N.V. GOGOL AND J.P. SARTRE IN SEARCH OF A HUMAN: ANTHROPOLOGY OF EXISTENTIALISM IN THE STORY “THE NOSE” AND IN THE NOVEL “NAUSEA”

The article is dedicated to the study of the anthropological aspects of existentialism in fiction. “The Nose” by N. Gogol and “Nausea” by J.P. Sartre are viewed as opinions in the imaginary discussion with the German religious philosopher of the twentieth century R. Guardini on the human essence and the ways of preserving it in the changing world. The comparative analysis of the works by Gogol and Sartre revealed similarities in the authors’ concepts of human personality and the forms and methods of their artistic embodiment. Both writers talk about the human aspect, highlighting two interconnected elements. The first one is related to the definition of the foundations of human identity. Gogol’s method of searching for it consists of depriving his character of the nose, which supposedly is the focus of the human in the man. Sartre, who understands a person as pure consciousness (“nothing”), acts by analogous methods, throughout the novel, consistently freeing the consciousness of his hero from all possible influences of the objective world, in order to highlight his personality. Gogol’s and Sartre’s analysis of the topic of the face made it possible to include Guardini in their discussion. Comparison of his point of view of a Catholic priest, set forth in the form of a theoretical treatise, and the concepts of Gogol and Sartre, expressed in the artistic form, made it possible to identify in literary works the second aspect of the personality problem associated with the destruction of human identity in conditions of social life. Gogol and Sartre find in social communications the mutual substitution of the interlocutors for each other’s true personalities with deindividualized images based on the perception of the Other solely as a representative of a certain social type or group. 40 Comparative Literature Studies A particular danger for the preservation of one’s own identity is represented by a similar self-perception by a person and the construction of one’s own personality in accordance with the predicted communicative attitudes of potential interlocutors. The fairness and fundamental nature of the anthropological discoveries of Gogol and Sartre is confirmed by the traces of their influence, particularly, on the English writer J. Fowles, who belonged to the later period and another national culture.