The social significance of Gogol's comedy The Inspector General. Composition

In the 30-40s of the 19th century, when the ruling circles of Nicholas I sought to eradicate all free-thinking and social independence.
The appearance of the comedy “The Inspector General” in 1836 acquired social significance not only because the author criticized and ridiculed the vices and shortcomings of Tsarist Russia, but also because with his comedy the writer urged viewers and readers to look into their souls and think about universal human values. Gogol did not share the idea of a revolutionary reorganization of society, but he firmly believed in the cleansing power of laughter, believed in the triumph of justice, which will certainly win as soon as people realize the fatality of evil. So, in his play N.V. Gogol sets himself the goal of “laughing hard” at everything that is “worthy of universal ridicule.”
In the comedy “The Inspector General,” the author chooses a small provincial town as the setting, from which “even if you ride for three years, you won’t reach any state.” N.V. Gogol makes city officials and the “phantasmagoric face,” Khlestakov, the heroes of the play. The author's genius allowed him, using the example of a small island of life, to reveal those features and conflicts that characterized the social development of an entire historical era. He managed to create artistic images of a huge social and moral range. The small town in the play captures all the characteristic features of social relations of that time. The main conflict on which the comedy is built lies in the deep contradiction between what city officials do and ideas about the public good and the interests of city residents. Lawlessness, embezzlement, bribery - all this is depicted in “The Inspector General” not as individual vices of individual officials, but as generally accepted “standards of life”, outside of which those in power cannot imagine their existence. Readers and viewers never doubt for a minute that somewhere life takes place according to different laws. All the norms of relations between people in the city of “The Inspector General” look in the play as ubiquitous. Where, for example, do officials have such confidence that an auditor arriving from St. Petersburg will agree to take part in the mayor’s dinner and will not refuse to take obvious bribes? Yes, because they know this from the experience of their city, but is it really so different from the capital?
Gogol is interested not only in the social vices of society, but also in its moral and spiritual state. In “The Inspector General,” the author painted a terrible picture of the internal disunity of people who are able to unite only temporarily under the influence of a common feeling of fear. In life, people are driven by arrogance, swagger, servility, the desire to take a more advantageous place, to get a better job. People have lost the idea of the true meaning of life. You can sin; all you need to do is, like the mayor, regularly attend church every Sunday. Fantastic lies, which are in many ways similar to Khlestakov’s, also help officials hide the true nature of their actions. Lyapkin-Tyapkin takes bribes with greyhound puppies and calls it “a completely different matter.” In the city's hospitals, people are "recovering like flies." The postmaster opens other people's letters only because “death loves to find out what is new in the world.”
It is no coincidence that N.V. Gogol completely reinterprets the traditional stage plot and development of the plot in his play, saying that “do not rank, money capital, and a profitable marriage now have more value than love?” The true values of human nature for city officials are replaced by ideas about rank. The superintendent of the schools, Khlopov, a modest titular councilor, openly admits that if anyone of higher rank speaks to him, he “has no soul, and his tongue is stuck in the mud.” It is the reverent fear of a “significant person” that leads to the fact that officials, who perfectly understand all the emptiness and stupidity of Khlestakov, feign complete respect, and not only feign it, but actually experience it.
Characterizing his play “The Inspector General” as a social comedy, N.V. Gogol repeatedly emphasized the deep generalizing content of its images. The unpunished arbitrariness of the mayor, the dull diligence of Derzhimorda, the malicious simplicity of the postmaster - all these are deep social generalizations. Each of the characters in the comedy symbolizes a certain range of human qualities, allowing the author to show how crushed modern man is, how much ideas about heroism and nobility remain in him.
The image of Khlestakov, whom the author not by chance considered the main character of the work, can also be considered a huge creative success of the writer. It was Khlestakov who most fully expressed the essence of an era in which there is no normal human logic, in which a person is judged not by his spiritual qualities, but by his social status. And in order to occupy a high position, just an opportunity is enough that will take you “from rags to riches”; you don’t have to make any efforts or care about the public good.
Thus, it can be argued that, having brought out generalized types of people and relationships between them in comedy, N.V. Gogol was able to reflect in his work with great force the life of contemporary Russia. Inspired by the ideas of man's high calling, the writer spoke out against everything low, vicious and unspiritual, against the fall of social norms and human morality. The enormous social significance of the play lies in the power of its impact on the audience, who must realize that everything they see on stage is happening around them in real life.

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The choice of the topic of the essay was determined by the fact that I like the work of N.V. Gogol and are interested in his works. I especially like his comedy “The Inspector General”. N.V. Gogol worked on the text of the comedy for a total of about 17 years. The epigraph to “The Inspector General” is the Russian proverb “There is no point in blaming the mirror if your face is crooked.”

"The Inspector General" is a comedy of characters. We laugh, in the words of N.V. Gogol, not at the “crooked nose” of the characters, but at the “crooked soul.” The plot of The Inspector General is based on a typically comedic incongruity: a person is mistaken for someone other than who he really is. Literary critic G. A. Gukovsky wrote: “the essence of Gogol’s plot is not at all that someone impersonated someone, but in the story of how they saw an auditor in Khlestakov.” The broad vital significance of the “Inspector General” situation is that it could arise almost anywhere. This is the vitality of the play. In criticism, N.V. Gogol’s comedy is usually called the best social comedy of its time.

N.V. Gogol is an innovator, like any genius. For example, he brought to life the idea of “the movement of life on stage.” The classical repertoire of modern theater cannot do without The Inspector General. Gogol’s success on stage lies not only in his sociality, but also in the fact that no one before him had offered the actor such powerful examples of the Russian word. No one knew the Russian word as well as felt its nuances like N.V. Gogol. The writer, it seems to me, seemed to see the face of a Russian person under the form of a Russian word. When you listen to Gogol’s speech, sounding from the lips of the actors, you are amazed at how accurately and unmistakably it, this speech, paints the image of the hero with all his human weaknesses.

In the works of N.V. Gogol, through characters, faces, scenes and situations, we are shown the full-length image of the small landowner of the pre-reform era in all its economic and psychological variations. N.V. Gogol wrote: “I decided to collect in one pile everything bad in Russia that I knew then and laugh at everything at once.”

N.V. Gogol occupies a special place in Russian literature

N. G. Chernyshevsky wrote: “It’s been a long time since there was a writer in the world who was as important for his people as Gogol was for Russia.” And S. T. Aksakov said prophetic words: “it takes a lot, a lot of time for the memory of Gogol to lose its freshness; forgotten, it seems to me, he will never be.”

In my essay, I wanted to “collect in one pile” everything that I had learned about the famous Gogol comedy by studying books, dictionaries and reference books, and “at one time” give a linguistic and literary commentary on it.

II. FAMOUS COMEDY

1. The history of the creation of “The Inspector General”

In October 1835, Gogol wrote to Pushkin: “Do me a favor, give me some kind of story, at least something funny or not funny, but a purely Russian joke. My hand is trembling to write a comedy in the meantime. Do me a favor, give me a plot, the spirit will be a comedy of five acts and, I swear, it will be funnier than the devil.”

And Pushkin gave Gogol a plot.

In one letter, Gogol wrote that Pushkin gave him the “first thought” about “The Inspector General”: he told him about a certain Pavel Svinin, who, having arrived in Bessarabia, posed as an important St. Petersburg official and only when he got to the point where he even became to take petitions from the prisoners, “was stopped.” Moreover, Pushkin told Gogol how in 1833, while collecting materials on the history of the Pugachev uprising, he was mistaken by the local governor for a secret auditor sent to examine the provincial administration.

Gogol, who asked Pushkin in October 1835 to give him a plot for the play, finished it in early December. But this was the very original edition of the comedy. Excruciating work on it began: Gogol reworked the comedy, either inserting scenes or cutting them. In January 1836, he reported in a letter to his friend Pogodin that the comedy was completely ready and rewritten, but he “must, as I now saw, redo several phenomena.”

Work on “The Inspector General” also went in one more direction.

Having begun his dramatic activity at a time when vaudeville dominated the Russian stage, whose only task was to make the audience laugh and entertain, Gogol could not help but succumb to the generally accepted techniques widely used by vaudeville actors. Both in the early drafts of the play and in its first editions one can find a lot of exaggeration, unnecessary deviations from the topic, anecdotes and all sorts of absurdities.

But, in contrast to the numerous purely farcical scenes removed by the playwright, all the remaining ridiculous scenes are traditionally vaudeville only in form. In terms of their content, they are completely justified, since they are justified by the characters of the characters and are typical for them.

Gogol's obvious desire to thoroughly cleanse the play of all sorts of excesses was caused by the fact that in the minds of the playwright the conviction of the enormous influence of the theater grew. “The theater is a great school, its purpose is profound: it reads a living and useful lesson to a whole crowd, a whole thousand people at a time,” he writes, preparing an article for Pushkin’s Sovremennik.

And in another article, Gogol writes: “The theater is not at all a trifle and not at all an empty thing. It is a pulpit from which you can say a lot of good to the world.”

It is clear that, recognizing such a huge importance of the theater, Gogol had to remove from his “The Government Inspector” everything that did not correspond to his understanding of the high tasks of the theater.

The further creative process of working on “The Inspector General” was directed by the playwright to strengthen the accusatory and satirical sound of the comedy, which became an image not of an individual particular case that occurred in one of the provincial towns of Russia, but a generalized display of typical phenomena of Russian reality.

In the final version of 1842, Gogol for the first time puts a menacing shout into the mayor’s mouth: “Why are you laughing? laughing at yourself! ", directed against everyone sitting in the auditorium.

Representatives of the ruling classes, as well as representatives of their views in the press, trying to reduce the satirical sound of The Inspector General, argued after the first performance of The Inspector General that “it was not worth watching this stupid farce,” that the play was “a very funny farce, a series of funny caricatures,” that “this is an impossibility, slander, a farce.” True, in the original edition there were farcical moments in the play, and they, through the fault of the theater, were emphasized by the actors. But Gogol, in the last “canonical” edition of 1842, managed not only to deflect these reproaches, but, adding to the play as an epigraph the folk proverb “There is no point in blaming the mirror if the face is crooked,” he once again pointed out with all sharpness the “crooked faces” of his contemporaries

Gogol immediately explains the “origin of the Inspector General”: “I decided to collect everything bad that I knew and laugh at everything at once.”

These are individual examples of Gogol’s work on “The Inspector General,” who tried to strengthen the socially accusatory meaning of the comedy.

2. Language proficiency is the most important element of the art of writing

Gogol is a miracle worker of words. Gogol's bright, imaginative, rich speech with extraordinary completeness and clarity conveys the most diverse shades of character, the manner of speaking of each of his heroes. He had a great sense of all the inexhaustible richness of the Russian language.

Belinsky described the main feature of Gogol’s “style,” that is, his style and language: “Gogol does not write, but draws; his images breathe the living colors of reality. You see and hear them. Every word, every phrase sharply, definitely, clearly expresses his thought, and in vain you would like to come up with another word or another phrase to express this thought.”

Gogol himself spoke with unusual completeness about “our extraordinary language”: “In it all the tones and shades, all the transitions of sounds, it is limitless and can, living like life, be enriched every minute.”

His word always carries a meaning that is unexpected for the reader. And Gogol, as an artist, experiences the greatest joy when it seems possible to turn a word into an unexpected direction.

There are no hollow, empty words in Gogol's language. The powerful expressive and figurative power of Gogol’s language was based on the writer’s ability to make the word precise, concrete, and plastic. Language became not only the form in which an object was expressed or a thought was embodied, but also, as it were, the material itself.

It is here that the source of the artistic energy of Gogol’s words lies.

The work of this writer on the language of his works is striking not only in its thoroughness, but also in the novelty of its approach to language.

Gogol strives to free the phrase from all unnecessary, unnecessary things, to make it compact and convey the thought as accurately as possible.

Gogol was always interested in the word itself - its sound, its sound texture. Having heard or come up with some unusual, outlandish surname, he immediately hurries to write it down: someday it will come in handy. He collected information received from people into his notes and they waited there for the opportunity to turn into parts of poetic paintings.

So, Gogol writes: “Emenet Aleksandrovich Pooshchryaev” - and, as it were, admires the word, its unexpected sound, its aesthetics.

Gogol felt the great pictorial, graphic and plastic power of the word. “You marvel at the preciousness of our language,” he wrote, “every sound is a gift; everything is grainy, large, like the pearl itself, and, truly, another name is even more precious than the thing itself.” Only Gogol could say so. Bearing in mind the amazing richness of the Russian language, the variety of its forms, its colorfulness and polysemy, Gogol notes that such a language “is itself a poet.” In the apt, lively and “sweeping” Russian word, the writer saw the most vivid reflection of the living soul of the people.

Language mastery is an extremely important, perhaps even the most important element of the art of writing. But the concept of artistic mastery, according to Gogol, is even more capacious, for it more directly absorbs all aspects of the work - both its form and content.

Gogol almost never expresses his thoughts directly. He expresses it with the help of a complex metaphor or simile, an ironic allegory or parable. It is this path that seems to him the most correct and effective, because it involves the active perception of the reader and makes the image more impressive.

Gogol achieves this expressiveness in other ways, for example, by layering one detail on top of another. His description is always distinguished by an abundance of characteristic details.

Gogol's works are distinguished by their remarkable “multi-vocality.” Each character has what Gogol himself called a “way of speech,” that is, that originality of language that creates the complete illusion of a living, sounding word, and not indicated only by corresponding signs on paper. The linguistic palette of Gogol's heroes is multicolored and diverse. The style of speech very accurately conveys their inner world. Each of the characters has their own tongue pattern. Gogol attached exceptional importance to this aspect of writing. The artist must be able to “grab the way of speech” of the character, otherwise there is no character.

Gogol, according to Andrei Bely, “laughs at the efforts of the guardians of the purity of language to squeeze language into grammar.” And the speech of the characters, and even the language of the author - everything was free from the oppression of traditional bookish and grammatical norms and seemed snatched from the very thick of life.

Working on style meant for the writer a search for the most expressive word. Gogol saw in the word not only a means of information, but, above all, a source of poetry; it itself is poetry. That is why he is ready to sacrifice the grammatical structure of a phrase, its “correctness” from the point of view of everyday norms, and even accuracy in the name of preserving expression.

Working on words was the most difficult “torment of creativity” for Gogol. He honed each phrase with the utmost effort of all his mental strength. Gogol wrote to A.V. Nikitenko: “You yourself understand that every phrase came to me through reflection, long considerations, that it is harder for me to part with it than for another writer, for whom it costs nothing to replace one thing with another in one minute.”

In his “Author's Confession,” Gogol revealed one of the secrets of his creative laboratory. To make the depicted face “more tangible,” he wrote, “we need all those countless little things and details that say that the person taken really lived in the world.”

The novelty of the subject especially attracts Gogol when it is presented in a characteristic verbal expression. That is why, in addition to the object itself, Gogol was always interested in the word denoting this object, and he admired this word, trying to find the best use for it.

3. A sign of Gogol’s style and vision of the world is humor

Gogol’s artistic merits should also include “an unprecedented, unheard-of natural language, a humor unknown to anyone,” recalled one of the greatest art critics, V. V. Stasov, in 1881.

One of the most characteristic features of Gogol’s vision of the world and style is humor. Gogol's work is thoroughly imbued with humor. Its basis was the amazing observation of this writer and his deepest understanding of man.

Rejecting “dissolute” laughter, born “from the idle emptiness of idle time,” Gogol recognized only laughter, “born from love for a person.” In “Theatrical Travel,” the author, through the mouth of the “first comic actor,” says that laughter “is created to laugh at everything that disgraces the true beauty of a person.” And in general, “laughter is more significant and deeper than people think.” Laughter is a great tool for educating a person. Therefore, one should laugh not at a person’s “crooked nose,” but at his “crooked soul.”

Gogol in The Government Inspector uses a satirical technique, which Russian literature, especially comedy, has often turned to since the times of Sumarokov and Fonvizin. Gogol greatly diversifies this technique, using it very inventively and wittily. But in developing the verbal means of the comic, Gogol most often follows paths new and unknown to previous writers.

The means by which he achieves comic effect are extremely varied. For Gogol, the word is an inexhaustible source of laughter. Perhaps, it is unlikely that any of the Russian writers can compete with him in this regard.

When analyzing Gogol's text, one must always distinguish between the true meaning of the phrase and the apparent one. Behind the external lack of logic in the hero’s reasoning, something completely different is often hidden. Here is the mayor's first meeting with Khlestakov at the hotel. Their conversation is an example of comedic art. But what is it based on?

After a short exchange of greetings, the mayor explains that he wandered here, to the hotel, as a duty of the mayor, so to speak, out of duty, commanding him to take care of “those passing through.” Khlestakov, not yet figuring out what’s what, frightened by the mayor, spews nonsense: they say, he is not to blame and will soon pay for everything. Then there are several remarks from both sides. Both interlocutors each talk about their own things. They are afraid of each other and have not yet found contact. The mayor took the mention of Khlestakov’s lack of money as a hint, and instantly the thought of a bribe arises in his head. Overcoming doubts, worries, fears, he offers his “help” to a “high-ranking” guest in trouble. “Help” is immediately gratefully accepted, and the interlocutors quickly come to an agreement.

True, Khlestakov still does not understand the meaning of what happened, and the mayor also still has no idea how events will develop further. But both felt that the immediate threat to each of them had passed, and both of them were celebrating victory. This is where the turning point comes. The mayor begins to behave more boldly. A visitor wants to be considered incognito? Please, “let us also let the Turus in: let’s pretend as if we don’t even know what kind of person he is.” It is, of course, the mayor who says “to the side,” but out loud he pronounces words expressing respect and servility.

The mayor and Khlestakov, to mutual satisfaction, find a common language. But cunning and “on his own mind” Anton Antonovich plays a double game: he says one thing to Khlestakov, but thinks something else to himself. Every now and then he utters ironic remarks to the newcomer: “what bullets he casts!”, “nicely tied a knot!” He lies, he lies, and he won’t end anywhere!” The essence of the matter is that both interlocutors understand each other perfectly and the conversation is conducted not along different or opposite lines, but along one.

The entire episode is illuminated by Gogolian irony. The dramaturgy of this very complex scene is developed with pinpoint precision. Here, the direct meaning of the conversation that the characters conduct among themselves, and the hidden one, which, as always, turns out to be the most important, are constantly intertwined.

The mayor and Khlestakov are exponents of the same reality. Both are scoundrels and cheats, although they reveal themselves in different ways. They have a common logic of behavior and language. The incongruities and oddities in the behavior of the capital's guest do not puzzle the mayor in any way, for they are fully consistent with his ideas about how an important official from St. Petersburg should behave.

Thus, laughter constantly turns into tears in the subtext of Gogol’s works.

Belinsky said that the plot of “The Inspector General” rests “on a comic struggle that excites laughter; however, in this laughter one hears not only gaiety, but also vengeance for humiliated human dignity, and thus, in a different way than in tragedy, but again the triumph of the moral law is revealed." This "moral law" was expressed in Gogol's laughter , which acquired tragic power in The Inspector General.

Laughter was not only the weapon with which the writer fought against the hated world of darkness and violence. Gogol's laughter reflected his dream of a different, more perfect reality.

4. The speech of heroes is a mirror of their soul

The speech of heroes is a mirror of their soul. The manner of conversation, vocabulary, syntactic features of the phrase - everything served Gogol as a means of depicting the characters. His heroes are shown not only in funny plot situations, but also in funny poses, in absurd speeches, which further aggravate their comedy.

The characters are clearly and vividly characterized by their behavior and special manner of speech. At the same time, the speech of Gogol’s heroes does not need stage directions: gesture, facial expressions, intonation - all this is already felt in the text of the phrase itself. Poverty of thought, limited concepts, combined with stupid self-confidence and frivolous decisiveness of judgment - these are the characteristic features of provincial officials, reflected in their speech.

Each speaks the language of his time and his environment, and at the same time, the speech of each of the characters is unique. The language of merchants or locksmith Poshlepkina, the speech of a judge who “read five or six books,” a hunter of “guesswork” who “gives weight to every word” - characterize them perfectly.

In the martinet speech of the mayor, colored with vernacular colors, quick transitions from rudeness and rage to stupidity and flattering servility reveal all his base nature. The limitations of his horizons are visible in every phrase. Belinsky also pointed out the mayor’s inability to find the correct expressions as soon as the matter touched on something that went beyond his usual ideas. But how bright and meaningful are the mayor’s words about subjects that are well known to him in practice - for example, about bribes. "Look! You’re not taking it according to rank!” - he shouts to the policeman, revealing in this short but expressive formula the whole philosophy of bribery, which consists in the fact that each “rank” is entitled to a proportionate bribe.

He conducts official conversations in clerical language, or in bureaucratic language: “the amount has been allocated,” “they will be considered a bad look,” “to give the news.”

He makes extensive use of the vocabulary acquired while serving in the lower ranks: “Eck, what a waste!” “I’ll give it to the pepper”, “what kind of bullets does it cast”, “stretched out like the devil knows what it is”, “cookie with butter”, etc. Along with such vulgarisms, he is not averse to inventing a word himself (“finks”); he is able to quote, or even compose the saying himself: “before virtue, all is dust and vanity.” He also has words in his language that show the presence of some knowledge - “Assyrians”, “Babylonians”, “Alexander the Great”. He also uses foreign words: “Walterian”, “freeshtik”, “allegory”, “equivoc”. He is not averse to resorting to maxims: “a smart person is either a drunkard, or he’ll make such a face that he could kill the saints,” “the more broken it is, the more it means the activities of the city ruler.”

Against the general linguistic background of the comedy, the speech of the little St. Petersburg official Khlestakov stands out, claiming to be a metropolitan “secular” education. For the beauty of his style, he loves to use various pretentious literary expressions: “pluck flowers of pleasure,” “we will retire under the shadow of the streams,” etc. In the scene of lies, he gives full scope to his disordered imagination. He lies with inspiration, with rapture; he himself believes in the “thirty-five thousand couriers” sent for him, and in the fact that counts and princes are “huddling” in his hall. In the fairy tale with which he pleases his imagination, all his inner poverty, all the poverty of his insignificant nature is revealed. His speech - abrupt, jumping from subject to subject - shows a complete inability to focus his attention on anything for even a minute. “I have an extraordinary lightness of mind,” he says boastfully. Feeling that he is being listened to, and finally having the opportunity to show off, knowing only two or three French words - “bonton”, “mauvais ton” and “comprene vou?” - he easily achieves his goal - Marya Antonovna exclaims with delight : “You speak capital.”

Striving for secular speech, he, however, does not find the right words and marks time, repeating the word that came to his tongue: “How happy I am, madam, that I have in my way the pleasure of seeing you. Standing next to you is already happiness, How happy I am that finally I'm sitting next to you"

Khlestakov knows how to flatter. He greets the tavern servant, calls him “brother”, “dear”, asks about his health - just to get dinner. And having received dinner, he scolds the servant and calls him a fool three times. And he scolds the owner along with the servant: “Fraudsters, scoundrels! Slackers! When the servant wants to take the plate from Khlestakov, Khlestakov, defending the “food,” says: “Well, well, well, leave it, you fool; you are used to treating others there; I, brother, am not that kind! I don’t recommend working with me"

The remaining persons are located between these two poles: some, in their style of speech, are close to the rudeness and primitiveness of the mayor (judge, police officers, merchants, locksmith, non-commissioned officer's widow), others - to the “secularism” and deliberate sophistication of Khlestakov (Anna Andreevna, postmaster), Moreover, both retain individual and social differences in the language. Thus, the judge’s speech is complicated by a claim to “profound thought”; Zemlyanika’s speech emphasizes elements of cunning and servility. The postmaster’s speech, simple-minded and smooth, is characterized by an element of “literariness”: “various passages are described and the edification is better than in the Moskovskie Vedomosti.” Between all the voices Bobchinsky’s restless chatter, like a drumbeat, pours out, interrupted by Dobchinsky: “He! He doesn’t pay any money and doesn’t go. Who should it be if not him? And the road ticket is registered in Saratov.”

A district doctor is brilliantly described, who “finds it difficult” to communicate with patients: he doesn’t know a word of Russian and only “makes a sound somewhat similar to the letter u and somewhat like e.” If we add to this that the playwright gave him the surname Gibner, which in German cannot but evoke associations with the verb meaning “to destroy”, “to poison”, it will become clear how the playwright with unusual brevity described the medical care of his time that existed in district (and only in district) cities.

And only the speech of two characters acting on the periphery of the plot and playing a service role in the comedy does not have a sharply comic overtones. This is Osip’s mocking and ironic speech, despite the touch of St. Petersburg lackey jargon (“life is subtle and political,” “haberdashery treatment”), preserving a living folk basis. To a certain extent, this is the speech of Marya Antonovna, more than the speech of other characters, approaching the speech norm.

The characterological basis of a replica can consist of several components. Among them, it is possible to superimpose elements of a new socio-speech layer on the familiar speech element (on the “native environment”).

This is exactly how the speech portrait of Osip in “The Inspector General” is constructed. Urban vernacular as a trace of “metropolitan life” colors his speech. Khlestakov's lackey, already in his first monologue, when he “lies on the master’s bed” and talks about the pleasures of “metropolitan life,” uses words and phrases that are far from rural vernacular. There are also “keitras” and walks “through the prespekt”.

In an extended replica as a figurative speech whole, usually lexical and phraseological means of expressiveness are supported and strengthened by the aesthetic use of the grammatical form of the word.

Let us take for analysis one of the mayor’s remarks in the scene with the merchants.

Mayor. “Well, my dears, how are you? How is your item going? What, samovar makers, arshinniks, should complain? Archpluts, proto-beasts, worldly swindlers! complain? What, did you take a lot? So, they think, that’s how they’ll put him in prison! Do you know, seven devils and one witch are in your teeth, that” (The Inspector General, d. V, iv. II).

First of all, the change in emotional tonality is striking: the feigned affectionate, artificially polite coloring of the initial part: “Well, my dears, how are you? How is your product going?” - only a harbinger of a menacing shout and is present here for emotional contrast. The entire subsequent part is not just abuse, but self-exposure. Samovar makers, arshinniks, arch-plotters, proto-beasts, worldly fools - the “habitual surroundings”, the general background that reveals the main “trump card” of Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky: “What, did they take a lot? So, they think, that’s how they’ll put him in prison! " Here the mayor acts as a witness from the outside, so he speaks about both the merchants and himself in the third person. And the last verb form “will plant” is very important. These are the same unidentified persons who must punish the thief-mayor. Thus, colloquial and abusive vocabulary does not constitute the main content of the remark; it only forms the characterological background against which all other means of speech depiction appear more clearly.

Lexical repetition as a device enhances the pictorial capabilities of a repeated word and focuses the reader’s attention on this particular device and this word.

Not only conversational forms and turns of phrase, which carry their revealing, characterological function, are introduced into the remark, but an individualizing intonation-rhythmic pattern characteristic of living speech is communicated. So, the remark of the mayor, stunned by the discovery that the auditor is not an auditor at all, but a “wizard”, and the real audit is ahead; is not just emotionally charged, but is almost a cry: “When he stabbed him, he stabbed him like that!” Killed, killed, completely killed! I don't see anything.

I see some pig snouts instead of faces, but nothing else. Turn it back, turn it back! (Waves his hand).” A system of repetitions arranged in a certain gradation, ascending, is united by intonation, dramatically tense, ending in silence, gradually fading.

Another cry: “Turn him back, turn him back!” - this is a new twist on the topic. Thus, the replica conveys not only “dialogical movement”, but also a sense of “eventfulness”, the unfolding of a certain link in the development of the plot action.

No matter how many characters there are in The Inspector General, they all appear before your eyes as if they were alive. Even Derzhimorda, with his voice “like a barrel” and the habit of putting lights under the eyes of both the right and the guilty for order, and he is forever etched in the memory, although he only appears on stage once. All this together makes The Inspector General the greatest example of dramatic art. Every word here is a striking typical feature.

Speaking about the artistic features of The Inspector General, we must pay attention to its stage directions, which were not used in such variety by any playwright, neither before Gogol nor after him, and did not have the meaning that Gogol gave them.

Gogol's remarks indicate a change in intonation.

The mayor either “mutters in a low voice” or speaks, “letting out a sigh,” “sighing”; then “screams”; then “shouts out, jumping for joy”; then he “shakes his fist at himself” and “knocks his feet on the floor out of anger.” The remarks perfectly characterize Khlestakov, who either speaks, “stretching out and introducing a footman,” then “rubs his hands and shuffles his foot,” then “claps his hands and bounces slightly on the chair,” then “bravely knocks his fists on the table,” then “looks at Anna Andreevna and shows off in front of her,” then “slips and almost falls to the floor, but is respectfully supported by the officials.”

Gogol, much more than other authors of dramatic works, uses technical remarks indicating that the characters “sit down,” “sit down,” “shake with fear,” speak “to the side,” “out loud,” “to themselves.” Or with remarks that reveal the state of the speaker: “thinking,” “eyes bulging”; “makes a grimace”, “twirls his hands near his forehead”, “grabs his head” and “waves his arms”.

The playwright shows how someone enters - “out of breath,” “in a hurry,” “on tiptoe”; how he leaves - “hastily”, “thoughtfully”.

The mayor’s internal state is very expressively conveyed by the author’s remarks, as well as statements out loud and to the side to himself.

Among the remarks there are also the following: “The handle turns at the door, Khlestakov turns pale and shrinks”; or director’s descriptions of entire game scenes: “The door opens, and Bobchinsky, who was eavesdropping on the other side, flies with her onto the stage. Everyone makes exclamations. Bobchinsky is rising."

The remarks regarding the curtain at the end of each act are also extremely interesting.

At the end of the first act, the mayor shouts out the window: “Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry!” until the curtain falls, and according to the author’s remark, “So the curtain covers both of them (mother and daughter) standing at the window.” Or in the second act, “the curtain falls,” as Gogol points out, after the words uttered by the mayor Bobchinsky as he left the stage: “And you too! couldn't find another place to fall! and stretched out like hell knows what.” The mayor’s departure from the stage “on tiptoe” after the policeman ends the third act. Act four: Khlestakov’s offstage farewell and his departure – “the bell rings; the curtain falls."

Finally, the finale of the last act, ending with the arrival of the gendarme, is accompanied by a detailed remark saying that everyone is struck like thunder: “The sound of amazement unanimously emanates from the ladies’ lips,” and “the whole group, having suddenly changed their position, remains petrified.”

Moreover, what follows is the famous “silent stage” stage direction, which is unique in world drama. Here is a detailed and precise mezzanine, indicating where and how each character stands. Who turned “into a question mark”, who tilted his head “slightly to one side”, as if listening to something, and “the judge with outstretched arms, crouched almost to the ground and made a movement with his lips”, as if “he wanted to whistle or say: “Here It’s Yury’s Day for you, grandma!” And the mayor “is in the middle in the form of a pillar with outstretched arms and his head thrown back.” Even the gaping mouths and bulging eyes of Dobchinsky and Bobchinsky and the “expression on the faces of the three ladies” and “other guests” were noted.

Thus, Gogol always subtly and accurately uses the character’s speech material as a means of his social and psychological characterization. Belinsky was the first to draw attention to the fact that Gogol “makes his heroes speak in accordance with their characters.”

5. The art of composition

“Gogol,” writes S. N. Durylin, “with brilliant courage and simplicity began the comedy with a direct, frank exposition of its dramatic content. This exposition, with the words: “I invited you, gentlemen,” essentially did not change, (the author) begins the play with a direct thunderclap in a clear sky, and the officials begin with their joint efforts to create a lightning rod that should paralyze the full force of the audit’s unexpected blow to their autocracy and well-being."

The exposition of a comedy is the scenes preceding the action. However, isn’t the words “an auditor is coming to us” already the beginning of the main conflict? The mayor's first remarks can be considered as exposition, merging with the plot of the comedy. They introduce the main theme of the comedy, the theme of fear of impending retribution. Belinsky was the first to say that the main theme of comedy is the fear of exposure. Let's consider the mayor's remark about his dream from the point of view of the composition of "The Inspector General".

Mayor. It was as if I had a presentiment: today I dreamed all night about two extraordinary rats. Really, I’ve never seen anything like this: black, of unnatural size! They came, they smelled it, and they left.

The mayor did not forget the dream because, “as if on purpose,” he received a notification from a friend that “an official had gone incognito from St. Petersburg with a secret order to revise everything related to civil administration in the province.”

V. G. Belinsky attached great compositional significance to the mayor’s dream. “Sleep in hand! - Belinsky exclaims. – Superstition further intimidates an already frightened conscience; conscience strengthens superstition.”

The mayor in his reply reads out a letter from Andrei Ivanovich Chmykhov: “Dear friend, godfather and benefactor, I hasten to inform you, by the way, that an official has arrived with an order to inspect the entire province and especially our district (significantly raises his finger up). I learned this from the most reliable people, although he represents himself as a private person.”

It is worth paying attention to the role of two letters in the composition of “The Inspector General”. The first of them - a letter from Andrei Ivanovich Chmykhov - opens the comedy. The second - from Khlestakov to Tryapichkin - completes it.

The mayor entrusts the postmaster with a responsible mission: “for our common benefit” to “print out a little” and read every letter, “incoming and outgoing”, “that arrives at the post office.” The postmaster's implementation of this advice is of great importance in the entire composition of The Inspector General, especially in the denouement of the comedy.

Gogol was able to put his great social comedy into an unusually complete and strict form. The construction of The Inspector General is a masterpiece of art. The first phrase of the mayor, announcing the arrival of the auditor, sets the stage for the action. Before the mayor has time to give the necessary orders, Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky appear. Running, out of breath, into the mayor’s room, Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky talk about an official who came from St. Petersburg, who, in their opinion, is an “incognito” auditor.

There are two plots in The Inspector General. The first is the mayor’s initial remark, expressing his fear, which entailed a mistake. These first phrases of the mayor are the beginning of the entire further course of the comedy.

The second plot - phenomenon III of the first act - is connected with Khlestakov.

In the first act of The Inspector General, exposition coexists along with the first and second plots of the comedy.

The first plot, lies in the mayor's first remark, the mayor and city officials are gripped by the fear of retribution for their sins (phenomenon I).

The second plot is that the mayor and his subordinates mistake Khlestakov for the auditor, whom Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky told them about (scene III).

Along with showing people “sitting in the wrong places,” the action develops. All these people are gripped by fear, which pushes them to unite and defend themselves. From the very first remarks, the mayor mobilizes them to action. Still not knowing anything about Khlestakov, they are preparing to confront the auditor. The mayor’s first remarks are that not a particular, but a general plot that knits the comedy “into one big, common knot.” That same plot, which, according to Gogol, “should embrace all faces, and not just one or two, touches what worries, more or less, all the characters. Every hero is here: the flow and progress of the play produces a shock to the whole machine: not a single wheel should remain rusty and not included in the work.”

The exposition and both beginnings of the comedy reveal the unity of the comedic circumstances and the typical characters of the characters. In the first act of The Inspector General, one can see that the action in the comedy is determined by the character of its heroes.

In the second act, Osip utters the following line:

Osip. It would be good if there really was something worthwhile, otherwise you’re just a simple little elistrat

Gogol needed to name the position held by Khlestakov, since in the “scene of lies” Khlestakov would inform the officials (completely, however, unexpectedly for himself) that he “once was even mistaken for the commander-in-chief.” The phrase about the “elistratishka” appeared already in the second draft edition of The Inspector General.

The significance of this monologue by Osip in the composition of The Inspector General is very great. While the mayor and his subordinates believed that the official who came from St. Petersburg was the auditor, in Osip’s monologue the notorious “incognito” appeared in its true form. Khlestakov, from whom “the power of universal fear created a wonderful comic face,” was exposed even before his appearance on the stage.

It is absolutely incredible that such a seasoned swindler, such a clever rogue and experienced city owner could mistake Khlestakov for an auditor who “came by personal order.” But the artist’s “life-giving laughter” helped us forget about this: analyzing the internal situation of the play, the viewer and reader of Gogol admits that the mayor’s fear, caused by his endless crimes in office, darkened his eyes and allowed him to see the inspector in Khlestakov.

The main character of the comedy, according to Gogol’s plan and statements, is really Khlestakov. But since Khlestakov was turned into an auditor by the mayor’s fear, the entire action of the comedy develops with the main participation of the mayor.

In Gogol's play there are two centers, two persons who lead and direct the development of the comedy: the mayor and Khlestakov. Each of these characters experiences the moment of its highest rise, its triumph; and then everyone goes through debunking.

The dynamics of the development of action in The Inspector General are so great precisely because the comedy has not one, but two beginnings, not one, but two climaxes, and not one, but two denouements, in the center of which stands either Khlestakov or the mayor.

The culmination of the revelation of Khlestakov’s personality is the moment of his inspired lies in front of officials and the mayor’s family. In the third act, it is in the “scene of lies” that the image of Khlestakov reaches its highest revelation. Gogol gives his main character the brightest illumination here. The denouement of the entire Khlestakov line is phenomenon VIII of the fifth act - the appearance of the postmaster with a printed letter from Khlestakov.

Let's consider the postmaster's remark from the point of view of the composition of "The Inspector General":

Postmaster. Amazing thing, gentlemen! The official whom we took for an auditor was not an auditor.

This phenomenon is the denouement of the comedic conflict of The Inspector General. Khlestakov’s letter to Tryapichkin, printed by postmaster Shpekin, showed the officials, and first of all the mayor, their general misconception regarding Khlestakov; this is the completion of Khlestakov’s storyline, the denouement of the line that develops from the third scene of the first act.

Postmaster. They bring me a letter in the mail. I looked at the address and saw: Pochtamtskaya Street. I was so dumbfounded. Well, I think to myself, That’s right, I found disturbances in the postal department and notified the authorities. I took it and printed it out.

The naivety and simplicity of the postmaster, the fear inherent in him, like every official (Pochtamtskaya Street is correctly associated with the central institution of the postal department in St. Petersburg, although it has nothing in common with Khlestakov’s letter to Tryapichkin) lead to the discovery of almost phantasmagoric self-deception: Khlestakov is completely not an auditor.

The appearance of the letter in The Inspector General is not an accident. It is convincingly motivated at the beginning of the comedy by the order that the mayor gives to the postmaster - to print out letters that fall into his hands. Literary and theater critics invariably pay attention to the exceptional harmony of the composition of “The Inspector General,” which begins with the reading of a letter about the arrival of the inspector and ends with his very arrival in the city.

“This finale,” said V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, “represents one of the most remarkable phenomena of stage literature. You know him very well.

Taking advantage of the same surprises, which are brilliant in their simplicity and naturalness, Gogol first releases the postmaster with the news that the official, whom everyone took for an auditor, was not an auditor, then, delving into human passions, he brings the dramatic situation to the highest tension and the most acute the moment of the height of passions gives in one blow such a denouement, which has no equal in any literature.”

The action develops unusually consistently and clearly and ends only at the end of the comedy. As Gogol put it, every wheel comes into action. The mayor's advice to the postmaster to look through the letters has an effect at the end of the comedy, when he opens Khlestakov's letter and finds out the mistake. The letter about the possible arrival of the auditor justifies the appearance of the gendarme at the end of the comedy. The exposure of Khlestakov and the arrival of the real auditor restores symmetry and gives a complete ending. Gogol used everything rational that was contained in the compositional art of classicism. The brilliantly executed unity of action gives amazing integrity to the play.”

The second storyline is connected with the mayor; a comedic conflict begins in the first remarks of the mayor, who involves all the officials in the task of struggle facing him; the last monologue of the mayor unleashes a comedic conflict.

Having put the words about “clickers” and “paper scrappers” into the mayor’s mouth, Gogol openly said that his enemies from the reactionary camp are those who take the side of the mayor.

The highest rise, the climax falls on the scenes of triumph of the mayor and his family, scenes of congratulations to him by officials. The final scene of the VIII phenomenon of act five is the denouement, the complete collapse of the mayor’s dreams. Regarding this denouement, Belinsky says that “the end of the comedy should take place where the mayor learns that he was punished by a ghost and that he still faces punishment from reality, or at least new troubles and losses in order to evade punishment from reality." Belinsky, as it were, emphasizes with these words that another auditor, “who arrived by personal order,” will put the mayor in the same position in which he was under the imaginary auditor, Khlestakov. The mayor will again face the same “troubles”, the same bribes.

Gogol really used in The Inspector General “everything rational that was contained in the compositional art of classicism.” But he himself introduced his own new word into the art of drama composition.

Silent scene

In “Excerpt from a Letter,” Gogol spoke about how little he was satisfied with the scene: “It didn’t work out at all. The curtain closes at some vague moment, and the play seems as if it is not finished. But it's not my fault. They didn’t want to listen to me.”

In “Pre-Notification” Gogol talks about how he thinks about this living picture. If we compare what is said about the Silent Scene in the 1842 edition. , with the fact that Gogol wrote about her in the “Pre-Notification” of 1846. , it will become noticeable that Gogol, even in this scene in 1846. somewhat muted the sharpness of the characteristics of each character. For example, let's point out the description of Strawberry in this scene.

Strawberries in the Silent Scene 1842 Strawberries according to the “Pre-Notice” 1846

On the left side of the mayor is Strawberry, bowing his head. On the left side of the mayor is Strawberry, slightly to one side, as if listening to something with raised eyebrows and fingers raised to his mouth, like a man who has been badly burned by something.

Strawberry in the Silent Scene in his role as an informer, he is at the last moment and then “as if listening to something.” Finding out everything, listening for the next denunciation at the first convenient moment.

In Strawberry "Warnings" there is more movement, more clarity for the actor to convey his image on stage, but less of the characteristic features of this character. Another person, not necessarily Strawberry, could convey pain and fear, as if from a burn.

In "Pre-Notification" there are already elements of a different interpretation of the heroes of "The Inspector General", to a certain extent close to "The Inspector General's Denouement", which was written simultaneously with "The Inspector General". Gogol tries to explain a lot by the moral deafness of the mayor and other officials.

The heroes of the comedy in "Warning" are bad not so much because of the lack of rights of the people and their social privileges, but because of their moral instability and deafness, for which retribution awaits them.

6. Dictionary of outdated concepts, personal names and little-known words

Commentary on the actions and phenomena of comedy

Act I

Phenomenon 1

Mayor. Mayor - until the middle of the 19th century, this was the name of the head of the district city, to whom all city authorities (police and lower judicial institutions) were subordinated.

Mayor: I invited you, gentlemen, in order to tell you some very unpleasant news: an auditor is coming to us (an official sent to examine someone’s activities to establish the correctness and legality of actions, to carry out an audit).

Mayor: Inspector from St. Petersburg, incognito (incognito - secretly, hiding one's rank, title, official position, one's last name under a fictitious name). And also with a secret instruction (with a secret order, order).

Mayor (reads a letter from Artemy Ivanovich Chmykhov): Dear friend, godfather and benefactor (godfather, godmother are the so-called “godfather” and “godmother” who participated in the baptism ceremony of the baby. In relation to the parents of their godson and to each other, they were called godfather and godfather and were considered godfathers) I hasten to notify (notify) you that an official has arrived

Ammos Fedorovich: This means this: Russia wants to wage war, and the ministry (the ministry is how the government was disparagingly called in conversation, and not any ministry of tsarist Russia) sent an official.

Mayor: Without a doubt, a passing official will want to first of all inspect charitable institutions (charitable institutions are institutions created by private individuals to “please God” - hospitals, shelters for orphans, homes for the disabled and the elderly; the trustee of charitable institutions is an official, in charge of them).

Mayor: I would also advise you, Ammos Fedorovich, to pay attention to the public places (public places are government government institutions or premises occupied by them; here: district court. Presence - “a judge’s room or in general a room where members of an advisory body sit, there are present).

Mayor: Besides, it’s bad that you have all sorts of rubbish dried in your very presence, and right above the closet (closet) is a hunting arapnik (arapnik is a long belt whip attached to a short stick; it was used for flapping during hound hunting, for snapping hares). Also assessor (official, representative from the population or from the estate, elected or chosen by lot, participating in work, in the consideration of court cases. Here: member of the district court, sitting “in the presence”)

Mayor: This is already arranged this way by God himself, and the Voltaireans (Voltairean is the ancient pronunciation of the word “Voltairian”, a follower of the French free-thinking writer and philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778) - this is how in the 19th century reactionaries and ignoramuses called freethinkers who did not take into account existing customs, and often every free-thinking person in general) speaks against this in vain.

Mayor: However, I just mentioned the district court (The district is the administrative-territorial part of the province). They are people, of course, scientists and were brought up in different boards (collegium - here: a higher educational institution).

Luka Lukich: Just the other day, when our leader (leader - here: leader of the nobility, elected from the district or provincial nobility) came into the classroom.

Mayor: I once listened to him (the history teacher): well, while I was talking about the Assyrians and Babylonians (the Assyrians and Babylonians are the ancient peoples of Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) - nothing yet, but how I got to Alexander the Great (Alexander the Great (356 - 323 BC) AD) - famous commander and statesman of the ancient world. From 336 - king of Macedonia).

Phenomenon 2

Postmaster (postmaster - the head of the post office, who was also in charge of the post horses that carried both mail and people on transfer stations from one post station to the next): You will read another letter with pleasure - this is how different passages are described (passage - incident, incident (from French words passage), and the edification (instruction, teaching) is better than in “Moskovskie Vedomosti”! (“Moskovskie Vedomosti” (1756-1894) is a newspaper published first 2 times a week, then three times and, finally, daily; published by Moscow University since 1766. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, it ceased to be a university university and continued to be published at public expense, it became reactionary).

Postmaster: Recently, one lieutenant writes to a friend: “My life, dear friend, flows,” he says, “in the empyrean (in the empyrean - here: in bliss (the empyrean in Greek myths is paradise): there are many young ladies, music is playing, a standard gallops" (Standard - a flag with a coat of arms, a regimental banner in the cavalry. The lieutenant, enthusiastically describing the ball at which "a lot of young ladies play music", instead of talking about the dancing standard cadet who wore the regimental banner, says that the "standard" itself jumps").

Ammos Fedorovich to the Mayor: After all, you heard that Chertovich and Varkhovinsky started a lawsuit (a lawsuit is a civil court case).

Mayor to Ammos Fedorovich: You just wait for the door to open and then come on (Shast - unexpectedly, suddenly enter, run in).

Phenomenon 3

Bobchinsky to the Mayor: And Pyotr Ivanovich already heard about this from your housekeeper (the housekeeper is the maid in charge of the family’s food supplies).

Bobchinsky: Let’s go to Pochechuev, and on the road Pyotr Ivanovich says: “Let’s go,” he says, “to a tavern” (a tavern is an inexpensive dining room for visitors, for the general public, a hotel with a restaurant).

Bobchinsky to the Mayor: We had just arrived at the hotel when suddenly a young man

Dobchinsky: Not bad-looking, in a private dress (Particular dress - civilian, not in uniform).

Bobchinsky: And Pyotr Ivanovich already blinked his finger and called the innkeeper, sir (the innkeeper is the owner of the inn).

Bobchinsky - To the mayor about Khlestakov from the words of the innkeeper Vlas: “Ivan Aleksandrovich Khlestakov, sir,” he says, “certifies himself in a very strange way” (to certify - here: to give a distinctive characteristic, a recommendation, to reveal one’s character, to behave).

Dobchinsky (to Gorodnichi): “And the dorozhnaya (podorozhnaya is a document indicating the name, rank, rank and route of the person riding the postal - “transport” horses) is registered in Saratov.

Mayor: In these two weeks, the non-commissioned officer's wife was flogged! (non-commissioned officer - the lowest rank of command of the tsarist army, from the soldiers. Non-commissioned officer - the wife of a non-commissioned officer. The mayor, having learned that the visiting official had been living in the city for two weeks, of all his illegal actions, first of all remembered the flogged non-commissioned officer -officer's wife. Shortly before the writing of "The Inspector General", a strict prohibition appeared on resorting to corporal punishment of non-commissioned officers' wives. To mitigate his crime, in a conversation with Khlestakov, the mayor talks about the non-commissioned officer's widow).

Ammos Fedorovich (to the Mayor): Put your head forward (The head, that is, the “city mayor” - the head of the city government - the city duma and the council in charge of the city’s economy. He was elected from among the so-called vowel members of the duma) here in the book “The Acts of John the Mason ": (John Mason (1705-1763) - English writer, author of religious books, whose works were published more than once in Russian in the 18th and early 19th centuries).

Mayor (to Svistunov): Go now for the private bailiff (a private bailiff is the head of a police unit in a city divided into separate areas called police stations).

Artemy Filippovich (Ammos Fedorovich): Patients were ordered to give gabersup (gabersup - oatmeal soup)

Phenomenon 4

Mayor - (to the quarterly) - (quarterly - a policeman who oversaw order in a certain quarter of the city): Run now, take the ten's (ten's - the performer of various duties under the police; appointed from among city residents, one from every tenth house) Yes, look: you ! You! I know you: you are having fun there (to get involved - from the verb “to get involved” - here: to know, hang out, be friends) and steal silver spoons into your boots (Treads are high boots with bells above the knees) Look! You’re not taking it according to rank!” (does not comply with official rank)

Phenomenon 5

Private bailiff. Derzhimorda rode on a fire pipe (a fire pipe is a fire engine, the main part of which was the “fill pipe,” i.e., the pump).

Mayor: “Yes, if a visiting official asks for service (Service - here: soldiers, lower police ranks).

Mayor: “Don’t let the soldiers go out into the street without everything, this crappy garrison (garniza is a disparaging name for garrison soldiers).

Act II

Phenomenon 1

Osip:. And it would be, and it would be very much possible for the runs (passes are payment for travel on government (postal) horses; “state run” (free) was allowed to officials traveling on official business, which should have been indicated on the road ticket). If only there was money, and a political life: keyatry (keatr is a distorted word for “theater”).

Haberdashery (haberdashery - here: delicate, polite, gallant), damn it, treatment (treatment). And the cloth is so important, English! (English) “doesn’t mind his business, goes for a walk along the prespekt (prespekt is a distorted word for “prospect”)

Phenomenon 2

Khlestakov (to Osip): Look, there’s no tobacco in the cap (a cap is a paper bag that resembled a headdress; tobacco was sold in it)?

Osip (to Khlestakov): “We are,” he says, “sort of sheramyzhniks (Shiromyzhnik (or sharomyzhnik, sheromyzhnik) is a person who lives at someone else’s expense. It is believed that this swear word comes from the French address cher ami - dear friend - an address used the French who fled from Russia in 1812, when they asked the peasants to accept and feed them) and saw scoundrels

Phenomenon 3

Khlestakov: “In vegetable shops (a vegetable shop is a small shop where you could buy bread, tobacco, herring, sausage, etc., and in a vegetable shop, nothing was sold except vegetables) they don’t lend anything.”

Phenomenon 5

Khlestakov: “It’s a pity that Joachim (Joachim is a well-known St. Petersburg carriage maker and homeowner in the 30s of the 19th century. Gogol lived in his house on the St. Petersburg side. According to legend, in response to his pestering about paying for the apartment, Gogol, in the presence of those gathered at his writers told him: “Leave me alone, or I’ll put you in a comedy”) did not rent a carriage (a large closed four-wheeled horse-drawn horse on springs), but it would be nice to come home in a carriage, and dress Osip in a livery (Livery is the galloon-trimmed clothing of the lord’s servants houses (doormen and footmen). The traveling footmen who accompanied the gentlemen sat on the box with the coachman or stood on the backs (behind the carriage).

Phenomenon 6

Khlestakov: “Runs! (rogues, swindlers) scoundrels! And even at least some sauce or cake"

Phenomenon 7

Khlestakov (after a conversation with Osip) What if he really drags me to prison? (a prison is a place of imprisonment for defendants who have already received a sentence, but have not yet been sent to a settlement in Siberia or to hard labor. Gogol points out that in the district town there were both a prison and city prisons. With this exaggeration, Gogol clearly characterizes the prison and police regime of Tsarist Russia).

Phenomenon 8

Mayor Khlestakov: “I wish you good health!” (to be healthy, to exist safely). It is my duty, as a mayor (an official with the rights of a governor, managing a town administration (a city with adjacent lands), the head of a city) to take care of the local city"

Khlestakov (to the Mayor): “No, Father demands me. He thinks that he has come and now they will give you Vladimir in your buttonhole (Vladimir in your buttonhole - that is, Vladimir of the 4th degree; the civil “Order of St. Vladimir” had four degrees - the most the lowest (4th) was worn on the chest).

Khlestakov (to Gorodnichi): “I feel much more comfortable in a private house (a private house is a private apartment, home-style furnished, and not a government-owned, office or hotel premises) than in this tavern (drinking establishment).

Phenomenon 10

Mayor (to Khlestakov): “As you intend: in your carriage (light non-cargo spring cart, stroller).

Mayor: “I’ll write here (writes, speaks to himself). But let's see how things go after frishtik (frishtik is a distorted pronunciation of the German word breakfast).

Act III

Phenomenon 1

Anna Andreevna (to Marya Antonovna): “Well, we’ve been waiting for a whole hour, and all you do is with your stupid affectation (devoid of simplicity and naturalness, mannered).

Phenomenon 2

Dobchinsky (to Anna Andreevna) about Khlestakov: “No, more like a chantret (chantret is a distorted word for “brown-haired”).

“Well, Anna Andreevna, I’ll run now to see how he’s looking around (examining) there.

Phenomenon 3

Anna Andreevna: “Well, Mashenka, we now need to take care of the toilet (clothing, wardrobe, get dressed, put our appearance in order).

Really, you say - if only in defiance (disagree with someone, contradict someone)

It (the dress) will be much better for you, because I want to wear fawn (fawn is pale yellow. As the Reading Library reports in 1835, St. Petersburg dandies have “the most fashionable colors - fawn and green”).

Phenomenon 4

Bear (to Osip): “Look how it is! That is why we have created a turmoil (turmoil, confusion).

Phenomenon 5

Mayor (to Khlestakov): “And here, one might say, there is no other thought (thought, reflection) to earn the attention of the authorities through decorum (decent, decent) and vigilance (very attentive).

Khlestakov: “What is the name of this fish? Labardan-s (Labardan – freshly salted cod).

Mayor (to Khlestakov): “What dare I tell you, the responsibility of the mayor is puzzling (very complex)! “My God, how can I arrange it so that the authorities see my jealousy (zeal, zeal) and have enough?” But before virtue (high morality) all is dust and vanity.

Luka Lukich (about the mayor): !And yesterday, the scoundrel, he bet (to win at cards) one hundred rubles from me.

Khlestakov (to Gorodnichi): “If, for example, you go on strike then, as you need to bend from three corners (bend from three corners - in gambling card games, increase the bet three times (bending the corners of the cards) well, then of course

Phenomenon 6

Anna Andreevna (to Khlestakov): “I think that after the capital the voyage (voyage - travel (from the French word voyage)) seemed very unpleasant.

Khlestakov (to Anna Andreevna): “I only go into the department for two minutes (a department is a department of government agencies, for example, a ministry in Tsarist Russia) just to say: This is how it is!” They even wanted to make me a collegiate assessor (a collegiate assessor is a civil rank of the eighth grade, the youngest rank of those who were called “high nobility”).”

Khlestakov: “I don’t like ceremonies” (coercion, constraint in actions).

Khlestakov (to Anna Andreevna): “I, too, are various vaudeville performers (vaudeville is a light, usually one-act comic play with verses for singing).

“However, there are many of my works: “The Marriage of Figaro” (“The Marriage of Figaro” is a famous comedy by the French playwright Beaumarchais (1732 – 1799), which appeared in 1787), “Robert the Devil” (“Robert” (“Robert the Devil”) – the title of an opera by the French composer Meyerbeer (1791 – 1864)).

Khlestakov “Everything, this is what was under the name of Baron Brambeus (Baron Brambeus is the pseudonym of the well-known reactionary writer, journalist O.I. Senkovsky in the 30-40s, editor of the magazine “Library for Reading”) “Frigate of Hope” (“Frigate of Hope” - the story of Marlinsky (pseudonym of the Decembrist A. A. Bestuzhev, (1797 - 1837)) and “Moscow Telegraph” (“Moscow Telegraph” is an advanced magazine published by N. A. Polev since 1825; was closed in 1834 by order of Nicholas1) I wrote all this.

Anna Andreevna (to Khlestakov): “So, it’s true, “Yuri Miloslavsky” (“Yuri Miloslovsky” is a historical novel by M. Zagoskin, which appeared in 1829 and was a great success) is your work?

Khlestakov (to Anna Andreevna): “We have whist there (wist is a card game).

Khlestakov: As soon as you run up, you’ll only tell the cook (the servant in the kitchen who prepares food).

Khlestakov “I gave them all a lesson” (punishment as a lesson for the future)

Tomorrow I will be promoted to field marshal (the highest rank of general).

Phenomenon 9

Mayor (about Khlestakov): “Of course, he lied (while telling, he added fiction and lies).

Mayor: “Well, you are women! All of you are tricks! (trick - trinket, trifle, nonsense).

Mayor (one). Eka, in fact, is an opportunity (opportunity - here: an unpleasant incident).

The mayor (about Khlestakov): But for a long time the davicha was attached to the tavern, making such allegories (allegory - here: fables) and ekivoks (ekivoks - (equivoks) - ambiguity, hint)

Phenomenon 10

Mayor (to Osip) so here’s a couple of rubles (ruble) for your tip.

Phenomenon 11

Mayor: “And you stand on the porch and don’t move. And do not let anyone outside (strangers, strangers) into the house, especially merchants!

Act IV

Phenomenon 1

Ammos Fedorovich (about the mayor): “God bless him: he goes to the palace, and the State Council (the State Council is the highest government institution in Tsarist Russia, which considered issues of government and discussed bills) scolds!”

Artemy Filippovich: “Why are there a whole squadron of us here? (squadron - division, pandemonium).

Artemy Filippovich: “Yes, Ammos Fedorovich, there is no one but you. Every word you say, Cicero (Cicero - (1st century BC) - a Roman politician famous for his eloquence) has flown off your tongue.

Phenomenon 2

Khlestakov: “I love cordiality” (cordiality is a cordial, affectionate and open attitude towards people).

Phenomenon 3

Khlestakov (to Ammos Fedorovich): “Do you know what? Lend them to me (as a loan, with subsequent repayment). I know, I spent my money on the road (wasted, spent my money).

Phenomenon 4

Postmaster (to Khlestakov): “I have the honor to introduce myself: postmaster, court councilor (court councilor is a civil rank of the seventh class, equal to a colonel in the tsarist army)

Khlestakov (to the Postmaster): After all, this is only in the capital bonton (bonton - social courtesy, sophistication in address (from the French expression bon ton - good manners)) and there are no provincial geese.

Phenomenon 5

Luka Lukich (to Khlestakov): I have the honor to introduce myself: superintendent of schools, titular councilor (titular councilor is a civil rank of the ninth grade) Khlopov.

Khlestakov (to Luka Lukich): Afraid? (scared, embarrassed).

Phenomenon 6

Artemy Filippovich (to Khlestakov): The judge also keeps dogs in public places (presence - the room where petitioners are received) and behaves in the most reprehensible manner (deserving censure, condemnation).

I don’t know how his superiors could entrust him with such a position: he is worse than a Jacobin (a Jacobin is a member of the extreme left political party in the era of the French bourgeois revolution. A common name in Russia in the first half of the 19th century for freethinkers and revolutionaries).

Phenomenon 7

Dobchinsky (to Bobchinsky): “I don’t have it with me, because my money is put into the order of public charity (the order of public charity is an institution that was in charge of hospitals, shelters, and also issued loans and accepted cash deposits with interest).

Bobchinsky (to Dobchinsky): “I have only forty banknotes (banknotes are paper banknotes, the rate of which was lower than the rate of silver and gold coins. To allocate - to allocate funds, money).

Bobchinsky (to Dobchinsky): “I know there’s a hole in your pocket on the right side (a hole in your clothes, a torn place).

Dobchinsky (to Khlestakov): “Sorry for making you so difficult (difficult, burdened) with our presence.

Phenomenon 9

Khlestakov (to Osip): “Tell the coachmen to ride like couriers (a courier is a government courier) and sing songs!

Osip (off stage): “Take the letter to the post office and tell them to bring the best courier troika to the master now (a courier troika is a troika of horses for couriers carrying urgent government papers).

Osip (looking out the window) (to Khlestakov): “Some merchants want to enter, but the quarterly (overseer) does not allow it.

Phenomenon 10

One of the merchants to Khlestakov: “Wait (wait - here: housing service; the placement by city authorities of military units or individual military personnel in private civilian houses) is completely boring, even if you climb into a noose.

Merchants (to Khlestakov): “That is, not to mention any delicacy, all sorts of rubbish, that my sitter (sidekick - in the old days that was the name of the clerk in the shop) will not eat.”

Merchants: Hey, hey! And if you try to contradict (object, contradict), they will send a whole regiment to you to billet.

Osip Khlestakov: “Your Honor! (titled rank) why don’t you take it?

Phenomenon 11

The mechanic’s wife (to Khlestakov): “You’re welcome: I’m hitting the mayor with my forehead!” (beat with your forehead - respectfully ask for something; Chelo is an outdated word meaning forehead. In the old days, when submitting petitions, they bowed low, that is, they “beat their forehead” on the ground).

“Yes, he ordered my husband to shave his forehead as a soldier (to shave his forehead as a soldier - to take him to soldier; in the old days, those called up for military service had their forehead hair shaved).

Locksmith: “We should have taken the tailor’s son, so he stuck (to stick - to stick, to rush) to the son of the merchant Panteleeva”

Phenomenon 13

Anna Andreevna (seeing Khlestakov on his knees). Oh, what a passage! (passage - here: a strange and unexpected incident) If I'm not mistaken, are you making a declaration (proposal) about my daughter?

Phenomenon 14

Anna Andreevna (to Marya Antonovna): “What kind of frivolity (frivolity) is this?

Phenomenon 15

Anna Andreevna (to the Mayor): “Oh, what a blockhead (stupid person, blockhead) indeed!

“Farewell, Your Excellency!” (Your Excellency - an appeal in Tsarist Russia to persons of the highest ranks, starting with the general in military service and the actual state councilor in civilian service).

Act V

Phenomenon 1

Mayor (to Anna Andreevna): The cavalry will be hung over your shoulder (cavalry - here: a wide order ribbon for the highest orders, which was worn over the shoulder, its ends fastened on the hip: red - for Stanislav and Anna of the 1st degree; blue - for the Order of the Andrei Empire First-Called - he was owned by persons of the royal house and major commanders, for example, Suvorov, Kutuzov).

Anna Andreevna (to the Mayor): I really want such amber to be in my room (ambre is a fragrance (from the French word amber).

Phenomenon 2

Mayor (to the merchants): What about you? – you start out as swindlers (scammers)

One of the merchants: The crafty one has misled (an expression of regret, remorse over an unsuccessful, reprehensible action or deed that they do not understand).

Phenomenon 7

Private bailiff (to the Mayor): “I have the honor to congratulate you and wish you prosperity (well-being) for many years to come!

Korobkin (to the mayor): “Next year I’ll take my son, give him your protection (patronage in employment, in promotion, in order to get somewhere under the protection).

Phenomenon 8

Postmaster (to the mayor): “I had already called for a courier (a messenger for delivering business papers, an official for traveling with urgent errands) in order to send him with a relay (relay is a distorted pronunciation of the word “relay” - urgent forwarding of mail with a special mounted courier "by express" (from the French word estafette)).

Postmaster (reading): “And now I live with the mayor, chewing (chewing - spending time in frivolous pleasures, enjoying life (from the French word jouir).

Korobkin (continues) Judge Lyapkin - Tyapkin is extremely bad manners (bad manners - from the French expression mauvais ton. Gogol, transferring the French expression meaning “bad taste” to an ill-mannered person who does not know how to behave in society, created a new word)

One of the ladies: “What a reprimand (reprimand - here: trouble (from the French word reprimande - lesson, reprimand) unexpected.

Korobkin’s wife: “That’s for sure, this is an unprecedented embarrassment! (embarrassment is correct: “embarrassment” is a scandal, an awkward situation).

Mayor: “Not only will you become a laughing stock - there will be a clicker (clicker is a nickname for clerks in court - hence a scribbler, a liar, a liar. Here: a contemptuous name for a writer), a paper maker, who will insert you into a comedy.

Well, what was there in this helipad (a frivolous, frivolous person) that looked like an auditor?

The last phenomenon

Gendarme: The official who arrived from St. Petersburg by personal command (by personal command - by command (order) of the Tsar) demands you to come to him this very hour.

Silent scene

On the left side of the mayor: Strawberries; behind him is a judge with his arms outstretched, and making a movement with his lips, as if he wanted to say: “Here’s to you, grandma, and St. George’s Day!” (“Here’s Yury’s Day for you, grandma,” is an old folk saying. On Yury’s Day (November 26, old style), peasants could move from one landowner to another. This law was repealed at the end of the 16th century, and the peasants were thus enslaved This is where this saying came from.)

III. CONCLUSION

The meaning of N. V. Gogol’s comedy “The Inspector General”

“The Inspector General” is an unsurpassed work of world drama, its true masterpiece.

Everyone who wrote about this work unanimously noted its significance.

Pisarev wrote: “The name of Gogol is dear to the Russian heart; Gogol was our first folk, exclusively Russian poet; no one understood better than he all the shades of Russian life and Russian character, no one portrayed Russian society so amazingly correctly; the best modern figures of our literature can be called followers of Gogol; all their works bear the stamp of his influence, traces of which will probably remain on Russian literature for a long time.”

“In our country, with their laughter and applause, the public protested against the stupid and captious administration, against the predatory police of the general “bad direction,” wrote Herzen, who in “The Government Inspector” saw “a terrible confession of modern Russia”

N. G. Chernyshevsky noted that “for a long time there has not been a writer in the world who was as important for his people as Gogol was for Russia.”

What is his role?

“The Inspector General” was an outstanding event in the history of Russian literature, especially dramatic literature. Even during Gogol’s lifetime, in 1846, Turgenev perspicaciously noted that “The Inspector General” “showed the path along which our dramatic literature would eventually go.” And thirteen years later, Ostrovsky already had the right to testify that since Gogol this literature “has stood on the solid ground of reality and is moving along a straight road.”

Belinsky called Gogol “the Columbus of Russian literature.” Writers who replaced Gogol, such as Nekrasov, Chernyshevsky, Goncharov, Leskov, Saltykov-Shchedrin and many others, developed Gogol’s traditions in their own way.

There is no doubt about the influence that Gogol had with his “The Inspector General” on the establishment and development of the critical direction of dramaturgy, especially Ostrovsky, Sukhovo-Kobylin and Saltykov-Shchedrin.

“The Inspector General” is a comedy where “Russian characters” are brought to the stage. “Our rogues” were ridiculed, but in addition, social vices and social ills generated by the autocratic serfdom system were revealed.

Bribery, embezzlement, extortion, common among government officials, were shown with such vividness and convincingness by Gogol that his “Inspector General” acquired the force of a document exposing the existing system not only of Gogol’s time, but also of subsequent times.

Thus, the significance of the comedy “The Inspector General” was enormous in the first half of the 19th century, and it has not lost its significance today. The comedy does not leave any reader or viewer indifferent. The problems posed in it have worried and continue to worry more than one generation of readers.

Many characters have a general meaning. Thus, many of Khlestakov’s character traits are common among a variety of people (it’s not for nothing that Gogol said: “Everyone, at least for a minute, if not for several minutes, has become or is becoming Khlestakov’s Word; it’s rare that anyone has not been one at least once in their life.”

The importance of comedy is also great in our time, since after reading “The Inspector General” or watching a play, a person begins to think about the vices of society and his own shortcomings and tries to eradicate them. And Gogol’s skill in depicting characters and in the field of language remains unsurpassed!

Having written the essay, I believe that I have achieved the following goals: I revealed the linguistic and literary features of Gogol’s comedy and completed the following tasks: I spoke about the writer’s linguistic and compositional skills, about the speech of the characters, and commented on some outdated words and expressions using literary aids and dictionaries.

In the process of work, my interest in Gogol’s work increased even more.

Social significance of N. V. Gogol’s comedy “The Inspector General”

The time when N.V. Gogol lived and worked was marked by major socio-historical events. The writer's childhood coincided with the defeat of Napoleon in the Patriotic War of 1812 and Russia's entry into the wide international arena. Nikolai Gogol's youthful years date back to the period when the Decembrists made plans for the revolutionary reorganization of Russia, and then openly opposed autocracy and serfdom. N.V. Gogol entered the literary field at a time of brutal political reaction. His creative activity developed in the 30-40s of the 19th century, when the ruling circles of Nicholas the First sought to eradicate all free-thinking and social independence.
The appearance of the comedy “The Inspector General” in 1836 acquired social significance not only because the author criticized and ridiculed the vices and shortcomings of Tsarist Russia, but also because with his comedy the writer urged viewers and readers to look into their souls and think about universal human values. Gogol did not share the idea of a revolutionary reorganization of society, but he firmly believed in the cleansing power of laughter, believed in the triumph of justice, which will certainly win as soon as people realize the fatality of evil. So, in his play N.V. Gogol sets himself the goal of “laughing hard” at everything that is “worthy of universal ridicule.”
In the comedy “The Inspector General,” the author chooses a small provincial town as the setting, from which “even if you ride for three years, you won’t reach any state.” N.V. Gogol makes city officials and the “phantasmagoric face”, Khlestakov, the heroes of the play. The author's genius allowed him, using the example of a small island of life, to reveal those features and conflicts that characterized the social development of an entire historical era. He managed to create artistic images of a huge social and moral range. The small town in the play captures all the characteristic features of social relations of that time.
The main conflict on which the comedy is based is the deep contradiction between what city officials do and ideas about the public good and the interests of city residents. Lawlessness, embezzlement, bribery - all this is depicted in “The Inspector General” not as individual vices of individual officials, but as generally accepted “standards of life”, outside of which those in power cannot imagine their existence. Readers and viewers never doubt for a minute that somewhere life takes place according to different laws. All the norms of relations between people in the city of “The Inspector General” look in the play as ubiquitous. Where, for example, do officials have such confidence that an auditor arriving from St. Petersburg will agree to take part in the mayor’s dinner and will not refuse to take obvious bribes? Yes, because they know this from the experience of their city, but is it really so different from the capital?
Gogol is interested not only in the social vices of society, but also in its moral and spiritual state. In “The Inspector General,” the author painted a terrible picture of the internal disunity of people who are able to unite only temporarily under the influence of a common feeling of fear. In life, people are driven by arrogance, swagger, servility, the desire to take a more advantageous place, to get a better job. People have lost the idea of the true meaning of life. You can sin; all you need to do is, like the mayor, regularly attend church every Sunday. Fantastic lies, which are in many ways similar to Khlestakov’s, also help officials hide the true nature of their actions. Lyapkin-Tyapkin takes bribes with greyhound puppies and calls it “a completely different matter.” In the city's hospitals, people are “recovering like flies.” The postmaster opens other people's letters only because “death loves to find out what is new in the world.”
It is no coincidence that N.V. Gogol completely reinterprets the traditional stage plot and plot development in his play, saying that “do not rank, money capital, and a profitable marriage now have more value than love?” The true values of human nature for city officials are replaced by ideas about rank. The superintendent of the schools, Khlopov, a modest titular councilor, openly admits that if anyone of higher rank speaks to him, he “has no soul, and his tongue is stuck in the mud.” It is precisely the reverent fear of a “significant person” that leads to the fact that officials, who perfectly understand the emptiness and stupidity of Khlestakov, feign complete respect, and not only feign it, but actually experience it.
Characterizing his play “The Inspector General” as a social comedy, N.V. Gogol repeatedly emphasized the deep generalizing content of its images. The unpunished arbitrariness of the mayor, the dull diligence of Derzhimorda, the malicious simplicity of the postmaster - all these are deep social generalizations. Each of the characters in the comedy symbolizes a certain range of human qualities, allowing the author to show how crushed modern man is, how much ideas about heroism and nobility remain in him. Thus, the author prepares us to understand one of the main ideas of the poem “Dead Souls,” in which he will show that there is nothing more terrible than ordinary, crushing evil.
The image of Khlestakov, whom the author not by chance considered the main character of the work, can also be considered a huge creative success of the writer. It was Khlestakov who most fully expressed the essence of an era in which there is no normal human logic, in which a person is judged not by his spiritual qualities, but by his social status. And in order to occupy a high position, just an opportunity is enough that will take you “from rags to riches”; you don’t have to make any efforts or care about the public good.
Thus, it can be argued that, having brought out generalized types of people and relationships between them in comedy, N.V. Gogol was able to reflect in his work with great force the life of contemporary Russia. Inspired by the ideas of man's high calling, the writer spoke out against everything low, vicious and unspiritual, against the fall of social norms and human morality. The enormous social significance of the play lies in the power of its impact on the audience, who must realize that everything they see on stage is happening around them in real life.

Essay Gogol N.V. - Inspector

Topic: - Social significance of N.V. Gogol’s comedy “The Inspector General”

The time when N.V. Gogol lived and worked was marked by major socio-historical events.
The writer's childhood coincided with the defeat of Napoleon in the Patriotic War of 1812 and Russia's entry into the wide international arena. Nikolai Gogol's youthful years date back to the period when the Decembrists made plans for the revolutionary reorganization of Russia, and then openly opposed autocracy and serfdom. N.V. Gogol entered the literary field at a time of brutal political reaction. His creative activity developed in the 30-40s of the 19th century, when the ruling circles of Nicholas I sought to eradicate all free-thinking and social independence.
The appearance of the comedy “The Inspector General” in 1836 acquired social significance not only because the author criticized and ridiculed the vices and shortcomings of Tsarist Russia, but also because with his comedy the writer urged viewers and readers to look into their souls and think about universal human values. Gogol did not share the idea of a revolutionary reorganization of society, but he firmly believed in the cleansing power of laughter, believed in the triumph of justice, which will certainly win as soon as people realize the fatality of evil. So, in his play N.V. Gogol sets himself the goal of “laughing hard” at everything that is “worthy of universal ridicule.”
In the comedy “The Inspector General,” the author chooses a small provincial town as the setting, from which “even if you ride for three years, you won’t reach any state.” N.V. Gogol makes city officials and the “phantasmagoric face”, Khlestakov, the heroes of the play. The author's genius allowed him, using the example of a small island of life, to reveal those features and conflicts that characterized the social development of an entire historical era. He managed to create artistic images of a huge social and moral range. The small town in the play captures all the characteristic features of social relations of that time. The main conflict on which the comedy is built lies in the deep contradiction between what city officials do and ideas about the public good and the interests of city residents. Lawlessness, embezzlement, bribery - all this is depicted in “The Inspector General” not as individual vices of individual officials, but as generally accepted “standards of life”, outside of which those in power cannot imagine their existence. Readers and viewers never doubt for a minute that somewhere life takes place according to different laws. All the norms of relations “between people in the city of “The Inspector General” look in the play as ubiquitous. Where, for example, do officials have such confidence that an auditor coming from St. Petersburg will agree to take part in the mayor’s dinner and will not refuse to take obvious bribes? Yes, because that they know this from the experience of their city, but is it really so different from the capital?
Gogol is interested not only in the social vices of society, but also in its moral and spiritual state. In “The Inspector General,” the author painted a terrible picture of the internal disunity of people who are able to unite only temporarily under the influence of a common feeling of fear. In life, people are driven by arrogance, swagger, servility, the desire to take a more advantageous place, to get a better job. People have lost the idea of the true meaning of life. You can sin; all you need to do is, like the mayor, regularly attend church every Sunday. Fantastic lies, which are in many ways similar to Khlestakov’s, also help officials hide the true nature of their actions. Lyapkin-Tyapkin takes bribes with greyhound puppies and calls it “a completely different matter.” In the city's hospitals, people are “recovering like flies.” The postmaster opens other people's letters only because “death loves to find out what is new in the world.”
It is no coincidence that N.V. Gogol completely reverses the traditional stage plot and development of the plot in his play, saying that “do not rank, money capital, and a profitable marriage now have more value than love?” The true values of human nature for city officials are replaced by ideas about rank. The superintendent of the schools, Khlopov, a modest titular councilor, openly admits that if anyone of higher rank speaks to him, he “has no soul, and his tongue is stuck in the mud.” It is precisely the reverent fear of a “significant person” that leads to the fact that officials, who perfectly understand the emptiness and stupidity of Khlestakov, feign complete respect, and not only feign it, but actually experience it.
Characterizing his play “The Inspector General” as a social comedy, N.V. Gogol repeatedly emphasized the deep generalizing content of its images. The unpunished arbitrariness of the mayor, the dull diligence of Derzhimorda, the malicious simplicity of the postmaster - all these are deep social generalizations. Each of the characters in the comedy symbolizes a certain range of human qualities, allowing the author to show how crushed modern man is, how much ideas about heroism and nobility remain in him.
The image of Khlestakov, whom the author not by chance considered the main character of the work, can also be considered a huge creative success of the writer. It was Khlestakov who most fully expressed the essence of an era in which there is no normal human logic, in which a person is judged not by his spiritual qualities, but by his social status. And in order to occupy a high position, just an opportunity is enough that will take you “from rags to riches”; you don’t have to make any efforts or care about the public good.
Thus, it can be argued that, having brought out generalized types of people and relationships between them in comedy, N.V. Gogol was able to reflect in his work with great force the life of contemporary Russia. Inspired by the ideas of man's high calling, the writer spoke out against everything low, vicious and unspiritual, against the fall of social norms and human morality. The enormous social significance of the play lies in the power of its impact on the audience, who must realize that everything they see on stage is happening around them in real life.

The years of the 19th century, when the ruling circles of Nicholas the First sought to eradicate all free-thinking and social independence.
The appearance of the comedy “The Inspector General” in 1836 acquired social significance not only because the author criticized and ridiculed the vices and shortcomings of Tsarist Russia, but also because with his comedy the writer urged viewers and readers to look into their souls and think about universal human values. Gogol did not share the idea of a revolutionary reorganization of society, but he firmly believed in the cleansing power of laughter, believed in the triumph of justice, which will certainly win as soon as people realize the fatality of evil. So, in his play N.V. Gogol sets himself the goal of “laughing hard” at everything that is “worthy of universal ridicule.”
In the comedy “The Inspector General,” the author chooses a small provincial town as the setting, from which “even if you ride for three years, you won’t reach any state.” N.V. Gogol makes city officials and the “phantasmagoric face”, Khlestakov, the heroes of the play. The author's genius allowed him, using the example of a small island of life, to reveal those features and conflicts that characterized the social development of an entire historical era. He managed to create artistic images of a huge social and moral range. The small town in the play captures all the characteristic features of social relations of that time.
The main conflict on which the comedy is based is the deep contradiction between what city officials do and ideas about the public good and the interests of city residents. Lawlessness, embezzlement, bribery - all this is depicted in “The Inspector General” not as individual vices of individual officials, but as generally accepted “standards of life”, outside of which those in power cannot imagine their existence. Readers and viewers never doubt for a minute that somewhere life takes place according to different laws. All the norms of relations between people in the city of “The Inspector General” look in the play as ubiquitous. Where, for example, do officials have such confidence that an auditor arriving from St. Petersburg will agree to take part in the mayor’s dinner and will not refuse to take obvious bribes? Yes, because they know this from the experience of their city, but is it really so different from the capital?
Gogol is interested not only in the social vices of society, but also in its moral and spiritual state. In “The Inspector General,” the author painted a terrible picture of the internal disunity of people who are able to unite only temporarily under the influence of a common feeling of fear. In life, people are driven by arrogance, swagger, servility, the desire to take a more advantageous place, to get a better job. People have lost the idea of the true meaning of life. You can sin; all you need to do is, like the mayor, regularly attend church every Sunday. Fantastic lies, which are in many ways similar to Khlestakov’s, also help officials hide the true nature of their actions. Lyapkin-Tyapkin takes bribes with greyhound puppies and calls it “a completely different matter.” In the city's hospitals, people are “recovering like flies.” The postmaster opens other people's letters only because “death loves to find out what is new in the world.”
It is no coincidence that N.V. Gogol completely reinterprets the traditional stage plot and plot development in his play, saying that “do not rank, money capital, and a profitable marriage now have more value than love?” The true values of human nature for city officials are replaced by ideas about rank. The superintendent of the schools, Khlopov, a modest titular councilor, openly admits that if anyone of higher rank speaks to him, he “has no soul, and his tongue is stuck in the mud.” It is precisely the reverent fear of a “significant person” that leads to the fact that officials, who perfectly understand the emptiness and stupidity of Khlestakov, feign complete respect, and not only feign it, but actually experience it.
Characterizing his play “The Inspector General” as a social comedy, N.V. Gogol repeatedly emphasized the deep generalizing content of its images. The unpunished arbitrariness of the mayor, the dull diligence of Derzhimorda, the malicious simplicity of the postmaster - all these are deep social generalizations. Each of the characters in the comedy symbolizes a certain range of human qualities, allowing the author to show how crushed modern man is, how much ideas about heroism and nobility remain in him. Thus, the author prepares us to understand one of the main ideas of the poem “Dead Souls,” in which he will show that there is nothing more terrible than ordinary, crushing evil.
The image of Khlestakov, whom the author not by chance considered the main character of the work, can also be considered a huge creative success of the writer. It was Khlestakov who most fully expressed the essence of an era in which there is no normal human logic, in which a person is judged not by his spiritual qualities, but by his social status. And in order to occupy a high position, just an opportunity is enough that will take you “from rags to riches”; you don’t have to make any efforts or care about the public good.
Thus, it can be argued that, having brought out generalized types of people and relationships between them in comedy, N.V. Gogol was able to reflect in his work with great force the life of contemporary Russia. Inspired by the ideas of man's high calling, the writer spoke out against everything low, vicious and unspiritual, against the fall of social norms and human morality. The enormous social significance of the play lies in the power of its impact on the audience, who must realize that everything they see on stage is happening around them in real life.

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