The Queen of Spades: A Seriously Intended Joke (2009)

It is a commonplace to begin any discussion of The Queen of Spades by remarking on the richness of the secondary literature. Analyses of the tale can for the most part be placed in two categories. For many scholars, the problem is to unravel the mystery of the three cards and the strange denouement when Germann by mistake pulls out the queen instead of the ace; such studies include the many discussions of numbers, the symbolism of various details in the work and psychoanalysis of Germann's madness. (1) second type of approach might be called the search for sources as a form of empirical study that eschews deeper analysis. Scholars have long recognized the importance of intertextuality in The Queen of Spades, something that Pushkin actually draws attention to by the extensive use of epigraphs. Paul Debreczeny, for example, pointed out a large number of intertextual references--from Stendhal to La Motte Fouque--without, unfortunately, explaining how they might function in the aesthetic system of the tale. (2) Daria Solodkaia gets nearer to the heart of the matter in her discussion of a key sentence in the work, namely the countess's remark That was a joke. (3) It is precisely this sentence that points to a third line of interpretation, namely the or, as Wolf Schmid has called it in what is probably the most enlightening study of the tale, the metatextual. (4) Schmid is careful to avoid the trap into many have fallen of focusing on just one of the plethora of motifs and literary references that Pushkin has strewn throughout the work, preferring instead to analyze the totality of the work as an aesthetic system. It is this approach that intend to adopt in what follows, without pretending to emulate Schmid's exhaustiveness. Sometimes the uninitiated reader can have insights into works that scholars can miss. The following comment in an e-mail received from Emily McHugh, an undergraduate student, is a splendid example of a perceptive first-time reader seeing the blindingly obvious: I think Pushkin's story is in large part a meditation on the nature of and storytelling itself. The insight, in a simple way echoes Schmid's work, is a shrewd one. McHugh goes on to enumerate several examples where the focus is on stories. Indeed, throughout the tale we find a paradigm of what call metapoetic moments when unreliable narrators purvey stories, or fantastic tales, all prove far-fetched, to others who want to believe them, and by doing so highlight the question of the genre of the events in they find themselves. The first narrator is Tomsky, who declares that he finds the attitude of his grandmother the countess incomprehensible (neponiaten), thus introducing the theme of mystery into the work. He then goes on to tell his fellow gamblers, plus Germann, the story of the secret supposedly told her by Saint-Germain. Of their reactions, the most significant is that of Germann: A fairy-tale! (Skazka!). His response is, as it were, the first attempt at a generic definition of the story in he is to become a character. Having thus skeptically defined the fantastic nature of the anecdote, Germann is led to believe it when Tomsky passes on the story heard from a certain Ivan Il'ich, which he swore to on his honor, concerning Chaplitsky supposedly obtaining the secret of the cards from the countess. This second anecdote serves to reinforce the effect of Tomsky's account on Germann and suggests to him the procedure he might try to follow to obtain the although on closer inspection the veracity of the account of Chaplitsky's salvation through the three cards is undermined by the detail that he died in poverty--hardly the fate one would expect for someone possessing such a fabulous secret. Chaplitsky's end suggestively points to the danger that awaits any who try to discover the secret, and foreshadows the outcome of the tale. second metapoetic moment takes place when Tomsky discusses literary fashion with his grandmother. …