Pushkin and Parricide: The Miserly Knight

Pushkin has such a reputation for simplicity and healthiness that one forgets that, to a certain extent, he, like all writers, is always writing about himself, dealing with his own psychological conflicts, fears, and hostilities. A good example of this can be found in his one-act play The Miserly Knight. Seen from the literary point of view, the four “Little Tragedies” are examples of Pushkin's interest in Shakespeare's approach to characterization (as well as his verse form and imagery). Various borrowings from other writers as different as Molière, Scott, and Shenstone have been pointed out by Pushkin scholars. The play's symmetrical structure has been analyzed, and the literary misers of other eras have been juxtaposed to Pushkin's knight.1 But the balanced structure and glitter of Pushkin's elegant pentameters conceal an archetypal psychological pattern—the Oedipus complex. Freud noted that when artistic works reflect repressed emotions such as those connected with the oedipal situation, they do so in oblique ways.2 However much the works themselves may differ, the basic pattern can be discerned; unconsciously the authors use plots, allusions, and symbols which reveal inner conflicts arising from the Oedipus complex.3 My purpose here is to suggest an interpretation of the imagery in The Miserly Knight which reveals this hidden thematic layer.