The Diary of a Madman Foolishness and Folly

To begin with, tables being mahogany and the superiors addressing each other formally didn't really make the work more noble and clean. It just made it seem noble and clean. But then, mistaking style for substance is a classic sign of foolishness.

And Poprishchin's comment that he would have long since quit the department if it weren't for the nobility of the work is also ridiculous. He doesn't have any money. What would he have rather done, eat cabbage and work in some sooty workshop?

Um, the director is probably not that intelligent. If we remember what Medji the dog has to say about the director—"[Papa] is a very strange man. He's silent most of the time. Speaks very rarely" (8.12)—he's probably just an ambitious but not exceptionally bright man. He might have just put some foreign books in his office to seem smart. So that makes Poprishchin seem doubly foolish and naïve for thinking the director is brilliant. And it's not like Poprishchin has ever talked to the man and actually found out whether he is smart or not.

(Disturbing insight: Shmoop has just taken a dog's word over Poprishchin's.)

The little Bee, aka The Northern Bee, was a popular political and literary magazine that Gogol thought was a sign of bad taste. Here, Poprishchin doesn't just read this magazine, but to add insult to injury (or foolishness to more foolishness), he makes really idiotic comments about what he reads. Give the French a good birching? Kursk landowners are good writers? It's actually really funny.

Poprishchin is so desperate for some attention from Sophie that he makes himself act and look totally ridiculous. Sophie takes advantage of it to get a good laugh at his expense.

These verses are totally sappy, not "very nice." On top of that, they belong not to the great Pushkin, but to a second rate writer. That makes Poprishchin look pretty ridiculous, doesn't it?

In case we had any doubts about what Poprishchin looks like in the eyes of his superiors, here we get to find out directly. According to the section chief, nothing could be more foolish than Poprishchin's thinking he has a chance with Sophie.

Before insulting his fellow clerks for their lack of interest in culture, Poprishchin should realize that vaudeville isn't exactly highbrow theater.

Sharpening pens was one of the usual tasks of a minor Russian clerk, and it sometimes did help him get ahead, but because Poprishchin doesn't do his job properly, sharpening twenty-three pens isn't really going to get him anywhere. And discussing the weather is probably the world's greatest cliché about foolish small-talk.

Ouch! Even the dogs make fun of Poprishchin. That's sad for him, but good for us. These comments, along with the ones the section chief makes, give us hints about how others see him. He's ugly, even the Russians think he has a strange name, all he does is sharpen pens, and he gets treated like a servant even though he is supposed to be a nobleman.

Two things are going on here in Poprishchin's reaction to the news in Spain. First, he takes hierarchies so dead seriously that he cannot think about a throne without a king, which is of course something that frequently happens in monarchies after a monarch dies without a suitable heir.

Second, he thinks a woman cannot ascend the throne. Well, he would have been correct three years before this event. Before 1830, women could not really ascend the Spanish throne. But in 1830, Ferdinand VI looked at his life and thought: "Hmm, I have two daughters, and a horrible brother. How do I make sure my brother doesn't get the throne when I die?" So he changed the law. When he died three years later, a doña (his daughter Isabella) did in fact ascend the throne. When Poprishchin claims a woman cannot ascend the throne, he's just being his typical misogynistic self.