Throughout history, many authors have used symbols to represent certain ideas or qualities. And even today symbolism remains one of the main parts 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 was born first and foremost from Russian poetry, because compared to the public of the world, in Russian poetry it was the task of readers to understand and find the "keystones" hidden in the novel. Indeed, Sologub was a master at drawing his line around key symbols and making every reader find a kind of Sherlock Holmes in himself. 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 Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Sologub uses different representations of smoke and dust as symbols in his novel The Petty Demon. Throughout the novel readers can identify different forms of smoke and Sologub's use of it in many images of the novel ("nedotykomka" also the main symbol of the novel, Vershina, Sasha Pylnikov), helping readers build the picture broader and the hidden motivations behind those characters. One of the earliest examples of the symbolism of smoking is associated with the depiction of Vershina, the “black witch,” who smokes constantly and wanders around a curtain of smoke. This character of The Petty Demon is twofold: first of all it contains the symbolism of death, as well as the concept of reality. The representation of smoke underlines the illusoriness, 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 talk above all about the possibilities of marriage and where conversations about the interrelationships between opposite sexes are almost devoid of erotic connotations. In this sense, the Vershina garden is opposed to the house of the Rutilov sisters, the “pagans” in the understanding of love. It has already been noted in the literature that Vershina is a demonic character and that the “smoke”, which constantly surrounds her, has a symbolic meaning: the smoke turns into fire, destroying the apparent world of illusory provincial reality. Going further Sologub makes yet another use of symbols to show the connection between the main characters: of the most complex and contradictory symbol-images on the pages of The Petty 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 as follows: “Among clouds of dust, the gray "nedotykomka" sometimes flashed in the wind. It was dirty and dusty. " Note again: clouds of dust, in the wind, gray, dirty and 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 the novel by Sologub is the main symbol of the beginning of everything bad. This is the character invented by Sologub who appears when the hero goes more and more mad in the course of the novel and ends up killing a friend going crazy is the appearance of this "nedotykomka". It is interesting how Sologub after establishing the connection between "x" and "y" uses "y" to connect "x" and "z". you help to build the plot and identify hidden motives, even between the opposite, at first glance, characters "nedotykomka" and Sasha Pylnikov, also symbols in this novel, making them appear in the same chapter and through their.