The Shot: Delia's Thoughts

"The Shot" and "The Snowstorm" are two very similar short stories. They are both the tales of young age and the romanticism that literature likes to ascribe to it. The first is a story about an officer who befriends a civilian named Silvio, while stationed in a poor village, and later on as an inhabitant of this village. The tale revolves about a mysterious lack of bravery in dealing or talking about duels in the civilian friend, clashing with the otherwise self-imposing image of this character. We find out later on that Silvio was involved in a duel, which he didn't go through with, because of the opponent's attitude. When the opponent got married, he tried to reenact the duel, but he was too pleased with the new attitude the opponent had, and didn't go through with it either. The opponent is later met, as a Count and tells the second part of Silvio's of the story.What struck me about the two short stories were the apparent superficiality and the sarcastic tone. First of all, the two stories have no depth and no apparent carry on message. They are simple tales of strange events, rather anecdotic than literary. The built up seems pushed by a too fortunate string of events, and the dénouement is amusingly unrealistic. Pushkin keeps his protagonists linear, dull, and thus improbable, even though both of them progress impressively through life during few pages. The entire story, in both cases, seems to be pushed by a supernatural force of destiny. This would seem rather intolerable from an author with such renown if it weren't for the sarcastic tone, which brings me to my second point. Even though the two stories have a different narrator, there is a strong feeling that Pushkin mocks his heroes and his stories.