As we talked about at length with The Cossacks, Russian authors love to play with the large cultural gap between the more rural ethnic groups and the Russians from the city centers of the country. This gap is especially apparent in A Dream of Polar Fog between John and the two natives who take him on his journey to the hospital.

The opening of the book draws attention to the cultural and language gap between the two groups. The explosion, which the two native men initially try to pin to a natural phenomenon, has a similar untranslatable quality as many of the mannerism the “white men” show. In response to the language and the noises the “white people” make, Orvo remarks, “Sometimes the white man says a tender word just so, and then it sounds like curses” (10). The actions of the white men on the ship are so foreign to the two native men that they have no clue between well-intentioned action and harmful action.

The same goes towards John’s relationship with the two native men. John is xenophobic scared of the two native for their different culture, calling the “unwashed” and “savages.” John, however, because he needs their help to make it to the hospital, has to rely on these men of different culture for help. John, instead of trying to understand the Chukchi way of life, remarks, “All people live their own way, and there’s no use making another person do as you do, changing his customs and habits. If you stick your nose into another’s person life but only try to work to mutual advantage then there will be no quarrels” (29). Instead of coming from a place of understand and wanting to learn the Chukchi culture and way of life, John instead is bigoted in his own culture.

I am curious, however, so see how the cultural gap develops within the book, and how the two parties overcome the obstetrical of their different cultural backgrounds. I wonder if John will finally have to bend, as he is hinted to already doing, or if he will remain in his problematic way.