A Monkey
It was a metaphor which started Zoshchenko’s literary fall from grace. “The Adventures of a Monkey” was written a simple children’s story or so the author claimed. Soviet critics pointed out that the story of the monkey who escapes from a zoo following a bombing by fascist forces, wanders around Leningrad and then decides to return to captivity after witnessing what Russian society looks like sure seemed to be intended as a metaphorical critique of Stalinist Soviet authoritarianism. And when Soviet critics called a monkey a metaphor, it became a metaphor no matter what the author might argue.
Stalinist Behavior Modification
The story “Big-City-Lights” is ostensibly about a young man’s inviting his father to the big city for the first time where his behavior is seen as boorish and he is shamed as being a provincial yokel. Nobody treats him with any respect at all and he in turn refuses to alter his behavior. Until he gets drunk, gets lost and has a life-changing encounter with a member of the militia whom he asks for directions. When he is greeted with a salute and a respectful tone and manner, he suddenly undergoes a remarkable metamorphosis to the point of even taking on a martial person himself. The militiaman later explains:
“I’ve always been of the opinion that respect for individuals, praise and esteem, produce exceptional results. Many personalities unfold because of this, just like roses at daybreak.”
The roses metaphor expands to become a symbol of Stalinist-era behavior modification which was in reality conducted through far more aggressive means.
Hyperbole of the Ordinary
The typical story by this author features ordinary Russian people in ordinary circumstances. Those circumstances, however, tend to take on an aspect of significance that far surpasses any realistic appropriation of the facts. That is the point, however: every day is a struggle and in such a struggle even small things can take on the aspect of a looming disaster:
“Not long ago in our communal apartment there was a fight. And not just any fight, but a full-out battle. On the corner of Glazova and Borova.”
Imagery
Zoshchenko engages metaphor for the simple purpose of creating effective imagery that serves to move the narrator along. One of the prime examples is the description of the ironic recovery a hen-pecked husband regaining his health after he goes to beg for money to pay for his what he assumes will be an upcoming funeral because his wife has refused to allow him to die while leaving her in debt:
“Perhaps, as he went outside the first time, he got so heated from excitement and exertion, that all his disease came out through perspiration.”
Zoshchenko in Miniature
Zoshchenko is an author who specializes in presenting a complete mundane world into which a screaming hissy fit of the familiar becomes the agency of conflict. That recurring characteristic of his narrative is manifested through microcosm in a metaphor of descriptive prose bringing a singular moment of setting to life:
“It was miraculous August weather. The sun blazed from the blue sky. A sunbeam played on the wall from the open window. Everything was familiar and beautiful in its charming ordinariness, and only the screaming - and yelling woman violated the normal course of things.”
