Prayer (Symbol)
Prayers play a significant role in our life. People often apply to God and pray, especially when they have troubles. Somebody prays for health and relatives, other people pray for success and thank God for support. Thomas uses prayer to save himself against the witch and other evil. In this case, the prayer is a symbol of life-saving and God’s help.
Religion (Allegory)
Every person has his own religion and everyone has a right to choose what religion to believe in. Everybody aims to understand the essence of life. There are people, who reject their religion and faith in God. They are called atheists. But when something bad happens, we pray to God about good things, even if we deny his existence. Thomas also believes in God and religion has a deep meaning for him. The faith in God helps him to manage with different obstacles, but unfortunately, the evil spirit is stronger.
Fear and weakness (Motif)
The main motifs, which dominate in Gogol’s story “Viy”, are fear and weakness. Mostly, Nikolai Gogol alternates fear with laugh in his works of literature, but here he tells about individual imperfections of people. And these imperfections ruin our life. For example, the main character of this story is a philosopher Thomas Brutus, who actually is not a brave person as he says. Besides, he is a stingy person, because he thinks about money, even, when the colonel suggests reading the burial service for his daughter. And these two features are reason due to which the main personage falls into hands of the witch and death. The author proves that weakness and fear are two worst enemies of people.
