# Thomas Brutus — Short Fiction character guide

> Thomas Brutus in Short Fiction by Nikolai Gogol.

**Role:** major

**Also known as:** the philosopher, Mr. Philosopher Thomas, Thomas, Brutus

**First appearance:** 0025-the-viy

## Snapshot

A cheerful seminary philosopher who endures thrashings with calm, smokes his pipe through any crisis, and believes a man cannot escape his destiny.

## Who they are

Thomas Brutus is the philosopher of a wandering trio of seminary students, distinguished from the brooding theologian Khalava and the boyish rhetorician Gorobetz by his appetite for lying still, smoking, and dancing the tropak when drunk. He takes his beatings with philosophic calm and his misfortunes with a shrug, which makes him both comic and oddly prepared for the night the three lose their way on the steppe. When they stumble toward the farm of a witch, it is Thomas whose fatalism will be tested against something his philosophy never covered.

## In the story

### [The Viy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_40_se/chapters/the-viy)

The protagonist, a philosopher from the seminary who is haunted by a witch and ultimately killed by the Viy.

### [I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_40_se/chapters/i)

The philosopher who is brought to the colonel's estate to pray over the dead daughter; he recognizes her as the witch he killed.

### [II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_40_se/chapters/ii)

The philosopher who is terrified by the tales of the witch and tries to escape his duty of reading prayers over the colonel's daughter.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_40_se/characters/the_philosopher_thomas
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_40_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_40_se/characters