Examine Pushkin’s Use of the Supernatural in ‘Pikovaia Dama’

shew Pushkins give of the supernatural in Pikovaia dama (The Queen of Spades). To what consummation could this text be descri stern as a ghost apologue? The first setting is a card party hosted by Narumov of the clam Guards. Hermann the teen engineer was al instructions watching the others play until the early hours of the aurora tho had never very partaken in the card game himself. Tomsky starts to peach ab bulge out his grandmother, dependess Anna Fedotovna. All the others listen eagerly while he tells a chronicle about his grandmothers gambling sixty long time ago in Paris. She had lost a large sum compete the card game Faro.When her husband ref employ to turn out forward her debts, which she could not do so herself she has to look elsewhere for the capital. Tomsky goes on to tell of his grandmothers acquaintance with a man named Count de Saint-Germain, the subject of so many weird and grand tales. One of those tales menti angiotensin converting enzymed in the nov ella is that he was the artificer of the elixir of smell. A potion which could be used to bring eternal life to whoever drank it. This is the first sign of the supernatural in the romance. Pushkin by no nub shows any relishing of the tales of Count de Saint-Germain to be true.It is actually quite the perverse as Tomsky starts off by learning You know he passed himself off as the indicating that he was trying to convince people he was only if in actual fact very few believed him. Also the use of and so forth indicates he is getting bored of listing these wonderful tales about the Count. He then goes on to say that people used to ridicule him. For all the Counts mysteriousness he was though a very wealthy man. The Countess requested to meet with him in the hope that he would pay off her debts out of the kindness of his heart. later all, that kind of capital would not even make a small dent in the Counts wallet. After pondering her proposal he express I usher out accommodat e you as far as the sum of money goes, but I know you would be at ease until you had repaid me, and I would not wish to encumber you with fresh worries. Instead he valued to give her a privy(p) which would allow her to succeed all her money venture. By now all the guests at the card party were auditory sense intently. The countess turned up at a card game the equivalent evening the Count had given her the secret.Playing Faro, the comparable game they themselves were playing at the part, the Countess selected one-third cards. All three cards won, culmination up one after another and she had recouped all of her losses. There was a very atheistical reaction to the story. One said Pure luck and Hermann remarked A lofty story. Tomsky excessively tell of his grandmother passing down the secret once to a young man she took pity on. He also won with all three cards. Without calculating the odds it is fair to say that Pushkin is not expecting us to believe that these sequences h ave occurred twice out of thoroughgoing(a) luck.Therefore it is up to the reader to decide in this situation if the tale of the charming secret should be believed. It is not macrocosm t experient from the narrators set of view but instead from Tomskys. It could be perceived as being no more than a drunken story made up in a bar to impress a few friends and acquaintances. The side by side(p) time Pushkin presents with something of the supernatural is much later on in the story in chapter five. Since the time that Tomsky had told the story of his ageing grandmothers secret, the young engineer, Hermann, had become obsessed with the notion.In trying to obtain the secret from the Countess he had out of the blue killed her. Three days after that nighttime he had decided to imitate the funeral at a local monastery. After the oration at a full church the relatives were first to go up and take hand of the body. Then it was the turn of all other guests wanting to pay their respects. Af ter many had gone it came to the turn of Hermann who was feeling no real self-reproof for killing the old lady. He bowed to the ground and lay for several(prenominal) moments on the cold floor, strewn with fir-twigs.At length he rose, pale as the body itself, ascended the steps of the catafalque and bent down. At that moment it seemed to him that the deceased gave him a annoying glance and winked an eye. Hermann in hastily recoiling missed his footing and crashed faced upward to the ground. He was helped to his feet. The way Pushkin says in this paragraph it seemed to him almost implies that it did not actually happen at all and that it was only in Hermanns imagination. This could be a as a result of guiltiness Hermann may feel for killing the old lady or could even be a sign that Hermann is going mad.Later that evening Hermann went to an inn and drank a fair center of wine, which was very uncharacteristic for him. On arriving home he jumped straight into bed fully clothed and ferocious sound asleep. In the middle of the night he woke up because of the moonlight flooding his room. At that moment person peeped in at his window from the Street and immediately walked away. Hermann did not pay the slightest attention to this. A minute later he heard the admission of the next room being subject. Hermann thought that it was his orderly, drunk as usual, coming home from a night walk.But he heard an unfamiliar stride someone was softly shuffling along in slippers. The door opened a woman in a white dress came in. Hermann took her for his old nurse and wondered what could have brought her at such an hour. But gliding crossways the floor the white woman suddenly stood before himand Hermann recognized the Countess I have come to you against my will, she said in a clear voice, but I am commanded to grant your request. Three, seven, and ace will win for you in succession, provided that you stake only one card each day and never in your life play again.I forgi ve you my death, on condition that you bond my ward, Lizaveta Ivanovna. . . . Hermann was the only one to see this, his orderly remain asleep throughout the whole episode. Once again the element of supernatural is only witnessed by Hermann. On top of this he has been drinking heavily which Pushkin could have pointed out to lead us to believe that is was all in Hermanns brainpower. With the three cards Hermann believed the Countess told him engraved in his mind he made his way to a card game in Petersburg. Hermann placed an extremely uplifted stake on the first card, high than the table had ever seen before.The head teacher dealt and a three turned up on the left, a win for Hermann. The next evening he was back and placed even higher stakes on the seven card, another win. The next evening Hermann was back once again and everybody was gathered around the table in excitement. Hermann of grad choosing ace as the Countess had told him. Tchekalinsky began dealing his hands trembled. A queen fell on the right, an ace on the left. The ace has won Hermann said, and showed his card. Your queen has lost, Tchekalinsky said kindly. Hermann shuddered in fact, instead of an ace there lay before him a Queen of Spades.He could not believe his eyes or think how he could have made a mistake. At that moment it seemed to him that the Queen of Spades screwed up her eyes and gave a meaning smile. He was struck by the superior likeness. . . .The old woman he cried in terror. On this occasion we can be sure that its all in Hermanns mind as all the other players and spectators clearly see a diametrical card to the one that Hermann is seeing. It also adds to the theory that Hermann was slowly losing his mind throughout the story with him finally being admitted to a mental hospital in the novellas conclusion.In my opinion I think it would definitely be possible to label The Queen of Spades as a ghost story on the premise that the main character, Hermann, believes he sees a ghos t. At the same time Pushkin seems to go out of his way to give us a logical reason for all of the supernatural occurrences in the story, whether it be alcohol, dreams, guilt or just simply hallucinations. There are also so many different layers to the story that labelling it a ghost story would dangle so many other possible labels. Garry Evans