“The staircase was twisting, and his quick dreams were twisting with it.” (Metaphor)
Here the author gives the identification of man’s hopes, wishes through the stairs. They raise you higher to your happiness, satisfaction, but the main thing is to be attentive and to look if there is anything after this staircase, or just the emptiness is there. And if it’s so, not to fall into this emptiness, as the main hero of the story did.
“He was an artist. Isn’t it a strange phenomenon? Petersburg’s an artist! The artist in the land of snows, the artist in the country of the Finns, where everything is wet, smooth, pale, gray, foggy.” (Metaphor)
The author shows the hero’s gist, essence, his “interrelation” with the world. Gogol shows that the hero has a pure, really beautiful soul in the contrast to the gray, deceptive world.
“He breathed the fresh air and felt the freshness in his heart, like a convalescent, who decided to go out after a long illness for the first time.” (Simile)
Using this stylistic method, the author gives us a hope that the hero’s situation will get better sooner or later. We start to believe that he will become happy with his love, as he dreamt about it.
“The fate gave the finest horses to one, and he is riding on them with indifference, not noticing their beauty - while another, whose heart burns with the passion to horses, walks on feet, and is content with only the fact that he smacks his tongue when he is performed by a trotter. The other is a great cook, but unfortunately, has such a small mouth that it cannot eat more than two pieces; the other has a mouth the size of the arch of the General Staff, but, alas! He must be content with a German potato dinner. How strangely our fate is playing with us!" (Simile)
The author compares two opposites of the mankind. “Luckies” are on the one hand and ill-stared ones are on the other.
