"The Carriage" is a prime example of efficient use of the short-story form, with small sentences conveying large amounts of detail about the story's characters and their general environment. A few specific details about the feast, such as the unbuttoned coats of the officers and the increasingly nonsensical questions of the officers, offer a concise and convincing synopsis of the drunken cavalry officers’ party. It is not hard for the reader to fill in the gaps between Gogol's descriptions, as the drunkenness leads to boasting on the part of all parties involved, including the now-retired officer Chertokutsky. The story itself ends in something of a fabular fashion, with the general simply closing the carriage and leaving the braggadocious Chertokutsky to himself.[4][5]
The story is riddled with typical Gogolian archetypes – the narrator is unreliable and the world, while for the most part relatively normal-seeming, is riddled with random bits of illogicality, as well as dry irony that conveys the depressing nature of the milieu. For example, early in the story, the narrator notes “as for the gardens, they were cut down long ago on the mayor’s orders, to improve appearances”– in Gogol's illogical world, tearing down aesthetically pleasing edifices improves the overall appearances of the town, which is simply called B.[6] The same mayor gives the name “Frenchmen” to the local animals, which apparently move into the streets at the slightest drop of rain, which turns the dust on the roads to mud. The town is made lively by the appearance of a cavalry regiment, of all things, which implicitly suggests the otherwise its horrifically bland, bleak existence – “a surface brilliance that emphasizes the essential hollowness [of the town].”[7]
Perhaps the best indicator of the story's essential Gogolian character is its quintessential poshlost, the self-satisfied pettiness of the otherwise pitiable main characters. As Vladimir Nabokov described Akaki Akakievich (from another Gogol story, "The Overcoat"): “Something is very wrong and all men are mild lunatics engaged in pursuits that seem to them very important while an absurdly logical force keeps them at their futile jobs.”[8] Chertokutsky, the main character, fits into this archetype well, as he obsesses over receiving some modicum of attention from the cavalry officers to the point of lying about his possession of an impressive carriage in order to lure them to his estate.
"The Carriage" marks one of Gogol’s final attempts to primarily foray into humor and illogicality without searching for deeper meaning. James Woodward’s The Symbolic Art of Gogol concludes that the story was written during the same time as the third chapter of his most famous novel, Dead Souls.[9] As he increasingly relied on religious inspiration to write his epic novel, Gogol attempted to reconcile the themes of his earlier work with the more serious tome, which is distinct from his earlier tales in its attempt to depict the redemption of mankind. Ultimately, Gogol remarked that he had to move past the “carelessness and laziness” of his earlier work and “do something serious”, but he also burned the manuscript of the planned second volume of Dead Souls, in which Chichikov is redeemed, thus leaving the theme of redemption unexplored.[10]
