"Dead Souls". Please help to write a characterization of officials. and got the best answer
Answer from Ўliya[guru]
Officials of the city NN in the poem by N.V. Gogol "Dead Souls" (1)
The theme of bureaucracy, bureaucratic arbitrariness and lawlessness runs through all the work of N.V. Gogol. Images of officials are found in the romantic stories "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka", in the realistic works of "Mirgorod" and stories about St. Petersburg. The comedy "Inspector General" is dedicated to bureaucracy.
In "Dead Souls" this theme is intertwined with the theme of serfdom. The guardians of order are in many respects related to the landowners. Gogol draws the attention of readers to this already in the first chapter of the work. Speaking about thin and fat gentlemen, the author of the poem comes to the conclusion: “Finally, the fat one, having served God and the sovereign, having earned universal respect, leaves the service ... and becomes a landowner, a glorious Russian master, a hospitable man, and lives and lives well ... " an evil satire on robber officials and on the "hospitable" Russian bar.
So, the officials in the poem are shown satirically. For the author, like the landowners, they are “dead souls”. The symbolic meaning of the title of the work also applies to officials. Talking about them, Gogol skillfully displays the individual qualities of the governor, prosecutor, postmaster and others and at the same time creates a collective image of the bureaucracy.
While still in the city, before his trip to the noble estates, Chichikov paid visits to city officials. This enables the author to present the officials to the reader and draw their expressive portraits. Here is one of them - a portrait of the governor: like Chichikov, he “was neither fat nor thin, had Anna around his neck, and it was even said that he was introduced to a star; however, he was a great kind man and even sometimes embroidered on tulle himself ... ”Gogol combines “high” and “low” in the characterization of the character: “star” and embroidery. It turns out that the governor is presented for the award not for services to the Fatherland, but for the ability to embroider. With the help of subtle irony, the author exposes the idleness of one of the most important persons in the city.
Gogol uses the same method of inconsistency when describing the postmaster, "a short man, but a wit and a philosopher." The author deliberately violates the logic: he connects the incompatible in the characterization of the hero. After all, “short” is a distinctive feature of a person’s appearance, and “philosopher” is an assessment of his mental abilities. The opposing union “but” in this phrase reinforces the illogicality: despite the short stature, the hero is a philosopher. Words in a strange neighborhood take on a different meaning. The word "short" no longer means a sign of external appearance, but refers to the inner life of a person. It is in this way that Gogol exposes the low demands of an official. It turns out that the postmaster has only one strong passion in life. This is not a service, but a game of cards. Only at the playing table does the “grandiose” mental principle appear in the character: “... picking up the cards, the same hour expressed a thinking physiognomy on his face, covered his upper lip with his lower lip and maintained this position throughout the game.”
Visiting important persons of the city together with Chichikov, the reader is convinced that they do not burden themselves with worries about state affairs. Officials live idle, devoting all their time to dinner parties and playing cards. For example, Chichikov went "... to dinner at the police chief, where from three o'clock in the afternoon they sat down in whist and played until two in the morning." When making a purchase of serfs, witnesses were required. “Send now to the prosecutor,” says Sobakevich, “he is an idle man and, it’s true, he’s sitting at home: the lawyer does everything for him.”
With irony, reaching sarcasm, the author shows the level of culture and education of provincial officials. They were "... more or less enlightened people: some read Karamzin, some "Moskovskie Vedomosti", some even read nothing at all." The topic of conversation at social events is a clear evidence of the spiritual poverty and narrow outlook of civil servants. They talk about horses, dogs, talk about playing billiards and "making hot wine." There is often gossip at soirees about judges' pranks and "customs
Answer from Ўrkoff[guru]
Here
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With two or three masterful strokes, the writer draws wonderful miniature portraits. This is the governor, embroidering on tulle, and the prosecutor with very black thick eyebrows, and the short postmaster, wit and philosopher, and many others. These sketchy faces are remembered for their characteristic funny details that are filled with deep meaning. Indeed, why is the head of an entire province characterized as a kind man who sometimes embroiders on tulle? Probably because as a leader there is nothing to say about him. From this it is easy to conclude how negligently and dishonestly the governor treats his official duties, his civic duty. The same can be said about his subordinates. Gogol makes extensive use of the characterization of the hero by other characters in the poem. For example, when a witness was needed to formalize the purchase of serfs, Sobakevich tells Chichikov that the prosecutor, as an idle man, is right at home. But this is one of the most significant officials of the city, who must administer justice, monitor compliance with the law. The description of the prosecutor in the poem is enhanced by the description of his death and funeral. He did nothing but mindlessly sign papers, as he left all decisions to the solicitor, "the first grabber in the world." Obviously, the rumors about the sale of "dead souls" became the cause of his death, since it was he who was responsible for all the illegal deeds that took place in the city. Gogol's bitter irony is heard in reflections on the meaning of the prosecutor's life: "...why he died, or why he lived, only God knows." Even Chichikov, looking at the prosecutor's funeral, involuntarily comes to the conclusion that the only thing the dead man can remember is thick black eyebrows.
A close-up gives the writer a typical image of the official Ivan Antonovich Pitcher snout. Taking advantage of his position, he extorts bribes from visitors. It is ridiculous to read about how Chichikov placed a "paper" in front of Ivan Antonovich, "which he did not notice at all and immediately covered it with a book." But it is sad to realize what a hopeless situation Russian citizens found themselves in, dependent on dishonest, greedy people representing state power. This idea is emphasized by Gogol's comparison of an official of the civil chamber with Virgil. At first glance, it is unacceptable. But the nasty official, like the Roman poet in the Divine Comedy, leads Chichikov through all the circles of bureaucratic hell. So, this comparison reinforces the impression of the evil with which the entire administrative system of tsarist Russia is saturated.
Gogol gives in the poem a peculiar classification of bureaucracy, dividing the representatives of this estate into lower, thin and thick. The writer gives a sarcastic description of each of these groups. The lower ones are, according to Gogol's definition, nondescript clerks and secretaries, as a rule, bitter drunkards. By "thin" the author means the middle stratum, and "thick" - this is the provincial nobility, which firmly holds on to its places and deftly extracts considerable income from its high position.
Gogol is inexhaustible in his choice of surprisingly accurate and well-aimed comparisons. So, he likens officials to a squadron of flies that swoop down on tidbits of refined sugar. Provincial officials are also characterized in the poem by their usual activities: playing cards, drinking parties, lunches, dinners, gossip Gogol writes that "meanness, completely disinterested, pure meanness" flourishes in the society of these civil servants. Their quarrels do not end in a duel, because "they were all civil servants." They have other methods and means by which they do harm to each other, which is harder than any duel. There are no significant differences in the way of life of officials, in their actions and views. Gogol draws this estate as thieves, bribe-takers, loafers and swindlers who are bound to each other by mutual responsibility. That's why it's so uncomfortable
officials feel when Chichikov's scam was revealed, for each of them remembered his sins. If they
The image of the city in the poem "Dead Souls"
Compositionally, the poem consists of three externally closed, but internally interconnected circles - the landowners, the city, Chichikov's biography - united by the image of the road, plotted by the protagonist's scam.
But the middle link - the life of the city - itself consists, as it were, of narrowing circles, gravitating towards the center: this is a graphic representation of the provincial hierarchy. Interestingly, in this hierarchical pyramid, the governor, embroidering on tulle, looks like a puppet figure. True life is in full swing in the civil chamber, in the "temple of Themis". And this is natural for administrative-bureaucratic Russia. Therefore, the episode of Chichikov's visit to the chamber becomes central, the most significant in the theme of the city.
The description of presence is the apotheosis of Gogol's irony. The author recreates the true sanctuary of the Russian Empire in all its ridiculous, ugly form, reveals all the power and at the same time the weakness of the bureaucratic machine. Gogol's mockery is merciless: before us is a temple of bribery, lies and embezzlement - the heart of the city, its only "living nerve".
Let us recall once again the relationship between Dead Souls and Dante's Divine Comedy. In Dante's poem, the hero is led through the circles of Hell and Purgatory by Virgil, the great Roman poet of the pre-Christian era. He - a non-Christian - has no way only to Paradise, and in Paradise the hero is met by Beatrice - his eternal bright love, the embodiment of purity and holiness.
In describing the Temple of Themis, the most important role is played by the comic refraction of the images of the Divine Comedy. In this alleged temple, in this citadel of depravity, the image of Hell is being revived - though vulgarized, comic - but truly Russian Hell. A kind of Virgil also arises - he turns out to be a "petty demon" - a chamber official: "... one of the priests who was right there, who made sacrifices to Themis with such zeal that both sleeves burst at the elbows and the lining climbed out for a long time, for which he received in his time as a collegiate registrar, served our friends, as Virgil once served Dante, and led them into the presence room, where there were only wide chairs and in them in front of the table, behind a mirror and two thick books, sat alone, like the sun, the chairman. In this place, Virgil felt such reverence that he did not dare to put his foot there ... ” Gogol’s irony is brilliant: the chairman is incomparable - the “sun” of the civil chamber, this wretched Paradise is inimitably comical, before which the collegiate registrar is seized by sacred awe. And the funniest - as well as the most tragic, the most terrible! - the fact that the newly-minted Virgil truly reveres the chairman - the sun, his office - Paradise, his guests - holy angels ...
How small, how profaned souls are in the modern world! How pathetic and insignificant are their ideas about the fundamental concepts for a Christian - Paradise, Hell, Soul! ..
What is considered a soul is best shown in the episode of the prosecutor's death: after all, the people around guessed that "the deceased had, for sure, a soul" only when he died and became "only a soulless body." For them, the soul is a physiological concept. And this is the spiritual catastrophe of Russia contemporary to Gogol.
In contrast to the quiet, measured life of the landowners, where time seems to be frozen, the life of the city outwardly boils, bubbles. Nabokov comments on the governor's ball scene as follows: "When Chichikov arrives at the governor's party, the occasional mention of gentlemen in black tailcoats scurrying around powdered ladies in blinding light leads to an allegedly innocent comparison of them with a swarm of flies, and in the very next moment a new one is born. life. "Black tailcoats flickered and rushed apart and in heaps here and there, like flies on a white shining refined sugar during the hot July summer, when the old housekeeper [here she is!] Chops and divides it into sparkling fragments in front of an open window; the children [here is the second generation!] all stare, gathered around, following with curiosity the movements of her hard hands, raising the hammer, and the air squadrons of flies, raised by light air [one of those repetitions characteristic of Gogol's style, from which years could not save him work on each paragraph], they fly in boldly, like full masters, and, taking advantage of the blindness of the old woman and the sun that disturbs her eyes, they sprinkle tidbits, sometimes at random, sometimes in thick heaps.<…>Here the comparison with flies, parodying Homer's branching parallels, describes a vicious circle, and after a complex, dangerous somersault without a longie, which other acrobat writers use, Gogol manages to turn back to the original "separately and in heaps" ".
It is obvious that this life is illusory, it is not activity, but empty vanity. What stirred up the city, what made everything in it take off in the last chapters of the poem? Gossip about Chichikov. What does the city care about Chichikov's scams, why did city officials and their wives take everything so close to their hearts, and this made the prosecutor think for the first time in his life and die from unusual tension? The best way to comment and explain the whole mechanism of the life of the city is Gogol's draft entry to "Dead Souls": "The idea of the city. Emptiness that has arisen to the highest degree. Empty talk. Gossip that has crossed the limits, how it all arose from idleness and took on the expression of the ridiculous in the highest degree.. "How the emptiness and powerless idleness of life are replaced by a cloudy, meaningless death. How this terrible event takes place senselessly. They do not touch. Death strikes the untouched world. Meanwhile, the dead insensibility of life should appear to readers even more strongly."
The contrast between fussy external activity and internal ossification is striking. The life of the city is dead and meaningless, like the whole life of this crazy modern world. The features of alogism in the image of the city are brought to the limit: the story begins with them. Let us recall the stupid, meaningless conversation of the peasants, whether the wheel will roll to Moscow or to Kazan; the comical idiocy of the signs "And here is the establishment", "Foreigner Ivan Fedorov" ... Do you think Gogol composed this? Nothing like this! In the remarkable collection of essays on the life of the writer E. Ivanov "Apt Moscow Word" an entire chapter is devoted to the texts of signboards. The following are given: "Karbecue master from a young Karachai lamb with Kakhetian wine. Solomon", "Professor of chansonnet art Andrey Zakharovich Serpoletti". And here are completely "Gogol" ones: "Hairdresser Musyu Zhoris-Pankratov", "Parisian hairdresser Pierre Musatov from London. Haircut, brizhka and curling." Where is the poor "Foreigner Ivan Fedorov" before them! But E. Ivanov collected curiosities at the beginning of the 20th century - that is, more than 50 years have passed since the creation of "Dead Souls"! Both the "Parisian hairdresser from London" and "Musue Zhoris Pankratov" are the spiritual heirs of Gogol's heroes.
In many ways, the image of the provincial city in Dead Souls resembles the image of the city in The Inspector General. But - pay attention! - Enlarged scale. Instead of a town lost in the wilderness, from where "if you ride for three years, you won't reach any state," the central city is "not far from both capitals." Instead of a small fry of the mayor - the governor. And life is the same - empty, meaningless, illogical - "dead life".
The artistic space of the poem consists of two worlds, which can be conditionally designated as the "real" world and the "ideal" world. The author builds the "real" world by recreating the contemporary reality of Russian life. In this world live Plyushkin, Nozdrev, Manilov, Sobakevich, the prosecutor, the chief of police and other heroes who are original caricatures of Gogol's contemporaries. D.S. Likhachev emphasized that "all the types created by Gogol were strictly localized in the social space of Russia. For all the universal features of Sobakevich or Korobochka, they are all at the same time representatives of certain groups of the Russian population of the first half of the 19th century." According to the laws of the epic, Gogol recreates a picture of life in the poem, striving for the maximum breadth of coverage. It is no coincidence that he himself admitted that he wanted to show "at least from one side, but the whole of Russia." Having painted a picture of the modern world, creating caricature masks of his contemporaries, in which the weaknesses, shortcomings and vices characteristic of the era are exaggerated, brought to the point of absurdity - and therefore both disgusting and funny - Gogol achieves the desired effect: the reader sees how immoral his world is. And only then the author reveals the mechanism of this distortion of life. The chapter "Knight of the penny", which is placed at the end of the first volume, becomes an "inserted short story" compositionally. Why do people not see how vile their lives are? And how can they understand this, if the only and main instruction received by the boy from his father, the spiritual covenant, is expressed in two words: "save a penny"?
“Comic lies everywhere,” said N.V. Gogol. “Living among it, we do not see it: but if the artist transfers it to art, to the stage, then we ourselves will wallow with laughter.” He embodied this principle of artistic creation in Dead Souls. Having let readers see how terrible and comical their life is, the author explains why people themselves do not feel it, at best they do not feel it acutely enough. The author's epic abstraction from what is happening in the "real" world is due to the magnitude of the task he faces to "show all of Rus'", to let the reader see for himself, without the author's pointer, what the world around him is like.
The "ideal" world is built in strict accordance with true spiritual values, with that lofty ideal to which the human soul aspires. The author himself sees the "real" world so voluminously precisely because it exists in a "different system of coordinates", lives according to the laws of the "ideal" world, judges himself and life by the highest criteria - by striving for the Ideal, by proximity to it.
The title of the poem contains the deepest philosophical meaning. Dead souls are nonsense, the combination of the incompatible is an oxymoron, because the soul is immortal. For the "ideal" world, the soul is immortal, for it is the embodiment of the Divine principle in man. And in the "real" world there may well be a "dead soul", because the day of his soul is only what distinguishes a living person from a dead person. In the episode of the prosecutor's death, those around him guessed that he "was definitely a soul" only when he became "only a soulless body." This world is insane - it has forgotten about the soul, and lack of spirituality is the cause of decay, the true and only one. Only with an understanding of this reason can the revival of Rus' begin, the return of lost ideals, spirituality, the soul in its true, highest meaning.
The "ideal" world is the world of spirituality, the spiritual world of man. There is no Plyushkin and Sobakevich in it, there cannot be Nozdryov and Korobochka. It has souls - immortal human souls. It is ideal in every sense of the word, and therefore this world cannot be recreated epic. The spiritual world describes a different kind of literature - lyrics. That is why Gogol defines the genre of the work as lyrical-epic, calling "Dead Souls" a poem.
Recall that the poem begins with a meaningless conversation between two peasants: will the wheel reach Moscow; from a description of the dusty, gray, endlessly dreary streets of a provincial town; with all sorts of manifestations of human stupidity and vulgarity. The first volume of the poem is completed by the image of the Chichikov britzka, ideally transformed in the last lyrical digression into a symbol of the ever-living soul of the Russian people - a wonderful "troika bird". The immortality of the soul is the only thing that gives the author faith in the obligatory revival of his heroes - and of all life, therefore, of all of Rus'.
Bibliography
Monakhova O.P., Malkhazova M.V. Russian literature of the 19th century. Part 1. - M., 1994
For the preparation of this work, materials from the site http://www.gramma.ru were used.
Starting from the seventh chapter of the poem "Dead Souls" bureaucracy is in the center of the author's attention. Despite the absence of detailed and detailed images similar to landlord heroes, the picture of bureaucratic life in Gogol's poem is striking in its breadth.
With two or three masterful strokes, the writer draws wonderful miniature portraits. This is the governor, embroidering on tulle, and the prosecutor with very black thick eyebrows, about whom there is nothing to remember after death, except for these thick eyebrows, and a short postmaster, wit and philosopher, and many others. Gogol gives in the poem a peculiar classification of bureaucracy, dividing the representatives of this estate into lower, thin and thick. The writer gives a sarcastic description of each of these groups. The inferior are, according to Gogol's definition, nondescript clerks and secretaries, as a rule, bitter drunkards. By "thin" the author means the middle stratum, and "thick" - this is the provincial nobility, which firmly holds on to its places and deftly extracts considerable income from its high position.
Gogol is inexhaustible in his choice of surprisingly accurate and well-aimed comparisons. So, he likens officials to a squadron of flies that swoop down on tidbits of refined sugar. Provincial officials are also characterized in the poem by their usual activities: playing cards, drinking, lunches, dinners, gossip. Gogol writes that "meanness, completely disinterested, pure meanness" flourishes in the society of these civil servants. Their quarrels do not end in a duel, because "they were all civil servants." They have other methods and means by which they do harm to each other, which is harder than any duel. Gogol draws this estate as thieves, bribe-takers, loafers and swindlers who are bound to each other by mutual responsibility. That is why officials feel so uncomfortable when Chichikov's scam was revealed, because each of them remembered his sins. If they try to detain Chichikov for his fraud, then he will be able to accuse them of dishonesty. A comical situation arises when people in power help a swindler in his illegal machinations and are afraid of him.
Gogol in the poem pushes the boundaries of the county town, introducing into it "The Tale of Captain Kopeikin". It no longer tells about local abuses, but about the arbitrariness and lawlessness that the highest St. Petersburg officials, that is, the government itself, are doing. The contrast between the unheard-of luxury of St. Petersburg and the miserable beggarly position of Kopeikin, who shed blood for the fatherland, is striking, and lost an arm and a leg. But, despite the injuries and military merits, this war hero is not even entitled to the pension that is due to him. A desperate invalid tries to find help in the capital, but his attempt is shattered by the cold indifference of a high-ranking dignitary. This disgusting image of a soulless St. Petersburg nobleman completes the characterization of the world of officials. All of them, starting with a petty provincial secretary and ending with a representative of the highest administrative authority, are dishonest, mercenary, cruel people, indifferent to the fate of the country and people.
Gogol, a contemporary of Pushkin, created his works in the historical conditions that prevailed in our country after the unsuccessful performance of the Decembrists in 1825. Thanks to the new socio-political situation, the figures of literature and social thought faced tasks that were deeply reflected in the work of Nikolai Vasilyevich. Developing principles in his work, this author became one of the most significant representatives of this trend in Russian literature. According to Belinsky, it was Gogol who managed to look directly and boldly at Russian reality for the first time.
In this article we will describe the image of officials in the poem "Dead Souls".
The collective image of officials
In the notes of Nikolai Vasilievich, relating to the first volume of the novel, there is the following remark: "The dead insensibility of life." Such, according to the author, is the collective image of officials in the poem. It should be noted the difference in the image of them and the landowners. The landlords in the work are individualized, but the officials, on the contrary, are impersonal. One can only make a collective portrait of them, from which the postmaster, police chief, prosecutor and governor stand out slightly.
Names and surnames of officials
It should be noted that all the persons who make up the collective image of officials in the poem "Dead Souls" do not have surnames, and the names are often called in grotesque and comic contexts, sometimes duplicated (Ivan Antonovich, Ivan Andreevich). Of these, some come to the fore only for a short time, after which they disappear into the crowd of others. The subject of Gogol's satire was not positions and personalities, but social vices, the social environment, which is the main object of the image in the poem.
It should be noted the grotesque beginning in the image of Ivan Antonovich, his comic, rude nickname (Pitcher Snout), which simultaneously refers to the world of animals and inanimate things. The department is ironically characterized as a "temple of Themis". This place is important for Gogol. The department is often depicted in St. Petersburg novels, in which it appears as an anti-world, a kind of hell in miniature.
The most important episodes in the image of officials
The image of officials in the poem "Dead Souls" can be seen in the following episodes. This is primarily the governor's "house party" described in the first chapter; then - a ball at the governor's (eighth chapter), as well as breakfast at the police chief (tenth). On the whole, in chapters 7-10, bureaucracy as a psychological and social phenomenon comes to the fore.
Traditional motifs in the image of officials
You can find many traditional motifs characteristic of Russian satirical comedies in Nikolai Vasilyevich's "bureaucratic" plots. These techniques and motives go back to Griboyedov and Fonvizin. The officials of the provincial city are also very reminiscent of their "colleagues" from Abuse, arbitrariness, and inaction are characteristic of them. Bribery, servility, bureaucracy - a social evil, traditionally ridiculed. Suffice it to recall the story described in "The Overcoat" with a "significant person", the fear of the auditor and the desire to bribe him in the work of the same name and the bribe that is given to Ivan Antonovich in the 7th chapter of the poem "Dead Souls". Very characteristic are the images of the chief of police, the "philanthropist" and the "father", who visited the guest yard and shops, as if in his pantry; the chairman of the civil chamber, who not only exempted his friends from bribes, but also from having to pay paperwork fees; Ivan Antonovich, who did nothing without "gratitude".
Compositional construction of the poem
The poem itself is based on the adventures of an official (Chichikov), who buys up dead souls. This image is impersonal: the author practically does not talk about Chichikov himself.
The 1st volume of the work, according to Gogol's plan, shows various negative aspects of the life of Russia at that time - both bureaucratic and landlord. The entire provincial society is part of the "dead world".
The exposition is given in the first chapter, in which a portrait of one provincial town is drawn. Everywhere desolation, disorder, dirt, which emphasizes the indifference of local authorities to the needs of residents. Then, after Chichikov visited the landowners, chapters 7 to 10 describe a collective portrait of the bureaucracy of then Russia. In several episodes, various images of officials in the poem "Dead Souls" are given. By the chapters one can trace how the author characterizes this social class.
What do officials have in common with landlords?
However, the worst thing is that such officials are no exception. These are typical representatives of the bureaucracy system in Russia. Corruption and bureaucracy reign among them.
Registration of bill of sale
Together with Chichikov, who returned to the city, we are transported to the judicial chamber, where this hero will have to draw up a bill of sale (Chapter 7). The characterization of the images of officials in the poem "Dead Souls" is given in this episode in great detail. Ironically, Gogol uses a high symbol - a temple in which the "priests of Themis", impartial and incorruptible, serve. However, the desolation and filth in this "temple" is striking first of all. The “unattractive appearance” of Themis is explained by the fact that she receives visitors in a simple way, “in a dressing gown”.
However, this simplicity actually turns into a frank disregard for the laws. No one is going to do business, and the "priests of Themis" (officials) only care about how to take tribute from visitors, that is, bribes. And they are really good at it.
All around is running around with papers, fuss, but all this serves only one purpose - to confuse the petitioners so that they cannot do without help, kindly provided for a fee, of course. Chichikov, this swindler and connoisseur of behind-the-scenes affairs, nevertheless had to use her to get into the presence.
He gained access to the necessary person only after he openly offered a bribe to Ivan Antonovich. We understand how much a legalized phenomenon it has become in the life of the Russian bureaucracy, when the protagonist finally gets to the chairman of the chamber, who accepts him as his old acquaintance.
Conversation with the chairman
The heroes, after polite phrases, get down to business, and here the chairman says that his friends "should not pay". A bribe here, it turns out, is so obligatory that only close friends of officials can do without it.
Another noteworthy detail from the life of the city bureaucracy emerges in a conversation with the chairman. Very interesting in this episode is the analysis of the image of an official in the poem "Dead Souls". It turns out that even for such an unusual activity, which was described in the judicial chamber, not all representatives of this class consider it necessary to go to the service. As an "idle person" the prosecutor sits at home. All cases are decided for him by the solicitor, who in the work is called "the first grabber."
Governor's ball
In the scene described by Gogol on (Chapter 8), we see a review of dead souls. Gossip and balls become for people a form of miserable mental and social life. The image of officials in the poem "Dead Souls", a brief description of which we are compiling, can be supplemented in this episode with the following details. At the level of discussing fashionable styles and colors of material, officials have ideas about beauty, and solidity is determined by how a person ties a tie and blows his nose. There is not and cannot be here a real culture, morality, since the norms of behavior depend entirely on ideas about how it should be. That is why Chichikov was initially received so cordially: he knows how to respond sensitively to the requests of this public.
Such is the image of officials in the poem "Dead Souls" in brief. We did not describe the summary of the work itself. We hope you remember it. The characterization presented by us can be supplemented based on the content of the poem. The topic "The image of officials in the poem" Dead Souls "" is very interesting. Quotations from the work, which can be found in the text by referring to the chapters we have indicated, will help you complete this description.
1. The role of Pushkin in the creation of the poem.
2. Description of the city.
3. Officials of the provincial city NN.
It is known that A. S. Pushkin was highly valued by N. V. Gogol. Moreover, the writer often perceived the poet as an adviser or even a teacher. It is Pushkin who owes much to the lovers of Russian literature in the appearance of such immortal works of the writer as "The Inspector General" and "Dead Souls".
In the first case, the poet simply suggested a simple plot to the satirist, but in the second he made him seriously think about how an entire era can be represented in a small work. Alexander Sergeevich was sure that his younger friend would certainly cope with the task: “He always told me that not a single writer had this gift to expose the vulgarity of life so vividly, to outline the vulgarity of a vulgar person in such force that all that trifle, which eludes the eyes, would have flashed large in the eyes of everyone. As a result, the satirist managed not to disappoint the great poet. Gogol quickly determined the concept of his new work, Dead Souls, based on a fairly common type of fraud in the purchase of serfs. This action was already filled with more significant meaning, being one of the main characteristics of the entire social system of Russia during the reign of Nicholas.
The writer thought for a long time about what his work is. Pretty soon, he came to the conclusion that "Dead Souls" is an epic poem, since it "embraces not some features, but the entire era of time, among which the hero acted with the way of thinking, beliefs and even knowledge that humanity did at that time ". The concept of the poetic is not limited in the work only to lyricism and author's digressions. Nikolai Vasilyevich set his sights on more: on the volume and breadth of the idea as a whole, on its universality. The action of the poem takes place approximately in the middle of the reign of Alexander I, after the victory in the Patriotic War of 1812. That is, the writer returns to the events of twenty years ago, which gives the poem the status of a historical work.
Already on the first pages of the book, the reader gets acquainted with the main character - Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, who, on personal business, stopped by the provincial town of NN. nothing special, no different from other similar cities. The guest noticed that “yellow paint on stone houses was very striking and gray on wooden houses was modestly dark. The houses were one, two and one and a half stories high with an eternal mezzanine, very beautiful, according to provincial architects. In places, these houses seemed lost among the wide, field-like streets and endless wooden fences; in some places they crowded together, and here there was noticeably more movement of the people and liveliness. All the time emphasizing the mediocrity of this place and its similarity with many other provincial cities, the author hinted that the life of these settlements, for sure, also differed little. So, the city began to acquire a completely generalizing character. And now, in the imagination of readers, Chichikov no longer finds himself in a specific place, but in some collective image of the cities of the Nikolaev era: double-headed state eagles, which have now been replaced by a laconic inscription: "Drinking House". The pavement was bad everywhere.”
Even in the description of the city, the author emphasizes the hypocrisy and deceitfulness of the inhabitants of the city, or rather, its managers. So, Chichikov looks into the city garden, consisting of thin trees that have not taken root well, but the newspapers said that “our city was decorated, thanks to the care of the civil ruler, with a garden consisting of shady, broad-branched trees, giving coolness on a hot day.”
Governor of the city of NN. like Chichikov, he was "not fat or thin, had Anna around his neck, and it was even said that he was introduced to the star, however, he was a big good man and sometimes even embroidered on tulle." Pavel Ivanovich on the very first day of his stay in the city traveled with visits to all secular society, and everywhere he managed to find a common language with new acquaintances. Of course, Chichikov’s ability to flatter and the narrow-mindedness of local officials played no small role in this: “The governor will be somehow casually hinted that you enter his province like in paradise, the roads are velvet everywhere ... He said something very flattering about the city guards to the police chief ; and in conversations with the vice-governor and the chairman of the chamber, who were still only state councilors, he even said by mistake twice: "your excellency", which they liked very much. This was enough for everyone to recognize the newcomer as a completely pleasant and decent person and invite him to the governor's party, where the "cream" of the local society gathered.
The writer ironically compared the guests of this event with squadrons of flies that rush in the midst of July summer on white refined sugar. Chichikov did not lose face here either, but behaved in such a way that soon all officials and landowners recognized him as a decent and most pleasant person. Moreover, this opinion was dictated not by any good deeds of the guest, but solely by his ability to flatter everyone. Already this fact eloquently testified to the development and customs of the inhabitants of the city of NN. Describing the ball, the author divided the men into two categories: “... some are thin, who all hung around the ladies; some of them were of such a kind that it was difficult to distinguish them from Petersburg ... Another kind of men were fat or the same as Chichikov ... These, on the contrary, squinted and backed away from the ladies and looked only around .. They were honorary officials in the city.” Immediately, the writer concluded: "... thick people know how to do their business better in this world than thin ones."
Moreover, many representatives of high society were not without education. So, the chairman of the chamber recited V. A. Zhukovsky’s “Lyudmila” by heart, the police chief was a wit, others also read N. M. Karamzin, some “Moskovskie Vedomosti”. In other words, the good level of education of officials was questionable. However, this did not at all prevent them from managing the city, if necessary, jointly defending their interests. That is, a special class was formed in a class society. Allegedly freed from prejudice, officials perverted the laws in their own way. In the city of N.N. as in other similar cities, they enjoyed unlimited power. It was enough for the chief of police to blink, passing by the fish row, and food was brought to his house for preparing a sumptuous dinner. It was the customs and not too strict customs of this place that allowed Pavel Ivanovich to achieve his goals so quickly. Very soon the main character became the owner of four hundred dead souls. The landowners, without hesitation and caring for their own benefit, willingly ceded their goods to him, and at the lowest price: dead serfs were not needed in the economy.
Chichikov did not even need to make an effort to make deals with them. The officials also did not ignore the most pleasant guest and even offered him their help for the safe delivery of the peasants to the place. Pavel Ivanovich made only one serious miscalculation, which led to trouble, he outraged the local ladies with his indifference to their persons and increased attention to the young beauty. However, this does not change the opinion of local officials about the guest. Only when Nozdryov blabbed in front of the governor that a new person was trying to buy dead souls from him, did high society become thoughtful. But even here it was not common sense that ruled, but gossip that grew like a snowball. That is why Chichikov began to be credited with the kidnapping of the governor's daughter, and the organization of the peasants' revolt, and the manufacture of counterfeit coins. Only now officials have begun to feel such anxiety about Pavel Ivanovich that many of them have even lost weight.
As a result, society generally comes to an absurd conclusion: Chichikov is Napoleon in disguise. The inhabitants of the city wanted to arrest the main character, but they were very afraid of him. This dilemma led the prosecutor to his death. All these unrest unfold behind the back of the guest, because he is sick and does not leave the house for three days. And it never occurs to any of his new friends to just talk to Chichikov. Having learned about the current situation, the main character ordered to pack his things and left the city. As completely and vividly as possible, Gogol in his poem showed the vulgarity and meanness of the mores of the provincial cities of that time. Ignorant people in power in such places set the tone for the entire local society. Instead of managing the province well, they held balls and parties, solving their personal problems at public expense.
