Throughout history, many authors have used symbols to represent certain ideas or qualities. And even today, symbolism remains one of the main components and techniques of novelists. Fyodor Sologub is considered one of the main representatives of this “mystical” artistic movement called Russian symbolism. It is no coincidence that this artistic movement arose from Russian poetry, because in relation to audiences around the world, in Russian poetry it was up to readers to understand and find the hidden "keystones" of the novel . Indeed, Sologub was a master in the art of drawing his line around key symbols and ensuring that each reader finds in him a sort of Sherlock Holmes. In this essay, I want to show one of the examples of Sologub's masterful use of symbols using his novel The Petty Demon. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Sologub uses different depictions of smoke and dust as a symbol in his novel The Petty Demon. Throughout the novel, readers can identify the different forms of smoke and Sologub's use of it in many of the novel's images ("nedotykomka" also the main symbol of the novel, Vershina, Sasha Pylnikov), thus helping the readers to get a broader idea and hidden secrets. the motivations behind these characters. One of the earliest examples of smoke symbolism is associated with the depiction of Vershina, the "black witch", who smokes constantly and stands around a curtain of smoke. This character from The Petty Demon is twofold: first of all, it contains the symbolism of death, as well as the notion of reality. The representation of smoke underlines the illusory character, the “appearance” of the material world and one of its many false shells. Vershina's garden is a place where the characters in the novel mainly talk about the possibilities of marriage and where conversations about the interrelationships of the opposite sexes are almost devoid of erotic connotations. In this regard, Vershina's garden is opposed to the house of the Rutilov sisters, the "heathens" who understand love. It has already been noted in literature that Vershina is a demonic character and the "smoke" constantly surrounding her has a symbolic meaning: the smoke turns into fire, destroying the apparent world of illusory provincial reality. To go further, Sologub makes yet another use of symbols to show the connection between the main characters: of the most complex and contradictory symbol-images in the pages of The Little Demon is the image of "nedotykomka". The image of "nedotykomka" can cause confusion, surprise and controversy among many readers of Sologub's work. And it is described like this: “In the clouds of dust, the gray “nedotykomka” sometimes shone in the wind. It was dirty and dusty. " Note again: clouds of dust, in the wind, gray, dirty, dusty "nedotykomka". So we can clearly see how Sologub identifies the image of "nedotykomka" with the symbol of dust. This is important because "nedotykomka" in Sologub's novel is the main symbol of the beginning of everything bad. This is the character invented by Sologub who appears when the hero becomes more and more crazy throughout the novel and ends. by killing a friend And the first sign of Peredonov's madness is the appearance of this "nedotykomka". It is interesting how Sologub, having established the connection between "x" and "y", uses "y". to connect “x” and “z” Although using Sologub symbols helps us to construct..