“Russian Spoken Here”
“Russian Spoken Here” exploits a nonlinear arrangement for the story commences in the present then transferrals to an enigmatic occurrence that Martin shared with the narrator fifteen years before. Martin’s narration regarding the top-secret is a meta narrative that explicates the foundation of “Russian Spoken Here.” The guard in“Russian Spoken Here” gets in a predicament due to his incapacity to read the words vis-à-vis the language (Russian) that is legitimate at the shop.
Judicial allusions augment the eminence of the subject matters and structure in “Russian Spoken Here.” To elaborate, Vlamidir Nabokov writes, “Leaving him lying on the floor, Petya and I settled downcomfortably nearby and started a judicial inquiry. We debated for a good while.We were concerned not so much with the affront itself—that was a trifle, ofcourse—as much as with his entire profession, so to speak, and with the deeds hehad committed in Russia. The defendant was allowed to have the last word.” The deployment of the phrase’ judicial inquiry’ surmises that Martin and Petya unconventionally transform themselves into a Judiciary by capturing and incarcerating the guard whose occupation jeopardizes the Russians. Martin and Petya are the plaintiffs whereas the GPU guard is the defendant who must shoulder liability for his supposed criminalities.
“Russian Spoken Here” alludes to a White versus Russian war. Petya abhors the white guards for he stresses, “All kinds of White Guard scum keep hanging around." Petya’s abhorrence for guards actuates the assault and imprisonment of the GPU guard. Language extricates the Russians from the Germans; hence, it is a causative dynamic in the antipathy between the two clusters.
“A Matter of Chance”
Vlamidir Nabokov blatantly alludes to the magnitudes of drug abuse: "Too-frequent sniffs of cocaine had ravaged his mind; the little sores on the inside of his nostrils were eating into the septum.” Luzhin abuses cocaine which unequivocally emaciates his mind. He cannot cogitate rationally due to the emaciating penalties of cocaine. The cocaine damages him biologically and psychosomatically.
Noticeably, the drugs are the foundation of his falling-out from his wife, Nabokov explicates, “During the leisure hours when the crystal-bright waves of the drug beat at him,penetrating his thoughts with their radiance and transforming the least trifle into an ethereal miracle, he painstakingly noted on a sheet of paper all the various steps he intended to take in order to trace his wife.” Here, the drugs provoke a vivacity that enthuses him to resolve his state with his spouse. The drugs have punishing corollaries as they as times constrain and rouse him. The ethereal consequences of the drugs hint at frippery illusions that may not materialize once their influence on the mind has constricted.
Moreover, Luzhin manifests a gripping death instinct: “Recently, though,another idea had begun to occupy his thoughts. He began, with the same diligence, to elaborate a plan for his own death; he would draw a kind of graph indicating the rise and fall of his sense of fear; and, finally, so as to simplify matters, he set himself a definite date—the night between the first and second of August. His interest was aroused not so much by death itself as by all the details preceding it, and he would get so involved with these details that death itself would be forgotten. But as soon as he sobered up, the picturesque setting of this or that fanciful method of self-destruction would pale, and only one thing remained clear: his life had wasted away to nothing and there was no use continuing it.” Luzhin’s preoccupation with passing is ascribed to the Death Instinct which is undoubtedly enthused by drugs. The Death Instinct discloses his dread of bereavement which may supervene before he reunifies with his spouse. The Death instinct fuels self-destructive considerations that may seek to accelerate the death. Although the deliberations of death are distractive, Luzhin is still petrified by it, and he confronts the distress through drugs.
