In the context of the whole work, in understanding its intention, in the composition and development of the plot, lyrical digressions and inserted short stories are of great importance. The Tale of Captain Kopeikin plays a very important role. Not connected in its content with the main plot, it continues and deepens the main theme of the poem - the theme of the death of the soul, the kingdom of dead souls. In other lyrical digressions, a citizen writer appears before us, deeply understanding and feeling the full force of his responsibility, passionately loving his Motherland, and suffering from the ugliness and unrest that surround him and that are happening everywhere in his beloved and long-suffering Motherland.

The macro-composition of the poem "Dead Souls", that is, the composition of the entire conceived work, was suggested to Gogol by the immortal " Divine Comedy"Dante: the first volume is the hell of feudal reality, realm of the dead shower; the second is purgatory; the third is heaven. This idea remained unfulfilled. Having written the first volume, Gogol did not put an end to it, she remained beyond the horizon of an unfinished work. The writer could not lead his hero through purgatory and show the Russian reader the coming paradise, which he had dreamed of all his life.

Tasks and tests on the topic "Features of the plot and composition of Gogol's poem Dead Souls"

• Morphological norm

  Lessons: 1 Assignments: 8

• Work with text - Important topics for repeating the exam in the Russian language

56. Genre originality of the poem by N.V. Gogol "Dead Souls". Features of the plot and composition.

Answer: “Dead Souls” is a poem of all Russian life and all of Gogol's work. In 1835 Gogol reads the first chapters to Pushkin, in 1842 he publishes the first volume. Gogol burned the second volume. Fragments of individual chapters have come down to us. "Dead Souls" - a poem of Gogol's life.

M.D. determine the development of literature itself. Subsequent Russian prose refers to the text of M.D. Gogol's text was created at the turn of two socio-economic periods: the era of the nobility was ending and the era of the raznochintsy was beginning. Is born new hero: a person who earns money at any cost. In M.D. reflected the global problems of human existence. Here are traced the latest romantic heroes. Gogol's text traces the typology of social consciousness.

A poem is a polysemantic definition. Gogol violates the lyrical traditions of the poem, in which there is no poetic language. It was important for the author to emphasize the synthesis of epic and lyrical forms of expression. Gogol pushes the boundaries of prose and its possibilities. His epic takes on the energy of lyrics. Gogol relied on the traditions of the world epic poem ("The Divine Comedy" by Dante corresponds to the structure of Gogol's plan to lead a Russian person through hell, purgatory and paradise; "Undivine Comedy" by Krasinsky - parodia sacra). Writing M.D.'s climaxes was associated with Zhukovsky and his translation of the Odyssey. The idea of ​​the cunning Odysseus, who found a fatherland, gives Gogol associations with Chichikov. In 1847 Gogol wrote an article about

"Odyssey". In the last chapters of M.D. one can see a reflection of the Homeric style (complex epithets). Gogol is looking in the Russian world for a figure who will give Russia the meaning of development.

The double title was published for censorship reasons. The titles of The Adventures of Chichikov return to the tradition of a picaresque novel. The play of yellow and black on the cover is a play of light and darkness. Yellow is the color of insanity. Starting with the cover, Gogol wanted his concept of the epic to reach the reader.

The poem grew out of an anecdote. The anecdotal situation gradually becomes symbolic. The most important motifs - the road, the troika, the soul - express the Russian character. All Chichikov's thoughts correspond with Gogol's way of thinking. Gogol defends his hero, calling him "the hero of our time."

Gogol continues the traditions of Russian heroism. Chichikov is a hero capable of development. M.D. - his "Odyssey", the movement of a wanderer in search of a homeland. The road is the way of Russian life. Gogol's hero constantly strays, going astray.

In M.D. originally 33 chapters, returning to the sacred age of Christ. There are 11 chapters left.

M.D. composition:

1. Chapter I - exposition; 2. Chapter II - VI - landlord chapters; 3. Chapter VII - X - city heads; 4. Chapter XI - conclusion.

Gogol chooses the plot of the travelogue. The road plot gave a view of the world. The poem begins with a road episode. The wheel is a symbol of Chichikov's movement. Roads push apart the Russian space and the author's consciousness. The chaos of repetition is a symbol of unpredictable Russian life. The image of the heap as Russian mud is symbolic. Symbolic images constantly create a sense of the Russian world. The theme of Russian heroes and the Patriotic War is created, passing through the plot.

By the end of 1835, the dominant features of Gogol's conception emerged: the motif of a journey through Russia, a multitude of diverse characters, the depiction of all Rus' "at least from one side", the genre of the novel. It is obvious that the image of Russia as a national substance, as “our everything” is at the center of Gogol's artistic reflection. But since there were quite long breaks between revisions, many “revision souls” for whom it was necessary to pay tax were often already dead, and the landowners naturally wanted to get rid of them. It is on this absurdity that the essence of Chichikov's adventure is based, who managed to turn the dead, "diminished" revisionist souls into revived, living ones. The play itself with the concepts of living and dead souls acquired an anecdotal, but quite real meaning. But no less important was that in the lexicon Gogol's poem and real living landowners, representatives of the bureaucratic apparatus turned into dead souls. Gogol saw in them the absence of vitality, the death of the soul. He, in essence, with the whole meaning of his poem revealed the idea of ​​preserving a living soul during life. His philosophy of the soul was based on eternal values. Passive submission to the force of external circumstances and, above all, the anti-human morality of Gogol's contemporary society, the writer considers as the spiritual death of the individual, or the death of the soul. In a word, the title of the poem is polysemantic, contains various artistic meanings, but the anthropological aspect, which helps to reveal national problems on a large scale, the “Russian spirit”, can be considered decisive. In this sense, the genre definition of the POEM, which Gogol’s work already received at the first edition and which he recreated in his cover drawing so graphically and with symbolic overtones (peculiar caryatids of heroes supporting the genre subtitle), seems natural and significant in Gogol’s artistic system. It was the poem as a lyrical-epic genre that made it possible to organically combine the epic potencies of the idea-creation “All Rus' will appear in it!” with the author's word, his reflection on the national substance, on the ways of Russia's development, what later became known as "lyrical digressions". The very tradition of the genre of the poem as a national epic (recall Kheraskov's numerous "Petriades", "Rossiada"), as heroides, could not be alien to Gogol's attitude. Finally, the great examples of the genre, above all Homer's Odyssey and Dante's Divine Comedy, could not but stand before his mind's eye and excite his artistic imagination. The very idea of ​​a three-volume work with the recreation of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise of national existence gave rise to natural associations with Dante. Gogol introduced into Russian verbal culture his own genre phenomenon - a poem in prose. With this definition, Gogol expanded the very possibilities of prose, giving it a special music of the word and thereby creating an epic image of Russia - "dazzling vision", "blue distance". Even at the beginning of work on the work, Gogol was aware of the unusual nature of his idea, which did not fit into the usual genre canons. The genre subtitle concentrates the creative strategies of the author of "Dead Souls": the synthetism of thinking, the organic combination of the epic and lyrical beginnings, pushing the boundaries and possibilities of prose, setting to recreate the national, substantial problems of being. The image of Russia fills the entire space of the poem and manifests itself at various levels of the author's artistic thinking. E.A. Smirnova, developing these thoughts, comes to the conclusion that “Dead Souls owes many important features of its poetic structure to three ancient genres. The first of them is a folk song, the second is a proverb, and Gogol calls the third “the word of Russian church shepherds..."

The artistic structure of the poem contributes to the realization of the central image as the integrity of the changing, transient sides of things and phenomena, as a national substance. The composition of the poem is subject to the installation of revealing the nature of this substance. 11 chapters create a ring that recreates the idea of ​​"back to square one". The first chapter is the entry of Chichikov's cart into the provincial town of NN. 3-6 chapters - visiting the estates of the landowners Manilov, Korobochka, Nozdrev, Sobakevich, Plyushkin. Chapters 7-10 - Chichikov's return to the city. Chapter 11 - the departure of the hero from the city N. By a strange coincidence, the nomination of the city changes: instead of NN, just N, but we are talking about one city. It is impossible to determine Chichikov's travel time: all weather realities are washed away. It is truly a wandering in eternity. “Dead Souls” can be called a road poem without exaggeration. The road is the main bond of the plot and philosophy. Road plot - a view of the world. The journey and adventures of Chichikov are the compositional core that brings together the entire Russian world. different types roads: dead ends, country roads, “spreading like crayfish”, “without end and edge”, rushing into space - give rise to a feeling of endless space and movement. And Gogol's hymn to the road: “What a strange and alluring, and carrying, and wonderful in the word: the road! and how wonderful she herself is, this road... God! how good you are sometimes, distant, distant road! How many times, like a perishing and drowning man, have I clutched at you, and every time you generously endured me and saved me! And how many wonderful ideas, poetic dreams were born in you, how many wondrous impressions were felt! The path of an individual and the path of the entire nation, of Russia, are connected in Gogol's mind by two plots: real, but mirage, and symbolic, but vital. The mud of trifles, daily, everyday life gives rise to the static of dead life, but the symbolic leit-motifs - roads, troikas, souls explode the static, reveal the dynamics of the flight of the author's thought. These leitmotifs become symbols of Russian life. On the troika along the roads of life in search of a living soul and the answer to the question "Rus, where are you rushing to?" - this is the vector of movement of the author's consciousness. The double plot reveals the complexity of the relationship between the author and the hero. The plot of the image and the plot of the story are plots different levels and volume, these are two pictures of the world. If Chichikov's adventures and his deals with the landowners are related to the first story, then the author's view of the world, his reflection on what is happening is related to the second. The author is invisibly present in the britzka, next to Chichikov, Petrushka and Selifan. “... But as for the author,” Gogol remarks at the end of the first volume, “he must in no case quarrel with his hero: there is still a lot of way and road they will have to go together hand in hand; two large parts in front - this is not a trifle ”(VI, 245-246). There is no place for fantasy in the artistic space of the poem, but the author's imagination is boundless. She easily turns a scam into dead souls- into a real story, a britzka - into a troika bird, comparing it with Russia: “Isn’t it you, Rus, that a brisk, unbeatable troika, rushing about?” (VI, 247); it promotes the "circulation of lyricism" in order to recreate not a gallery of satirical portraits, but to give a spiritual portrait of the nation. And this portrait has many faces: it takes one step from the great to the ridiculous. Each of the following characters has its own unique face. Traditions Russian Lubok, Tenier and Rembrandt paintings are manifested in the depiction of faces, interiors, landscapes. But behind all the difference between the types, the commonality of their philosophy and behavior is revealed. Gogol's landowners are inert; they don't have vital energy and development. Gogol's laughter in Dead Souls is more restrained than in The Government Inspector. The very genre of the poem, unlike comedy, dissolves it in epic paintings and lyrical authorial reflection. But it is an integral and organic part of the author's position. Laughter in "Dead Souls" develops into satire. It acquires a world-building meaning, as it is aimed at the very foundations of Russian statehood, its main institutions. The landowners, the bureaucratic apparatus, and finally, the state power itself are subjected to a sober analysis.

N.V. Gogol wanted to write a work "in which all of Rus' would appear." This work was supposed to be a grandiose description of the life and customs of Russia in the first thirds of XIX century. They became the poem "Dead Souls", written in 1842. The first edition of the work was called "The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls." Such a name reduced the satirical meaning of this work. Gogol changed the title for censorship reasons, in order for the poem to be published.

Why did Gogol call his work a poem? This name, like the poem itself, is ambiguous. One of the meanings is quite realistic. The work is about a kind of population census: the enterprising businessman Chichikov buys up the names of those peasants who have died. IN pre-revolutionary Russia male peasants were called souls and assigned to some landowner. By acquiring non-existent people for himself, Chichikov involuntarily exposes the shaky and fragile foundation of the existing system. Already at least in this the satirical orientation of Gogol's poem is visible.

Next to the satirical denial of deformities Russian life there are lyrical elements in the poem that glorify beautiful image Russia. This image is associated with a "high lyrical movement", which in the poem is replaced by a comic narrative from time to time.

The author's lyrical digressions and inserted episodes are very important in the poem "Dead Souls". In them, Gogol touches on the most acute public issues Russia. The author's thoughts about the high destiny of man, about the fate of the Fatherland and the people are in sharp contrast with the gloomy pictures of Russian reality.

So, let's go with the hero of the poem "Dead Souls" Chichikov to the city of N.

From the very first pages of the work, we feel the fascination of the plot, since we cannot assume that after the meeting of Chichikov with Manilov there will be meetings with Sobakevich and Nozdrev. The reader cannot even guess at the end of the poem, because all its characters are described according to the principle of gradation: one is worse than the other. For example, Manilov as a separate image does not seem positive character(on the table he has a book open to the same page, and his politeness is insincere: “Let me not allow you to do this”), but compared to Plyushkin, he even wins in many ways. It is interesting that Gogol put the image of the Box in the center of the composition, because its features can be found in each of the landowners. According to the author, she is the personification of an irrepressible thirst for accumulation and acquisition.

The world of landlords, who are real dead souls in the poem, is opposed lyrical image people's Russia about which Gogol writes with love and admiration.

Very important in the poem is the image of a troika rapidly rushing forward. The trio of horses embodies the strength, prowess, recklessness of Russia: “Isn’t it you, Rus, that a lively, unbeatable trio are rushing?” But the troika is also a symbol of a wild ride that can take you to uncharted lands.

The composition of "Dead Souls" is slender and proportionate in Pushkin's way.

There are 11 chapters in the 1st volume. Of these, Chapter I is an extensive exposition. The next 5 chapters (II-VI), tying and developing the action, at the same time represent, as it were, 5 completed short stories-essays, in the center of each of them is a detailed portrait of one of the landowners of the province, where Chichikov arrived in the hope of carrying out the scam he had conceived . Each portrait is a certain type.

In the next five chapters (VII-XI), mainly officials of the provincial city are drawn. However, these chapters are no longer built as separate essays with one main character in the center, but as a successively developing chain of events that take on an increasingly intense plot character.

Chapter XI completes the 1st volume and at the same time, as it were, returns the reader to the beginning of the story.

In chapter I, Chichikov's entry into the city of NN is depicted, and a hint is already made of the plot of the action. In chapter XI, the denouement takes place, the hero hastily leaves the city, and here Chichikov's background is given. In general, the chapter is both the completion of the plot, its denouement, and the exposition, the "key" of the character of the protagonist and the explanation of the secret of his strange "negotiation" associated with the purchase of dead souls.

When studying the system of images in Dead Souls, one should especially think about the peculiarities of character typification, in particular, the images of landowners. Usually, for all their individual originality, they emphasize social traits landowners-serfs of the period of the decomposition of the feudal system that began in Russia, which, in particular, is mentioned in all school and university textbooks.

On the whole, this is correct, but far from sufficient, since this approach leaves unexplained the unusual breadth of artistic generalization in these images. Reflecting in each of them a variety social type As a landowner-serf, Gogol did not limit himself to this, because for him not only social and species specificity is important, but also the universal human characteristic of the depicted artistic type. A truly artistic type (including Gogol's) is always wider than any social type, because it is depicted as an individual character in which the social-specific, class-group difficultly correlates with the social-generic, holistic-personal, universal - with a large or a lesser predominance of one of these principles. That is why Gogol's artistic types contain features that are characteristic not only of landowners or officials, but also of other classes, estates and social strata of society.

It is noteworthy that Gogol himself repeatedly emphasized the openness of his heroes to social class, social species, narrow group and even time frames. Speaking of Korobochka, he remarks: "Another and respectable, and even a statesman, but in reality the perfect Korobochka comes out." Masterfully characterizing the "broad" nature " historical man Nozdryova, the writer, in this case, does not attribute all his diverse properties exclusively to the feudal landowner of his era, arguing: “Nozdryov will not leave the world for a long time. He is everywhere between us and, perhaps, only walks in a different caftan; but people are frivolously impenetrable, and a person in a different caftan seems to them a different person.

For all their undoubted socio-psychological limitations, the characters of Gogol's characters are far from schematic one-dimensionality, they are living people with a mass of individual shades. The same, according to Gogol, “many-sided man” Nozdryov with his “bouquet” of negative qualities (a reveler, a gambler, a shameless liar, a fighter, etc.) is somewhat sympathetic in his own way: with his irrepressible energy, ability to quickly converge with people, peculiar democratism, disinterestedness and inconsistency, lack of hoarding. The only problem is that all these human qualities acquire an ugly development from him, they are not illuminated by any meaning, truly human goals.

There are positive beginnings in the characters of Manilov, Korobochka, Sobakevich, and even Plyushkin. But these are, more precisely, the remnants of their humanity, which further shade the lack of spirituality that triumphed in them under the influence of the environment.

If, for example, Lermontov portrayed mainly resistance " inner man” to the external circumstances of life surrounding him, then Gogol focuses in Dead Souls on his subordination to these circumstances, up to “dissolving” in them, focusing, as a rule, on end result this process. This is how Manilov, Korobochka, Nozdrev are represented. But already in the image of Sobakevich there is another tendency - to understand the origins of the process of spiritual mortification of a person: “Are you born like a bear,” says the poem about Sobakevich, “or did the provincial life, grain crops, fuss with peasants, and through them you have become what is called a man-fist.

The more a person loses human qualities, the more Gogol seeks to get to the bottom of the causes of his spiritual deadness. This is exactly what Plyushkin does as a “hole in humanity”, unfolding his life background, talking about that time “when he was only a thrifty owner”, “he was married and a family man”, an exemplary one, when his “mind was visible in his eyes; his speech was permeated with experience and knowledge of the world, and it was pleasant for the guest to listen to him; the friendly and talkative hostess was famous for her hospitality; two pretty daughters came out to meet them, both blond and fresh as roses, a son ran out, a broken boy ... ".

And then the author, without skimping on details, shows how Plyushkin's frugality gradually turned into meaningless stinginess, how marital, paternal and other human feelings died out. Wife and youngest daughter. Elder Alexandra Stepanovna fled with an officer in search of a free and happy life. The son, becoming an officer, lost in cards. Instead of material or moral support, Plyushkin sent them a paternal curse and closed himself even more in himself and his all-consuming passion for hoarding, which becomes more and more meaningless with time.

Along with pathological stinginess, suspicion, hypocrisy develops in him, designed to create a semblance of lost spiritual properties. In some way here Gogol anticipated the image of Yudushka Golovlev, for example, in the scene of Plyushkin’s reception of the “runaway” daughter with her “two babies”: “Alexandra Stepanovna once came twice with her little son, trying to see if she could get something; evidently the camp life with the staff captain was not as attractive as it had seemed before the wedding. Plyushkin, however, forgave her and even gave his little granddaughter a button to play with... but he didn't give her any money. Another time, Alexandra Stepanovna came with two little ones and brought him an Easter cake for tea and a new dressing gown, because the father had such a dressing gown, which was not only ashamed to look at, but even ashamed. Plyushkin caressed both granddaughters and, seating them one on his right knee and the other on his left, shook them in exactly the same way as if they were riding horses, took the Easter cake and dressing gown, but gave absolutely nothing to his daughter; with that, Alexandra Stepanovna left.

But even in such a "monster" the writer is looking for the remnants of humanity. In this regard, the episode is indicative when Plyushkin, during the “bargaining” with Chichikov, remembered his only acquaintance in the city, who was his classmate as a child: “And on this wooden face some kind of warm beam suddenly glided, expressed not a feeling, but some that pale reflection of feeling ... ".

By the way, according to the plan, Plyushkin was supposed to appear in the subsequent volumes of Dead Souls, if not resurrected morally and spiritually, then realizing, as a result of a strong life shock, the measure of his human fall.

The prehistory of the protagonist, the "scoundrel" Chichikov, who, according to the writer's intention, had to go through a significant internal evolution over the course of three volumes, is given in even more detail.

The types of officials are described more succinctly, but no less meaningfully, for example, the prosecutor with thick eyebrows and an involuntary winking left eye. Talk and rumors about the history of the purchase Chichikov dead showers had such an effect on him that he "began to think, think, and suddenly ... he died for no reason at all." They sent, it was, for the doctor, but soon saw that the prosecutor "was already one soulless body." And it was only then that his fellow citizens “learned with condolence that the dead man had exactly a soul, although he, due to his modesty, never showed it.”

The comedy and satire of the image here imperceptibly pass into a different, moral and philosophical tone: the deceased lies on the table, “the left eye no longer blinked at all, but one eyebrow was still raised with some kind of questioning expression. What the deceased asked, why he died or why he lived, only God knows about this.

It was precisely that cardinal vital question that was posed - why did a person live, why does a person live? - a question that so little bothered all these seemingly prosperous inhabitants of the provincial city with their dead souls alive. Here one involuntarily recalls the words of Pechorin from “A Hero of Our Time”: “Why did I live? For what purpose was I born?

We talk a lot and rightly about social satire in Dead Souls, not always noticing their moral and philosophical overtones, which over time, and especially in our time, are gaining more and more not only historical, but also modern interest, highlighting in concrete the historical content of "Dead Souls" its universal perspective.

The deep unity of these two aspects was noticed by Herzen. Immediately after reading Gogol's poem, he wrote in his diary: "Dead Souls" - this title itself bears something terrifying... not dead souls from the Reviz, but all these Nozdrevs, Manilovs and tutti quaiili - these are dead souls, and we meet them at every step. Where are the common, living interests?.. After youth, one way or another, don't we all lead one of the lives of Gogol's heroes? One remains with Manilov's stupid daydreaming, the other rages like Nozdrev, the third - Plyushkin, etc. One active person is Chichikov, and that one is a limited rogue.

All this dead souls the writer contrasts, first of all, the “living souls” of peasants who, as a rule, died not of their own, but of forced death or who could not stand the serf oppression and became fugitives, such as the carpenter Stepan Probka (“a hero who would be fit for the guard”), shoemaker Maxim Telyatnikov (“what pierces the awl, then the boots”), the amazing master bricklayer Milushkin, Abakum Fyrov, who “loved the free life” and turned into barge haulers, and others.

Gogol emphasizes the tragedy of the fates of most of them, who are increasingly “thinking” about their disenfranchised life - like that Grigory Get there, you won’t get there, who “thought, thought, but for no reason turned into a tavern, and then straight into ice hole, and remember your name. And the writer makes a meaningful conclusion: “Eh! Russian people! does not like to die a natural death! .

Speaking of central conflict in the artistic structure of the poem, one must keep in mind its peculiar two-dimensionality. On the one hand, this is a conflict between the protagonist and landowners and officials, based on Chichikov's adventure in buying up dead souls. On the other hand, this is a deep-seated conflict between the landlord-bureaucratic, autocratic-feudal elite of Russia with the people, primarily with the serf peasantry. Echoes of this deep conflict are heard every now and then on the pages of Dead Souls.

Even the “well-intentioned” Chichikov, annoyed by the failure of his cunning undertaking, hastily leaving the governor’s ball, suddenly falls upon the balls, and all the idle life of the ruling classes associated with them: “Damn you all who invented these balls! .. Well, what were you so happy about? There are crop failures in the province, high prices, and so they are for balls! .. But at the expense of peasant dues ... "

Chichikov occupies a special place in the figurative and semantic structure of "Dead Souls" - not only as main character, but also as an ideological-compositional and plot-forming center of the poem. Chichikov's journey, which was the basis of his adventurous and mercantile intentions, made it possible for the writer, in his words, "to travel ... all over Russia and bring out a multitude of the most diverse characters", to show "all of Rus'" in its contradictions and dormant potencies.

So, analyzing the reasons for the collapse of Chichikov's idea of ​​​​enrichment by acquiring dead souls, it is worth paying special attention to two seemingly incidental episodes - at a meeting between Chichikov and a young blonde who turned out to be the governor's daughter, and the consequences of these meetings. Chichikov only for a moment allowed himself sincere human feelings, but this was enough to confuse all his cards, to destroy his plan, which was so prudently carried out. Of course, the narrator says, “it is doubtful that gentlemen of this kind ... were capable of love ...” But, “it is clear that the Chichikovs turn into poets for a few minutes in their lives ...” . As soon as Chichikov, in his fleeting passion, forgot about the role he had assumed and ceased to pay due attention to "society" in the person of, first of all, the ladies, they were not slow in taking revenge on him for such neglect, picking up the version of dead souls, flavoring it in their own way with the legend of the abduction governor's daughter: "All the ladies did not like this treatment of Chichikov at all." And they at once "went each in their own direction to riot the city," i.e. set him up against the recent universal favorite Chichikov. This "private" story line in its own way highlights the complete incompatibility in the mercantilely prudent world of businesslike prosperity with sincere human feelings and heart movements.

The basis of the plot in the 1st volume of "Dead Souls" is Chichikov's misadventures associated with his scam based on buying dead shower. The news of this excited the entire provincial town. The most incredible assumptions were made as to why Chichikov needed dead souls.

General confusion and fear were intensified by the fact that a new governor-general was appointed to the province. “All of a sudden, they were looking for such sins in themselves that they didn’t even exist.” The officials wondered who Chichikov was, whom they so kindly received by his dress and manners: “is he such a person who needs to be detained and seized as unintentional, or is he such a person who himself can seize and detain them all as unintentional” .

This social “ambivalence” of Chichikov as a possible carrier of both law and lawlessness reflected their relativity, opposition and interconnectedness in the society depicted by the writer. Chichikov was a mystery not only for the characters of the poem, but also in many respects for its readers. That is why, while riveting attention to it, the author was in no hurry to solve it, referring the exposition explaining the origins of this nature to the final chapter.

Conclusion for the chapter: Gogol sought to show the terrible face of Russian reality, to recreate the "Hell" of Russian modern life.

The poem has a ring "composition": it is framed by the action of the first and eleventh chapters: Chichikov enters the city and leaves it. The exposition in "Dead Souls" was moved to the end of the work. Thus, the eleventh chapter is, as it were, the informal beginning of the poem and its formal end. The poem begins with the development of the action: Chichikov begins his journey to the "acquisition" of dead souls. The construction of "Dead Souls" is logical and consistent. Each chapter is completed thematically, it has its own task and its own subject matter. The chapters devoted to the depiction of landlords are arranged according to the scheme: a description of the landscape, the estate, the house and life, the appearance of the hero, then the dinner and the attitude of the landowner to the sale of dead souls are shown. The composition of the poem contains lyrical digressions, inserted short stories (“The Tale of Captain Kopeikin”), a parable about Kif Mokievich and Mokiya Kofovich.

The macro-composition of the poem "Dead Souls", that is, the composition of the entire conceived work, was suggested to Gogol by Dante's immortal "Divine Comedy": Volume 1 - the hell of feudal reality, the kingdom of dead souls; 2 volume - purgatory; Volume 3 - Paradise. This idea remained unfulfilled. You can also note the gradual spiritual degradation of the landowners as the reader gets to know them. Such a picture creates in the reader a rather heavy emotional sensation from the symbolic steps along which the human soul moves to hell.