Dead souls, Lyrical digressions in the poem by N. V.

The poem “Dead Souls” cannot be imagined without “lyrical digressions.” They entered the structure of the work so organically that we can no longer imagine it without these magnificent author’s monologues. Thanks to “lyrical digressions,” we constantly feel the presence of the author, who shares with us his thoughts and experiences about a particular event described in the poem. He becomes not just a guide leading us through the pages of his work, but rather a close friend with whom we want to share the emotions that overwhelm us. Often we wait for these “digressions” in the hope that he, with his inimitable humor, will help us cope with indignation or sadness, and sometimes we just want to know his opinion about everything that is happening. Moreover, these “digressions” have incredible artistic power: we enjoy every word, every image and admire their precision and beauty.
What did Gogol’s famous contemporaries say about the “lyrical digressions” in the poem? A. I. Herzen wrote: “Here the transition from the Sobakeviches to the Plyushkins is filled with horror; With every step you get stuck, you sink deeper, the lyrical place suddenly revives, illuminates and is now replaced again by a picture that reminds even more clearly what kind of pit of hell we are in.” V. G. Belinsky also highly appreciated the lyrical beginning of “Dead Souls,” pointing to “that deep, comprehensive and humane subjectivity that in the artist reveals a person with a warm heart and a sympathetic soul.”
With the help of “lyrical digressions,” the writer expresses his attitude not only to the people and events he describes. These “digressions” carry within them a statement of a person’s high calling, the significance of great social ideas and interests. Whether the author expresses his bitterness and anger about the insignificance of the heroes he shows, whether he speaks about the writer’s place in modern society, whether he writes about the living, lively Russian mind - the source of his lyricism is thoughts about serving his native country, about its destinies, sorrows and hidden gigantic strength.
The author includes lyrical passages in the work with great artistic tact. At first, they contain his statements only about the heroes of the work, but as the plot develops, their themes become more and more versatile.
Having talked about Manilov and Korobochka, the author briefly interrupts the story, as if he wants to step aside a little so that the picture of life painted becomes clearer to the reader. The author's digression, which interrupts the story about Korobochka, contains a comparison of her with a “sister” from an aristocratic society, who, despite her different appearance, is no different from the local mistress.
After visiting Nozdryov, Chichikov meets a beautiful blonde on the road. The description of this meeting ends with the author’s remarkable digression: “Wherever in life, whether among the callous, rough-poor and unkempt and moldy low-lying ranks, or among the monotonously cold and boringly neat upper classes, everywhere at least once you will meet on a person’s path is a phenomenon unlike anything he has ever seen before, which will at least once awaken in him a feeling not similar to those he is destined to feel throughout his life.” But all this is completely alien to Chichikov: his cold caution is here compared with the direct manifestation of human feelings.
At the end of the fifth chapter, the “lyrical digression” is of a completely different nature. Here the author is no longer talking about the hero, not about the attitude towards him, but about the mighty Russian man, about the talent of the Russian people. Outwardly, this “lyrical digression” seems to have little connection with the entire previous development of the action, but it is very important for revealing the main idea of the poem: true Russia is not the Sobakevichs, Nozdryovs and Korobochki, but the people, the element of the people.
Closely connected with lyrical statements about the Russian word and national character is the artist’s inspired confession about his youth, about his perception of life, which opens the sixth chapter.
The story about Plyushkin, who most powerfully embodied base aspirations and feelings, is interrupted by the author’s angry words, which have a deep, generalizing meaning: “And a person could condescend to such insignificance, pettiness, and disgusting!”
Gogol begins the seventh chapter with his thoughts about the creative and life fate of the writer in his contemporary society, about two different destinies awaiting the writer who creates “exalted images” and the realist writer, satirist. This “lyrical digression” reflected not only the writer’s views on art, but also his attitude towards the ruling elite of society and the people. “Lyrical digression”: “Happy is the traveler who, after a long and boring road...” is an important stage in the development of the narrative: it seems to separate one narrative link from another. Gogol's statements illuminate the essence and meaning of both previous and subsequent paintings of the poem. This “lyrical digression” is directly related to the folk scenes shown in the seventh chapter, and plays a very important role in the composition of the poem.
In the chapters devoted to the depiction of the city, we come across the author’s statements about ranks and classes: “... now all ranks and classes are so irritated with us that everything that is in a printed book already seems to them to be a person: that’s how it is, apparently, location in the air."
Gogol ends his description of the general confusion with reflections on human delusions, on the false paths that humanity has often followed in its history: but the current generation laughs and arrogantly, proudly begins a series of new delusions, which posterity will also laugh at later.”
The writer’s civic pathos reaches particular strength in the “lyrical digression”: “Rus, Rus'! I see you from my wonderful, beautiful distance.” Like the lyrical monologue at the beginning of the seventh chapter, this “lyrical digression” forms a clear line between two parts of the narrative - city scenes and the story of Chichikov’s origins. The theme of Russia, in which it is “poor, scattered and uncomfortable,” but where heroes cannot but be born, has already been widely developed here. Following this, the author shares with the reader the thoughts that the distant road and the rushing troika evoke in him: “How strange, and alluring, and carrying, and wonderful in the word: road! and how wonderful this road itself is.” Gogol sketches here one after another pictures of Russian nature that appear before the gaze of a traveler racing on fast horses along an autumn road. And despite the fact that the image of the three-bird is left behind, in this “lyrical digression” we feel it again.
The story about the main character of the poem is completed by the author’s statements, presenting sharp objections to those who may be shocked by both the main character and the entire poem, depicting the “bad” and “despicable”.
“Lyrical digressions” reflect the author’s high sense of patriotism. The image of Russia that concludes the novel-poem is filled with deep love, an image that embodies the ideal that illuminated the artist’s path when depicting petty, vulgar life.
But the most important question for Gogol remains unanswered: “Rus, where are you rushing?” What awaited this “God-inspired” country at the end of the road, then only God could know.

Lyrical digressions in Gogol's poem Dead Souls

Lyrical digressions in Gogol's poem Dead Souls

The book “Dead Souls” by Gogol can rightfully be called a poem. This right is given by the special poetry, musicality, and expressiveness of the language of the work, saturated with such figurative comparisons and metaphors that can only be found in poetic speech. And most importantly, the constant presence of the author makes this work lyrical-epic.

The entire artistic canvas of “Dead Souls” is permeated with lyrical digressions. It is lyrical digressions that determine the ideological, compositional and genre originality of Gogol’s poem, its poetic beginning associated with the image of the author. As the plot develops, new lyrical digressions appear, each of which clarifies the idea of the previous one, develops new ideas, and increasingly clarifies the author's intention.

A lyrical digression about “the myriad of churches” and how “the Russian people express themselves strongly.” This author’s reasoning suggests the following thought: here not only the apt Russian word is glorified, but also God’s word, which spiritualizes it. It seems that both the motif of the church, which appears for the first time in the poem precisely in this chapter, and the noted parallel between the folk language and God’s word, indicate that it is in the lyrical digressions of the poem that some spiritual instruction of the writer is concentrated.

On the other hand, the widest range of the author’s moods is expressed in lyrical digressions. Admiration for the accuracy of the Russian word and the liveliness of the Russian mind at the end of chapter 5 is replaced by a sad and elegiac reflection on the passing of youth and maturity, on the “loss of living movement” (the beginning of the sixth chapter). At the end of this digression, Gogol directly addresses the reader: “Take with you on the journey, emerging from the soft youthful years into stern, embittering courage, take with you all human movements, do not leave them on the road, you will not pick them up later! The old age coming ahead is terrible, terrible, and nothing gives back and back!

A complex range of feelings is expressed in a lyrical digression at the beginning of the next seventh chapter. Comparing the fates of two writers, the author speaks with bitterness about the moral and aesthetic deafness of the “modern court”, which does not recognize that “glasses that look at the sun and convey the movements of unnoticed insects are equally wonderful”, that “high enthusiastic laughter is worthy to stand next to the high lyrical movement "

The negative sides of life, to dead souls. The author understands perfectly well what he is dooming himself to by taking the path of “exposing the crowd, its passions and delusions” - to persecution and persecution from false patriots, to rejection by his compatriots - but he courageously chooses precisely this path.

Such an ethical system forces the artist to perceive literature as a tool for correcting human vices, primarily through the cleansing power of laughter, “high, enthusiastic laughter”; the modern court does not understand that this laughter “is worthy to stand next to the lofty lyrical movement and that there is a whole abyss between it and the antics of a buffoon.”

At the end of this retreat, the author’s mood changes sharply: he becomes an exalted prophet, a “formidable blizzard of inspiration” opens before his gaze, which “will rise from the chapter clothed in holy horror and splendor,” and then his readers “will feel in embarrassed trepidation the majestic thunder of other speeches "

An author who cares for Russia, who sees in his literary work the path to improving morals, instructing fellow citizens, and eradicating vice, shows us images of living souls, a people who carry within themselves a living principle. In a lyrical digression at the beginning of the seventh chapter, the peasants bought by Chichikov from Sobakevich, Korobochka, and Plyushkin come to life before our eyes. The author, as if intercepting the internal monologue of his hero, speaks of them as if they were alive, showing the truly living soul of the dead or runaway peasants.

What appears here is not a generalized image of Russian men, but specific people with real features, described in detail. This is the carpenter Stepan Probka - “a hero who would be fit for the guard”, who, perhaps, went all over Rus' “with an ax in his belt and boots on his shoulders.” This is Abakum Fyrov, who walks on the grain pier with barge haulers and merchants, having worked to the tune of “one endless song, like Rus'.” The image of Abakum indicates the love of the Russian people for a free, wild life, festivities and fun, despite the forced serf life and hard work.

In the plot part of the poem we see other examples of people who are enslaved, downtrodden and socially humiliated. Suffice it to recall the vivid images of Uncle Mitya and Uncle Miny with their bustle and confusion, the girl Pelageya, who cannot distinguish between right and left, Plyushkin’s Proshka and Mavra.

But in the lyrical digressions we find the author’s dream about the ideal of a person, what he can and should be. In the final 11th chapter, a lyrical and philosophical reflection on Russia and the vocation of the writer, whose “head was overshadowed by a menacing cloud, heavy with the coming rains,” gives way to a panegyric for the road, a hymn to the movement - the source of “wonderful ideas, poetic dreams,” “wonderful impressions.”

Thus, two of the most important themes of the author’s reflections – the theme of Russia and the theme of the road – merge in a lyrical digression that ends the first volume of the poem. “Rus'-troika,” “all inspired by God,” appears in it as the 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."

Horseman,” and with a rhetorical question sounding there: “And what fire is in this horse! Where are you galloping, proud horse, / And where will you land your hooves?”

A rushing country, directed towards the future, not obeying its “riders”: the formidable Peter, who “raised Russia on its hind legs”, stopping its spontaneous movement, and the “sky smokers”, whose immobility sharply contrasts with the “terrifying movement” of the country.

The high lyrical pathos of the author, whose thoughts are directed to the future, in his thoughts about Russia, its path and destiny, expressed the most important idea of the entire poem. The author reminds us of what is hidden behind the “mud of little things that entangle our lives” depicted in volume 1, behind the “cold, fragmented everyday characters that teem with our earthly, sometimes bitter and boring path.”

It is not for nothing that in the conclusion of volume 1 he speaks of the “wonderful, beautiful distance” from which he looks at Russia. This is an epic distance that attracts him with its “secret power”, the distance of the “mighty space” of Rus' and the distance of historical time: “What does this vast expanse prophesy? Isn’t it here, in you, that a boundless thought will be born, when you yourself are endless? Shouldn’t a hero be here when there is a place where he can turn around and walk?”

In retreats, there is no place for them: they seem to diminish, disappear, just as “dots, icons, low cities stick out inconspicuously among the plains.”

Only the author himself, endowed with knowledge of true Rus', “terrible strength” and “unnatural power” received by him from the Russian land, becomes the only true hero of volume 1 of the poem. He appears in lyrical digressions as a prophet, bringing the light of knowledge to people: “Who, if not the author, should tell the holy truth?”

But, as it has been said, there are no prophets in their own country. The author’s voice, sounded from the pages of the lyrical digressions of the poem “Dead Souls,” was heard by few of his contemporaries, and even less was understood by them. Gogol later tried to convey his ideas in the artistic and journalistic book “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends”, and in the “Author’s Confession”, and - most importantly - in subsequent volumes of the poem. But all his attempts to reach the minds and hearts of his contemporaries were in vain. Who knows, maybe only now the time has come to discover Gogol’s real word, and it’s up to us to do this.

Analyzing Gogol’s “Dead Souls,” Belinsky noted the “deep, comprehensive and humane subjectivity” of the poem, subjectivity that does not allow the author “with apathetic indifference to be alien to the world he depicts, but forces him to conduct living phenomena of the external world through his soul, and through then I can breathe my soul into them...”

It was no coincidence that Gogol considered his work a poem. Thus, the writer emphasized the breadth and epic nature of the narrative, the importance of the lyrical principle in it. The same thing was noted by the critic K. Aksakov, who saw in the poem “an ancient, Homeric epic.” “It may seem strange to some that Gogol’s faces change without any particular reason... It is epic contemplation that allows this calm appearance of one face after another without external connection, while one world embraces them, connecting them deeply and inextricably with internal unity,” wrote critic.

The epic nature of the narrative, internal lyricism - all this was a consequence of Gogol’s creative ideas. It is known that the writer planned to create a large poem similar to Dante's Divine Comedy. The first part (volume 1) was supposed to correspond to “Hell”, the second (volume 2) to “Purgatory”, the third (volume 3) to “Paradise”. The writer thought about the possibility of Chichikov’s spiritual rebirth, about the appearance in the poem of characters who embodied “the untold wealth of the Russian spirit” - “a husband gifted with divine virtues,” “a wonderful Russian maiden.” All this gave the story a special, deep lyricism.

The lyrical digressions in the poem are very diverse in their themes, pathos and moods. Thus, describing Chichikov’s journey, the writer draws our attention to many details that perfectly characterize the life of the Russian province. For example, the hotel where the hero stayed was “of a well-known type, that is, exactly the same as there are hotels in provincial cities, where for two rubles a day travelers get a quiet room with cockroaches peeking out like prunes from all corners.”

The “common room” where Chichikov goes is well known to every passerby: “the same walls, painted with oil paint, darkened at the top from pipe smoke,” “the same smoked chandelier with many hanging pieces of glass that jumped and rang every time the floor servant ran on worn oilcloths,” “the same paintings covering the entire wall, painted with oil paints.”

Describing the governor's party, Gogol talks about two types of officials: “fat” and “thin.” “Thin” in the author’s view are dandies and dandies hanging around the ladies. They are often prone to extravagance: “for three years, the thin one does not have a single soul left that is not pawned in a pawnshop.” Fat people are sometimes not very attractive, but they are “thorough and practical”: they never “take indirect places, but are all straight, and if they sit somewhere, they will sit securely and firmly...”. Fat officials are “the true pillars of society”: “having served God and the sovereign,” they leave the service and become famous Russian bars and landowners. The author's satire is obvious in this description: Gogol perfectly understands what this “official service” was like, which brought a person “universal respect.”

The author often accompanies the narrative with general ironic remarks. For example, when talking about Petrushka and Selifan, Gogol notes that it is inconvenient for him to occupy the reader with people of low class. And further: “Such is the Russian man: a strong passion to become arrogant with someone who is at least one rank higher than him, and a casual acquaintance with a count or prince is better for him than any close friendly relations.”

In lyrical digressions, Gogol talks about literature, writing, and various artistic styles. These arguments also contain the author's irony; one can discern the hidden polemic of the realist writer with romanticism.

Thus, depicting the character of Manilov, Gogol ironically notes that it is much easier to depict large characters, generously throwing paints onto the canvas: “black scorching eyes, drooping eyebrows, a wrinkled forehead, a cloak black or scarlet like fire thrown over a shoulder - and a portrait ready...". But it is much more difficult to describe not romantic heroes, but ordinary people, “who look very similar to each other, but when you look closely, you will see many of the most elusive features.”

Elsewhere, Gogol talks about two types of writers, meaning a romantic writer and a realistic satirist writer. “A wonderful destiny is enviable” for the first, who prefers to describe sublime characters that demonstrate the “high dignity of man.” But this is not the fate of the second, “who dared to bring out all the terrible, stunning mud of little things that entangle our lives, all the depth of the cold, fragmented, everyday characters with which our earthly, sometimes bitter and boring road is teeming.” “His field is harsh,” and he cannot escape the modern court, which considers his works “an insult to humanity.” There is no doubt that Gogol is talking here about his own fate.

Gogol satirically describes the way of life of Russian landowners. So, talking about the pastime of Manilov and his wife, Gogol remarks, as if in passing: “Of course, one could notice that there are many other activities in the house, besides long kisses and surprises... Why, for example, is it stupid and useless to cook in the kitchen ? Why is the pantry pretty empty? Why is a thief a housekeeper? ...But all these are low subjects, and Manilova was brought up well.”

In the chapter dedicated to Korobochka, the writer talks about the “extraordinary ability” of the Russian person to communicate with others. And here comes the author's outright irony. Noting Chichikov’s rather unceremonious treatment of Korobochka, Gogol notes that the Russian man has surpassed the foreigner in the ability to communicate: “it is impossible to count all the shades and subtleties of our treatment.” Moreover, the nature of this communication depends on the size of the interlocutor’s fortune: “we have such wise men who will speak completely differently to a landowner who has two hundred souls than to one who has three hundred...”.

In the chapter on Nozdrev, Gogol touches on the same topic of “Russian communication,” but in a different, more positive, aspect of it. Here the writer notes the unique character of the Russian person, his good nature, easygoingness, and gentleness.

Nozdryov’s character is quite recognizable - he is a “broken fellow”, a reckless driver, a reveler, a gambler and a rowdy. He has a habit of cheating while playing cards, for which he is repeatedly beaten. “And what’s strangest of all,” Gogol notes, “which can only happen in Rus' alone, is that after some time he already met again with those friends who were pestering him, and they met as if nothing had happened, and he, as they say, nothing, and they are nothing."

In the author’s digressions, the writer also talks about the Russian noble class, shows how far these people are from everything Russian, national: from them “you won’t hear a single decent Russian word,” but they will be endowed with French, German, English in such quantities that you won’t even if you want." High society worships everything foreign, forgetting its original traditions and customs. The interest of these people in national culture is limited to the construction of a “hut in Russian taste” at their dacha. The author's satire is obvious in this lyrical digression. Gogol here calls on his compatriots to be patriots of their country, to love and respect their native language, customs and traditions.

But the main theme of the lyrical digressions in the poem is the theme of Russia and the Russian people. Here the author’s voice becomes excited, the tone becomes pathetic, irony and satire recede into the background.

In the fifth chapter, Gogol glorifies the “living and lively Russian mind,” the extraordinary talent of the people, and the “aptly spoken Russian word.” Chichikov, asking a man he met about Plyushkin, receives a comprehensive answer: “... patched, patched! - the man exclaimed. He also added a noun to the word “patched”, which is very successful, but not commonly used in social conversation...” “The Russian people are expressing themselves strongly! - exclaims Gogol, “and if he rewards someone with a word, then it will go to his family and posterity, he will drag him with him into service, and into retirement, and to St. Petersburg, and to the ends of the world.”

The image of the road that runs through the entire work is very important in lyrical digressions. The theme of the road appears already in the second chapter, in the description of Chichikov’s trip to Manilov’s estate: “As soon as the city went back, they began to write, according to our custom, nonsense and game on both sides of the road: hummocks, a spruce forest, low thin bushes of young pines, charred trunks old, wild heather and similar nonsense.” In this case, this picture is the background against which the action takes place. This is a typical Russian landscape.

In the fifth chapter, the road reminds the writer of the joys and sorrows of human life: “Everywhere, across whatever sorrows from which our life is woven, brilliant joy will rush merrily, like sometimes a brilliant carriage with golden harness, picture horses and the sparkling shine of glass suddenly and unexpectedly will rush past some dead poor village..."

In the chapter about Plyushkin, Gogol discusses the susceptibility of people of different ages to life impressions. The writer here describes his childhood and youthful feelings associated with the road, with travel, when everything around him aroused keen interest and curiosity in him. And then Gogol compares these impressions with his current indifference, cooling towards the phenomena of life. The author’s reflection ends here with a sad exclamation: “Oh my youth! oh my freshness!

This reflection of the author imperceptibly turns into the idea of how a person’s character and inner appearance can change with age. Gogol talks about how a person can change in old age, to what “insignificance, pettiness, disgustingness” he can reach.

Both author’s digressions here echo the image of Plyushkin, with the story of his life. And therefore, Gogol’s thought ends with a sincere, excited appeal to readers to preserve in themselves the best that is characteristic of youth: “Take with you on the journey, emerging from the soft youthful years into stern, embittering courage, take with you all human movements, do not leave them behind.” road, you won’t get up later! The old age coming ahead is terrible, terrible, and nothing gives back and back!

The first volume of Dead Souls ends with a description of the troika rapidly flying forward, which is a real apotheosis of Russia and the Russian character: “And what Russian doesn’t like driving fast? Is it possible for his soul, striving to get dizzy, to go on a spree, to sometimes say: “Damn it all!” - Is it his soul not to love her? ...Oh, three! bird-three, who invented you? to know, you could have been born to a lively people, in that land that does not like to joke, but has spread out smoothly across half the world... Rus', where are you rushing to? Give an answer. Doesn't give an answer. The bell rings with a wonderful ringing; The air, torn into pieces, thunders and becomes the wind; everything that is on earth flies past, and, looking askance, other peoples and states move aside and give way to it.”

Thus, the lyrical digressions in the poem are varied. These are satirical sketches by Gogol, and pictures of Russian life, and the writer’s reflections on literature, and ironic observations on the psychology of the Russian person, the peculiarities of Russian life, and pathetic thoughts about the future of the country, about the talent of the Russian people, about the breadth of the Russian soul.

The author's thoughts and feelings about ideal Russia are expressed in lyrical digressions filled with a feeling of deep patriotism and love for the Motherland and a feeling of hatred of injustice. In lyrical digressions, the writer’s thought goes far from the events in the life of the main character and covers the entire subject of the image, “all of Rus',” and even reaches a universal level. The author's thoughts about the high purpose of man, about the fate of the Motherland and the people are contrasted with gloomy pictures of Russian life.

Lyrical digressions scattered throughout the poem are organically woven into the narrative and sound like a cry of pain, indignation and delight. They touch on issues that are relevant for all times and enhance the impression of the pictures depicted. In digressions, the reader becomes acquainted with persons who do not act directly in the poem. These are gentlemen “fat” and “thin”, gentlemen of the “big hand” and “middle hand”, the ruler of the chancellery Ivan Petrovich, broken fellows, drunkards and brawlers and others. These episodic faces are drawn by the author with two or three strokes, but they play a big role. They never meet the main character, Chichikov, but help the author in creating the image of a united Rus'.

The narrative of the poem is more than once interrupted by upbeat, lyrical travel sketches and sincere conversations with the reader. In one of the most poetic places in the work, which precedes the story about the life and formation of the personality of the protagonist, the theme of the road and the future of Russia merge. In this lyrical digression, colloquial speech is intertwined with a sublime tone of speech, and the reader, along with the author, is imbued with the charm and music of the word “road” itself and a feeling of delight in nature: “What a strange, and alluring, and carrying, and wonderful thing in the word: road ! and how wonderful it is, this road: a clear day, autumn leaves, cold air...”

The author speaks of “churches with ancient domes and blackened buildings”, “dark log and stone houses”, “fields and steppes”, “huts scattered on the slope”, soulfully conveys the feelings of a man racing in a troika: “God! how beautiful you are sometimes, long, long way! How many times, like someone dying and drowning, have I grabbed onto you, and each time you generously carried me out and saved me! And how many wonderful ideas, poetic dreams were born in you, how many wondrous impressions were felt!..”

Extra-plot, inserted episodes, scenes, paintings, and the author’s reasoning are organically included in the poem. For example, Gogol casually sketches portraits of “thin” and “fat” officials. "Alas! Fat people know how to manage their affairs in this world better than thin people,” writes Gogol. Or a satirical portrait of a certain chancellery ruler. Among his subordinates, the ruler is “Prometheus, decisive Prometheus!.. and a little higher than him, with Prometheus, such a transformation will take place, which even Ovid would not invent: a fly, even smaller than a fly, is destroyed into a grain of sand!”

In the last chapter, which tells about the development of Chichikov's character, the reader again plunges into the world of vulgarity and evil. Using the example of the life of his hero, the author very accurately formulates the principles that dominate in his contemporary world: “most of all, take care and save a penny,” “hang around with those who are richer,” “please your superiors.” With undisguised irony, the writer speaks of a system of education in which abilities and talents have no value, and eternal truths are driven into the heads of young men through flogging and other punishments. The spirit of commerce and profit, which reigned in the world of the feudal nobility, penetrated educational institutions and destroyed everything pure and poetic in the souls of young people.

However, once again plunging us into the world of self-interest and profit, Gogol again returns us to the positive principles of the Russian character, instilling confidence in the bright future of his people. In a lyrical digression that concludes the story, he talks about the talent of the Yaroslavl peasant, who built a road wagon with a chisel and a hammer, about a bird or three, which originated among the lively people “in that land that does not like to joke, but was scattered evenly across half the world,” about courage and daring of a simple Russian person. The poem ends with a grandiose in its expressiveness image of the rushing Rus' - a trio of birds. In the last lyrical digression, the author emphasizes the doom of the world of officials and landowners and the belief in the limitless possibilities of the Russian people.

Throughout the entire narrative, the author draws our attention to Chichikov’s troika, more than once even indicating the names of the horses harnessed to it. Chichikov's troika is one of the main and expressive characters of the work. At the end of the poem, we again see Chichikov’s troika: Selifan slaps Chubari on the back, after which he breaks into a trot. The movement of the troika gradually accelerates, and the image of the troika changes its internal meaning. Instead of Chichikov's troika, a Russian troika appears, and at the same time the intonation of the narrative changes. The image of our native land appears before us, and the horses rush in a whirlwind, separate from the ground and turn into lines flying through the air, and instead of the troika, Rus' appears in all its rapid movement. The author’s speech is melodious, filled with emotional epithets and synonyms, metaphors and exclamations: “Rus, where are you rushing? Give an answer. Doesn't give an answer." This digression contains the result of many years of Gogol’s thoughts about the fate of Russia, about the present and future of its people. After all, it is the people who oppose the world of officials, landowners, and businessmen, like a living soul against a dead one.

All topics in the book “Dead Souls” by N.V. Gogol. Summary. Features of the poem. Essays":

Summary of the poem “Dead Souls”: Volume one. Chapter first

Features of the poem “Dead Souls”

All topics in the book “Dead Souls” by N.V. Gogol. Summary. Features of the poem. Essays":

Summary of the poem “Dead Souls”: Volume one. Chapter first

Features of the poem “Dead Souls”