Goncharov in the twenty-first century by Ingrid Kleespies Lyudmila Parts

Author:Ingrid Kleespies, Lyudmila Parts
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781644697009
Publisher: Academic Studies Press
Published: 2021-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Conclusion

Is Goncharov presenting a critique of any kind of consumption, then? I would like to argue that the economic side of his thinking goes much further than that. For Goncharov, any economic or social system is based on certain actions and responses. In Oblomov, Goncharov has included some characters that fit the system they are set in perfectly, respond to it in the proper way and are satisfied with it (such as Stolz or Oblomov’s parents). In his more developed characters, however, Goncharov focuses on what happens when humans are unable or not prepared to fit in, on human dissatisfaction in the face of systemic necessities, and on the resulting dissonance between human motivation and the system it is inserted in. The revolutionary power of Oblomov’s idleness seems to lie precisely in his withdrawal from and resistance to systemic requirements. All the different variants of desire mentioned in the first part of this chapter are also variants of Goncharov’s experimentation with lack—and with the thought that no matter what the economic and social system will be, lack will always be part of the human condition. Thus Oblomov’s longing is not only not in keeping with a labor-based consumer economy—it is incompatible with it. It denies the very possibility of tangible satisfaction. It is anti-economic in a radical sense.

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