man with a desire for…
