A COMPARISON OF “THE BLACK COAT” AND “THE OVERCOAT”: SIGNIFYING THE PRIMAL ROLE OF WOMEN WRITERS IN THE RUSSIAN SHORT STORY TRADITION

This paper examines the paradigm shift in the genre of Russian horror short stories, and this tectonic shift is exemplified by a parallel reading of Nikolai Gogol's “The Overcoat” and Ludmilla Petrushevskaya's “The Black Coat”. The juxtaposition of these two stories exposes how male writers have always been placed on a pedestal in the Russian literary canon. In contrast, this paper highlights how the contributions of their female counterparts have been constantly sidelined, though both streams of works enriched the vast field of the Russian literary empire. Narratology theory is used to highlight the narrative techniques of both authors since it examines what narratives share and what makes them unique. This is illustrated by demonstrating how writers like Petrushevskya have dismantled the common notion that only male writers contribute to the technical aspects of a genre. Using the comparative methodology, this paper also traces the tradition of this genre and the holistic perspective towards the Russian women writers who outpoured their creative capacity, good enough to be recognised and appreciated. The conclusion of the paper discusses the way Ludmilla Petrushevskaya broke the former institution of short stories with a touch of psychic horror (female psyche) by going along with the characteristic features of Russian literature: the inner world of characters.