Genre
A narration
Setting and Context
The events take place in Petrovski village and in Moscow, Russia. The time is the first part of the 19th century.
Narrator and Point of View
The story is revealed by the first person, thus is the first-person type of narration. The narrator is Nikolenka Irteniev.
Tone and Mood
The tone and mood of the story is childishly warm and even by instances naïve, but the chapters in which Nikolenka’s mother’s death is described are filled with grief and sadness.
Protagonist and Antagonist
The protagonist of the story is Nikolenka Irteniev. An antagonist as a person is not specified, but death, as if personified, which took away Nikolenka’s mother, can be considered as an antagonist.
Major Conflict
The main conflict of the story is the ability of a person to preserve one’s good nature and generosity despite all the corruption of the world around. Nikolenka is such a person, and the conflict of a person versus society is developed by the author.
Climax
The climax appears when Nikolenka’s mother dies.
Foreshadowing
Melancholic description of Nikolenka’s mother foreshadows that she might end sadly.
Understatement
Son-father relationships are understated in the story. The protagonist is a boy, and male influence is more crucial for him than female.
Allusions
The story alludes to such literary and cultural figures as Racine, Corneille, Boileau, Moliere, Goethe, Schiller, Byron.
Imagery
Images of people, especially of Nikolenka’s mother, furniture, landscapes and everyday routine are depicted in the story.
Paradox
The paradox is that the protagonist, even though he tries to follow behavior of his friends of the same age, is capable to preserve his inner goodness, and does not fall under the pressure of prejudices of his society.
Parallelism
Though the events of the narration tell about Nikolenka’s childhood and the period of his being a child, it is felt that the narrator is already a grown-up. Thus the story is told in parallel by a child and an adult.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
N/A
Personification
“Through the green branches of the young birch-trees the sun glittered and threw little glancing balls of light upon the pattern of my napkin, my legs, and the bald moist head of Gabriel”. (sun is personified)
“… clouds broke, grew pale and elongated, and sank to the horizon again, while others of them changed to the likeness of white transparent fish-scales” (clouds are personified)
