The main work created by Gogol is Dead Souls. He wrote it for 17 long years, often rethinking and rewriting chapters, changing characters. Only over the first volume worked 6 years. The idea to write such a work was suggested to him by Pushkin. Alexander Sergeevich himself wanted to use this plot, but decided that Gogol would do it better. And so it happened.
The title of the poem reflects the process of selling dead serfs, as well as the truly “dead” souls of the soulless, immoral landowners who were engaged in such a sale in order to enrich themselves.
The main theme of the work is the immorality that reigned in Rus' in the 30s of the 19th century and the vices emanating from it. The author has covered this topic very broadly and deeply.
The plot of the work is that Chichikov travels around Russia in order to buy up "dead souls" in order to get rich on this later. This plot allowed the author to widely show the whole life of Russia from the inside, as it is.
The composition of the poem consists of 11 published chapters of the first volume and a few more surviving chapters of the second volume. These chapters are united by the image of the main character Chichikov. Gogol completed the second volume shortly before his death. But only a few chapters remained from him, which have come down to us. There are different opinions about where the manuscript went. Some literary scholars say that he burned it himself, while others say that he gave it to his acquaintances writers, who subsequently lost it. But we won't know for sure. He never wrote the third volume.
The first chapter introduces us to the main character Chichikov and the inhabitants of the city. Chapters 2-6 are devoted to landowners, a description of their way of life and way of life, their customs. Reading these chapters, we get acquainted with the portraits of landowners, which the author portrayed so subtly in a satirical way. But the next 4 chapters are devoted to the ugly way of life of officials. Bribery, tyranny and other vices characteristic of most officials flourish here.
The poem is written in the style of realism, although it also has romantic notes: a beautiful description of nature, philosophical reflections, lyrical digressions. So, at the end of the work, the author reflects on the future of Rus', on its strength and power.
Gogol, using the suggested idea, developed the plot. For him, the cases of "dead souls" were well known. He heard a lot about such scams, because in Russia of that time the purchase and sale of the dead, but according to official documents, registered serfs was a common thing. The population census was carried out every 10 years, and during these 10 years the dead serfs were given, sold, pawned in order to get rich.
At first, the author thought of writing his work as a satirical novel, but then he realized that it was impossible to fit into the novel everything that he wanted to write about, that is, the whole ins and outs of the life of Rus'. Gogol changes the genre of the work to a poem. He intended to write a poem in 3 volumes, in the likeness of Dante's poem. And although many literary critics call "Dead Souls" a novel, it is customary to call the work a poem, exactly as the author intended.
Option 2
N.V. Gogol is one of the unique and mysterious writers of the 19th century. The scale of his work has amazed readers for several centuries. The originality of the writer is manifested in all his works. The truth about the Russian reality of the nineteenth century is one of the leading themes of his creations.
One of the most brilliant works of N.V. Gogol's poem "Dead Souls" is considered. Seventeen years of work of the creator was not in vain. The subtle psychologist of human souls in the images of the heroes of his poem recreated the real history of that time. The title itself contains a deep philosophical meaning of what the writer intended. Dead souls - whether those dead people who were collected by the main character, or is it Chichikov himself with his entourage.
The plot is unusual and at the same time simple. The collegiate adviser Chichikov buys dead but still listed serfs from the landowners, dreaming of getting rich on this. Each party to the transaction benefits from this. One sells air, the other buys it. The author shrouded in mystery the origin of the protagonist, his age until the last 11 chapters, in which the secret of the adviser Chichikov is revealed. The writer intentionally in the development of the storyline does not focus on the past of the hero. For Gogol, he did not differ in anything remarkable, an “average” little man. Revealing the secret of Chichikov's birth, the writer wants to emphasize the mediocrity of his hero.
The theme prompted by the writer A.S. Pushkin is the reality of that time. Fraud, cynicism, the desire for profit by any means - exposes Gogol in his creation.
Compositionally, the poem consists of the first volume and several chapters of the second volume. Bright lyrical digressions complement the atmosphere of Russian life. Six portraits are painted before the reader's eyes by the word artist Gogol. In full color, Chichikov, Sobakevich, Manilov, Korobochka, Nozdrev, Plyushkin appear before the eyes. With undisguised humor, the writer describes his characters: tyranny, stupidity, prudence - their main character traits. 11 chapters of the poem reveals the whole inner essence of the society of that time. The literary genre of the work is amazing - a poem (as the author himself called it). But the absence of poetic rhyme, the structure would rather resemble a novel. Gogol called his creation a poem because of the large number of digressions of a lyrical nature, the philosophical reflections of the author. Until now, the monologue about the Russian troika, which traces the present and future of Russia, is admired.
The relevance of the work has not dried up to this day. Aren't there people now who want to get wealth out of nothing? And what about the Manilovs who dream but do nothing for this? Stupid and stingy Boxes? Undoubtedly there are, they are nearby and you just have to take a good look, you will meet Gogol's heroes in our days. This is where the immortality of N.V. Gogol's creation called "Dead Souls" is manifested.
Dead Soul Analysis
The poem “Dead Souls” is one of the most significant works of N.V. Gogol. The author spent 17 years writing it. Initially, the work was conceived as a comic, but the further the development of the storyline progressed, the more logical the transition to realism seemed. After its publication, the poem became the subject of general controversy and raised a commotion in the literary community. Throughout the work, the theme of the present and future of Russia is traced, which was very exciting for the author himself. It is transmitted in Chichikov's relationship with the same charlatans and swindlers.
Gogol loved his country and his people very much. He described ordinary Russian people who would lead Russia into a brighter future. But the question of estates that are becoming obsolete, their souls are rotten and degraded, also remains open. Hence the name of the poem, which, in addition to its direct meaning, also has a figurative one. Dead souls are peasants who have departed to another world, but continue to be listed behind the estate. Gogol also calls nobles and landlords “dead souls”, who hinder the development of the country, have no interests and live out their lives, morally decaying. Such were Manilov, Korobochka, Sobakevich, Plyushkin and others. We begin to get acquainted with these characters from the second chapter, when the collegiate councilor Chichikov leaves the city of NN and begins his journey through the nearby villages. There he meets the landowners, who are the collective images of the nobility of Gogol's time.
Each chapter is dedicated to a separate master. The chapters are structured logically and sequentially, as if each of them is a separate story. Those that describe the landlords have a similar composition, which allows you to visually compare the images. Despite the logically built sequence, the author uses alogisms and absurdity to convey the characters' characters. Also in the poem there are lyrical digressions and short stories that do not relate to the main plot, but help to more fully understand the idea of the whole work.
The work itself is more like a story or a novel, but Gogol calls it an epic poem. It has a ring composition, but it has a certain originality. Thus, the last 11 chapter can be an informal beginning of the work and also its formal end. The action in the poem begins with Chichikov's entry into the city of NN and ends when he leaves the city.
In his poem, Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol wanted to show Russia from at least one of its sides, even if not from the most beautiful. He tried to ridicule all the vices of public life, hoping that Russia would continue to prosper and a bright future awaited her, in which there was no place for “dead souls”.
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Korobochka Nastasya Petrovna - a widow-landowner, the second "seller" of dead souls to Chichikov. The main feature of her character is trading efficiency. Each person for K. is only a potential buyer.
K.'s inner world reflects her economy. Everything in it is neat and strong: both the house and the yard. It's just that there are a lot of flies everywhere. This detail personifies the frozen, stopped world of the heroine. The hissing clock and the "outdated" portraits on the walls in K.
But such a "fading" is still better than the complete timelessness of Manilov's world. K. at least has a past (husband and everything connected with him). K. has a character: she begins to bargain furiously with Chichikov until she extracts a promise from him, in addition to souls, to buy much more. It is noteworthy that K. remembers all his dead peasants by heart. But K. is dumb: later she will come to the city to find out the price of dead souls, and thereby expose Chichikov. Even the location of the village of K. (away from the main road, away from real life) indicates the impossibility of its correction and revival. In this she is similar to Manilov and occupies one of the lowest places in the "hierarchy" of the heroes of the poem.
Manilov is a sentimental landowner, the first "seller" of dead souls.
Gogol emphasizes the emptiness and insignificance of the hero, covered with a sugary pleasantness of appearance, details of the furnishings of his estate. M.'s house is open to all winds, thin birch tops are visible everywhere, the pond is completely overgrown with duckweed. But the arbor in the garden of M. is pompously named "The Temple of Solitary Reflection." M.'s office is covered with "blue paint like gray", which indicates the lifelessness of the hero, from whom you will not expect a single living word. Clinging to any topic, M.'s thoughts float away into abstract reflections. To think about real life, and even more so to make any decisions, this hero is not capable. Everything in M.'s life: action, time, meaning - are replaced by exquisite verbal formulas. As soon as Chichikov put his strange request for the sale of dead souls in beautiful words, M. immediately calmed down and agreed. Although earlier this proposal seemed wild to him. The world of M. is the world of a false idyll, the path to death. Not without reason, even Chichikov's path to the lost Manilovka is depicted as a road to nowhere. There is nothing negative in M., but there is nothing positive either. He is empty space, nothing. Therefore, this hero cannot count on transfiguration and rebirth: there is nothing to be reborn in him. And therefore M., along with Korobochka, occupies one of the lowest places in the "hierarchy" of the heroes of the poem.
Nozdryov is the third landowner from whom Chichikov is trying to buy dead souls. This is a dashing 35-year-old "talker, reveler, reckless driver." N. constantly lies, bullies everyone indiscriminately; he is very reckless, ready to "shit" his best friend without any purpose. All of N.'s behavior is explained by his dominant quality: "briskness and liveliness of character", i.e. recklessness, bordering on unconsciousness. N. does not think or plan anything; he just doesn't know how to do anything. On the way to Sobakevich, in a tavern, N. intercepts Chichikov and takes him to his estate. There he quarrels to death with Chichikov: he does not agree to play cards for dead souls, and also does not want to buy a stallion of "Arab blood" and get souls in addition. The next morning, forgetting about all the insults, N. persuades Chichikov to play checkers with him for dead souls. Convicted of cheating, N. orders Chichikov to be beaten, and only the appearance of the police captain reassures him. It is N. who will almost destroy Chichikov. Faced with him at the ball, N. shouts out loud: "He trades in dead souls!", which gives rise to a lot of the most incredible rumors. When the officials call on N. to figure everything out, the hero confirms all the rumors at once, not embarrassed by their inconsistency. Later, he comes to Chichikov and talks about all these rumors himself. Instantly forgetting about the offense inflicted on him, he sincerely offers to help Chichikov take away the governor's daughter. The home environment fully reflects the chaotic character of N. At home, everything is stupid: there are goats in the middle of the dining room, there are no books and papers in the office, etc. We can say that N.'s boundless lies are the flip side of Russian prowess, which N. endowed in abundance. N. is not completely empty, it's just that his unbridled energy does not find proper use for himself. With N. in the poem, a series of heroes begins who have retained something alive in themselves. Therefore, in the "hierarchy" of heroes, he occupies a relatively high - third - place.
Plyushkin Stepan is the last "seller" of dead souls. This hero personifies the complete necrosis of the human soul. In the image of P., the author shows the death of a bright and strong personality, absorbed by the passion of stinginess.
The description of P.'s estate ("does not get rich in God") depicts the desolation and "littering" of the hero's soul. The entrance is dilapidated, everywhere there is a special dilapidation, the roofs are like a sieve, the windows are plugged with rags. Everything here is lifeless - even two churches, which should be the soul of the estate.
P.'s estate seems to fall apart into details and fragments; even a house - in some places on one floor, in some places on two. This speaks of the disintegration of the consciousness of the owner, who forgot about the main thing and focused on the third. For a long time he no longer knows what is happening in his household, but he strictly monitors the level of liquor in his decanter.
The portrait of P. (either a woman or a man; a long chin covered with a handkerchief so as not to spit; small eyes that are not yet extinct, running around like mice; a greasy dressing gown; a rag around his neck instead of a scarf) speaks of the hero’s complete “falling out” of image of a rich landowner and from life in general.
P. is the only one of all the landowners, a fairly detailed biography. Before the death of his wife, P. was a diligent and wealthy owner. He raised his children with care. But with the death of his beloved wife, something broke in him: he became more suspicious and meaner. After troubles with the children (the son lost at cards, the eldest daughter ran away, and the youngest died), P.'s soul finally hardened - "the wolf hunger of stinginess took possession of him." But, oddly enough, greed did not take possession of the heart of the hero to the last limit. Having sold dead souls to Chichikov, P. wonders who could help him draw up a bill of sale in the city. He remembers that the Chairman was his school friend. This memory suddenly revives the hero: "... on this wooden face ... expressed ... a pale reflection of feeling." But this is only a momentary glimpse of life, although the author believes that P. is capable of rebirth. At the end of the chapter on P. Gogol, he describes a twilight landscape in which the shadow and the light are "completely mixed" - as in the unfortunate soul of P.
Sobakevich Mikhailo Semenych - landowner, the fourth "seller" of dead souls. The very name and appearance of this hero (reminiscent of a “medium-sized bear”, the tailcoat on him is “completely bearish” in color, steps at random, his complexion is “hot, hot”) indicate his power of his nature.
From the very beginning, the image of S. is associated with the theme of money, housekeeping, and calculation (at the time of entering the village, S. Chichikov dreams of a 200,000-strong dowry). Talking with Chichikov S., not paying attention to Chichikov's evasiveness, he busily moves on to the essence of the question: "Do you need dead souls?" The main thing for S. is the price, everything else does not interest him. With knowledge of the matter, S. bargains, praises his goods (all souls are “like a vigorous nut”) and even manages to cheat Chichikov (slips him a “female soul” - Elizaveta Sparrow). The mental image of S. is reflected in everything that surrounds him. In his house, all "useless" architectural beauties are removed. Huts of peasants were also built without any decorations. In S.'s house, there are paintings on the walls depicting exclusively Greek heroes who look like the owner of the house. The dark-colored speckled thrush and the pot-bellied nut bureau (“perfect bear”) are similar to S. In turn, the hero himself also looks like an object - his legs are like cast-iron pedestals. S. is a type of Russian fist, a strong, prudent owner. Its peasants live well, reliably. The fact that S.'s natural power and efficiency turned into dull inertia is more likely not the fault, but the hero's misfortune. S. lives exclusively in modern times, in the 1820s. From the height of his power, S. sees how the life surrounding him has been crushed. During the bargain, he remarks: “... what kind of people are these? flies, not people”, much worse than the dead. S. occupies one of the highest places in the spiritual "hierarchy" of heroes, because, according to the author, he has many chances for rebirth. By nature, he is endowed with many good qualities, he has a rich potential and a powerful nature. Their realization will be shown in the second volume of the poem - in the image of the landowner Costanjoglo.
Chichikov Pavel Ivanovich is the main character of the poem. He, according to the author, has changed his true purpose, but is still able to purify himself and resurrect his soul.
In the "acquirer" Ch., the author portrayed a new evil for Russia - quiet, average, but enterprising. The averageness of the hero is emphasized by his appearance: he is a “master of the middle hand”, not too fat, not too thin, etc. Ch. is quiet and inconspicuous, round and smooth. Ch.'s soul is like his box - there is a place only for money (following the father's precept "save a penny"). He avoids talking about himself, hiding behind empty book turns. But Ch.'s insignificance is deceptive. It is he and others like him who begin to rule the world. Gogol speaks of such people as Ch.: "terrible and vile force". Vile, because he cares only about his own profit and profit, using all means. It's scary because it's very strong. "Acquirers", according to Gogol, are not able to revive the Fatherland. In the poem, Ch. travels around Russia and stops in the city of NN. There he meets all the important people, and then goes to the estates of the landlords Manilov and Sobakevich, on the way he also gets to Korobochka, Nozdrev and Plyushkin. Ch. sells dead souls among all of them, without explaining the purpose of his purchases. In bargaining, Ch. manifests himself as a great connoisseur of the human soul and as a good psychologist. He finds his own approach to each landowner and almost always achieves his goal. Having bought up the souls, Ch. returns to the city to draw up bills of sale for them. Here, for the first time, he announces that he intends to “take out” the souls he has bought to new lands, to the Kherson province. Gradually, in the city, the name of the hero begins to acquire rumors, at first very flattering for him, and later disastrous (that Ch is a counterfeiter, a fugitive Napoleon and almost the Antichrist). These rumors force the hero to leave the city. Ch. endowed with the most detailed biography. This suggests that there is still a lot of life left in him and that he is able to be reborn (in the second volume of the poem, as Gogol planned)
Chichikov Pavel Ivanovich is a new type of adventurer-acquirer for Russian literature, the protagonist of the poem, who has fallen, betrayed his true destiny, but is able to cleanse himself and resurrect his soul. Many things point to this possibility, including the name of the hero. St. Paul is an apostle who, until his instant, "sudden" repentance and transformation, was one of the most terrible persecutors of Christians. The appeal of St. Pavel happened on the way to Damascus, and the fact that Chichikov is inseparably linked by plot circumstances with the image of the road, the path, is also not accidental. This perspective of moral rebirth sharply distinguishes Ch. from his literary predecessors, the heroes and anti-heroes of European and Russian picaresque novels, from Gilles-Blaise Lesage to Frol Skobeev, Russian Zhilblaz, V. T. Narezhny, and Ivan Vyzhigin, F. V. Bulgarin. It also unexpectedly brings the “negative” Ch. closer to the heroes of sentimental journeys and, in general, to the central figures of the travel novel (beginning with Cervantes' Don Quixote).
The cart of the collegiate adviser Pavel Ivanovich Ch., following his own needs, stops in the city of NN, which is located a little closer to Moscow than to Kazan (that is, in the very heart of Central Russia). After spending two weeks in the city (Chapter 1) and getting to know all the important people, Ch. went to the estates of the local landowners Manilov and Sobakevich - at their invitation. The moment of the plot of the novel is delayed all the time, although some of Ch.'s "peculiarities of behavior" should alert the reader from the very beginning. In the visitor's inquiries about the state of affairs in the province, one senses something more than mere curiosity; when meeting the next landowner, Ch. is first interested in the number of souls, then the position of the estate, and only after that - the name of the interlocutor.
Only at the very end of the 2nd chapter, having strayed almost the whole day in search of Manilovka-Zamanilovka, and then talking with the sweet landowner and his wife, Ch. “opens the cards”, offering to buy from Manilov the dead souls of peasants who are listed as alive according to the audit . Why he needs it, Ch. does not say; but in itself the anecdotal situation of "purchasing" dead souls for their subsequent pledge to the board of trustees - to which Pushkin drew Gogol's attention - was not exceptional.
Having lost his way on his way back from Manilov, Ch. ends up in the estate of the widow-landowner Korobochka (ch. 3); having bargained with her, the next morning he goes further and meets a violent Nozdryov in a tavern, who lures Ch. to him (ch. 4). Here, however, business is not going well; after agreeing to play checkers with the crooked Nozdryov for dead souls, Ch. can barely run away. On the way to Sobakevich (chapter 5), Ch.'s britzka hitches a wagon in which a 16-year-old girl with golden hair and an oval face, tender as an egg in the sun, in the swarthy hands of the housekeeper, rides. While the peasants - Andryushka and Uncle Mityai and Uncle Minyay - are unraveling the carriages, Ch., despite all the prudent coolness of his character, dreams of sublime love; however, in the end, his thoughts switch to his favorite topic of 200,000 dowry, and under the impression of these thoughts, Ch. enters the village of Sobakevich. In the end, having acquired the desired “goods” here too, Ch. goes to the stingy landowner Plyushkin, whose people are dying like flies. (He learns about the existence of Plyushkin from Sobakevich.)
Having immediately understood with whom he was dealing, Ch. (ch. 6) assures Plyushkin that he only wants to take on his tax expenses; having acquired here 120 dead souls and adding to them a few fugitive ones, he returns to the city to draw up papers for the purchased peasants.
In chapter 7, he visits a large 3-storey government building, white as chalk ("to depict the purity of the souls of the posts located in it"). The moral description of bureaucracy (Ivan Antonovich Kuvshinnoye Rylo is especially colorful) also closes on the image of Ch. Here he meets Sobakevich, who is sitting at the chairman; Sobakevich almost blurted out, inappropriately mentioning the carriage maker Mikheev sold by Ch., whom the chairman knew. Nevertheless, the hero gets away with everything; in this scene, he announces for the first time that he intends to "take out" the souls he has bought to new lands in the Kherson province.
Everyone goes to a feast to police chief Alexei Ivanovich, who takes more bribes than his predecessors, but is loved by merchants for affectionate treatment and nepotism, and therefore is revered as a "miracle worker". After olive-colored vodka, the chairman expresses a playful idea about the need to marry Ch., and he, having become emotional, reads Werther's message to Charlotte to Sobakevich. (This humorous episode will soon receive an important plot development.) In chapter 8, the name of Ch. for the first time begins to acquire rumors - so far extremely positive and flattering for him. (Through the absurdity of these rumors, Gogol's vast plan of the three-volume poem "Dead Souls" is unexpectedly drawn as a "small epic", a religious and moralistic epic. Residents of the city of NN are discussing the purchase of Ch. new land, they can suddenly become excellent subjects. That is exactly what Gogol intended to do in volumes 2 and 3 with the souls of some of the "scoundrels" of volume 1. With Ch. - first of all.) However, too high allusions are immediately grounded; rumors about Ch. the millionaire make him unusually copular in ladies' society; he even receives an unsigned letter from an aging lady: "No, I shouldn't write to you!"
The scene of the provincial ball (ch. 8) is the climax; after it, events, having taken a new turn, are moving towards a denouement. Ch., admiring the beauty of the 16-year-old governor's daughter, is not kind enough to the ladies who form a "shining garland." Resentment is not forgiven; The ladies who had just found in the person of C. something even Mars and military (this comparison would later be echoed in the postmaster’s remark that Napoleon did not differ from C. in the warehouse of his figure) are now ready in advance for his transformation into a “villain”. And when the unrestrained Nozdryov shouts across the hall: “What? did you trade a lot for the dead?” - this, despite Nozdryov's dubious reputation as a liar, decides the "fate" of Ch. Especially since Korobochka arrives in the city that very night and tries to find out if she has not sold cheap with dead souls.
In the morning, the rumors take on an entirely new direction. Before the time accepted in the city of NN for visits, "a simply pleasant lady" (Sofya Ivanovna) comes to "a lady pleasant in all respects" (Anna Grigoryevna); after squabbling over the pattern, the ladies come to the conclusion that Ch. is someone like “Rinald Rinaldina”, a robber from the novel by X. Volpius, and his ultimate goal is to take away the governor’s daughter with the assistance of Nozdryov.
Ch. before the eyes of the reader from the "real" character of the novel turns into the hero of fantastic rumors. To enhance the effect of replacing the hero with a provincial legend about him, Gogol "sends" a three-day cold on Ch., taking him out of the sphere of plot action. Now on the pages of the novel, instead of Ch., his double, a character of rumors, acts. In chapter 10, the rumors come to a head; first comparing Ch. with a rich Jew, then identifying him with a counterfeiter, the inhabitants (and especially officials) gradually turn Ch. into fugitive Napoleons and almost into Antichrists.
Ch. recovers and, once again taking over his place in the plot and pushing his “double” out of the novel, he will not understand why from now on he is not ordered to be received in the houses of officials, until Nozdryov, who came to his hotel without an invitation, explains, what's the matter. It was decided to leave the city early in the morning. However, having overslept, Ch. also has to wait until the "robber smiths" shoe the horses (ch. 11). And therefore, at the time of departure, he encounters a funeral procession. The prosecutor, unable to withstand the tension of the rumors, died - and then everyone learned that the deceased had not only thick eyebrows and a blinking eye, but also a soul.
While Ch., driven by the coachman Selifan and accompanied by the servant Petrushka, from whom the smell of “living peace” always emanates, is traveling into the unknown, the whole “sour-unpleasant” life of the hero unfolds before the reader. Born into a noble (pillar or personal nobility were Ch.'s parents - unknown) family, from a pigalic mother and from a father - a gloomy loser, he retained one memory from childhood - a window “covered with snow”, one feeling - the pain of a piece of cake twisted by his father's fingers ear. Brought to the city on a badass piebald horse by a hunchback coachman, Ch. is shocked by the splendor of the city (almost like Captain Kopeikin by Petersburg). Before parting, the father gives his son the main advice, which has sunk into the soul: “save a penny”, and a few additional ones: please your elders, do not hang out with your comrades.
Ch's entire school life is transformed into continuous accumulation. He sells treats to his comrades, he sews a bullfinch made of wax into bags of 5 rubles each. The teacher, who values obedience most of all, singles out the meek Ch.; he receives a certificate and a book with gold letters, but when later the old teacher is expelled from school and he gets drunk, Ch. will donate only 5 kopecks of silver to help him. Not out of stinginess, but out of indifference and following the father's "covenant".
By that time, the father will die (he did not accumulate, contrary to advice, a “penny”); having sold the dilapidated little house for 1,000 rubles, Ch. would move to the city and begin his official career in the Treasury. Diligence does not help; the marble face of the chief with frequent rowans and potholes is a symbol of callousness. But, having wooed his ugly daughter, Ch. enters into confidence; having received a “gift” from the future father-in-law - a promotion, he immediately forgets about the appointed wedding (“cheated, blew, damn son!”).
Having made money on commissions for the construction of some very capital structure, Ch. loses everything because of the prosecution of bribery that has begun. We have to make a "new quarry" at the customs. For a long time refraining from bribery, Ch. acquires a reputation as an incorruptible official and submits to his superiors a project to capture all smugglers. Having received authority, he enters into an agreement with smugglers and enriches himself with the help of a cunning plan. But again, failure - a secret denunciation of the "accomplice".
Having escaped trial with great difficulty, Ch. for the third time begins his career from scratch in the despicable position of a barrister. It is then that it dawns on him that it is possible to pledge dead souls to the board of trustees as living ones; the village of Pavlovsky in the Kherson province looms before his mind's eye, and Ch. gets down to business.
So the end of the 1st volume of the poem brings the reader back to the very beginning; the last ring of Russian hell closes. But, according to the compositional logic of "Dead Souls", the lower point is aligned with the upper one, the limit of falling is with the beginning of the revival of the personality. The image of Ch. is at the peak of the inverted pyramid of the novel composition; the prospect of the 2nd and 3rd volumes promised him a "purgatory" of Siberian exile - and a complete moral resurrection in the end.
Reflections of this glorious plot future of Ch. are already noticeable in the 1st volume. The point is not only that the author, as if justifying himself to the reader, for which he chose a “scoundrel” as a hero, nevertheless pays tribute to the irresistible strength of his character. The final parable about the "useless", worthless Russian people - the domestic philosopher Kif Mokievich, who devotes his life to solving the question, why is the beast born naked? why doesn't the egg hatch? and about Mokiya Kifovich, a bogatyr-priperten, who does not know where to put his strength, sharply sets off the image of Ch. - the owner, the "acquirer", in whom the energy is still purposeful. Much more important is that Ch., who is ready every minute to think about the “strong woman”, vigorous as a turnip; about 200 thousand dowry - while actually reaching out to young, unspoiled college girls, as if seeing in them his own lost purity of soul and freshness. In the same way, from time to time, the author seems to “forget” about the insignificance of Ch. and surrenders to the power of the lyrical elements, turning the dusty road into a symbol of the all-Russian path to the Khramina, and indirectly likening the britzka to the fiery chariot of the immortal prophet Elijah: “The mighty space surrounds me menacingly Wu! what a sparkling, wonderful, unfamiliar distance to the earth! Rus!.."
Nevertheless, in the "acquirer" of Ch., a new evil is revealed, imperceptibly invading the borders of Russia and the whole world - a quiet, average, "enterprising" evil, and the more terrible, the less impressive. Chichikov's "averageness" is emphasized from the very beginning - in the description of his appearance. Before the reader - "Mr. average hand", not too fat, not too thin, not too old, not too young. Ch.'s bright suit is made of lingonberry-colored fabric with a spark; his nose is loud, rattling his pipe when he blows his nose; his appetite is remarkable, allowing him to eat a whole pig with horseradish and sour cream in a road tavern. Ch. himself is quiet and inconspicuous, round and smooth, like his cheeks, always shaved to a satin state; Ch.'s soul is similar to his famous box (in the very middle there is a soap dish: 6-7 narrow partitions for razors, square nooks for a sandbox and an inkwell; the most important, hidden drawer of this box is intended for denes):
When officials, after the story told by the postmaster about Captain Kopeikin, agree to compare Ch. with the Antichrist, they involuntarily guess the truth. The "new Antichrist" of the bourgeois world will be like this - inconspicuously affectionate, insinuating, accurate; the role of the "prince of this world" is taken over by the "insignificant worm of this world." This "worm" is capable of eating away the very core of Russian life, so that it itself will not notice how it rots. Hope - for the correctability of human nature. It is no coincidence that the images of most of the heroes of "Dead Souls" (Ch. - in the first place) are created on the principle of an "inside-out glove"; their initially positive qualities were reborn into a self-sustaining passion; sometimes - as in the case of Ch. - a criminal passion. But if you cope with passion, return it to its former boundaries, direct it for the good, the image of the hero himself will completely change, the “glove” will turn inside out to the front side.
Among the variety of interesting characters, an amazing character stands out - Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov. The image of Chichikov is unifying and collective, it combines different qualities of landowners. We learn about the origin and formation of his character from the eleventh chapter of the poem. Pavel Ivanovich belonged to a poor noble family. Chichikov's father left him a legacy of half a copper and a covenant to study diligently, to please teachers and bosses, and, most importantly, to save and save a penny. In the will, the father did not say anything about honor, duty and dignity. Chichikov quickly realized that high concepts only hinder the achievement of his cherished goal. Therefore, Pavlusha makes his way in life by his own efforts. At the school, he tried to be a model of obedience, courtesy and respect, was distinguished by exemplary behavior, and evoked commendable reviews from teachers. After graduating, he enters the state chamber, where he pleases the boss with all his might and even takes care of his daughter. Finding yourself in any new environment, in a new environment,
he immediately becomes "his man." He comprehended the "great secret of liking", with each of the characters he speaks his language, discusses topics close to the interlocutor. The soul is still alive in this hero, but every time, drowning out the pangs of conscience, doing everything for his own benefit and building happiness on the misfortunes of other people ", he kills her. Insult, deceit, bribery, embezzlement, fraud at customs are Chichikov's tools. The hero sees the meaning of life only in acquisition, hoarding. But for Chichikov, money is a means, not an end: he wants well-being, a decent life for himself and his children. Chichikov's strength of character and purposefulness distinguishes him from the rest of the characters in the poem. Having set himself a certain task, he does not stop at nothing, he shows perseverance, perseverance and incredible ingenuity to achieve it.
He is not like the crowd, he is active, active and enterprising. Chichikov is alien to the daydreaming of Manilov and the innocence of Korobochka. He is not greedy, like Plyushkin, but he is not prone to reckless revelry, like Nozdryov. His enterprise is not like the rough businesslike Sobakevich. All this speaks of his clear superiority.
A characteristic feature of Chichikov is the incredible versatility of his nature. Gogol emphasizes that it is not easy to unravel people like Chichikov. Appearing in the provincial town under the guise of a landowner, Chichikov very quickly wins universal sympathy. He knows how to show himself as a man of the world, comprehensively developed and decent. He can carry on any conversation and at the same time speaks "neither loudly nor quietly, but exactly as it should." To each person in which Chichikov is interested, he knows how to find his own special approach. Exhibiting his benevolence towards people, he is only interested in taking advantage of their location. Chichikov very easily "reincarnates", changes his behavior, but never don't forget your goals.
In a conversation with Manilov, he looks almost exactly like Manilov himself: he is just as courteous and sensitive. Chichikov knows perfectly well how to make a strong impression on Manilov, and therefore does not skimp on all sorts of spiritual outpourings. However, when talking with Korobochka, Chichikov does not show any particular gallantry or softness of mind. He quickly guesses the essence of her character and therefore behaves cheekily and unceremoniously. You can’t get through the box with delicacy, and Chichikov, after long attempts to reason with her, “went completely beyond the boundaries of any patience, grabbed the floor in his heart with a chair and promised her the devil.” When meeting with Nozdryov, Chichikov flexibly adapts to his unbridled demeanor. ”Relationships, talking to Chichikov on“ you ”, and he behaves as if they are old bosom buddies. When Nozdryov boasts, Chichikov keeps quiet, as if he does not doubt the veracity of what he heard.
Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov
Chichikov is the main character of the poem, he is found in all chapters. It was he who came up with the idea of the scam with dead souls, it was he who travels around Russia, meeting with a variety of characters and getting into a variety of situations.
The characterization of Chichikov is given by the author in the first chapter. His portrait is given very vaguely: “not handsome, but not bad-looking, neither too fat nor too thin; one cannot say that he is old, but it is not so that he is too young either. Gogol pays more attention to his manners: he made an excellent impression on all the guests at the governor's party, showed himself to be an experienced socialite, keeping up the conversation on a variety of topics, skillfully flattered the governor, police chief, officials and made the most flattering opinion about himself. Gogol himself tells us that he did not take a “virtuous person” as a hero, he immediately stipulates that his hero is a scoundrel.
"Dark and modest is the origin of our hero." The author tells us that his parents were nobles, but pillar or personal - God knows. Chichikov's face did not resemble his parents. As a child, he had no friend or comrade. His father was ill, and the windows of the little “gorenkoka” did not open either in winter or summer. Gogol says about Chichikov: “At the beginning, life looked at him somehow sourly and uncomfortably, through some kind of muddy, snow-covered window ...”
“But in life everything changes quickly and vividly…” Father brought Pavel to the city and instructed him to go to classes. Of the money that his father gave him, he did not spend a penny, but rather made an increment to them. He learned to speculate from childhood. After leaving the school, he immediately set to work and service. With the help of speculation, he was able to get a promotion from the boss. After the arrival of a new boss, Chichikov moved to another city and began to serve at the customs, which was his dream. “From the instructions he got, by the way, one thing: to petition for the placement of several hundred peasants in the board of trustees.” And then the idea came to his mind to turn one little business, which is discussed in the poem.
CHICHIKOV - the hero of N.V. Gogol's poem "Dead Souls" (first volume 1842, under the census title "The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls"; second, volume 1842-1845). In accordance with his leading artistic principle - to expand the image from the name - Gogol gives Ch. a surname formed by simply repeating an indistinct sound combination (chichi), which does not carry any distinct semantic load. The surname, thus, corresponds to the general dominant of the image of Ch., the essence of which is fictitiousness (A. Bely), imaginary, conformism: “not handsome, but not bad-looking, neither too fat nor too thin, one cannot say that he is old, but not so young either.” In the portrait of Ch., both positive and negative beginnings are equally discarded, all any significant external and internal personality traits are rejected, reduced to zero, leveled. The name and patronymic of Ch. - Pavel Ivanovich, - round and euphonious, but not eccentric, also emphasizes Ch. does not allow himself an indecent word”, “in receptions ... something solid”), adhering to the principle of the “golden mean”. The features of ceremonial delicacy and rough physiology are comically intertwined in Ch. »; on the other hand, he “rubbed his cheeks with soap for a long time, propping them up with his tongue”, “blew his nose extremely loudly”, “his nose sounded like a pipe”, “plucked out two hairs from his nose”. In Ch. Gogol metonymically highlights the nose (compare with Major Kovalev, whose nose was missing): "he stuck his nose forward." Ch.'s nose is “thunderous” (A. Bely), compared with a “rogue-pipe”, quacking too loudly in the orchestra, thereby Gogol introduces an ironic dissonance into the harmonic roundness of Ch.'s face (“full face”, “like a muzzle and a cashmere ”, “Snow-white cheek”), emphasizing the irrepressible energy of the acquirer (“nose in the wind”), to whom fate generously gives clicks on the nose, which is too long. The image of Ch. is multifunctional. Ch. is the center of the so-called "mirage intrigue" (Yu. Mann). Like the knight-errant of a medieval novel or the vagabond of a picaresque novel, Ch. is in constant motion, on the road, he is comparable to Homer's Odysseus. True, unlike a knight who dedicates heroic deeds to the Beautiful Lady, Ch. is a “knight of a penny”, for the sake of the latter, in essence, Ch. and performs his "feats". Ch.'s biography (ch. 11) is a series of preliminary deeds to the main feat of life - buying up dead souls. Ch. seeks to increase a penny out of nothing, so to speak, "out of thin air." While still a schoolboy, Ch. put into circulation half a ruble left to him by his father: “he blinded a bullfinch from wax”, painted it and sold it profitably; resold to hungry classmates a bun or gingerbread, bought ahead of time in the market; I trained a mouse for two months and also sold it profitably. Ch. turned half a tin into five rubles and sewed it into a bag (cf. Korobochka). In the service of Ch. is included in the commission for the construction of a "state-owned very capital structure", which is not built for six years above the foundation. Meanwhile, Ch. is building a house, getting a cook, a couple of horses, buying Dutch shirts, soaps "to make the skin smooth." Caught in fraud, Ch. suffers a fiasco, loses money and well-being, but seems to be reborn from the ashes, becomes a customs official, receives a bribe of half a million from smugglers. A secret denunciation by a partner almost brings Ch. to a criminal court; only with the help of bribes does Ch. manage to escape punishment. Having begun to buy serfs from the landlords, who are listed as living in the “revision tales”, Ch. intends to pledge them to the Board of Trustees and break the jackpot on “fufu”, as he puts it. The "mirage intrigue" begins to develop as a result of the unheard-of, risky, and ambiguous deal offered by Ch. to the landlords. The scandal that erupted around dead souls, started at the ball at the governor's Nozdrev and reinforced by a frightened Korobochka, develops into a grandiose mystery of the fantastic Russian reality of the Nikolaev time and, more broadly, corresponds to the spirit of the Russian national character, as well as the essence of the historical process, as Gogol understands them, linking and others with incomprehensible and formidable Providence. (Compare Gogol’s words: “Gossip is woven by the devil, not by a person. A person, out of idleness or stupidity, will blurt out a word without meaning; the word will go for a walk and little by little the story will be woven by itself, without the knowledge of everyone. The real author of it is crazy and it’s a lie to look for everything in the world. , everything seems to us not what it really is. It is difficult, difficult to live for us, forgetting every minute that our actions will be audited by the One Whom you can’t bribe with anything.”) Further, Ch. Rinaldo Rinaldini, "armed from head to toe" and extorting dead souls from Korobochka, so that "the whole village has come running, the children are crying, everyone is screaming, no one understands anyone." “The lady is pleasant in all respects” decides that Ch. is buying up dead souls in order to kidnap the governor’s daughter, and Nozdryov is Ch.’s partner, after which “both ladies went each in their own direction to rebel the city.” There were two hostile parties: male and female. The woman claimed that Ch. "decided to kidnap" because he was married and his wife had written a letter to the governor. The men's took Ch. at the same time for the auditor, for Napoleon in disguise, who had fled from the island of St. Helena, for the legless captain Kopeikin, who became the chieftain of a gang of robbers. The inspector of the medical board imagined that the dead souls were patients who died of a fever due to his negligence; the chairman of the civil chamber was frightened that he had become Plyushkin's attorney in decorating the fortress for "dead souls"; officials recalled how recently the Solvychegodsk merchants, having gone on a spree, “departed to death” of the Ustsysol merchants, gave a bribe to the court, after which the court issued a verdict that the Ustsysol merchants “died of intoxication”; in addition, the state peasants killed Drobyazhkin, an assessor of the Zemstvo police, because he "was de lascivious as a cat." The governor immediately received two official papers on the search for a counterfeiter and a robber, both could be Ch. As a result of all these rumors, the prosecutor died. In the 2nd volume, Ch. correlates with the Antichrist, Russia is shaken even more, the word that is launched causes unrest among schismatics (“the Antichrist was born, who does not give rest to the dead, buying up some dead souls. They repented and sinned and, under the guise of catching the Antichrist, killed the non-antichrists”), as well as the riots of the peasants against the landlords and police captains, for “some vagabonds let rumors pass between them that the time is coming that the peasants should be landowners and dress up in tailcoats, and the landowners dress up in Armenians and there will be peasants ".
Another function of Ch.'s image is aesthetic. The image of Ch. is made up of metaphors, painted to varying degrees in epic, then in ironic, then in parodic tones: “a boat among the ferocious waves” of life, “an insignificant worm of this world”, “a blister on the water”. Despite the solidity, degree, bodily tangibility of Ch. (“He was heavy”, “tummy drum”), despite the concern for future descendants and the desire to become an exemplary landowner, the essence of Ch. is mimicry, proteicity, the ability to take the form of any vessel. Ch. changes faces depending on the situation and the interlocutor, often becoming like the landowner with whom he bargains: with Manilov, Ch. is sweet-tongued and helpful, his speech is like sugar syrup; with Korobochka he keeps himself simpler and even promises her the devil, becoming furious at her "club-headedness", with Sobakevich Ch. is stingy and stingy, the same "fist" as So-bakevich himself, both of them see each other as swindlers; with Nozdryov, Ch. keeps on familiarity, on “you”, explaining the reasons for the purchase in the style of Nozdryov himself: “Oh, what a curious one: he would like to feel all sorts of rubbish with his hand, and even smell it!” Finally, in profile, Ch. "is very much like a portrait of Napoleon," for he "also cannot be said to be too fat, but not so thin either." Gogol's "mirror" motif is inextricably linked with this feature of Ch.'s image. Ch., like a mirror, absorbs the other heroes of Dead Souls, contains in embryo all the essential spiritual properties of these characters. Just like Korobochka, who collected separately tselkovki, fifty dollars, and quarters in colorful bags, Ch. sews five rubles into a bag. Like Manilov, Ch. is a beautiful-hearted dreamer, when, seeing on the road the pretty, “like a fresh egg,” face of the governor’s daughter, he begins to dream of marriage and two hundred thousand dowry, and at the governor’s ball he almost falls in love: “it is clear that the Chichikovs are several minutes in life turn into poets. Like Plyushkin, Ch. collects all sorts of rubbish in a casket: a poster torn from a pole, a used ticket, etc. Ch.'s casket is a female hypostasis of the image. A. Bely calls her "wife" Ch. (cf. Bash-machkin's overcoat - his wife, who turned out to be a "one-night lover"), where the heart is "a small hidden money box, which was put forward imperceptibly from the side of the box." It contains the secret of the soul of Ch., so to speak, a "double bottom". The casket corresponds to the image of the Box (A. Bitov), which lifts the veil over the secret of Ch. Another aspect of the image of Ch. is his chaise. According to A. Bely, horses are the abilities of Ch., especially the dappled - “crafty” horse, symbolizing the fraud of Ch. , "why the move of the triple is a side move." Horse-workers with a root bay and a harness coat of color are horse-workers, which inspires Gogol with hope for the resurrection of Ch. .
The ethical function of the image of Ch. According to Gogol, Ch. is an unrighteous acquirer (“Acquisition is the fault of everything”, ch. 11). Ch.'s scam itself stems from the "case of Peter", it was he who introduced the revision of the serfs, laying the foundation for the bureaucratization of Russia. Ch. is a Westerner (D. Merezhkovsky), and Gogol debunks the European cult of money. The latter determines the ethical relativism of Ch.: being a schoolboy, he “pleases” the teacher, who puts “arrogant and recalcitrant” students on their knees and starves them; Ch., on the other hand, sits motionless on the bench, hands the teacher three rounds with a bell, and takes off his hat three times; when the teacher is expelled from the school, “arrogant and recalcitrant” collect money to help him, Ch. gives “a nickel of silver, which his comrades immediately threw away, saying: “Oh, you lived!” ”The teacher, having learned about the betrayal of his beloved student - Ch., said: “He cheated, he cheated a lot ...” Ch. commits the second betrayal when he begins his career as an acquirer: he promises to marry the daughter of his boss, the insurer, even if that old maid with a pockmarked face, but as soon as the innovator knocks out Ch. the place too clerk in another office, Ch. sends his chest home and moves out of the clerk's apartment. "Fucked up, blew up, damn son!" - angry povytchik. Such actions of Ch. allow D.S. Merezhkovsky and V.V. Nabokov to bring Ch. closer to the devil. “Ch. is just a low-paid agent of the devil, an infernal salesman: “our Mr. Ch.”, as one might call this good-natured, well-fed, but inwardly trembling representative in the joint-stock company Satan and Co. The vulgarity that Ch. personifies is one of the main distinguishing properties of the devil ... ”(Nabokov). The essence of Khlestakov and Ch. is “the eternal middle, neither this nor that - perfect vulgarity, two modern Russian faces, two hypostases of eternal and universal evil - a line” (Merezhkovsky). How illusory the power of money is is evidenced by the periodic falls and financial collapses of Ch., the constant risk of going to jail, wandering around cities and villages, the scandalous publicity of the secret of Ch. Gogol emphasizes the parodic contrast between the heroic entrepreneurial energy of Ch. , thank God, a lot died out ...”), and an insignificant result: the indispensable fiasco of Ch. that Ch., like other heroes, was, according to Gogol’s plan, to be resurrected in the third volume of the poem, which would be built similarly to the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (“Hell”, “Purgatory”, “Paradise”, where the part corresponds to that) . Ch. himself, in addition, would act as a savior. From here, his name corresponds to the name of the Apostle Paul, who “acquires” Jews and Gentiles in order to bring them to Christ (cf.: “Being free from everyone, I made myself a slave to everyone in order to gain more” (1 Cor. 9:19). Marked by A. Goldenberg). Like the Apostle Paul, Ch. had to turn from a sinner into a righteous man and a teacher of the faith at the moment of a sudden crisis. In the meantime, Ch.'s chaise gets bogged down in the mud, falls, "as if into a hole" (E. Smirnova), plunges into hell, where "estates are the circles of Dante's hell; the owner of each is more dead than the previous one” (A. Bely). On the contrary, the “souls” acquired by Ch. appear alive, embody the talent and creative spirit of the Russian people, are opposed to Ch., Plyushkin, Sobakevich (G.A. Gukovsky), forming two opposite Russias. Thus, Ch., like Christ descended into hell, frees dead souls and leads them out of oblivion. The “dead”, though bodily alive, unrighteous Russia of landowners and officials, according to Gogol’s utopia, must reunite with righteous peasant Russia, where Ch.
The biographical function of the image Ch. Gogol endows him with his passions, for example, love for boots: “In the other corner, between the door and the window, boots lined up in a row: some not entirely new, others completely new, varnished ankle boots and sleeping boots” (2nd vol. , 1st ch.). (See the memoirs of A. Arnoldi.) Ch., like Gogol, is an eternal bachelor, a tumbleweed, living in hotels, with strangers, dreaming of becoming a house owner and landowner. Just like Gogol, Ch. is characterized by a universalism of interests, albeit in a reduced, parodic form: “whether it was a question of a horse factory, he spoke about a horse factory; whether they talked about good dogs, and here he reported very sensible remarks and did not miss a game in a game of billiards; whether they talked about virtue, and he talked about virtue very well, even with tears in his eyes ... ". Finally, Gogol often redirects the author's lyrical digressions to the consciousness of Ch., identifying his ideology with the ideology of the hero.
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol worked on this work for 17 years. According to the writer's plan, the grandiose literary work was to consist of three volumes. Gogol himself repeatedly reported that the idea of the work was proposed to him by Pushkin. Alexander Sergeevich was also one of the first listeners of the poem.
Work on "Dead Souls" was difficult. The writer changed the concept several times, reworked individual parts. Only on the first volume, which was published in 1842, Gogol worked for six years.
A few days before his death, the writer burned the manuscript of the second volume, from which only drafts of the first four and one of the last chapters survived. The author did not have time to start the third volume.
At first, Gogol considered "Dead Souls" satirical a novel in which he intended to show "all of Rus'." But in 1840, the writer fell seriously ill, and was healed literally by a miracle. Nikolai Vasilievich decided that this was a sign - the Creator himself demands that he create something that serves the spiritual revival of Russia. Thus, the idea of "Dead Souls" was rethought. The idea was to create a trilogy similar to Dante's Divine Comedy. Hence the genre definition of the author - a poem.
Gogol believed that in the first volume it was necessary to show the disintegration of feudal society, its spiritual impoverishment. In the second, to give hope for the purification of "dead souls". In the third, the revival of a new Russia was already planned.
The basis of the plot the poem became a scam official Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov. Its essence was as follows. A census of serfs was carried out in Russia every 10 years. Therefore, the peasants who died between the censuses, according to official documents (revision tale), were considered alive. Chichikov's goal is to buy "dead souls" at a low price, and then pawn them in the board of trustees and get a lot of money. The fraudster is counting on the fact that such a deal is beneficial for the landlords: they do not need to pay taxes for the deceased until the next audit. In search of "dead souls" Chichikov travels around Russia.
Such a plot outline allowed the author to create a social panorama of Russia. In the first chapter, an acquaintance with Chichikov takes place, then the author describes his meetings with landowners and officials. The last chapter is again devoted to the swindler. The image of Chichikov and his purchase of dead souls unite the storyline of the work.
The landowners in the poem are typical representatives of people of their circle and time: spenders (Manilov and Nozdrev), savers (Sobakevich and Korobochka). This gallery is completed by the spendthrift and accumulator in one person - Plyushkin.
Image of Manilov especially successful. This hero gave the name to the whole phenomenon of Russian reality - "Manilovism". In communication with others, Manilov is soft to the point of cloying, loving posturing in everything, but an empty and completely inactive owner. Gogol showed a sentimental dreamer who is only capable of lining up beautiful rows of ashes knocked out of a pipe. Manilov is stupid and lives in the world of his useless fantasies.
landowner Nozdrev on the contrary, it is very active. But his seething energy is not directed at all to economic concerns. Nozdrev is a gambler, a spendthrift, a reveler, a braggart, an empty and frivolous person. If Manilov seeks to please everyone, then Nozdryov is constantly dirtying. Not from evil, however, such is his nature.
Nastasya Petrovna Korobochka- a type of economic, but narrow-minded and conservative landowner, quite tight-fisted. The circle of her interests: pantry, barns and a poultry house. Korobochka even went to the nearest town twice in her life. In everything that goes beyond the limits of her everyday worries, the landowner is impassibly stupid. The author calls her "cudgel-headed".
Mikhail Semenovich Sobakevich the writer identifies with the bear: he is clumsy and clumsy, but strong and strong. The landowner is primarily interested in the practicality and durability of things, and not their beauty. Sobakevich, despite his rough appearance, has a sharp mind and cunning. This is a vicious and dangerous predator, the only one of the landowners capable of accepting the new capitalist way of life. Gogol notices that the time for such cruel business people is coming.
Plushkin's image does not fit into any framework. The old man himself is malnourished, starves the peasants, and a lot of food rots in his pantries, Plyushkin's chests are crammed with expensive things that are becoming unusable. Incredible stinginess deprives this man of his family.
Officialdom in "Dead Souls" is through and through a corrupt company of thieves and swindlers. In the system of urban bureaucracy, the writer paints with large strokes the image of a “jug snout”, ready to sell his own mother for a bribe. No better than the narrow-minded police chief and alarmist prosecutor who died of fear because of Chichikov's scam.
The main character is a rogue, in which some features of other characters are guessed. He is amiable and prone to posturing (Manilov), petty (Korobochka), greedy (Plyushkin), enterprising (Sobakevich), narcissistic (Nozdrev). Among officials, Pavel Ivanovich feels confident, because he went through all the universities of fraud and bribery. But Chichikov is smarter and more educated than those with whom he deals. He is an excellent psychologist: he delights the provincial society, masterfully bargains with every landowner.
The writer put a special meaning into the title of the poem. These are not only the dead peasants who are bought by Chichikov. By "dead souls" Gogol understands the emptiness and lack of spirituality of his characters. There is nothing sacred for the money-grubber Chichikov. Plyushkin has lost all human likeness. A box for the sake of profit does not mind digging up coffins. At Nozdryov's, only dogs live well; their own children are abandoned. Manilov's soul sleeps like a deep sleep. There is not a drop of decency and nobility in Sobakevich.
The landowners look different in the second volume. Tentetnikov- A disillusioned philosopher. He is immersed in thought and does not do household chores, but is smart and talented. costanjoglo and an exemplary landowner. Millionaire Murazov also endearing. He forgives Chichikov and stands up for him, helps Khlobuev.
But we never saw the rebirth of the main character. A person who has let the “golden calf” into his soul, a bribe taker, embezzler and swindler is unlikely to be able to become different.
The writer did not find during his life the answer to the main question: where is Rus' rushing like a fast troika? But "Dead Souls" remains a reflection of Russia in the 30s of the XIX century and an amazing gallery satirical images, many of which have become household names. "Dead Souls" is a striking phenomenon in Russian literature. The poem opened a whole direction in it, which Belinsky called "critical realism".
History of creation. It is difficult to find a work in the history of Russian literature, the work on which would bring to its creator so much mental anguish and suffering, but at the same time so much happiness and joy, like Dead Souls - the central work of Gogol, the work of his whole life. Of the 23 years devoted to creativity, 17 years - from 1835 to his death in 1852 - Gogol worked on his poem. Most of this time he lived abroad, mainly in Italy. The life of Russia was published only the first volume (1842), and the second was burned before his death, the writer never started work on the third volume.
The work on this book was not easy - many times Gogol changed the plan, rewrote parts that had already been corrected into clean parts, achieving complete execution of the plan and artistic perfection. Only the exacting artist worked on the first volume for 6 years. In the autumn of 1841, he brought the first volume ready for printing from Italy to Moscow, but here an unexpected blow awaited him: censorship opposed the publication of a work with the title Dead Souls. I had to send the manuscript to St. Petersburg, where his influential friends stood up for the writer, but even here everything was not immediately settled. Finally, after a long explanation about the misunderstanding with the title and the introduction of corrections, in particular regarding The Tale of Captain Kopeikin, the first volume of the poem was published in May 1842. Making concessions, the author changed the title: the book was published under the title "The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls." Readers and critics greeted her favorably, but much in this unusual work immediately aroused controversy, which developed into heated discussions.
In an effort to explain to the reader his new grandiose idea, Gogol actively sets to work on the continuation of the work, but it is very difficult, with long interruptions. During the creation of the poem, Gogol experienced several severe spiritual and physical crises. In 1840, a dangerous illness overtook him, he was already ready to die, but suddenly a healing came, which Gogol, a deeply religious person, perceived as a gift sent to him from above in the name of fulfilling his lofty plan. It was then that he finally formed the philosophy and moral idea of the second and third volumes of "Dead Souls" with the plot of human self-improvement and movement towards the achievement of a spiritual ideal. This is felt already in the first volume, but this idea should have been fully realized in the entire trilogy. Starting work on the second volume in 1842, Gogol feels that the task he has set is very difficult: the utopia of some imaginary new Russia is in no way consistent with reality. So, in 1845, another crisis arises, as a result of which Gogol burns the already written second volume. He feels that he needs intense inner work on himself - Gogol reads and studies spiritual literature, Holy Scripture, enters into correspondence with friends close in spirit. The result is an artistic and nonfiction book, Selected passages from correspondence with friends, published in 1847 and aroused the most fierce criticism. In this book, Gogol expressed an idea similar to the one that underlies the idea of the Dead Souls trilogy: the path to the creation of a new Russia lies not through the demolition of the state system or various political transformations, but through the moral self-improvement of each person. This idea, expressed in a journalistic form, was not accepted by the writer's contemporaries. Then he decided to continue its development, but already in the form of a work of art, and this is connected with his return to the interrupted work on the second volume of Dead Souls, which is already being completed in Moscow. By 1852, the second volume was in fact written in its entirety. But again the writer is overcome by doubts, he starts editing, and within a few months the draft turns into a draft. And physical and nervous forces were already at the limit. On the night of February 11-12, 1852, Gogol burns the white manuscript, and on February 21 (March 4) he dies.
Direction and genre. Literary criticism of the 19th century, starting with Belinsky, began to call Gogol the initiator of a new period in the development of Russian realistic literature. If Pushkin was characterized by the harmony and objectivity of the artistic world, then in Gogol's work this is replaced by critical pathos, which determines the artist's desire to reflect the real contradictions of reality, to penetrate into the darkest sides of life and the human soul. That is why in the second half of the 19th century, supporters of the democratic camp sought to see in Gogol, first of all, a satirist writer, who indicated the arrival of new topics, problems, “ideas and ways of their artistic embodiment in literature, which were first picked up by the writers of the “natural school” who united around Belinsky , and then developed in the realistic literature of the "Gogol period" - as opposed to Pushkin's, they began to call the literature of critical realism of the second half of the 19th century.
Now many scientists dispute this point of view and say that, along with critical pathos, Gogol's realism is distinguished by its striving for the ideal, which is genetically linked to the romantic worldview. The position of Gogol, who recognizes himself as a missionary artist, called upon not only to show acute social problems and the full depth of the moral decline of contemporary society and man, but also to point the way to spiritual rebirth and transformation of all aspects of life, was especially clearly manifested in the process of working on Dead Souls. ".
All this determined the originality of the genre specificity of the work. Obviously, Gogol's poem is not traditional, it is a new artistic construction that had no analogues in world literature. No wonder the debate about the genre of this work, which began immediately after the release of Dead Souls, has not subsided to this day. The writer himself did not immediately determine the genre of his work: it was the result of a complex creative process, a change in the ideological concept. Initially, the created work was conceived by him as a novel. In a letter to Pushkin dated October 7, 1835, Gogol notes: “I want to show all of Rus' in this novel at least from one side ... The plot stretched out into a long novel and. seems to be very funny." But already in a letter to Zhukovsky dated November 12, 1836, a new name appears - a poem.
This change was consistent with the new plan: "All Rus' will appear in it." The general features of the work are gradually becoming clearer, which, according to Gogol's plan, should become similar to the ancient epic - Homer's epic poems. He imagines the new work as a Russian "Odyssey", only in the center of it was not the cunning Homeric traveler, but the "scoundrel-acquirer", as Gogol called the central - "through" - the hero of his poem Chichikov.
At the same time, an analogy is being formed with Dante's poem "The Divine Comedy", which is associated not only with the features of the general tripartite structure, but also with the aspiration to the ideal - spiritual perfection. It was the ideal beginning in such a work that "should have become decisive. But as a result of all this grandiose design, only the first part turned out to be completed, to which, first of all, the words about the image of Russia only" from one side" belonged. Nevertheless, it was wrong It is not for nothing that the writer retained for him the genre definition of a poem, because here, in addition to the depiction of the real state of life, which provokes the writer's protest, there is an ideal beginning, manifested primarily in the lyrical part of the poem - lyrical digressions.
Thus, the originality of the genre, this lyrical-epic work, lies in the combination of the epic and lyrical (in lyrical digressions) beginnings, the features of a travel novel and a review novel, (a through hero). In addition, the features of the genre are revealed here, which Gogol himself singled out in his work: “Educational Book of Literature” and called it “a smaller kind of epic.” Unlike the novel, such works narrate not about individual heroes, but about the people or their part, which is quite applicable to the poem; "Dead Souls". It is truly epic - the breadth of coverage and grandeur. The idea goes far beyond. The history of the purchase "by a certain swindler of the revision of dead souls.
Composition and plot. The composition and plot of the work also changed as the concept developed and deepened. According to Gogol himself, the plot of "Dead Souls" was presented to him by Pushkin. But what was this "gifted" plot? According to researchers, it corresponded to an external intrigue - Chichikov's purchase of Dead Souls. "Dead soul" is a 19th-century bureaucratic jargon phrase for a dead peasant. Around the scam with the serfs, who, despite the fact of death, continue to be listed as alive in the revision tale and whom Chichikov wants to pledge at interest to the Board of Trustees, a “mirage intrigue”, the first storyline of the work, is twisted.
But another plot is more important - an internal one, showing the transformation of Russia and the revival of the people living in it. He did not appear immediately, but as a result of a change in the general plan of the poem. Just when the idea of Dead Souls begins to be associated with the grandiose poem The Divine Comedy by the great Italian writer of the early Renaissance Dante Alighieri, the entire artistic structure of Dead Souls is redefined. Dante's work consists of three parts ("Hell", "Purgatory", "Paradise"), creating a kind of poetic encyclopedia of the life of medieval Italy. Focusing on it, Gogol dreams of creating a work in which the true Russian path would be found and Russia would be shown in the present and its movement towards the future.
In accordance with this new idea, the overall composition of the poem "Dead Souls" is being built, which was supposed to consist of three volumes, like Dante's "Divine Comedy". The first volume, which the author called "the porch to the house," is a kind of "Hell" of Russian reality. It was he who turned out to be the only one to the end realized from the entire vast plan of the writer. In the 2nd volume, similar to "Purgatory", new positive characters were to appear and, using the example of Chichikov, it was supposed to show the path of purification and resurrection of the human soul. Finally, in the 3rd volume - "Paradise" - a beautiful, ideal world and truly inspired heroes were supposed to appear. In this plan, Chichikov was assigned a special compositional function: it was he who would have to go through the path of the resurrection of the soul, and therefore could become a connecting hero who connects all parts of the grandiose picture of life presented in three volumes of the poem. But even in its 1st volume, this function of the hero is preserved: the story of Chichikov's journey in search of sellers from whom he acquires "dead souls" helps the author to combine different storylines, easily introduce new faces, events, pictures, which in general make up the broadest panorama of life in Russia in the 30s of the XIX century.
The composition of the first volume of "Dead Souls", similar to "Hell", is organized in such a way as to show as fully as possible the negative aspects of the life of all the components of contemporary Russia for the author. The first chapter is a general exposition, then five chapters-portraits follow (chapters 2-6), in which landlord Russia is presented", in chapters 7-10 a collective image of the bureaucracy is given, and the last, eleventh chapter is devoted to Chichikov.
These are externally closed, but internally interconnected links. Outwardly, they are united by the plot of the purchase of "dead souls". The 1st chapter tells about the arrival of Chichikov in the provincial city, then a series of his meetings with the landowners is shown in succession, in the 7th chapter we are talking about making a purchase, and in the 8-9th - about the rumors associated with it, in 11 The th chapter, together with Chichikov's biography, is informed of his departure from the city. Internal unity is created by the author's reflections on contemporary Russia. This internal plot, the most important from an ideological point of view, allows you to organically fit into the composition of the 1st volume of the poem a large number of extra-plot elements (lyrical digressions, insert episodes), as well as include an insert that is completely unmotivated from the point of view of the plot about the purchase of dead souls. about Captain Kopeikin.
Theme and problems. In accordance with the main idea of the work - to show the way to achieve the spiritual ideal, on the basis of which the writer conceives the possibility of transforming both the state system of Russia, its social structure, and all social strata and each individual - the main themes and problems posed in the poem " Dead Souls". Being an opponent of any political and social upheavals, especially revolutionary ones, the Christian writer believes that the negative phenomena that characterize the state of contemporary Russia can be overcome through moral self-improvement not only of the Russian person himself, but of the entire structure of society and the state. Moreover, such changes, from the point of view of Gogol, should not be external, but internal, that is, the point is that all state and social structures, and especially their leaders, in their activities should be guided by moral laws, the postulates of Christian ethics. So, according to Gogol, the age-old Russian misfortune - bad roads - can be overcome not by changing bosses or tightening laws and control over their implementation. For this, it is necessary that each of the participants in this work, above all the leader, remember that he is responsible not to a higher official, but to God. Gogol called on every Russian person in his place, in his position, to do business as the highest - Heavenly - law commands.
That is why the themes and problems of Gogol's poem turned out to be so wide and all-encompassing. In its first volume, the emphasis is on all those negative phenomena in the life of the country that need to be corrected. But the main evil for the writer does not lie in social problems as such, but in the reason for which they arise: the spiritual impoverishment of his contemporary man. That is why the problem of the necrosis of the soul becomes central in the 1st volume of the poem. All other themes and problems of the work are grouped around it. “Be not dead, but living souls!” - the writer calls, convincingly demonstrating what abyss the one who has lost his living soul falls into. But what is meant by this strange oxymoron - "dead soul", which gave the name to the whole work? Of course, not only a purely bureaucratic term used in Russia in the 19th century. Often, a “dead soul” is a person who is mired in worries about vain things. The gallery of landowners and officials, shown in the 1st volume of the poem, presents such “dead souls” to the reader, since all of them are characterized by lack of spirituality, selfish interests, empty extravagance or soul-absorbing stinginess. From this point of view, the "dead souls" shown in the 1st volume can only be opposed by the "living soul" of the people, which appears in the author's lyrical digressions. But, of course, the oxymoron "dead soul" is interpreted by the Christian writer in a religious and philosophical sense. The very word "soul" indicates the immortality of the individual in its Christian understanding. From this point of view, the symbolism of the definition "dead souls" contains the opposition of the dead (inert, frozen, spiritless) beginning and the living (spiritualized, high, bright). The originality of Gogol's position lies in the fact that he not only contrasts these two principles, but points to the possibility of the awakening of the living in the dead. So the poem includes the theme of the resurrection of the soul, the theme of the path to its rebirth. It is known that Gogol intended to show the way of the revival of two heroes from the 1st volume - Chichikov and Plyushkin. The author dreams of the "dead souls" of Russian reality being reborn, turning into truly "living" souls.
But in the contemporary world, the mortification of the soul affected literally everyone and was reflected in the most diverse aspects of life. In the poem "Dead Souls" the writer continues and develops the general theme that runs through all of his work: the belittling and decay of man in the ghostly and absurd world of Russian reality. But now it is enriched with an idea of what the true, lofty spirit of Russian life consists of, what it can and should be. This idea permeates the main theme of the poem: the writer's reflection on Russia and its people. The present Russia is a terrifying picture of decay and decay, which has affected all sectors of society: landlords, officials, even the people. Gogol in an extremely concentrated form demonstrates "the properties of our Russian breed." Among them, he highlights the vices inherent in the Russian people. So, Plyushkin's frugality turns into stinginess, dreaminess and hospitality of Manilov - into an excuse for laziness and sugariness. The prowess and energy of Nozdryov are wonderful qualities, but here they are excessive and aimless, and therefore become a parody of Russian heroism. At the same time, drawing extremely generalized types of Russian landowners, Gogol reveals the theme of landowner Rus', which correlates with the problems of relations between landowners and peasants, the profitability of landowner economy, and the possibility of its improvement. At the same time, the writer condemns not serfdom and not landlords as a class, but how exactly they use their power over the peasants, the wealth of their lands, for the sake of which they are generally engaged in farming. And here the main theme remains the theme of impoverishment, which is connected not so much with economic or social problems, but with the process of necrosis of the soul.
Gogol does not hide the spiritual squalor of a forced man, humbled, downtrodden and submissive. Such are Chichikov's coachman Selifan and footman Petrushka, the girl Pelageya, who does not know where the right is, where the left is, the peasants, thoughtfully discussing whether the wheel of Chichikov's chaise will reach Moscow or Kazan, senselessly fussing about Uncle Mityai and Uncle Minyay. It is not for nothing that the “living soul” of the people peeps out only in those who have already died, and in this the writer sees a terrible paradox of contemporary reality. The writer shows how the beautiful qualities of the national character turn into their opposite. A Russian person loves to philosophize, but often this results in idle talk. His slowness is similar to laziness, gullibility and naivety turn into stupidity, and empty fuss arises from efficiency. “Our land is perishing ... from ourselves,” the writer addresses everyone.
Continuing what was started in the "Revizor" the topic of exposing the bureaucratic system of a state mired in corruption and bribery, Gogol draws a kind of review of "dead souls" and bureaucratic Russia, which is distinguished by idleness and emptiness of existence. The writer speaks about the absence of true culture and morality in contemporary society. Balls and gossip are the only thing that fills people's lives here. All conversations revolve around trifles, these people are ignorant of spiritual needs. Performance
about beauty is reduced to a discussion of the colors of the material and fashionable styles (“variegated - not variegated”), and a person is evaluated, in addition to his property and estate status, by the way he blows his nose and ties his tie.
That is why the immoral and dishonest rogue Chichikov finds his way into this society so easily. Together with this hero, another important topic enters the poem: Russia is embarking on the path of capitalist development and a new “hero of the time” appears in life, who was first shown and appreciated by Gogol - “a scoundrel-acquirer”. For such a person, there are no moral barriers in regard to his main goal - his own benefit. At the same time, the writer sees that in comparison with the inert, dead environment of landowners and officials, this hero looks much more energetic, capable of quick and decisive action, and unlike many of those with whom he encounters, Chichikov is endowed with common sense. But these good qualities cannot bring anything positive to Russian life if the soul of their bearer remains dead, like all other characters in the poem. Practicality, purposefulness in Chichikov turn into trickery. It contains the richest potentialities, but without a lofty goal, without a moral foundation, they cannot be realized, and therefore Chichikov's soul is destroyed.
Why did such a situation arise? In answering this question, Gogol returns to his constant theme: the denunciation of the "vulgarity of a vulgar person." “My heroes are not villains at all,” the writer claims, “but they are “all vulgar without exception.” Vulgarity, turning into deadness of the soul, moral savagery, is the main danger for a person. It was not for nothing that Gogol attached such great importance to the inserted “The Tale of Captain Kopeikin”, which shows the cruelty and inhumanity of the officials of the “highest commission” itself. The "Tale" is devoted to the theme of the heroic year 1812 and creates a deep contrast to the soulless and petty world of officials. In this seemingly overgrown episode, it is shown that the fate of the captain, who fought for his homeland, crippled and deprived of the opportunity to feed himself, does not bother anyone. The highest St. Petersburg ranks are indifferent to him, which means that necrosis has penetrated everywhere - from the society of county and provincial cities to the top of the state pyramid.
But there is in the 1st volume of the poem something that opposes this terrible, unspiritual, vulgar life. This is the ideal beginning, which must necessarily be in a work called a poem. “The incalculable wealth of the Russian spirit”, “a husband endowed with divine valor”, “a wonderful Russian girl ... with all the wondrous beauty of the female soul” - all this is still being thought about, it is supposed to be embodied in subsequent volumes. But even in the first volume, the presence of the ideal is felt - through the author's voice, sounding in lyrical digressions, thanks to which a completely different range of topics and problems enters the poem. The peculiarity of their staging lies in the fact that only the author can lead a conversation with the reader about literature, culture, art, and rise to the heights of philosophical thought. After all, none of his “vulgar” heroes are interested in these topics, everything high and spiritual cannot affect them. Only occasionally does the voices of the author and his hero Chichikov merge, as it were, who will have to be reborn, and therefore turn to all these questions. But in the 1st volume of the poem, this is only a kind of promise for the future development of the hero, a kind of "author's hint" to him.
Together with the author's voice, the poem includes the most important topics that can be combined into several blocks. The first of them deals with issues related to literature: about the writer's work and different types of artists of the word, the tasks of the writer and his responsibility; about literary heroes and ways of depicting them, among which the most important place is given to satire; about the possibility of a new positive hero. The second block covers questions of a philosophical nature, about life and death, youth and old age as different periods of the development of the soul; about the purpose and meaning of life, the purpose of man. The third block concerns the problem of the historical fate of Russia and its people: it is connected with the theme of the path along which the country is moving, its future, which is ambiguous; with the theme of the people - such as it can and should be; with the theme of the heroism of the Russian man and his limitless possibilities.
These large ideological and thematic layers of the work manifest themselves both in separate lyrical digressions and in through motifs that run through the entire work. The peculiarity of the poem also lies in the fact that, following Pushkin's traditions, Gogol creates in it the image of the author. This is not just a conditional figure that holds together individual elements, but a holistic personality, with its openly expressed worldview. The author speaks directly with assessments of everything that is told to him. At the same time, in lyrical digressions, the author reveals himself in all the diversity of his personality. At the beginning of the sixth chapter, there is a sadly elegiac reflection on the passing youth and maturity, on the “loss of living movement” and the coming old age. At the end of this digression, Gogol directly addresses the reader: “Take with you on the road, emerging from your soft youthful years into severe, hardening courage, take with you all human movements, do not leave them on the road, you will not lift them up later! Terrible, terrible is the coming old age ahead, and gives nothing back and back! This is how the theme of the spiritual and moral perfection of man sounds again, but addressed not only to his contemporaries, but also to himself.
The author's thoughts about the task of the artist in the modern world are also connected with this. The lyrical digression at the beginning of Chapter VII speaks of two types of writers. The author is fighting for the establishment of realistic art and a demanding, sober outlook on life, not afraid to highlight all the "mud of trifles" in which modern man is mired, even if this dooms the writer to be not accepted by his readers, arouses their hostility. He speaks of the fate of such an "unrecognized writer": "His career is harsh, and he will bitterly feel his loneliness." Another fate is prepared for the writer, who avoids painful problems. Success and glory, honor among compatriots awaits him. Comparing the fates of these two writers, the author bitterly speaks of the moral and aesthetic deafness of the "modern court", which does not recognize that "high enthusiastic laughter is worthy to stand next to the high lyrical movement." Subsequently, this lyrical digression became the subject of fierce controversy in the literary controversy that unfolded in the 1840s and 1850s.
But Gogol himself is ready not only to immerse himself in the "mud of trifles" and smite with the satirist's pen "the vulgarity of a vulgar person." He, a writer-prophet, can discover something that gives hope and calls to the future. And he wants to present this ideal to his readers, urging them to strive for it. The role of a positive ideological pole in the poem is played by one of the leading motifs - the motif of Russian heroism. It runs through the whole work, appearing almost imperceptibly in the 1st chapter; the mention of “the present time”, “when the heroes are already beginning to appear in Rus'”, develops gradually in lyrical digressions and in the last, 11th chapter sounds the final chord - “There should not be a hero here”.
These images of Russian heroes are not reality, but rather Gogol's embodied faith in the Russian people. All of them are among the dead and runaway "souls", and although they live or lived in the same world as the rest of the heroes of the poem, they do not belong to the reality in which the action takes place. Such folk images do not exist on their own, but are only outlined in Chichikov's reflections on the list of peasants bought from Sobakevich. But the whole style and character of this fragment of the text indicates that we have before us the thoughts of the author himself, and not his hero. He continues here the theme of the heroism of the Russian people, their potential. Among those whom he writes about are talented craftsmen - Stepan Probka, a carpenter, "a hero who would be fit for the guard"; brick maker Milushkin, shoemaker Maxim Telyatnikov. With admiration, the author speaks of barge haulers, who replace "the revelry of peaceful life" with "labor and sweat"; about the reckless prowess of people like Abram Fyrov, a fugitive peasant who, despite the danger, "walks noisily and cheerfully on the grain pier." But in real life, which deviates so much from the ideal, death lies in wait for all of them. And only the living language of the people testifies that their soul has not died, it can and must be reborn. Reflecting on the true folk language, Gogol notices in a lyrical digression related to the characterization of the nickname given to Plyushkin by a peasant: spoken Russian word.
The heroic people are to match the Russian landscapes of that land, "which does not like to joke, but has scattered halfway around the world, and go and count the miles * until it fills your eyes." In the final, 11th chapter, the lyrical-philosophical meditation on Russia and the vocation of the writer, whose "head was overshadowed by a formidable cloud, heavy with coming rains," replaces the motive of the road - one of the central ones in the poem. It is connected with the main theme - the path intended for Russia and the people. In Gogol's system, movement, path, road are always interrelated concepts: this is evidence of life, development, opposed to inertia and death. It is no coincidence that all the biographies of the peasants, personifying the best that the people have, are united by this very motif. “Tea, all provinces came with an ax in his belt ... Somewhere now your fast legs carry you? .. These nicknames show that they are good runners.” It should be noted that the ability to move is also characteristic of Chichikov, the hero, who, according to the author's intention, was to be cleansed and transformed into a positive character.
That is why the two most important themes of the author's reflections - the theme of Russia and the theme of the road - merge in a lyrical digression that completes the first volume of the poem. "Rus-troika", "all inspired by God", appears in it as a vision of the author, who seeks to understand the meaning of its movement; "Rus, where are you going? Give an answer. Doesn't give an answer." But in that high lyrical pathos that permeates these final lines, the writer's faith that the answer will be found and the soul of the people will appear alive and beautiful sounds.
Main heroes.
According to Gogol's plan, the poem "Dead Souls" was supposed to represent "all of Rus'", even if only "from one side", in the first part, so it would be wrong to talk about the presence of one or more central characters in this work. Chichikov could become such a hero, but in the scope of the entire three-part plan. In the 1st volume of the poem, he stands among other characters that characterize different types of entire social groups in contemporary Russia, although he also has the additional function of a connecting hero. That is why one should consider not so much individual characters as the entire group to which they belong: landowners, officials, the acquirer hero. All of them are given in a satirical light, because their souls have become dead. Such are the representatives of the people who are shown as a component of real Russia, and there is a living soul only in those representatives of the people's Rus', which is embodied as the author's ideal.
Landlord Russia shown in several of its most characteristic types: these are Manilov, Korobochka, Nozdrev, Sobakevich and Plyushkin. It is them that Chichikov visits in order to buy dead souls. We get to know each of the landowners only during the time (as a rule, no more than one day) that Chichikov spends with him. But Gogol chooses such a way of depicting, based on a combination of typical features with individual characteristics, which allows you to get an idea not only about one of the characters, but also about the whole layer of Russian landowners embodied in this hero.
A separate chapter is devoted to each of the landlords, and together they represent the face of landlord Russia. The sequence of appearance of these images is not accidental: from landowner to landowner, the impoverishment of the human soul, absorbed by greed or senseless waste, is becoming deeper, which is explained as uncontrolled possession of the "souls" of others, wealth , earth, and the aimlessness of an existence that has lost its highest spiritual goal. According to Gogol, heroes follow us, "one more vulgar than the other." These characters are given, as it were, in a double light - as they seem to themselves, and as they really are. Such a contrast causes a comic effect and at the same time a bitter smile on the reader.
The characters of the landowners are somewhat opposite, but also subtly similar to each other. By such opposition and comparison, Gogol achieves additional depth of narration. In order for the reader to better see the similarities and differences in different types of landlords, the writer uses a special technique. The image of all landowners is based on the same microplot. His “spring” is the actions of Chichikov, the buyer of “dead souls”. Indispensable participants in each of the five such microplots are two characters: Chichikov and the landowner to whom he comes. In each of the five chapters devoted to them, the author builds the story as a successive change of episodes: entry into the estate, meeting, refreshment, Chichikov's offer to sell him "dead souls", departure. These are not ordinary plot episodes: it is not the events themselves that are of interest to the author, but the opportunity to show that objective world surrounding the landlords, in which the personality of each of them is most fully reflected; not only to give information about the content of the conversation between Chichikov and the landowner, but to show in the manner of communication of each of the characters that which carries both typical and individual features.
The scene of the sale and purchase of "dead souls" in the chapters about each of the landlords occupies a central place. Before her, the reader, together with Chichikov, can already form a certain idea of the landowner with whom the swindler is talking. It is on the basis of this impression that Chichikov builds a conversation about "dead souls." Therefore, his success entirely depends on how truly and fully he, and therefore the readers, managed to understand this human type with its individual characteristics.
The first of them appears before us Manilov, to whom the second chapter is devoted. To himself, he seems to be a bearer of high culture, and in the army he was considered an educated officer. But Gogol shows that this is only a claim to the role of an enlightened, intelligent landowner who, living in the countryside, brings high culture to those around him. In fact, its main feature is idle daydreaming, giving rise to ridiculous projects, spiritual emptiness. This is a boring and useless, “gray” person: “neither this nor that; neither in the city of Bogdan, nor in the village of Selifan, ”as Gogol says about him. True, Manilov does not seem to be evil or cruel in his treatment of people. On the contrary, he speaks well of all his acquaintances, welcomes the guest cordially, and is affectionate with his wife and children. But all this seems somehow unreal - "playing for the viewer." Even his pleasant appearance evokes the feeling that in this man "too much sugar was transferred." There is no conscious deception in such deliberateness - Manilov is too stupid for this, sometimes he even lacks words. He simply lives in an illusory world, and the very process of fantasizing gives Manilov real pleasure. Hence his love for a beautiful phrase and in general for any kind of posing - exactly as shown in the scene of the sale of dead souls. “Will this negotiation be inconsistent with civil regulations and further views of Russia?” - he asks, showing an ostentatious interest in state affairs, while completely not understanding the essence of Chichikov's proposal. But the most important thing is that, apart from empty dreams, Manilov simply cannot do anything - after all, one cannot really consider that knocking out pipes and lining up piles of ashes in “beautiful rows” is a worthy occupation for an enlightened landowner. He is a sentimental dreamer, completely incapable of action. No wonder his surname has become a household word, expressing the corresponding concept - ".manilovshchina." Idleness and idleness entered the flesh and blood of this man and became an integral part of his nature. Sentimentally - idyllic ideas about the world, dreams, in which he is immersed most of his time, lead to the fact that his economy goes "somehow by itself", without much participation on his part, and gradually falls apart.
But not only complete mismanagement makes this type of landowner unacceptable, from the point of view of the writer. The main argument is that Manilov has completely lost his spiritual orientation. Only complete insensitivity can explain the fact that he, wanting to please his friend, decided to give Chichikov dead souls. And the blasphemous phrase that he utters at the same time: “dead souls are in some way perfect rubbish,” for Gogol, a deeply religious person, is evidence that the soul of Manilov himself is dead.
The next type of landowner is represented by Korobochka. If in the image of Manilov Gogol exposed the myth of an enlightened gentleman, then in the image of Korobochka the writer dispelled the idea of a thrifty and businesslike landowner who wisely manages the household, takes care of the peasants, and keeps the family hearth. The patriarchal nature of this landowner is not at all the careful preservation of traditions that Pushkin wrote about: “They kept in a peaceful life / The habits of sweet antiquity.” The box seems to be just stuck in the past, time seems to have stopped for her and began to move in a vicious circle of petty household chores that swallowed up and killed her soul. Indeed, unlike Manilov, she is always busy with housework. This is evidenced by the sown gardens, and the bird house filled with “every domestic creature”, and the peasant huts maintained “as it should be”. Her village is well-groomed, and the peasants who live in it do not suffer from poverty. Everything speaks of the accuracy of the hostess, her ability to manage the estate. But this is not a manifestation of a living economic mind. The box simply follows a kind of "action program", that is, it nurtures, sells and buys, and only in this plane can it think. There can be no question of any spiritual requests here. Korobochka's house with small antique mirrors, sizzling clocks and pictures behind which something is sure to be hidden, lush featherbeds and hearty food tells us about the patriarchal nature of the hostess's way of life. But this simplicity borders on ignorance, unwillingness to know at least something that goes beyond the circle of her concerns. In everything, she thoughtlessly follows the usual patterns: a visitor means “merchant”, a thing “from Moscow” means “good work”, etc. Korobochka’s thinking is limited, like the vicious circle of her life, even to a city located not far from estate, she got out only a couple of times. The way Korobochka communicates with Chichikov betrays her stupidity, which is not in the least hindered by practical acumen, the desire not to miss the profit. This is most clearly manifested in the scene of the sale of dead souls. The box appears extremely stupid, not able to "catch, the essence," profitable. Chichikov's proposals. She takes it literally; “Something you want to dig out of them. land?" - asks the landowner. The box's fear of selling dead souls is absurd and ridiculous, since it is hers. not so much frightens the object of trade itself, but more, worries, no matter how cheap it is, and suddenly the dead souls will come in handy in the household for some reason. Even. Chichikov can't stand Korobochka's impenetrable stupidity. His opinion about it surprisingly converges with the author's: this is a "club-headed" landowner. Gogol, shows readers that people like her are not capable of any movement - neither external nor internal, because the soul in them is dead and can no longer be reborn.
In contrast to Korobochka, Nozdryov is all in motion. He has an irrepressible temperament, is active, decisive: he buys, exchanges, sells, cheats at cards, loses and always gets into some bad stories, which is why he receives the ironic definition of "historical man". However, his activity turns against others and is always aimless. He is not petty, like Korobochka, but frivolous, like Manilov, and, like Khlestakov, he lies on every occasion and boasts without measure. In addition, he does not complete anything to the end: unfinished repairs in the house (when the master himself and the guests come home, the men paint the walls in the dining room of his house), empty stalls, an old, faulty hurdy-gurdy, absolutely useless, and a cart played at cards - that's the consequences of this. It is not surprising that his estate and the economy, with which he is not at all concerned, are falling apart, the peasants are in poverty, only Nozdryov's dogs live comfortably and freely. They replace his family: after all, Nozdryov's wife has died, and the two children who are looked after by the nanny are of no interest to him at all. In fact, he is not bound by any obligations - neither moral nor material. But there is no power of money, no ownership over it. He is ready to spend anything: a horse, a wagon, money from the sale of goods at the fair. That is why it is Nozdryov who is able to repulse Chichikov, who is preoccupied with the pursuit of money: he did not sell dead souls, he drove him out of his house, and then he also contributed to the expulsion from the city.
And yet this does not mean that in the image of Nozdryov Gogol shows a positive hero. True, it is to him that the writer gives the opportunity, albeit inadvertently, to reveal Chichikov's secret: "Now it is clear that a two-faced person." There is also some kind of duality in Nozdryov itself. In his portrait, something can be traced that resembles a folklore good fellow: “He was a medium-sized, very well-built fellow, with full ruddy cheeks, teeth as white as snow and pitch-black sideburns. He was fresh as blood and milk; health seemed to spurt from his face. Of course, there is a clear irony in this description. It is not for nothing that the author, talking further about the fights that Nozdryov constantly gets involved in, remarks that “his full cheeks were so well created and contained so much plant power that his sideburns soon grew again,” when in the next mess he was pretty pulled out. There is also something of an animal in this hero (remember, he was among dogs “just like a father among a family”), but the definition of “historical man” was not given to him in vain. In the author's characterization of this landowner, there is not only irony and mockery, but also another motive - the motive of unrealized opportunities contained in this nature. “You can always see something open, direct, daring in their faces,” Gogol writes about the type of people like Nozdryov. And at the end of the chapter, describing the ugly end of the game of checkers, when Nozdryov is ready to beat the guest who has come to him, a completely unexpected comparison suddenly arises: “Beat him! - he shouted in the same voice as during a great attack he shouts to his platoon: “Guys, go ahead! - some desperate lieutenant, whose eccentric courage has already gained such fame that a special order is given to hold his hands during hot deeds. But the lieutenant already felt abusive enthusiasm, everything went round in his head; Suvorov rushes before him, he climbs a great cause. Perhaps that is the trouble with such a character as Nozdryov, that he was born at the wrong time? Had he been involved in the war of 1812, maybe he would have been no worse than Denis Davydov. But, according to the writer, in his time such a human type shrank, degenerated, turned into a parody, and his soul became dead. All his strength and courage were only enough to almost beat Chichikov, and pretty badly harm him.
Svbakevich seems to be the complete opposite of Nozdryov; he, like Korobochka, is a zealous host. But this is a special type of kulak landowner who, unlike Korobochka, may well fit into the new conditions of the coming century of capitalist economy. If the troublesome landowner is petty and stupid, then Sobakevich, on the contrary, is a large, heavy, clumsy person who looks like a “medium-sized bear” (he even has the name Mikhail Semenovich), but has a quick, tenacious, prudent mind. Everything around is to match this man-bear: firmly and soundly done, but clumsily and rudely (“in the corner of the living room stood a pot-bellied walnut office on absurd four legs: a perfect bear”), His village is “large, rich, ... at home with peasants strong, and they live, apparently, not poorly. The master's house also testifies to the care of the owner, first of all, about convenience and reliability - so he came out, contrary to the architect's plan, unsightly and tasteless. But unlike the pretentious, but narrow-minded Manilov Sobakevich, he does not care about appearance, the main thing is that everything be practical and durable. Yes, and he himself looks in such a way that it becomes clear: he is “one of such faces, over the decoration“ the second nature was not wiser for long ..., grabbed with an ax once his nose came out, grabbed in another - his lips came out, he poked his eyes with a large drill ... " It seems that he is only interested in how to fill his stomach more tightly. But behind this appearance lies a smart, vicious and dangerous predator. No wonder Sobakevich recalls how his father could kill a bear. He himself turned out to be able to "fill up" another powerful and terrible predator - Chichikov. The scene of sale in this chapter is fundamentally different from all similar scenes with other landowners: here it is not Chichikov, but Sobakevich who leads the game. He, unlike the others, immediately understands the essence of the fraudulent transaction, which does not bother him at all, and begins to conduct real bargaining, Chichikov understands that he has a serious, dangerous enemy to be feared, and therefore accepts the rules of the game, Sobakevich, like Chichikov, is not embarrassed by the unusual and immoral nature of the transaction: there is a seller, there is a buyer, there is a product. Chichikov, trying to bring down the price, recalls that "the whole item is just fu-fu ... who needs it?" To which Sobakevich reasonably remarks: “Yes, you are buying, so you need it.” Some researchers of Gogol's work believe that in this episode, two demons seem to have come together, who are arguing about the price of a human soul: eight hryvnias, as Chichikov suggests, or "one hundred rubles apiece", as Sobakevich wrings at first. We agreed on a price of two and a half. With a bitter smile, the author concludes: “Thus the deed was accomplished.”
Maybe it's true that those souls that pass in succession before the eyes of the reader are no longer standing? But it is not for nothing that it is precisely the list of peasants prepared by Sobakevich for the completion of the bill of sale that then leads Chichikov, and with him the author and the reader, to the idea that the Russian man has "limitless possibilities, and therefore his soul is priceless. The main thing is that it was "alive. But this is exactly what Sobakevich lacks: “It seemed that there was no soul in this body at all ...” That is why all the remarkable economic qualities of this type of landowner, his practical “grip, mind, quickness cannot” give hope that such - people will revive Russia .. After all, according to the writer, a business without a soul is nothing. And Gogol is horrified by the thought that the age of such businessmen as Chichikov and such landowners as Sobakevich is rapidly approaching. thick shell ", can be reborn to a new, real, spiritual life. "No, someone is a fist, he cannot straighten into a palm," the writer concludes.
But to the last of a series of landowners - Plyushkin, who, it would seem, is on the lowest step of the fall and devastation of the soul, Gogol leaves hope for transformation. If in other chapters the typicality of the characters presented in them is emphasized, then in Plyushkin the writer also sees a kind of exclusivity: even Chichikov, who has seen “a lot of all sorts of people”, has “never seen such a thing”, and the author’s description says that “ such a phenomenon rarely comes across in Rus'. Plyushkin is "some kind of tear in humanity." The rest of the landlords can be characterized by their attitude to property as "accumulators" (Korobochka and Sobakevich) and "squanderers" (Manilov, Nozdrev). But even such a conditional definition cannot be attributed to Plyushkin: he is both a hoarder and a squanderer at the same time .. On the one hand, he is “the richest of all landowners, the owner of a large estate” and thousands of serf souls. But everything that the reader sees together with Chichikov suggests a state of extreme desolation: the buildings are lopsided, the economy is falling apart, the harvest is rotting and spoiling, and the peasants are dying of hunger and disease or are running away from such a life (this is what attracted Chichikov to the village of Plyushkin ). But on the other hand, the owner, who has starved even his courtyards and is constantly malnourished himself, always drags something into his pile of all unnecessary rubbish - even a used toothpick, an old dried piece of lemon. He suspects everyone around him of theft, he feels sorry for the money and any spending in general, it doesn’t even matter for anything - even for the sale of surplus grain, even for the life of his grandson and daughter. He became a slave to things. Incredible stinginess disfigured him, depriving him not only of his family, children, but also of a normal human appearance. When drawing a portrait of Plyushkin, the author exaggerates to the limit: Chichikov could not even "recognize what gender the figure was: a woman or a man," and in the end he decided that the housekeeper was in front of him. But, perhaps, even the housekeeper will not put on the rags that this richest landowner wears: on his dressing gown "the sleeves and upper floors were so greasy that they looked like yuft, which goes on boots."
How can a person sink so low, what led him to this? - the author asks such a question, drawing Plyushkin. To answer it, Gogol had to slightly change the plan according to which the landlords were depicted in other chapters. We learn the biography of Plyushkin, a kind of "case history", whose name is stinginess.
It turns out that Plyushkin was not always like this. Once he was just a thrifty and economical owner and a good father, but the loneliness that suddenly set in after the death of his wife aggravated his already somewhat stingy character. Then the children parted, friends died, and stinginess, which became an all-consuming passion, took complete control over him. It led to the fact that Plyushkin generally ceased to feel the need to communicate with people, which led to a break in family relations, an unwillingness to see guests. Even Plyushkin began to perceive his children as embezzlers of property, not experiencing any joy when meeting with them. As a result, he finds himself in complete solitude, which, in turn, has become a breeding ground for the further development of stinginess. Completely absorbed by this terrible spiritual disease - avarice and a thirst for money-grubbing - he lost the idea of the real state of things. As a result, Plyushkin cannot distinguish the important and necessary from trifles, the useful from the unimportant. “And a person could descend to such insignificance, pettiness, disgust! Could change like that!” - the writer exclaims and gives a merciless answer: "Everything looks like the truth, everything can happen to a person." It turns out that Plyushkin is not such an exceptional phenomenon. Of course, in many ways he himself is to blame for the misfortune that happened to him. But under certain conditions, anyone can be in a similar position - and this frightens the writer. No wonder it is in this chapter that his lyrical digression about youth and "inhuman old age" is placed, which "gives nothing back."
Is there a way out of this misfortune, is it possible to bring a stiffened soul back to life? After all, nature, even in a state of extreme desolation, is still alive and beautiful, like “the old, vast garden stretching behind the house” on the Plyushkin estate. Similarly, a person who has retained even a small spark of a living soul can be reborn and flourish. In any case, Gogol assumed that this was possible, intending to show in the following parts of the poem the story of the rebirth of Plyushkin's soul. And the features of this plan are visible in the chapter on Plyushkin. Incredibly, it is Chichikov who awakens in him something resembling a living spiritual movement. Having quickly figured out how to persuade the old man to sell him dead souls, Chichikov focuses on generosity: he is allegedly ready to take on the losses in paying the tax for the dead peasants of Plyushkin solely out of a desire to please him, “Ah, father! Ah, my benefactor!" - exclaims the touched old man. He, having long forgotten what kindness and generosity are, already wishes "all sorts of consolations" not only to Chichikov, but even to his children. Plyushkin's "wooden face" suddenly lit up with a completely human feeling - joy, however, "instantly and passed away, as if it had never happened at all." But this is already enough to understand: after all, something human still remains in him. He became so generous that he was ready to treat his dear guest: Chichikov was offered “rusk from Easter cake” and “glorious liquor” from “a decanter that was covered in dust, like in a sweatshirt”, and even with “goats and all sorts of rubbish” inside. And after the departure of an unexpected benefactor, Plyushkin decides on a completely unprecedented act for him: he wants to bequeath his pocket watch to Chichikov. It turns out that so little is needed to stir up this crippled soul at least a little: a little attention, albeit not selfish, participation, support. And a person needs a close person, one for whom nothing is a pity. Plyushkin has no such left, but there are memories that can awaken long-forgotten feelings in this miser. Chichikov asks Plyushkin to name some acquaintance in the city in order to make a bill of sale. It turns out that one of his past friends is still alive - the chairman of the chamber, with whom they were friends at school. The old man recalls his youth, “and on this wooden face some kind of warm ray suddenly slipped, not a feeling escaped, but some kind of pale reflection of a feeling.” But this is enough to understand: in this soul enslaved by the passion for profit, there is still a tiny, but living part of it, which means that rebirth is possible. This is the main fundamental difference between Plyushkin and other landowners. shown by Gogol. And the face of landlord Russia, reflected in them, becomes not so scary and dead.
Such, for example, is the official Ivan Antonovich, nicknamed the "jug snout", drawn in cursory strokes. For a bribe, he is ready to sell his own soul, unless, of course, we assume that he has a soul. That is why, despite the comical nickname, he does not look funny at all, but rather scary.
Such officials are not an exceptional phenomenon, but a reflection of the entire system of Russian bureaucracy. As in The Inspector General, Gogol shows a "corporation of thieves and swindlers." Bureaucracy and corrupt officials reign everywhere. In the judicial chamber, in which the reader finds himself together with Chichikov, the laws are openly neglected, no one is going to do business, and the officials, the “priests” of this kind of Themis, are only concerned with how to collect tribute from visitors - that is, bribes. The bribe here is so obligatory that only the closest friends of high-ranking officials can be exempted from it. So, for example, the chairman of the chamber, in a friendly way, frees Chichikov from tribute: "My friends do not have to pay."
But even worse is the fact that, behind an idle and well-fed life, officials not only forget about their official duty, but also completely lose their spiritual needs, lose their “living soul”. Among the gallery of officials in the poem, the image of the prosecutor stands out. All the officials, having learned about the strange purchase of Chichikov, fall into a panic, and the prosecutor was so frightened that he died when he came home. And only when he turned into a "soulless body", they remembered that "he had a soul." Behind the sharp social satire, the philosophical question arises again: why did a person live? What is left after him? “But if you take a good look at the case, then in fact you only had thick eyebrows,” the author ends the story about the prosecutor. But maybe that hero has already appeared who opposes this entire gallery of "dead souls" of Russian reality?
Gogol dreams of his appearance and in the 1st volume he paints a truly new face of Russian life, but by no means in a positive light. Chichikov is a new hero, a special type of Russian person who appeared in that era, a kind of "hero of the time", whose soul is "enchanted by wealth." Just when in Russia money began to play a decisive role and establish itself in society, it was possible to achieve independence only by relying on capital, this “scoundrel acquirer” appeared. In this author's characterization of the hero, all the accents are immediately placed: a child of his time, Chichikov, in the pursuit of capital, loses the concept of honor, conscience, and decency. But in a society where the measure of a person's value is capital, this does not matter: Chichikov is considered a "millionaire", and therefore is accepted as a "decent person".
In the image of Chichikov, such traits as the desire for success at any cost, enterprise, practicality, the ability to "reasonable will" to pacify one's desires, that is, qualities characteristic of the emerging Russian bourgeoisie, combined with unscrupulousness and selfishness, were artistically embodied. Not such a hero awaits Gogol: after all, the thirst for acquisition kills the best human feelings in Chichikov, leaves no room for a “living” soul. Chichikov has knowledge of people, but he needs this for the successful completion of his terrible "business" - the purchase of "dead souls". He is a force, but "terrible and vile."
The features of this image are connected with the author's intention to lead Chichikov through the path of purification and rebirth of the soul. In this way, the writer wanted to show everyone the path from the very depths of the fall - "hell" - through "purgatory" to transformation and spiritualization. That is why the role of Chichikov in the overall structure of the writer's intention is so important. That is why he is endowed with a biography (like Plyushkin), but it is given only at the very end of the 1st volume. Prior to this, his character is not completely defined: in communication with everyone, he tries to please the interlocutor, adapts to him. With each new face he meets on his way, he looks different: with Manilov - very courtesy and complacency, with Nozdryov - an adventurer, with Sobakevich - a zealous owner. He knows how to find an approach to everyone, for everyone he finds his interest and the right words. Chichikov has the knowledge of people, the ability to penetrate into their souls. No wonder he was immediately accepted by everyone in urban society: the ladies look at him, the "fathers of the city" - the highest officials - court him, the landowners invite him to visit their estates. He is attractive to many, and this is his danger: he introduces into the temptation of the people around him. That is why some researchers believe that there is something diabolical in the appearance of Chichikov. Indeed, the hunt for dead souls is the primordial occupation of the devil. No wonder the city gossip, among other things, call him the Antichrist, and something apocalyptic looms in the behavior of officials, which is reinforced by the picture of the death of the prosecutor.
But in the image of Chichikov, completely different features stand out - those that would allow the author to lead him through the path of purification. It is no coincidence that the author's reflections often echo Chichikov's thoughts (about Sobakevich's dead peasants, about a young pensioner). The basis of the tragedy and at the same time the comedy of this image is that all human feelings in Chichikov are hidden deep inside, and he sees the meaning of life in acquisition. His conscience sometimes awakens, but he quickly calms it down, creating a whole system of self-justifications: “I didn’t make anyone unhappy: I didn’t rob a widow, I didn’t let anyone into the world ...”. In the end, Chichikov justifies his crime. This is the path of degradation, from which the author warns his hero. The writer calls on Chichikov, and with him the readers, to embark on "a direct path, similar to the path leading to a magnificent temple", this is the path of salvation, the rebirth of a living soul in everyone.
It is not for nothing that the two images that complete the story of Chichikov's journey in the 1st volume of the poem are so opposite and at the same time so close - the image of the britzka carrying Chichikov, and the famous "troika bird". The path to the unknown is paved by our strange hero in his unchanging britzka. She, carried away into the distance, gradually loses her shape, and her place is occupied by the image of the "troika bird". The brichka is carrying a "scoundrel-purchaser" along the roads of Russia. buyer of dead souls. She circles off-road from province to province, from one landowner to another, and it seems that there is no end to this path, And the “troika bird” flies forward, and its swift flight is directed to the future of the country, its people. But who is driving and who is driving? Maybe this is a hero familiar to us, but who has already chosen the path and is able to show it to others? Where it leads is not yet clear to the author himself. But this strange fusion of the images of the Chichikovskaya britzka and the “troika bird” reveals the symbolic ambiguity of the entire artistic structure of the poem and the grandeur of the author’s intention: to create an “epopee of the national spirit”. Gogol finished only the first volume, but his work was continued by writers who came to Russian literature after him.
Artistic originality. According to Gogol, Pushkin best of all captured the originality of the writing style of the future author of Dead Souls: “Not a single writer had this gift to expose the vulgarity of life so vividly, to be able to outline the vulgarity of a vulgar person in such force that all that trifle that eludes eyes, would have flashed large in the eyes of everyone. Indeed, the artistic detail becomes the main means of depicting Russian life in the poem. In Gogol, it is used as the main means of typing characters. The author highlights in each of them the main, leading feature, which becomes the core of the artistic image and is “played out” with the help of skillfully selected details. Such details-leitmotifs of the image are: sugar (Manilov); bags, boxes (Box); animal strength and health (Nozdrev); rough but durable things (Sobakevich); a bunch of rubbish, a hole, a hole (Plyushkin). For example, sweetness, dreaminess, unreasonable pretentiousness of Manilov emphasize the details of the portrait (“eyes are sweet as sugar”; his “pleasantness” was “too much transferred to sugar”), details of behavior with people around him (with Chichikov, with his wife and children), interior (there is beautiful furniture in his office - and right there two
unfinished armchairs upholstered in matting; a dandy candlestick - and next to it “some just a copper invalid, lame, curled up on the side and covered in fat”), speech details that allow you to create a unique manner of speaking “sweetly” and indefinitely (“May day, name day of the heart”; “let me you won't be able to do that").
Such details-leitmotifs are used as a means of characterizing all heroes, even episodic ones (for example, Ivan Antonovich - “a jug snout”, the prosecutor has “very black thick eyebrows”) and collective images (“thick and thin” officials). But there are also special artistic means that are used to create a certain number of images. For example, in order to highlight more clearly what is characteristic of each of the landlords representing generalized types, the author uses a special compositional technique in the construction of chapters. It consists in repeating a certain set of plot details that are arranged in the same sequence. First, the estate, courtyard, interior of the landowner's house are described, his portrait and the author's description are given. Then we see the landowner in his relationship with Chichikov - demeanor, speech, hear reviews about neighbors and city officials and get acquainted with his home environment. In each of these chapters, we become witnesses of a dinner or other treat (sometimes very peculiar - like Plyushkin's), which Chichikov is treated to - after all, Gogol's hero, an expert on material life and everyday life, often receives a characterization precisely through food. And in conclusion, the scene of the sale and purchase of "dead souls" is shown, which completes the portrait of each landowner. This technique makes comparison easy. Thus, food as a means of characterization is present in all the chapters on landowners: Manilov's dinner is modest, but with pretension ("schi, but from the bottom of my heart"); at Korobochka - plentiful, in a patriarchal taste (“mushrooms, pies, quick-thinkers, shanishki, spinners, pancakes, cakes with all sorts of baking”); Sobakevich serves large and hearty dishes, after which the guest barely gets up from the table (“when I have pork, put the whole pig on the table; lamb - drag the whole ram”); Nozdryov's food is tasteless, he pays more attention to wine; at Plyushkin's, instead of dinner, the guest is offered liquor with flies and "rusk from the Easter cake", which is still left over from the Easter treat.
Particularly noteworthy are household details that reflect the world of things. There are a lot of them, and they carry an important ideological and semantic load: in a world where the soul has been forgotten and it has “dead”, its place is firmly occupied by objects, things to which their owner is firmly attached. That is why things are personified: such is Korobochka’s clock, which “has a desire to beat”, or Sobakevich’s furniture, where “every object, every chair seemed to say: I, too, Sobakevich!”.
Zoological motifs also contribute to the individualization of the characters: Manilov is a cat, Sobakevich is a bear, Korobochka is a bird, Nozdrev is a dog, Plyushkin is a mouse. In addition, each of them is accompanied by a certain color scheme. For example, Manilov's estate, his portrait, his wife's clothes - everything is given in gray-blue tones; red-brown colors predominate in Sobakevich's clothes; Chichikov is remembered for a through detail: he likes to dress in a lingonberry-colored tailcoat with a spark.
The speech characteristics of the characters also arise through the use of details: Manilov's speech contains many introductory words and sentences, he speaks pretentiously, he does not finish the phrase; Nozdrev's speech contains a lot of swear words, jargon of a gambler, a horseman, he often speaks in alogisms (“he came from God knows where, and I live here”); officials have their own special language: along with clericalism, in addressing each other they use turns that are stable in this environment (“You lied, mommy Ivan Grigorievich!”). Even the names of many characters characterize them to a certain extent (Sobakevich, Korobochka, Plyushkin). For the same purpose, evaluative epithets and comparisons are used (Korobochka - “cudgel-headed”, Plyushkin - “hole in humanity”, Sobakevich - “man-fist”).
Together, these artistic means serve to create a comic and satirical effect, show the illogism of the existence of such people. Sometimes Gogol also uses the grotesque, as, for example, when creating the image of Plyushkin - "holes in humanity." It is both typical and fantastical. It is created through the accumulation of details: a village, a house, a portrait of the owner and, finally, a bunch of junk.
But the artistic fabric of "Dead Souls" is still heterogeneous, since the poem presents two faces of Russia, which means that the epic is opposed to the lyrical. The Russia of landlords, officials, peasants - drunkards, lazybones, clumsy - this is one "face", which is depicted with the help of satirical means. Another face of Russia is presented in lyrical digressions: this is the author's ideal of a country where true heroes walk through the free expanses, people live a rich spiritual life and are endowed with a “living” and not a “dead” soul. "That's why the style of lyrical digressions is completely different: satiriko -everyday, colloquial vocabulary disappears, the author's language becomes bookish-romantic, solemnly pathetic, saturated with archaic, bookish vocabulary ("a formidable blizzard of inspiration will rise from the head clothed in holy horror and in the brilliance"). This is a high style, where colorful metaphors are appropriate, comparisons, epithets (“something delightfully wonderful”, “daring diva of nature”), rhetorical questions, exclamations, appeals (“And what Russian does not like fast driving?”; “Oh my youth! oh my freshness!”).
This is how a completely different picture of Rus' is drawn, with its endless expanses, roads running away into the distance. The landscape of the lyrical part contrasts sharply with that which is present in the epic, where it is a means of revealing the characters' characters. In lyrical digressions, the landscape is connected with the theme of the future of Russia and its people, with the motif of the road: “What does this vast expanse prophesy? Is it not here, in you, that an infinite thought is born, when you yourself are without end? Is there not a hero to be here when there is a place where to turn around and walk for him? It is this artistic layer of the work that allows us to talk about its truly poetic sound, expressing the writer's faith in the great future of Russia.
The value of the work. The enormous significance of the poem "Dead Souls" for the history of Russian literature, social and Christian-philosophical thought is beyond doubt. This work entered the "golden fund" of Russian literature, and many of its themes, problems, and ideas have not lost their significance even today. But in different eras, representatives of different trends focused on those aspects of the poem that aroused the greatest interest and response in them. For such critics of the Slavophile trend as K.S. Aksakov, the main thing was to emphasize the importance of the positive pole of the poem, the glorification of the greatness of Russia. For representatives of democratic criticism, Gogol's work is an invaluable contribution to the development of Russian realism, its critical direction. And Christian philosophers noted the height of the moral position of the writer, bringing the poem closer to the sermon.
Gogol's artistic discoveries in this work largely determined the development of the work of the leading Russian writers of the second half of the 19th century. The theme of the impoverishment and destruction of noble estates was picked up by I.S. Turgenev, I.A. continued thinking about the causes and consequences of the stagnation of deep Russian life. Goncharov, and NA. Nekrasov took the baton in creating the image of people's Russia. M.E. became the heir to the traditions of Gogol's satire. Saltykov-Shchedrin, F.M. Dostoevsky, following Gogol, raised moral and philosophical problems based on Christian positions to unprecedented heights. L.N. Tolstoy continued Gogol's work in creating large-scale epic canvases, creating the epic "War and Peace", and A.P. Chekhov creatively developed the line of conjugation in the work of satirical and lyrical principles. In the 20th century, the Symbolists, especially A. Bely, rethought Gogol's poem in a new way, but M.A. became the most significant heir to Gogol's traditions. Bulgakov.
Point of view
The controversy over the poem "Dead Souls" unfolded immediately after the release of the work, and disputes about it have not stopped to this day. Get acquainted with the positions of several representatives of literary critical thought.
V.G. Belinsky:
“And suddenly ... a purely Russian, national creation appears, snatched from the hiding place of people's life, as true as it is patriotic, mercilessly pulling off the veil from reality and breathing passionate, nervous, bloody love for the fruitful grain of Russian life; the creation is immensely artistic in conception and execution, in terms of the characters of the characters and the details of Russian life - and at the same time, deep in thought, social, public, historical ... In "Dead Souls" the author took such a great step that everything he has written so far seems weak and pale in comparison...
"Dead Souls" will be read by everyone, but, of course, not everyone will like it. Among the many reasons, there is one that "Dead Souls" does not correspond to the crowd's concept of a novel as a fairy tale ... Gogol's poem can be fully enjoyed only by those who have access to the thought and artistic execution of the creation, who care about the content, and not the "plot "... "Dead Souls" requires study.
As for us, then ... we will only say that Gogol did not jokingly call his novel a "poem" and that he does not mean a comic poem by it. This was not told to us by the author, but by his book. We do not see anything joking or funny in it... It is impossible to look at Dead Souls more erroneously and understand them more crudely than seeing them as satire.
(V.G. Belinsky. The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls. Poem by N. Gogol, 1842)
K.S. Aksakov:
“We do not in the least undertake the important work of giving an account in this new great work of Gogol, who has already become high to previous creations; we consider it necessary to say a few words to indicate the point of view from which, it seems to us, it is necessary to look at his poem ...
Before us, in this work, appears ... a pure, true, ancient epic that miraculously arose in Russia ... Of course, this epic, the epic of antiquity, which appears in Gogol's Dead Souls, is at the same time a phenomenon in supremely free and modern. ... In Gogol's poem, the phenomena go one after another, calmly replacing each other, embraced by a great epic contemplation, revealing a whole world, harmoniously presenting with its inner content and unity, with its secret of life. In a word, as we have already said and repeat: the ancient, important epic appears in its majestic course. ... Yes, this is a poem, and this title proves to you that the author understood what he was producing; understood the greatness and importance of his work ...
We, at least, can, we even have the right to think that in this poem Rus' is widely embraced, and is it not the secret of Russian life that lies enclosed in it, will it not be expressed artistically here? - Without going into detail in the disclosure of the first part, in which, of course, there is one content in the whole, we can point out at least its ending, which follows so wonderfully, so naturally. Chichikov is riding in a cart, in a troika; the troika rushed off quickly, and whoever Chichikov might be, although he is a rogue person, and although many will be completely against him, he was Russian, he loves fast driving - and here immediately this general popular feeling, having arisen, connected him with a whole people, hid him, so to speak; here Chichikov, also a Russian, disappears, is absorbed, merging with the people in this feeling common to all of them. The dust from the road rose and hid him; not to see who is jumping - one rushing troika is visible ... Here it penetrates outside and sees Rus', lying, we think, is the secret content of his entire poem. And what are these lines that breathe in them! And how, despite the pettiness of previous faces and relationships in Rus', how powerfully expressed what lies in the depths ... "'
(K.S. Aksakov. A few words about Gogol's poem:
The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls, 1842)
D.S. Merezhkovsky:
“It seemed that there was no soul in this body at all,” Gogol remarks about Sobakevich. He has a dead soul in a living body. And Manilov, and Nozdryov, and Korobochka, and Plyushkin, and the Prosecutor "with thick eyebrows" - all this is "dead souls" in living bodies. That's why it's so scary with them. It is the fear of death, the fear of a living soul touching the dead. “My soul was aching,” Gogol admits, when I saw how many right there, in the midst of life itself, unanswerable dead inhabitants, terrible with the motionless cold of their souls. And here, just as in The Inspector General, the “Egyptian darkness” is approaching ... only “pig snouts” are visible instead of human faces. And the worst thing is that these “decrepit monsters with sad faces”, “children of unenlightenment, Russian freaks”, who are staring at us, according to Gogol, “are taken from our own land, from Russian reality; despite all their illusory nature, they are “from the same body from which we are”; they are us, reflected in some diabolical and yet truthful mirror.
In one youthful fairy tale by Gogol, in "Terrible Revenge", "the dead gnaw on the dead" - "pale, pale, one is taller than the other, one is more bony than the other." Among them, “one more is higher than all, more terrible than all, grown into the ground, a great, great dead man.” So here, in "Dead Souls", among other dead, the "great, great dead" Chichikov grows, rises, and his real human image, refracted in the fog of a damned haze, becomes an incredible "monster".
/S.P. Shevyrev (1806-1864). The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls. Poem by N. Gogol. Article one/
Let us carefully go through the gallery of these strange persons who live their special, full life in the world where Chichikov performs his exploits. We will not violate the order in which they are depicted. Let's start with Manilov, assuming that the author himself starts with him not without reason. Almost a thousand faces are brought together in this one face. Manilov represents a lot of people living inside Russia, which can be said together with the author: people are so-so, neither this nor that, neither in the city of Bogdan, nor in the village of Selifan. If you like, they are generally kind people, but empty; they praise everything and everyone, but their praise is of no use. They live in the countryside, they don’t do housework, but they look at everything with a calm and kind look and, smoking a pipe (a pipe is their inevitable attribute), indulge in idle dreams, like how to build a stone bridge across a pond and start shops on it. The kindness of their soul is reflected in their family tenderness: they love to kiss, but that's all. The emptiness of their sweet and sugary life echoes with pampering in children and bad upbringing. Their dreamy inaction was reflected in their entire economy; look at their villages: they will all be like Manilov. Gray, log huts, no greenery anywhere; everywhere there is only one log; a pond in the middle; two women with a nonsense in which two crayfish and a roach are entangled, and a plucked rooster with a head gouged to the brain (yes, such people in the village must certainly have a plucked rooster) - these are the necessary external signs of their rural life, to which even and the day is light gray, because in sunlight such a picture would not be so entertaining. There is always some kind of defect in their house, and with furniture upholstered in smart material, there will certainly be two armchairs covered with canvas. In every business question, they always turn to their clerk, even if they happen to sell something from rural products.<…>
box— this is a completely different matter! This is the type of active landowner; she lives entirely in her household; she knows nothing else. On the face of it, you will call her a krokhoborka, looking at how she collects fifty dollars and quarters in different bags, but, looking at her more closely, you will do justice to her activities and involuntarily say that she is a minister in her business, no matter where. Look how neat she is everywhere. The contentment of the inhabitants can be seen in the peasant huts; the gate did not squint anywhere; the old tes on the roofs have been replaced everywhere with new ones. Look at her rich chicken coop! Her rooster is not the same as in Manilov's village - a dandy rooster. The whole bird, as you can see, has already been so accustomed to the caring mistress, it seems to be one family with her and comes close to the windows of her house; that's why at Korobochka's there could only be a not entirely courteous meeting between the Indian rooster and Chichikov's guest. Her housekeeping is going well: it seems that there is only Fetinya in the house, and look what kind of cookies! and what a huge down jacket took the weary Chichikov into its depths! "And what a wonderful memory Nastasya Petrovna has!" How she, without any note, told Chichikov by heart the names of all her extinct peasants! You have noticed that the peasants of Korobochka differ from other landowner peasants by some unusual nicknames: do you know why this is?
The box is on her mind: what she has is hers, then hers is strong; and the men are also marked with special names, as a bird is marked with careful owners so that it does not run away. That is why it was so difficult for Chichikov to settle things with her: although she loves to sell and sells any household product, she looks at dead souls in the same way as she looks at lard, hemp or honey, believing that they are in the household may be needed. She tortured Chichikov to the sweat of her face with her difficulties, referring all the time to the fact that the goods were new, strange, unprecedented. She could only be frightened by the devil, because Korobochka must be superstitious. But it’s a disaster if she happens to sell some of her goods at a low price: it’s as if her conscience is not calm - and therefore it’s no wonder that, having sold dead souls and then thinking about them, she galloped into the city in her travel watermelon stuffed with cotton pillows, bread , rolls, kokurki, pretzels and other things, then galloped up to find out for sure how much dead souls go and whether she had missed, God save, selling them, maybe at a bargain price.
On the high road, in some darkened wooden tavern, I met Chichikov Nozdreva, whom he met back in the city: where can you meet such a person, if not in such a tavern? There are quite a few Nozdrevs, the author notes: true, at any Russian fair, the most insignificant, you will certainly meet at least one Nozdrev, and at another, more important - of course, several such Nozdrevs. The author says that this type of people in Rus' is known under the name broken small: epithets also go to him: careless, eccentric, jumbled, braggart, bully, bully, liar, rubbish man, rakalia, and so on. From the third time they tell a friend - You; at fairs they buy everything that comes into their heads, such as: collars, smoking candles, a dress for a nanny, a stallion, raisins, a silver washstand, Dutch linen, grain flour, tobacco, pistols, herring, paintings, a grinding tool - in a word , in their purchases there is the same jumble as in their head. In their village, they like to boast and lie without mercy, and call everything that does not belong to them theirs. Do not trust their words, tell them to their face that they are talking nonsense: they are not offended. They have a great passion to show everything in their village, although there is nothing to look at, and to boast to everyone: this passion shows cordiality - a trait of the Russian people - and vanity, another trait, also dear to us.
Nozdryovs are great hunters of change. Nothing will sit still for them, and everything should also revolve around them, as in their head. Friendly tenderness and curses flow from their tongues at the same time, interfering in the stream of obscene words. God save them from their dinner and from any shortness with them! In the game, they brazenly cheat - and are ready to fight if they notice it. They have a special passion for dogs - and the kennel is in great order: does this not come from some kind of sympathy? for in the character of the Nozdryovs there is something truly canine. Nothing can be done with them: that is why at first it seems even strange how Chichikov, such an intelligent and business-like fellow, who recognized a person from the first time, who he was and how to talk to him, decided to enter into relations with Nozdryov. Such a blunder, which Chichikov later himself repented of, can, however, be explained from two Russian proverbs that there is enough simplicity in every wise man and that a Russian person is strong in hindsight. But Chichikov paid the price afterwards; without Nozdryov, who would have stirred up the city so much and caused all the turmoil at the ball, which caused such an important upheaval in the affairs of Chichikov?
But Nozdryov must give way to a huge type Sobakevich. <…>
It sometimes happens in nature that the appearance of a person is deceiving, and under a strange monstrous image you meet a kind soul and a soft heart. But in Sobakevich, the external perfectly, exactly, corresponds to the internal. His outer image was imprinted on all his words, actions and on everything that surrounds him. His awkward house, full-weight and thick logs used for the stable, barn and kitchen; dense huts of peasants, cut down marvelously; a well, lined with strong oak, fit for a ship structure; in the rooms there are portraits with thick thighs and endless mustaches, the Greek heroine Bobelina with a leg in her torso, a pot-bellied walnut bureau on absurd four legs; a dark-colored thrush—in a word, everything surrounding Sobakevich looks like him and, together with the table, chairs, and chairs, can sing in chorus: and we are all Sobakevich!
Take a look at his dinner: every dish will repeat the same thing to you. This colossal nanny, consisting of a sheep's stomach stuffed with buckwheat, brains and legs; cheesecakes are larger than plates; a turkey the size of a calf, stuffed with who knows what - how all these dishes look like the owner himself!<…>
Talk to Sobakevich: all the calculated dishes will burp in every word that comes out of his mouth. In all his speeches, all the abomination of his physical and moral nature responds. He cuts everything and everyone, just as merciless nature chopped him off: his whole city is fools, robbers, swindlers, and even the most decent people in his dictionary mean the same thing with pigs. Of course, you have not forgotten Fonvizin's Skotinin: if not his own, then at least Sobakevich's godfather, but one cannot but add that the godson outdid his father.
“Sobakevich’s soul seemed to be closed in such a thick shell that everything that tossed and turned at the bottom of it did not produce any shock on the surface,” says the author. So the body mastered everything in him, clouded the whole person and already became incapable of expressing spiritual movements.
His gluttonous nature was also indicated in his greed for money. The mind operates in it, but only to the extent that it is necessary to cheat and make money. Sobakevich is exactly like Caliban 1, in which one evil trick remained from the mind. But in his ingenuity he is more ridiculous than Caliban. How skillfully he screwed Elizaveta Sparrow into the list of male souls, and how cunningly he began to poke a small fish with a fork, having first eaten a whole sturgeon, and played hungry innocence! It was difficult to deal with Sobakevich, because he was a man-fist; his tight nature loves to haggle; but on the other hand, having managed the matter, it was possible to remain calm, for Sobakevich is a solid and firm man and will stand up for himself.
The gallery of faces with whom Chichikov does his business is concluded by a miser Plushkin. The author notes that such a phenomenon rarely comes across in Rus', where everything likes to turn around rather than shrink. Here, just like with other landowners, Plyushkin's village and his house outwardly depict for us the character and soul of the owner himself. The log in the huts is dark and old; the roofs bleed through like a sieve, the windows in the huts without glass, plugged up with a rag or zipun, the church, with yellowish walls, stained and cracked. The house looks like a decrepit invalid, the windows in it are lined with shutters or boarded up; on one of them, a triangle of blue sugar paper darkens. Decaying buildings all around, dead carefree silence, gates always locked tightly, and a giant castle hanging on an iron hinge - all this prepares us for a meeting with the owner himself and serves as a sad living attribute of his soul shut up alive. You rest from these sad, heavy impressions in the rich picture of the garden, although overgrown and decayed, but picturesque in its desolation: here you are treated for a moment by the poet’s wonderful sympathy for nature, which all lives under his warm gaze on her, but meanwhile in the depths in this wild and hot picture, you seem to be looking into the story of the life of the owner himself, in which the soul has also died out, like nature in the wilderness of this garden.
Go up to Plushkin's house; everything here will tell you about him before you see him. Heaped furniture, a broken chair, on the table a clock with a stopped pendulum, to which a spider has attached its web; a bureau lined with mother-of-pearl mosaics, which had already fallen out in places and left behind only yellowish grooves filled with glue; on the bureau there is a pile of small papers written in small pieces, a lemon, all dried up, a broken arm of the chair, a glass with some kind of liquid and three flies, covered with a letter, a piece of sealing wax, a piece of a rag raised somewhere, two feathers stained with ink, dried up, as in consumption , a toothpick, completely yellowed, with which the owner, perhaps, picked his teeth even before the French invasion of Moscow ... Further, the paintings on the walls, blackened with time, a chandelier in a canvas bag, which from the dust has become like a silk cocoon in which a worm sits, a heap of various rubbish in the corner, from which protruded a broken piece of a wooden shovel and an old boot sole - and only one sign of a living creature in the whole house, a worn cap lying on the table ... you already know the man himself!
But here he is himself, looking from a distance like his old housekeeper, with an unshaven chin that protrudes very far forward and resembles an iron-wire comb used to clean horses in a stable, with gray eyes that, like mice, run from under highly grown eyebrows ... Plyushkin is seen so vividly by us, as if we recall him in Albert Dürer's painting in the Doria 2 gallery ... Having depicted a face, the poet enters inside it, reveals to you all the dark folds of this hardened soul, tells the psychological metamorphosis of this person: how stinginess, having once made a nest in his soul, little by little extended its possessions in it and, having conquered everything, devastated all his feelings, turned a person into an animal that, by some instinct, drags into its hole everything that would be for him. nothing came across on the road - an old sole, a woman's rag, an iron nail, a clay shard, an officer's spur, a bucket left by a woman.
Every feeling almost imperceptibly glides across this callous, petrified face... Everything dies, rots and collapses near Plyushkin... No wonder that Chichikov could find in him such a large number of dead and runaway souls, which suddenly multiplied his fantastic population so significantly.
These are the faces with which Chichikov puts his plan into action. All of them, in addition to special properties that belong to each one, have one more feature common to all: hospitality, this Russian cordiality to the guest, which lives in them and seems to hold on to the instinct of the people. It is remarkable that even in Plyushkin this natural feeling was preserved, despite the fact that it is completely contrary to his stinginess: and he considered it necessary to treat Chichikov with tea and ordered the samovar to be put on, but fortunately for him, the guest himself, who realized the matter, refused to treat .
