When in society there has been a pre-established role between men and women, can there really be genuine love between each other? In Russian literature, authors seem to talk about this role and how some people, in most cases women tend to derail from what society tells them to be, what we call fallen women. Stories such as Alexander Pushkin’s The Blizzard and Nikolai Gogol’s Nevsky Prospect, both contribute to the idea of how the main characters idealize and stereotype the person they fell in love without knowing their true nature. In, Nikolai Gogol’s Nevsky Prospect, Piskarev falls in love with the prostitute he believes to resemble the Virgin Mary due to his rich romantic imagination, that was derived from romantic literature and the ideals of courtly love to envision a narrative in which he is the hero. In this way, the text demonstrates the destructiveness of romantic illusions.

Stereotyping, something conforming to a fixed or general pattern, an ideal that someone creates to fit their own standards thus creating an image they wished were true all the time. In society, people stereotype each other when the person typically doesn’t know each other. Nikolai Gogol’s Nevsky Prospect shows a good example how on the daily anyone can stereotype anyone. The main character, Lieutenant Piskarev falls in love at first sight with a woman who was walking by, “Did you see? “I did, a wonderful girl, a perfect Perugino Bianca.” “But who are you talking about?” “Her, the dark-haired one. And what eyes! God, what eyes! The bearing, and the figure, and the shape of the face sheer wonders!”(251) and then his friend Piskarev tells him to go after her and not miss this chance, “Oh, how could I?” the young man in the tailcoat exclaimed, blushing. “As if she were the kind to walk about Nevsky Prospect in the evening. She must be a very noble lady,” he went on, sighing, “her cloak alone is worth about eighty roubles!” (251). Lieutenant Piskarev did indeed stereotype the woman and had already created this image in his mind based solely on looks. Whether it was her face or the cloak he generated this vision that she was a very noble woman and must be very respected if she was walking on Nevsky Prospect of all places. He didn’t even know her and yet she was already was this holy person to him, enchanted by her looks, her innocence, that he thought she radiated making him compare her to the Virgin Mary. Likewise, in Alexander Pushkin’s The Blizzard when the narrator introduced Mayra Gavrilovna they mentioned how “Mayra Gavrilovna was brought up on French novels and consequently was in love. Her chosen one was a poor ensign who was then on leave in his village” (1). The French novels she grew up reading already gave her an idea as to what love is and what ideally it should be. She falls in love with someone poor because of the love they say they have for each other. The novels show her that it’s alright to love someone who isn’t the same class as you, making her fall in love with Vladimir. This idea or a fantasy that she created in her mind that she must have a love like in the books was her main goal making her not see that if she did love him, she didn’t have to think that this love must always be like the books she read. Both stories demonstrate how regardless of not knowing each other enough it caused them to create this image and how they perceive each other. When Gogol mentioned how Pirogov compared her to the Virgin Mary it showed exactly the moment where it all started. The courtly love he wanted with this woman he put first before even giving her chance to get to know her. He was so mesmerized with her looks that he didn’t see the clues right in front of him, he was blinded by love.

However some people believe that having such romantic illusions fortify the relationship and is actually heathy in the relationship” The researchers found that the couples who were closest one year later were those who idealized each other the most the idealizing seemed to help carry these couples through the inevitable rough spots. “Intimates who idealized one another,” concluded the researchers in the paper, “appeared more prescient than blind, actually creating the relationships they wished for as romances progressed.” (3). Nonetheless, they are wrong because although according to them they say it strengthens their relationships, some might take a different approach to the idea and think that their significant other are people who they are different, they are not themselves, so they create a fantasy that ruins their way of thinking.

So, what caused this stereotyping for these people, perhaps double standards forced onto one person, laws that came with marriage, or both. Living in the 19th century and as a woman was very stressful. The demanding of always being there for your husband, being innocent, if you ever kissed someone you are already deemed unmarriageable. Women were always under this constant pressure of being perfect all the time. When Piskarev described the young woman as the Virgin Mary, a holy entity, in a way it foreshadowed how it was the complete opposite. The woman turned out to be a prostitute who enjoyed her lifestyle and wouldn’t trade it for anything. Piskarev had offered her a different lifestyle if she accepted to be married. He thought that by offering this she would save her from such life, becoming his hero, “True, I’m poor;’ Piskarev said finally, after a long and instructive admonition, “but we’ll work; we’ll vie with each other in our efforts to improve our life. There’s nothing more pleasant than to owe everything to oneself. I’ll sit over my paintings, you’ll sit by me, inspiring my labors, embroidering or doing some other hand- work, and we won’t lack for anything” (Gogol, 266) to which she answered “What!” she interrupted his speech with an expression of some disdain. “I’m no laundress or seamstress that I should do any work!” (Gogol, 266). This gave an example of femme fatale, an attractive and seductive woman who demonstrate women’s subversion of power in society where they have no power. It’s only natural for someone who is under constant pressure to live for herself. Femme fatale is now everywhere, nevertheless in the 19th century this gave the men anxiety that the power was reverse, and women were more powerful than them. In the end the result is always death reaffirming social order. Piragov came to the realization that the prostitute would not change her way of living and not marry him and fell onto a great depression. Women in this century had to submit to their husbands completely and they started to disobey and would rather choose their love of their lives for themselves. Piskarev suggested to give her a new and better living condition even if he wasn’t rich, he just wanted her beside him all the time. His vison of being together even if she isn’t what he considered pure was destroyed, he just wanted her to be his muse, inspiration behind his paintings. For a woman, femme fatale was probably a way to have fun and feel free from enduring such harsh and tiring lives when they are with their husbands. The 19th century held such high standards for both men and woman, but women standards are so exhausting that they felt the need to break out of the cycle.

Essentially, Piskarev falls in love by putting this stereotype on the woman, making her in his mind this holy figure for him. His romantic imagination all came from the courtly love he envisioned to always have. Alxander’s The Blizzard gave us more info one of the ways someone imagination grow, the literature put out at the time not always resulting in the best experience.

Piskarev death detail how a woman who portray the femme fatale can be very deadly and not all men can withstand the shift in power in the society. Femme fatale and stereotyping go hand in hand when it comes to the romantic illusions someone comes up with when they are in love because when you tell yourself that this person is this way because they look a certain way or they speak a certain way then for you, you automatically created this image that they are indeed this person. When in love you become bias to them and turn a blind eye for them, they are always pure, innocent to your eyes, without a sin. However, they aren’t what you told yourself to believe and, in the end, you are in denial, not accepting reality. Piskarev image of her was already wrong from the very beginning, having high hopes from the start, giving him bad intentions because he didn’t even get to know her, why couldn’t he still love her regardless of her job, why did he have to marry, why did she have to leave her just to be with him?

In the end, both men and women in the 19th century had expectations from society that were too high for them, even in the 21st century some of these expectations remain. The texts The Blizzard and Nevsky Prospect indicate a clear understanding how high expectations and stereotyping a woman can shift their vision into something the perceive to always be true is damaging not to others but only themselves.

Works Cited:

Gogol, Nikolai. Nevsky Prospect. 1835. translated by Michael Pursglove, Russian Texts, 1835, pp. 251, 266.

Pushkin, Alexander. The Blizzard. 1831, p. 1.
Carey, Benedict. “The Brain in Love.” Los Angeles Times, 2002, p. 3.