The Imagery of the Big House - “Poverty”
Mikhail Zoshchenko writes, “I lived, Comrades, in a great big house. The whole house ran on kerosene. One person had a smoking wick in a jar of oil, somebody else—a little lamp, while somebody else had nothing but the light of a prayer candle. Downright poverty!” The imagery illustrates a house that has not been electrified because it is lit by a lamp, a candle and a wick. A paucity of electrification, which is a trendy attainment, depicts the house an domicile of the underprivileged.
The Narrator’s Poverty - “Poverty”
Mikhail Zoshchenko elucidates, “Then I had a think. I got my pay on payday, bought some calcium, dissolved it in some water and set to work. I stripped the upholstery, beat out the bedbugs, swept away the cobwebs, got rid of the settee and painted—I clobbered the place. The soul sang and rejoiced.” The principal pointers of the narrator’s paucity comprise ‘cobwebs, the old seetee and bedbugs.’ Electrification intensifies the poverty that the uninviting emblems embody.
The Galosh - “The Galosh”
Mikhail Zoshchenko explicates, “The toe cap is more or less detached, it’s scarcely hanging on. And the heel,” I said, “is almost gone. It wore away, the heel did. But the sides,” I said, “are still all right—for now they’re there.” The explications set forward the unlikeable imagery of a worn-out galosh. Nevertheless, it is treasured for the narrator for he complies with all the wearisome prerequisite bureaucracies, so that it can be reimbursed to him after he mislays it in the tram.
