Yuri Lotman explains Khlestakov's lies by the fact that in a fictional world he

can stop being oneself, become different, change

first and third person in places, because he himself is deeply convinced that

that only "he" and not "I" can be truly interesting.

<...>That bifurcation, which will become a special object of consideration in

"Double" of Dostoevsky and which is completely alien to the man of the Decembrist

pores, already laid down in Khlestakov..." (Lotman 1992, vol. 1: 345) Gogol does not

simply bifurcates Khlestakov through lies, he simultaneously emphasizes

specific mechanistic behavior. In "Notes to gentlemen

actors" Gogol characterizes Khlestakov as follows:

"He speaks and acts without any consideration. He is unable to

stop focusing on any thought. His speech is abrupt, and the words

fly out of the mouth completely unexpectedly "(Gogol 1952, vol. 4: 281). Khlestakov

seems to embody the Kantian concept of laughter, with its

an unexpected breakdown into "nothing". He is a familiar machine with

disturbed automaticity of behavior. In a letter of instruction to Mikhail Shchepkin (10

May 1836) Gogol especially insists on the "fragmentary" Khlestakov

plastics:

"Each word of his, that is, a phrase or saying, is an impromptu completely

unexpected and therefore must express abruptly. Must not be overlooked

that at the end of this scene begins to take it apart little by little. But he is not at all

must stagger in a chair; he should only blush and express himself more

lies that Gogol talks about, Khlestakov finally becomes the main

mimetic body of the whole play, and the final statement in this role

coincides with an emphasis on the unpredictable fragmentation of his behavior.

Khlestakov literally does not know himself what will be the next impromptu

mind-controlled body. It is curious that Gogol pointed out that

Khlestakov should not sway in a chair. This swing is also

belongs to the category of automated, mechanical movements, but it

has predictability.

A mimetic body in the full sense of the word should not be encapsulated

in the autonomy of a rhythmically monotonous movement, it must be sensitively

set outside. Being the center of mimetic processes occurring in

play, Khlestakov, as it were, bifurcates. His body behaves as if

it reacts to another, invisible body, whose logic it cannot calculate,

it comes into contact with the very "demon" I mentioned

It is known that Socrates believed that he was accompanied by a certain demon.

(genius), who, according to Plato, gives him advice, stops him,

when he wants to commit a "wrong" act, and according to Xenophon,

actively encourages him to take action. Hegel, who gave the demon Socrates

considerable attention, connects it with the inability of the Greeks to make decisions based on

inner urges. An oracle is a way of communicating a decision to an "outside

fact". The demon of Socrates, according to Hegel, is "an oracle, which, together with

The theme does not represent something external, but is something subjective,

is his oracle" (Hegel 1932: 66). We are talking about the process of projection

outside the internal solution and at the same time the internalization of the "external" solution.

Plutarch, for example, explained the phenomenon of the Socratic demon by the fact that the soul,

penetrating into the flesh, it becomes irrational. The most pure

the rational, intellectual part of the soul in some, as it were, remains above

body, rising above the person's head. The intelligence of such people

turns out to be outside the flesh and speaks to the body from the outside:

"Now that part that is immersed in the body is called the "soul", while

time as a part that is not subject to death is usually called "mind" and

is considered an intrinsic ability, just like items reflected in

mirrors appear inside the mirrors. However, anyone who understands this

the subject correctly calls her a "deity" due to the fact that she exists

outside" (Plutarch 1992:

Naturally, Hegel sees in Socrates an important stage in the development of communication

individual with a "real universal spirit", while the demon acts as

embodiment of such an emerging connection. Hegel writes:

"Since in Socrates the inner solution has just begun to separate from

external oracle, it was necessary for this return to self to appear

here at his first appearance still in physiological form<...>. Daemon

Socrates thus stands in the middle between the external revelation of the oracle and

purely internal revelation of the spirit; he is something internal, but just like that

way that he represents a special genius, different from the human

will, but not yet the mind and arbitrariness of Socrates himself. Closer scrutiny

of this genius shows us, therefore, a form approaching somnambulism,

duality of consciousness, and in Socrates, apparently, we clearly find something

like a magnetic state, for, as we have already mentioned, he often fell into

numbness and catalepsy" (Hegel 1932: 68-69).

Hegelian analysis is interesting to us because it connects

certain forms of consciousness, or rather the transition from one form of consciousness (and, as

we would clarify today -- discourse) to another form through purely

physiological type of reaction. The transition from external to internal, from

abstract, universal to individual is expressed by Socrates in the splitting of consciousness and body, in the manifestation

unexpected automatism, mechanicalness (somnambulism, catalepsy). Speech

is, thus, about the violation of the normal dynamics of the body, with which

the demon of Socrates is somehow connected.

The situation of Socratic magnetism (certainly related to the mimetic

energy that Socrates projected onto others) suggests, as it were,

extraction of the "spirit" from the Socratic body, the transformation of this body into

a mimetic puppet following the demon alienated from Socrates. Myself

Socrates becomes "magnetic" only through this stage of bifurcation and

mechanization of one's own corporeality. Thus the mimetic process,

initiated by Socrates, reflects not so much even the connection of the body-doll with

externalized, demonic subjectivity, how much the situation

transition from one type of discourse and consciousness to another. According to Hegel,

"this return to himself appeared here at his first performance back in

physiological form". I, in fact, are interested in what it means

cataleptic, somnambulistic physiological form, what does it reflect,

which mimics. After all, the abruptness and unexpectedness of bodily behavior

Khlestakov also refers to cataleptic somnambulism.

Following Hegel, the demon of Socrates interested Kierkegaard. Last

drew attention to two properties of the demon - the non-vocalization of his voice and

unwillingness to give positive, encouraging advice. The fact that the voice of a demon

is not heard and it only warns "wrong" actions, according to

Kierkegaard, speaks of the negative nature of the demon, opposed to positivity

classical Greek eloquence:

"In place of this divine eloquence, reverberating in all

things, he substituted silence" (Kierkegaard 1971:188).

The demon specifically expresses the ironic, that is,

Socrates' negatively distanced position as in relation to the material

reality, and to the idea: "... The idea becomes the limit, from which Socrates with

turned inward again with ironic satisfaction" (Kierkegaard 1971:

192). Negative distance, according to Kierkegaard, becomes

"the moment of disappearance" of the entire ironic system.

Gogol was, of course, an ironist, he considered himself such,

for example, when he claimed that his comedy "produces laughter" "by the depth

irony" (Gogol 1953, vol. 6: 111). Irony

14 I mean, of course, only relatively close to us in time

intellectual tradition Probably one of the first treatises on the demon

tradition of interpreting the figure of the demon (or genius) see Nietzsche 1975

Gogol, paradoxically, was the soil on which arose and

Gogol's messianism developed. After all, it is precisely the ironic position that allows

rise above reality, take in relation to it

ironically distant, almost divine position. Kierkegaard wrote:

"Thanks to irony, the subject constantly pushes himself beyond and deprives

all the phenomena of their reality in the name of saving oneself, that is, for

maintaining its negative independence in relation to everything" (Kierkegaard

In principle, this removal from the "vanity" of the world may be, in some

cases, including in Gogol's, the ground for postulating a different,

the only absolute reality, the reality of God.

The doubling in the demon is the distancing of corporeality in relation to

idea. This means that the body behaves in one way or another, not because

it expresses some content, not because it is included in the system

Platonic mimesis, but because it is correlated with another, let

an invisible body - a demon. Gogol in the motor skills of his reading constantly

plays correlation with a certain meaningful depth.

"Properly poured inspiration, which is usually generated by deep

contemplation of the subject", the slow pathos of the gestures that Gogol made,

when reading, they correlate its corporality with a certain idea. His gestures line up

"logical" chain, in its own way imitating the logic of thoughtful speech.

Khlestakov behaves in exactly the opposite way, he is fragmentary and unexpectedly

copies the actions performed by some invisible double located between

him and the idea. Hence the convulsiveness and illogicality of his motor skills. Khlestakov

"turned to themselves from the Idea." He is fenced off from the idea by an invisible body, or

doubling your body. Between his behavior and the Idea there is a filter

duality, which I call the demon.

Thus the position of the ironist, the position of distancing, which can

be correlated with the point of view of a linear perspective, suggesting the presence

space between the observer and the represented space, on the one hand

on the other hand, is given by a demon or a genius, and on the other hand, by him and

is destroyed. After all, it is the body of the demon that is "brought" to the "eyes" so close that

destroys any representational space, thereby undermining

"divine" position of the ironist, who observes everything that happens with

inaccessible height.

The demon is a very special body. Since it is pure fiction,

"disappearing moment" of the ironic system as a system of pure

distance, then his body can be defined as a "negative" body. This is

a body expressed in a kind of gaping, emptiness, which, however, does not imply

vision perspectives. It's more of a tactile void. It expresses itself in

sketchy motor skills

copying his character, like emptiness, like a failure.

There is a feeling that a person, as it were, is leaning on emptiness, on

non-existence and makes a fragmentary movement to restore the shattered

balance. If this emptiness were available to vision, then the imitating action

would lose its fragmentation. Fragmentation is also determined by the absence

visible "gap". The very space of vision sets, presupposes a certain

time (and therefore a certain inertia) for copying. remote signal

acts less unexpectedly than the most approximate one.

In a weakened form, the very alienation of Gogol's behavior

turns his body into some kind of such a mimetic negative

presence. Gogol with his "double being" is constantly included in

situations of mimetic multiplication. The most common situation of this kind

were the famous Gogol oral readings. The writer gave them

of paramount importance, and in the article "Readings of Russian poets before the public"

(1843) substantiated the significance of readings by the special nature of the Russian language,

the sound structure of which is allegedly intended by nature itself for the transition from

low to high:

"Our language also contributes to the education of readers, which, as it were,

created for skillful reading, containing all the shades of sounds and the most

bold transitions from the sublime to the simple in the same speech. I even

I think that public readings will eventually replace performances in our country" (Gogol

1953, vol. 6:123).

In reading, according to Gogol, hidden in the voice is revealed

a mimetic force related in its own way to the process of bifurcation itself:

"This power will communicate to everyone and work a miracle: even those who do not

never shook at the sounds of poetry" (Gogol 1953, v. b: 124).

At the same time, “this reading will not be noisy at all, not in the heat and fever.

On the contrary, it can even be very calm..." (Gogol 1953, vol. 6: 124).

As can be seen, in the situation of reading, it is precisely what is carried out, on the one hand,

Olympic suspension in the forms of complete calm, some negativity, and

on the other hand, convulsive shock through the mimesis of "power".

Memoirs of contemporaries, in which Gogol's readings are constantly

a special place is given, they note the strangeness of writer's behavior when

reading his works. Nikolai Berg, for example, recalled the behavior

Gogol during the reading of his works by Shchepkin in 1848:

"Gogol was right there. After sitting like a perfect idol in the corner, next to

having been reading for an hour or an hour and a half, with his gaze fixed on an indefinite space, he got up and disappeared ...

However, his position at that moment was definitely difficult: he did not read

he himself and the other; meanwhile, the whole hall was looking not at the reader, but at

The bifurcation here takes on a completely physical character. Wherein

completely in the spirit of Shevyrev's "double being", wholly takes on

functions of complete alienation from the here-and-now, physically expressed

"negativity". This is expressed by the aspiration of the gaze into a certain "indefinite

space" and complete bodily statuary. The body seems to be displayed

out of the control of the senses and is completely self-alienating. Destruction

expressiveness ("idol") here negatively correlates with a similar

destruction in a paroxysm of laughter. It can also be assumed that the Shchepkinskoe

reading caused laughter in readers, and Gogol's mask-like immobility

blocked him, suppressed him.

Pavel Vasilyevich Annenkov recalled how Gogol dictated to him in Rome

chapters from Dead Souls. Gogol dictated in a calm, measured tone:

"It also happened that, before fulfilling my duty as a copyist,

in some places I tipped backwards and burst into laughter. Gogol looked

coolly but affectionately smiled at me and only said: "Try

don't laugh, Jules."<... >However, Gogol himself sometimes followed my example.

and echoed me on occasion with some kind of restrained half-laughter, if I can

express yourself. This happened, for example, after the end of "The Tale of Captain

Kopeikine"<...>. When, at the end of the story, I surrendered to an irresistible impulse

gaiety, Gogol laughed with me and asked several times: "What

the story of Captain Kopeikin?" (Annenkov 1952:271).

relies, immediately assumes the role of an alienated, cold

observer, demon. He behaves strangely. He dispassionately reads the text,

causing Annenkov to burst out laughing, and at the same time asking him not to laugh.

He generates laughter and immediately suppresses it. He craves the reader's laughter, but

fully asserts itself, rising above that mimetic bodily

the reaction it elicits so irresistibly. This is how Gogol's works

demonic machine for turning "low" into "high", a machine,

destroying, according to Aksakov, his own body.

Considering the formation of dialogic discourse in Dostoevsky, Mikhail

Bakhtin essentially takes him out of the situation of an invisible demon. Already

in Makar Devushkin's speech in Poor People, Bakhtin reveals "a style

determined by intense anticipation of someone else's word" (Bakhtin 1972: 351).

This inclusion of an invisible interlocutor in Devushkin's speech leads to a distortion

speech plasticity. Bakhtin defines the emerging style as "a writhing word

with a timid and ashamed glance and muffled defiance" (Bakhtin 1972: 352).

Looking back, writhing - all these bodily metaphors make sense only insofar as

because they refer to the negative, and essentially imaginary, presence

allegedly influencing the speech of Makar Devushkin:

"Poor man<...>constantly feeling "bad looking"

a stranger, a look or a reproachful one, or - which, perhaps, is even worse for

him-- mocking<...>. Devushkin's speech is writhing under this alien gaze.

(Bakhtin 1972: 353--354). Philosophically, this situation anticipates the famous

construction of Sartre, when the latter derives the entire genesis of the world of Jean Genet from

the gaze given to him in childhood (Sartre 1964: 26-27), or describes

the function of the gaze in the transformation of subjectivity in "Being and Nothing" (Sartre

1966: 340-400), Here, however, the situation is somewhat different from that of Sartre.

The visible body, the body upon which the gaze is directed, produces some special

speech, mimetic reflecting the convulsions of the body under the

with a look. Halts, inconsistencies, emptiness and stuttering in speech turn out to be

voids that mimic an absent but seeing body. Body turned into

gaze reduced to pure presence (similar to the “stuccoed” presence

Gogol at Schepkin's readings), to a kind of incorporeal subjectivity, alienated

from the speaker, directed at him from the outside.

This situation is extremely interesting because it does not yet contain

extended dialogism in Bakhtin's understanding, but is only his

embryo. Here there is still no dialogical interaction of two correlated

among themselves speech flows (just below Bakhtin will do an experiment,

turning Devushkin's monologue into an imaginary dialogue with a "stranger").

Proto-dialogism arises here as the interaction of utterance and appearance,

verbal and visible. And this interaction is expressed in writhing speech, otherwise

speaking, in its deformations. A look can be reflected in speech as its "failure",

like a mimesis of emptiness. Demon Makar Devushkin is silent, "does not vocalize",

if you use Kierkegaard's expression, because it is a paradoxical

the negativity of an undetectable presence -- a look without a body. And this one

a disembodied gaze distances speech from the "idea", from "reality", inscribing it in

her emptiness of failures and deformations.

The problem of the gaze reappears in Bakhtin's book when he analyzes

"Double":

"There is another very significant feature in the style of the story in The Double,

also correctly noted by V. Vinogradov, but not explained by him. "AT

narrative tale, he says, motor images predominate, and

its main stylistic device is the registration of movements, regardless of their

repeatability".

Indeed, the story records everything with the most tedious accuracy.

the smallest movements of the hero, without stinting on endless repetitions. The narrator

as if chained to his hero, cannot move away from him for due

distance to give a summarizing and integral image of his actions and actions.

Such a generalizing image would already lie outside the horizon of the hero himself, and in general

such an image presupposes some kind of stable position outside. This position is not

the narrator, he does not have the necessary perspective for artistic

the final coverage of the image of the hero and his actions as a whole" (Bakhtin 1972:

Bakhtin is not quite right when he claims that Vinogradov did not give an explanation

the phenomenon he noted. However, Vinogradov's explanation was really

unsatisfactory. On the one hand, he adopted the motor skills of the characters in

"Double" for signs of "spiritual experiences"15. On the other hand, he connected

the resulting mechanistic motor skills, its puppetry with installation on

grotesque. And finally, he explained the fragmentary, abrupt movements

Golyadkin also as follows:

"So that these formulas of movements and moods do not form

vicious circle, reproduced with tedious monotony, it is necessary

it was to diversify the order of their change by unexpected violations. So

there are endless indications in the text of a sudden break in what was begun

actions and an unexpected transition to a new one. Adverbial education all of a sudden

marks the intersection of one series of movements with another" (Vinogradov 1976:111).

unexpected transition" break the monotony of repetition. Rather, they

introduce additional monotony, which can be combated not by fragmentation, but

logic of gestural periods. Bakhtin offers extremely

non-trivial explanation of the strange motor skills of Dostoevsky's characters.

The narrator, in his opinion, is too close to the hero, he

connected with him by a special mimetic thread that allows him

fix (copy on the letter) all his movements, but does not allow

examine his body from the side and thus take some external

position towards him. In this sense, the narrator can

indeed likened to a demon separated from the body, but still not

enough to be critically alienated from it.

What is this vision that excludes a "stable position outside"?

What is this vision that does not let you see? This is the vision that

vision is, as it were, suppressed by the fixation of a separate movement, a separate

convulsions of the described body. It's a vision in which vision is destroyed

a sense of motor skills, essentially a sense of the body's schema and its dynamics.

This is a vision that occurs literally on the border of vision and blindness. Bakhtin

speaks of "unpromising point of view"16.

I will give an example from the "Double", selected by Vinogradov, and from his own

comment:

"In addition to playing with unexpected intersections of rows of movements, intersections,

as a result of which the hero's action scheme is projected in the form of a zigzag

arranged lines, the same effects of the comic use of motor

images are also carried out through a special technique of drawing an action,

the execution of which is preceded by an attempt paralyzed by retreat. Comic

such a "triune movement" is emphasized by contrasting chains of phrases and

words and puns born from here.

Example: "... our hero... got ready to pull the bell string...

Preparing to pull the bell string, he immediately and quite

By the way, I decided that tomorrow wouldn’t be better ... But ... I immediately changed

his new decision, and already so, at the same time, however, with the most resolute

called...” (Vinogradov 1976: 112). Let's try to understand what

describes Vinogradov. Apparently, when he talks about "the hero's scheme of action,

projected in the form of zigzag lines, "he, in his own way

reproduces the presence of the eye placed in the "unpromising point

vision." The eye, literally glued to Golyadkin, moves with him

some kind of zigzag line. Because it is worth the observer to move a little

who prepared to pull the cord and pulled - rang. But this

consistent action is given to an observer endowed with a "perspective

point of view, that is

position outside. Moreover, no matter how close we approach the point of view

observer to Golyadkin's body, we will not get any zigzag. Zigzag in general

arises only as a result of the Golyadkin bundle, its internal

doubling, allowing the body to act autonomously in relation to its will,

or at least asynchronously (execute an already reversed solution). Zigzag

the lines discovered by Vinogradov cannot be observed at all, they

are located where vision is excluded. Moreover, motor images,

interesting to Vinogradov, are generally possible only if you suppress vision as

such. The "unpromising point of view" in this case is the point of view

The observer fixes the dissociation of the dynamic scheme of the body, not at all

accessible to an external observer, but realized only by Golyadkin himself.

The observer, therefore, in this case takes the place of Golyadkin himself, but not

quite, it is, as it were, simultaneously placed both inside and outside of his body.

What does it mean?

Let us once again read the fragment cited by Vinogradov. Reactions

Golyadkin are described from the point of view of a narrator who is aware of the internal

impulses and decisions of the hero. Meanwhile, Golyadkin's action itself is chosen

Dostoevsky with meaning. The character must pull the string. All

the "zigzag" of the action designed by Golyadkin emphasizes

the puppet nature of a character who is incapable of making a decision at all,

because it is impelled to action by some external force, as if pulling

for his own string. Hence the repetition of the characteristic definition --

"immediately". This "immediately" indicates that behind Golyadkin's action

worth no idea, no doubt or decision. He's just being pulled

lace. Pulling the cord, Golyadkin only imitates the action of a certain force,

attached to him. To pull the string for him means only

mindlessly reproduce his own demon's manipulation of him

by ourselves. Golyadkin's action can therefore be defined as a mimetic

doubling. Yet, as regards "change of decision", "new decision",

more like a simulation, since Golyadkin cannot make any decision at all

condition.

But this means that the observer, placing himself, as it were, "inside" the psyche

Golyadkina, actually chooses the "wrong" point of view, because

that decisions are made not at all within Golyadkin's subjectivity, but outside

his psyche, where the invisible demon is located, the double. What

is described as a change in Golyadkin's decisions, in reality - nothing more than

like the mimetic twitching of some simulacrum. That's why the inner point

vision turns out to be external in relation to the place where it really

the motility (behavior) of the character is determined. BUT

the external point of view, in principle, can coincide with the desired point

perspective vision.

Motility, therefore, acts only as a text in which

the impossibility of a consistent view, the impossibility of discourse

with a single point of view. Visible here (zigzag motor lines) is

nothing more than a trace of the purely verbal, essentially invisible. The trace of this verbal

game, by the way, was postponed in the pun noted by Vinogradov

fragment 17.

Walter Benjamin has left us a portrait of a continuously miming body --

portrait of the Viennese ironist Karl Kraus, according to Benjamin, also

animated by some mimetic demon of vanity. Benjamin describes

Kraus's strange strategy of behavior, writing and imitating at the same time

the act of writing, constantly parodic changing masks, incessantly

representing the surroundings. Benjamin describes the demon Kraus as "dancing

demon" "gesticulating wildly on an invisible hill" (Benjamin 1986: 250).

The demon is constantly alienating Kraus's personality, turning it into

an inexhaustible series of mimetic "persons", masks. Unmasking others

imperceptibly passes into the loss of authenticity of the ironist himself, disappearing behind

unfolding chain of disguises.

Why does this alienation go through increased gesticulation and dancing?

Why does a gesture assume such a huge, such a disproportionate significance in

the whole situation of alienation and doubling? Indeed, in the parsed episode with

Golyadkin, a simple pull on the string, a gesture that is extremely automated

everyday behavior, suddenly becomes extremely, immoderately significant.

The point, apparently, is that it is dance that allows you to simultaneously

abstract as much as possible from the external observer and transcend

subjectivity. It is well known that Nietzsche considered dance to be a form of

thinking. Valery Podoroga gives the following comment on this:

"... Dance does not create an optical space where

be carried out normatively and through certain channels oriented

communication; dance is an ecstatic space where movement

obeys the inner biorhythms of the dancer, which cannot be measured in

quantitative parameters of time, tact or meter. Semiotics of internal

movements

17 A character's movement can, in a strange way, actually reflect

something, it would seem, completely incompatible with it - the movement of writing,

for example, Gogol characterizes Chichikov's plasticity at the ball in N "Semenivshi

with rather deft turns to the right and left, he immediately shuffled his foot

in the form of a short tail or like a comma" (Gogol 1953, vol. 5 171)

Chichikov literally writes with his foot the text of his own description

dancing in vain. Inner experience of time and another in dance

no, just as there is no "outside observer" or not participating in the dance,

is built according to the logic of transgression of the organic: all movements, no matter what

levels - physiological or psychosomatic - they were neither located,

resisting each other, repeating, but constantly supporting the growing

wave of energy, cause a complete induction of all motor events of the body

dancing" (Podoroga 1993a: 193). An external observer in such a situation

disappears, but subjectivity also dissolves into what Podoroga calls

"the complete induction of all motor events of the body." The body is no longer moving

to the will of the dancer, but due to the distribution of energies and inductive processes.

Dance, thus removing the external position of the observer, does not postulate

internal position. It implements getting rid of the external beyond the forms authentically

internal. In the dance we discover the same contradictory nature of blindness and

vision, the same strange ambivalence between the body and its demon,

as in Vinogradov's example from Dostoevsky.

Vinogradov gives another example of a "triune", "zigzag"

movements in Dostoevsky:

"Golyadkin ... took a chair and sat down. But remembering that he sat down without

invitations ... hastened to correct his mistake in ignorance of the light and good

tone, standing up immediately... Then, coming to his senses... he made up his mind, without any hesitation...

and... finally sat down" (Vinogradov 1976: 112).

The situation here is somewhat different than in the lace scene, where the

only intentions. Here these intentions are realized. Golyadkin sits down, then

"immediately" gets up, and then "without delay" sits down completely. And although

Dostoevsky does not introduce a pun into this episode, he deliberately repeats it

obsessive "immediately". The episode with the chair is similar to the episode with the shoelace in

that the action that Golyadkin is carrying out is one of the most trivial,

automated. The trick is that it is "erased", nothing

remarkable action - a man sat down - suddenly acquires some

disproportionate value precisely due to its repetition. The very nature of the repeat

actions are also significant. Golyadkin not only sits down, he sits down with

determination and speed. Thus, the automation of the action seems to

emphasized, the body acts with swiftness, as if excluding

the work of the psyche (although, as we know from Dostoevsky’s text, these ultra-fast

actions reflect complex and even painful vibrations).

But it is precisely the excessive emphasis on puppet automatism that

the excess of the gesture gives it the character of a bodily event filled with

meaning. What Golyadkin hides behind a screen

ultra-fast automatism, in reality only reveals itself.

The gesture is not camouflaged, but exposed and thus offered to the observer.

as meaningful text.

What is happening resembles not so much a dance as a pantomime. mime also

usually depicts easily recognizable and most familiar gestures and actions:

he shows how he walks down the street, plucks and smells a flower, drinks a cup

coffee. The repertoire of his actions is so banal that, generally speaking, it does not require

no special technique to imitate them. However, the mime imitates them,

obviously exaggerating. Moreover, it kind of destroys automation

every gesture he imitates. In order to achieve this, the mime is trained

disarticulation of every movement. Automated Gesture Scheme

is destroyed, and in its place is substituted a strange gestural

a syntagma in which the movement of the hand is disarticulated in such a way that

break the stereotypical relationship between the movement of the shoulder, forearm and hand.

The joints take on an unexpected significance of some kind of filters that do not let through

through itself a codified gestural scheme. As a result

there is a strange impression that the brush moves separately from

forearms, and the forearm is separate from the shoulder, although the general semantics of the gesture and

is saved.

The disarticulation of a gesture, for all its emphasis, is superimposed on

increased plastic interconnectedness of individual parts. Before

the observer unfolds at the same time the fragmentation of the gestural

syntagma, its division into fragments and a new interlacing of these fragments into a certain

indivisible whole. It is, in essence, a redistribution of emphasis

inside the syntagma, about its re-articulation, which cannot be read otherwise,

as the destruction of gestural spontaneity, as the deautomatization of a gesture, and

hence its meaning.

The choice of a banal action must be read against this background. Habitual

and the gesture of a drinking person, which does not make much sense, suddenly acquires

some special meaning. It becomes so "meaningful" that

makes viewers watch his imitation with interest.

The deautomatization of the gesture and its re-articulation is exactly what

happens to many of Gogol's characters and what is so clearly emphasized in

the behavior of the sitting down and standing up Golyadkin. The same can be said about

gestural excess.

This excess lies, according to José Gil, at the heart of the reading of pantomime.

He points out that the mime's body

"produces more signs than usual. How does the mime

shows us that he is drinking a cup of coffee? His gesture is not simple

reproduction of the habitual gesture of the hand that stretches out, fingers,

grasping the handle, hands rising to the height of the mouth; before us

many articulations, each gestural phrase is exaggerated, it contains

many microphrases that were not in it before. The gesture of drinking grows

becomes baroque; to show that the cup is leaning towards the lips, the hand

flies high up in a bizarre movement. Mime thus replaces

speech; microscopic articulations take the place of words, but speak differently than

words" (Gilles 1985:101).

I cannot agree with Gilles that we are talking about the production of certain

pseudowords. This, in my opinion, is about underlined deformation

normative syntagmatic movement. Warping it's exaggerated (then,

which Gilles describes as an overproduction of signs), because, like everything

deformation, refers to a certain energy. The body acts like

as if some force was applied to it, capable of violating the codification

hardened and erased movements. The body becomes a place of application of force,

acting on it from the outside, it turns into the body of a robot, an automaton,

puppets and is simultaneously doubled by the ghost of the demon it

imitates.

Hence the double effect of the mimicking body - this is the body that does not produce

movement, but imitating movement. Mime never seeks to deceive the public

the naturalness of their movements. On the contrary, he seeks to discover the true

imitation of their behavior. As Derrida put it, "he imitates

imitation". This double mimesis is found only in the forms of deformations,

that is, in the forms of revealing external forces and energies. The baroque gesture is

manifestation of an external force. Why are mime gestures excessive? Why, raising your hand

an imaginary cup to his mouth, he lifts it high up? Yes, because he

it plays out the excess of force applied to his hand.

Heinrich von Kleist would refer to this phenomenon as anti-gravity.

puppet body. But anti-gravity means only one thing - to the body

applied force is greater than the force of gravity. When Golyadkin instantly

sits down, immediately jumps up and resolutely sits down again, he reproduces

the action of some invisible mechanism, some spring that deforms

"normal" body mechanics by excess energy. Overproduction of signs in

pantomime can therefore be understood as a product of the play of forces. Essentially,

of course, that this play of forces creates such a complex redistribution

articulations, that it gives rise to the illusion of some meaningful text. Body

is given to the observer as a body full of meaning (reproducing signs), and therefore

Given. Energy body, body depersonalizing in convulsions,

unmotivated behavior, an attack of mimetic laughter, creates the illusion

semantic fullness, only reflecting the appearance of energy excess.