The ideological and artistic originality of the poem Dead Souls. Artistic features of Gogol's poem "Dead Souls"

1. “Dead Souls” as a realistic work

b) Principles of realism in the poem:

1. Historicism

Gogol wrote about his modernity - approximately the end of the 20s - the beginning of the 30s, during the period of the crisis of serfdom in Russia.

2. Typical characters in typical circumstances

The main trends in the depiction of landowners and officials are satirical description, social typification and a general critical orientation. “Dead Souls” is a work of everyday life. Particular attention is paid to the description of nature, the estate and interior, and the details of the portrait. Most of the characters are shown statically. Much attention is paid to details, the so-called “mud of little things” (for example, the character of Plyushkin). Gogol correlates different plans: universal scales (a lyrical digression about a three-bird bird) and the smallest details (a description of a trip along extremely bad Russian roads).

3. Means of satirical typification

a) Author's characteristics of the characters, b) Comic situations (for example, Manilov and Chichikov cannot separate at the door), c) Appeal to the past of the heroes (Chichikov, Plyushkin), d) Hyperbole (the unexpected death of the prosecutor, the extraordinary gluttony of Sobakevich), e ) Proverbs (“Neither in the city of Bogdan, nor in the village of Selifan”), e) Comparisons (Sobakevich is compared to a medium-sized bear, Korobochka is compared to a mongrel in the manger).

2. Genre originality

Calling his work a “poem,” Gogol meant: “a lesser kind of epic... Prospectus for a textbook of literature for Russian youth. The hero of epics is a private and invisible person, but significant in many respects for observing the human soul.”

The poem is a genre that goes back to the traditions of the ancient epic, in which integral existence was recreated in all its contradictions. The Slavophiles insisted on this characteristic of “Dead Souls,” appealing to the fact that elements of the poem, as a glorifying genre, are also present in “Dead Souls” (lyrical digressions). Gogol himself, later in his “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends,” analyzing the translation of Zhukovsky’s “Odyssey,” will admire the ancient epic and the genius of Homer, who presented not only the events that form the core of the poem, but also “the entire ancient world” in all its completeness, with its way of life, beliefs, popular views, etc., that is, the very spirit of the people of that era. In letters to friends, Gogol called “Dead Souls” not only a poem, but also a novel. Dead Souls contains features of an adventure, picaresque, and social novel. However, it is customary not to call “Dead Souls” a novel, since there is practically no love intrigue in the work.

3. Features of the plot and composition

Features of the plot of “Dead Souls” are associated primarily with the image of Chichikov and his ideological and compositional role. Gogol: “The author leads his life through a chain of adventures and changes, in order to present at the same time a true picture of everything significant in the traits and morals of the time he took... a picture of shortcomings, abuses, vices.” In a letter to V. Zhukovsky, Gogol mentions that he wanted to show “all of Rus'” in the poem. The poem is written in the form of a journey, disparate fragments of Russian life are combined into a single whole. This is the main compositional role of Chichikov. The independent role of the image comes down to describing a new type of Russian life, an entrepreneur-adventurer. In Chapter 11, the author gives a biography of Chichikov, from which it follows that the hero uses either the position of an official or the mythical position of a landowner to achieve his goals.

The composition is built on the principle of “concentric circles” or “closed spaces” (city, estates of landowners, all of Russia).

4. Theme of homeland and people

Gogol wrote about his work: “All of Rus' will appear in it.” The life of the ruling class and the common people is given without idealization. Peasants are characterized by ignorance, narrow-mindedness, and downtroddenness (the images of Petrushka and Selifan, the yard girl Korobochka, who does not know where is right and where is left, Uncle Mityai and Uncle Minyai, who are discussing whether Chichikov’s chaise will reach Moscow and Kazan). Nevertheless, the author warmly describes the talent and other creative abilities of the people (a lyrical digression about the Russian language, a characterization of the Yaroslavl peasant in a digression about the Troika Bird, Sobakevich’s register of peasants).

Much attention is paid to the popular revolt (the story of Captain Kopeikin). The theme of the future of Russia is reflected in Gogol’s poetic attitude towards his homeland (lyrical digressions about Rus' and the three-bird).

5. Features of the depiction of landowners in the poem

The images drawn by Gogol in the poem were received ambiguously by his contemporaries: many reproached him for drawing a caricature of contemporary life and depicting reality in a funny, absurd way.

Gogol unfolds before the reader a whole gallery of images of landowners (leading his main character from the first of them to the last) primarily in order to answer the main question that occupied him - what is the future of Russia, what is its historical purpose, what in modern life contains at least a small hint of a bright, prosperous future for the people, which will be the key to the future greatness of the nation. In other words, the question that Gogol asks at the end, in a lyrical digression about the “Russian Troika,” permeates the entire narrative as a leitmotif, and the logic and poetics of the entire work, including the images of landowners, are subordinated to it (see Logic of creativity).

The first of the landowners whom Chichikov visits in the hope of buying dead souls is Manilov. Main features: Manilov is completely divorced from reality, his main occupation is fruitless soaring in the clouds, useless project-making. This is evidenced both by the appearance of his estate (a house on a hill, open to all winds, a gazebo - a “temple of solitary reflection”, traces of begun and unfinished buildings) and the interior of living quarters (mismatched furniture, piles of pipe ashes laid out in neat rows on the windowsill , some kind of book, for the second year laid down on page fourteen, etc.). When drawing an image, Gogol pays special attention to details, interiors, things, through them showing the characteristics of the owner’s character. Manilov, despite his “great” thoughts, is stupid, vulgar and sentimental (lisping with his wife, “ancient Greek” names of not quite neat and well-mannered children). The internal and external squalor of the depicted type encourages Gogol, starting from it, to look for a positive ideal, and to do this “by contradiction.” If complete isolation from reality and fruitless head-in-the-clouds lead to something like this, then perhaps the opposite type will give us some hope?

Korobochka in this respect is the complete opposite of Manilov. Unlike him, she does not have her head in the clouds, but, on the contrary, is completely immersed in everyday life. However, the image of Korobochka does not give the desired ideal. Pettiness and stinginess (old coats stored in chests, money put in a stocking for a “rainy day”), inertia, dull adherence to tradition, rejection and fear of everything new, “club-headedness” make her appearance almost more repulsive than the appearance of Manilov .

Despite all the dissimilarity between the characters of Manilov and Korobochka, they have one thing in common - inactivity. Both Manilov and Korobochka (albeit for opposing reasons) do not influence the reality around them. Perhaps an active person will be a model from whom the younger generation should take an example? And, as if in response to this question, Nozdryov appears. Nozdryov is extremely active. However, all his hectic activities are mostly scandalous in nature. He is a regular at all the drinking and carousing in the area, he exchanges everything for anything (he tries to sell Chichikov puppies, a barrel organ, a horse, etc.), he cheats when playing cards and even checkers, he mediocrely squanders the money that he gets from selling harvest. He lies without any need (it was Nozdryov who later confirmed the rumor that Chichikov wanted to steal the governor’s daughter and took him as an accomplice, without blinking an eye he agrees that Chichikov is Napoleon, who escaped from exile, etc.). Repeatedly he was beaten, and by his own friends, and the next day, as if nothing had happened, he appeared to them and continued in the same spirit - “and he is nothing, and they, as they say, are nothing.” As a result, Nozdrev’s “activities” cause almost more troubles than the inaction of Manilov and Korobochka. And yet, there is a feature that unites all three types described - it is impracticality.

The next landowner, Sobakenich, is extremely practical. This is the type of “master”, “fist”. Everything in his house is durable, reliable, made “to last forever” (even the furniture seems to be filled with complacency and wants to shout: “Iya Sobakevich!”). However, all of Sobakevich’s practicality is aimed at only one goal - obtaining personal gain, to achieve which he stops at nothing (“cursing” Sobakevich of everyone and everything - in the city, according to him, there is one decent person - the prosecutor, “and even the one if you look at it, it’s a pig”, Sobakevich’s “meal”, when he eats mountains of food and so on, it seems capable of swallowing the whole world in one sitting, the scene with the purchase of dead souls, when Sobakevich is not at all surprised by the very object of sale and purchase, but immediately feels that the case smells of money that can be “ripped off” from Chichikov). It is absolutely clear that Sobakevich is even further from the sought-after ideal than all previous types.

Plyushkin is a kind of generalizing image. He is the only one whose path to his current state (“how he got to this life”) is shown to us by Gogol. Giving the image of Plyushkin in development, Gogol raises this final image to a kind of symbol that contains Manilov, Korobochka, Nozdryov, and Sobakevich. What is common to all the types depicted in the poem is that their lives are not sanctified by thought, a socially useful goal, and are not filled with concern for the common good, progress, or the desire for national prosperity. Any activity (or inaction) is useless and meaningless if it does not contain concern for the good of the nation or country. That is why Plyushkin turns into a “hole in humanity”, that is why his repulsive, disgusting image of a miser who has lost all human form, stealing old buckets and other rubbish from his own peasants, turning his own house into a dump, and his serfs into beggars, is precisely therefore, his image is the final stop for all these manila, box, nozdrev and dog dogs. And it is precisely “a hole in humanity,” like Plyushkin, that Russia may turn out to be if it does not find the strength to tear away all these “dead souls” and bring to the surface of national life a positive image - active, with a mobile mind and imagination, zealous in business, and most importantly - sanctified by concern for the common good. It is characteristic that it was precisely this type that Gogol tried to bring out in the second volume of Dead Souls in the image of the landowner Kostanzhoglo (see below). However, the surrounding reality did not provide material for such images - Kostanzhoglo turned out to be a speculative scheme that had nothing to do with real life. Russian reality supplied only manilas, boxes, nozdrevs and Plyushkins - “Where am I? I don’t see anything... Not a single human face,.. There’s only a snout, a snout...,” exclaims Gogol through the mouth of the Governor in “The Inspector General” (compare with the “evil spirits” from “Evenings...” and “Mirgorod”: a pig’s snout sticking out of the window in “Sorochinskaya Fair”, mocking inhuman faces in “Enchanted Place”). That is why the words about Rus'-troika sound like a sad cry of warning - “Where are you rushing?.. Doesn’t give an answer...”. The meaning of this passage, interpreted differently at different times, can be understood by recalling a similar passage, very reminiscent of this one, from “Notes of a Madman”:

“No, I don’t have the strength to endure anymore. God! what are they doing to me!.. They don’t listen, don’t see, don’t listen to me. What have I done to them? Why are they torturing me? What do they want from poor me? What can I give them? I dont have anything. I am unable, I cannot bear all their torments, my head is burning, and everything is spinning before me. Help me! take me! give me three horses as fast as a whirlwind! Sit down, my coachman, ring my bell, soar, horses, and carry me from this world! Further, further, so that nothing, nothing is visible. There the sky swirls before me; a star sparkles in the distance; the forest rushes with dark trees and the moon; a bluish fog spreads underfoot; the string rings in the fog; on one side the sea, on the other Italy; Over there you can see the Russian huts. Is my house turning blue in the distance? Is my mother sitting in front of the window? Mother, save your poor son! drop a tear on his sore little head] look how they torment him! press the poor orphan to your chest! he has no place in the world! they're chasing him! Mother! feel sorry for your poor child!..”

Thus, the troika is, according to Gogol, what should whisk him away from all these Plyushkins, Derzhimords, boxes and Akakiev Akakievichs, and Rus'-troika is the image of that Russia, which, having overcome all its age-old ailments: slavery, darkness , depravity and impunity of the authorities, long-suffering and silence of the people - will enter a new life worthy of free, enlightened people.

But so far there are no prerequisites for this. And in the chaise rides Chichikov - a scoundrel, mediocrity incarnate, neither this nor that - who feels at ease in the Russian open spaces, who is free to take whatever is bad and who is free to fool fools and scold the bad Russian roads.

So, the main and main meaning of the poem is that Gogol wanted, through artistic images, to understand the historical path of Russia, to see its future, to feel the sprouts of a new, better life in the reality surrounding him, to discern those forces that would turn Russia off the sidelines of world history and include into the general cultural process. The image of landowners is a reflection of precisely this search. Through extreme typification, Gogol creates figures of a national scale, representing the Russian character in many forms, in all its inconsistency and ambiguity.

The types derived by Gogol are an integral part of Russian life; these are precisely Russian types, which, no matter how bright, are just as stable in Russian life - until life itself radically changes.

6. Features of the image of officials

Like the images of landowners, the images of officials, a whole gallery of which Gogol unfolds before the reader, perform a certain function. Showing the life and customs of the provincial town of NN, the author tries to answer the main question that worries him - what is the future of Russia, what is its historical purpose, what in modern life contains at least the slightest hint of a bright, prosperous future for the people.

The theme of bureaucracy is an integral part and continuation of the ideas that Gogol developed when depicting landowners in the poem. It is no coincidence that the images of officials follow the images of landowners. If the evil embodied in the owners of the estates - in all these boxes, Manilovs, Sobakevichs, Nozdrevs and Plyushkins - is scattered throughout the Russian expanses, then here it appears in a concentrated form, compressed by the living conditions of the provincial city. A huge number of “dead souls” gathered together creates a special monstrously absurd atmosphere. If the character of each of the landowners left a unique imprint on his house and estate as a whole, then the city is influenced by the entire huge mass of people (including officials, since officials are the first people in the city) living in it. The city turns into a completely independent mechanism, living according to its own laws, dispatching its needs through offices, departments, councils and other public institutions. And it is officials who ensure the functioning of this entire mechanism. The life of a civil servant, which is not imprinted with a high idea, the desire to promote the common good, becomes an embodied function of the bureaucratic mechanism. Essentially, a person ceases to be a person, he loses all personal characteristics (unlike the landowners, who had, albeit ugly, but still their own physiognomy), even loses his own name, since a name is still a certain personal characteristic, and becomes simply Postmaster, Prosecutor, Governor, Chief of Police, Chairman or the owner of an unimaginable nickname like Ivan Antonovich Kuvshinnoe Rylo. A person turns into a detail, a “cog” of the state machine, the micromodel of which is the provincial city of NN.

The officials themselves are unremarkable, except for the positions they occupy. To enhance the contrast, Gogol gives grotesque “portraits” of some officials - the chief of police is famous for the fact that, according to rumors, he only needs to blink when passing a fish row to ensure himself a luxurious lunch and an abundance of fish delicacies. The postmaster, whose name was Ivan Andreevich, is known for the fact that they always added to his name: “Sprechen zi deutsch, Ivan Andreich?” The chairman of the chamber knew Zhukovsky’s “Lyudmila” by heart and “masterfully read many passages, especially: “Bor has fallen asleep, the valley is sleeping,” and the word “Chu!” The others, as Gogol sarcastically notes, were “also more or less enlightened people: some read Karamzin, some Moskovskie Vedomosti, some didn’t even read anything at all.”

The reaction of city residents, including officials, to the news that Chichikov is buying dead souls is noteworthy - what is happening does not fit into the usual framework and immediately gives rise to the most fantastic assumptions - from the fact that Chichikov wanted to kidnap the governor’s daughter, to the fact that Chichikov - either a wanted counterfeiter or an escaped robber, about whom the Police Chief receives an order for immediate detention. The grotesqueness of the situation is only enhanced by the fact that the Postmaster decides that Chichikov is Captain Kopeikin in disguise, a hero of the war of 1812, an invalid without an arm and a leg. The remaining officials assume that Chichikov is Napoleon in disguise, having escaped from St. Helena. The absurdity of the situation reaches its climax when, as a result of a collision with insoluble problems (from mental stress), the prosecutor dies. In general, the situation in the city resembles the behavior of a mechanism into which a grain of sand suddenly fell. Wheels and screws, designed for very specific functions, spin idle, some break with a bang, and the whole mechanism rings, jangles and “goes haywire.” It is the soulless car that is a kind of symbol of the city, and it is in this context that the very title of the poem - “Dead Souls” - takes on a new meaning.

Gogol seems to be asking the question - if the first people in the city are like this, then what are everyone else like? Where is the positive ideal that will serve as an example for the new generation? If the city is a soulless machine, killing everything living and pure in people, destroying the very human essence, depriving them of all human feelings and even a normal name, turning the city itself into a “cemetery” of dead souls, then ultimately all of Russia can take on a similar appearance , if he does not find the strength to reject all this “dead carrion” and bring to the surface of national life a positive image - active, with a mobile mind and imagination, diligent in business and, most importantly, sanctified by concern for the common good.

About the second volume of “Dead Souls”

Gogol, in the image of the landowner Kostanzhoglo, tried to show a positive ideal (Chichikov comes to him and sees his activities). It embodied Gogol's ideas about the harmonious structure of life: reasonable management, a responsible attitude to the work of all those involved in organizing the estate, the use of the fruits of science. Under the influence of Kostanzhoglo, Chichikov had to reconsider his attitude to reality and “correct.” However, sensing “life’s untruth” in his work, Gogol burned the second volume of Dead Souls.

State educational institution of higher professional
education
"Lipetsk State Technical University"
Department of Culture

Course work
in the discipline "History of World Literature"

Ideological and artistic originality of N.V. Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls”

Completed by: student gr.SO-07-1
Badikova V.N._______________
Scientific supervisor: Ph.D., Associate Professor
Uglova N.V.____________________
"____" _________ 2011
Lipetsk - 2011
Content

Introduction 3-4
Chapter 1. N.V. Gogol - the great Russian writer
1.1.Biography and main points of N.V. Gogol’s work 5-7
1.2.The history of the creation of the poem “Dead Souls 8-11”
Chapter 2. The poem “Dead Souls” as a critical image of the life and customs of the 19th century
2.1. Genre originality and composition of the poem 12-18
2.2. The meaning of the title of the poem 19-20
2.3. Problems of the poem “Dead Souls” 21-24
2.4. The role of portrait sketches in depicting character
characters 25-27
Conclusion 28
Bibliography 30

Introduction
“Dead Souls” is a brilliant work by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. It was on him that Gogol placed his main hopes. The history of the creation of the poem covers almost the entire creative life of the writer. The first volume was created in 1835 - 1841, the writer worked on the second volume from 1840 - 1852. In 1845, he burned the finished text for the first time. By 1851, he completed a new version of the volume - and burned it on February 11, 1852, shortly before his death.
“Dead Souls” is one of the most read and revered works of Russian classics. No matter how much time separates us from this work, we will never cease to be amazed at its depth, perfection and, probably, we will not consider our idea of ​​it exhausted. Reading Dead Souls, you absorb the noble moral ideas that every brilliant work of art carries, and unnoticed by yourself you become purer and more beautiful.
Relevance: in order to understand the writer’s work in its living, concrete ideological and artistic originality, it is necessary to clarify its real connections with historical reality, the ideological struggle, and the literary movement of the era. The amazing power of Gogol's artistic generalizations arose on the basis of the writer's close connection with life. In its movement, its density, he drew both the pathos of his inspiration and the richness of the content of his works. An artist of great social passion, Gogol inquisitively peered into the processes taking place in reality. And not as an indifferent observer, but as a citizen writer, vitally interested in the fate of the people and the country, he reflected the typical features of life.
Purpose of course research– study Gogol’s work using the example of the poem “Dead Souls”.
Subject of study– study of the ideological and artistic originality of the poem “Dead Souls”.
Object of study– study of the writer’s critical view of the position of “fat” and “thin” people in society.
Tasks:
1. Consider the biography of the writer.
2. Find out what the meaning of the title of the poem is.
3. Explain the features of the genre of this work.
4. Consider critical materials on the poem “Dead Souls”.
Structure of the work: the work consists of an introduction, 2 chapters, 5 paragraphs, a conclusion and a bibliography.
Chapter 1 “N.V. Gogol - the great Russian writer” examines the writer’s work and the process of creating a poem, from the appearance of the idea itself to the moment it appears in print.
Chapter 2, “The Poem “Dead Souls” as a Critical Image of Life and Morals of the 19th Century,” examines the critical views of Gogol’s contemporaries on whether “Dead Souls” should be called a poem; examines the composition and range of issues raised in the poem.

1.1. Biography and highlights of N.V. Gogol’s work
Born on March 20 (April 1, n.s.) in the town of Velikiye Sorochintsy, Mirgorod district, Poltava province, in the family of a poor landowner. My childhood years were spent on my parents’ estate Vasilyevka, near the village of Dikanka, a land of legends, beliefs, and historical stories. His father, Vasily Afanasyevich, a passionate admirer of art, a theater lover, and the author of poetry and witty comedies, played a certain role in the upbringing of the future writer.
After home education, Gogol spent two years at the Poltava district school, then entered the Nizhyn Gymnasium of Higher Sciences, created like the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum for children of the provincial nobility. Here he learned to play the violin, studied painting, played in plays, playing comic roles. Thinking about his future, he focuses on justice, dreaming of “stopping injustice.”
After graduating from the Nezhin gymnasium in June 1828, he went to St. Petersburg in December with the hope of starting wide-ranging activities. It was not possible to get a job; the first literary attempts were unsuccessful. Disappointed, in the summer of 1829 he went abroad, but soon returned. In November 1829 he received the position of a minor official. The gray bureaucratic life was brightened up by painting classes in the evening classes of the Academy of Arts. In addition, literature powerfully attracted me.
In 1830, Gogol’s first story “Basavryuk” appeared in the magazine “Otechestvennye zapiski”, which was later revised into the story “The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala”. In December, Delvig’s almanac “Northern Flowers” ​​published a chapter from the historical novel “Hetman”. Gogol became close to Delvig, Zhukovsky, Pushkin , friendship with whom was of great importance for the development of social views and literary talent of the young Gogol. Pushkin introduced him into his circle, where they visited Krylov, Vyazemsky, Odoevsky , the artist Bryullov, gave him subjects for “ The Inspector" and "Dead Souls" " “When I was creating,” Gogol testified, “I saw only Pushkin in front of me... His eternal and immutable word was dear to me.”
Gogol’s literary fame was brought to him by “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” (1831 - 32), the stories “Sorochinskaya Fair”, “May Night”, etc. In 1833 he decided to devote himself to scientific and pedagogical work and in 1834 he was appointed associate professor in Department of General History at St. Petersburg University. The study of works on the history of Ukraine formed the basis of the plan for “Taras Bulba”. In 1835 he left the university and devoted himself entirely to literary creativity. In the same year, a collection of stories “Mirgorod” appeared, which included “Old World Landowners”, “Taras Bulba”, “Viy”, etc., and a collection “Arabesques” (on themes of St. Petersburg life). The story “The Overcoat” was the most significant work of the St. Petersburg cycle; it was read to Pushkin in draft form in 1836, and completed in 1842. Working on the stories. Gogol also tried his hand at drama. The theater seemed to him a great force of exceptional importance in public education. “The Inspector General” was written in 1835 and staged in Moscow in 1836 with the participation of Shchepkin.
Soon after the production of The Inspector General, hounded by the reactionary press and the “secular rabble,” Gogol went abroad, settling first in Switzerland, then in Paris, and continued work on “Dead Souls,” which he had begun in Russia. The news of Pushkin’s death was a terrible blow for him: “All the pleasure of my life disappeared with him...”. In March 1837 he settled in Rome. During his visit to Russia in 1839 - 1840, he read to friends chapters from the first volume of Dead Souls, which was completed in Rome in 1840 - 1841.
Returning to Russia in October 1841, Gogol, with the assistance of Belinsky and others, achieved the publication of the first volume (1842). Belinsky called the poem “a creation, deep in thought, social, social and historical.”
Work on the second volume of Dead Souls coincided with the writer’s deep spiritual crisis and, above all, reflected his doubts about the effectiveness of fiction, which brought Gogol to the brink of renouncing his previous creations.
In 1847 he published “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends,” which Belinsky subjected to scathing criticism in a letter to Gogol, condemning his religious and mystical ideas as reactionary.
In April 1848, after traveling to Jerusalem, to the Holy Sepulcher, he finally settled in Russia. Living in St. Petersburg, Odessa, and Moscow, he continued to work on the second volume of Dead Souls. He was increasingly possessed by religious and mystical moods, and his health deteriorated. In 1852, Gogol began meeting with Archpriest Matvey Konstantinovsky, a fanatic and mystic.
On February 11, 1852, being in a difficult mental state, the writer burned the manuscript of the second volume of the poem. On the morning of February 21, Gogol died in his last apartment on Nikitsky Boulevard.
Gogol was buried in the cemetery of the Danilov Monastery; after the revolution, his ashes were transferred to the Novodevichy cemetery.

1. The history of the creation of the poem “Dead Souls”
Gogol, as is known, owed the plot of “Dead Souls” to A.S. Pushkin, who had long encouraged him to write a great epic work. Pushkin told Gogol the story of the adventures of a certain adventurer who bought up dead peasants from landowners in order to pawn them as if they were alive in the Guardian Council and receive a hefty loan for them. The history of fraudulent tricks with dead souls could have become known to Pushkin during his exile in Chisinau.
It should be noted that Chichikov’s idea was by no means such a rarity in life itself. Fraud with “revision souls” was a fairly common thing in those days. It is safe to assume that not only one specific incident formed the basis of Gogol’s plan.
The core of the plot of Dead Souls was Chichikov’s adventure. It only seemed incredible and anecdotal, but in fact it was reliable in all the smallest details. Feudal reality created very favorable conditions for such adventures.
By a decree of 1718, the so-called household census was replaced by a capitation census. From now on, all male serfs, “from the oldest to the very last child,” were subject to taxation. Dead souls (dead or runaway peasants) became a burden for landowners who naturally dreamed of getting rid of it. And this created a psychological precondition for all kinds of fraud. For some, dead souls were a burden, others felt the need for them, hoping to benefit from fraudulent transactions. This is precisely what Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov hoped for. But the most interesting thing is that Chichikov’s fantastic deal was carried out in perfect accordance with the paragraphs of the law.
The plots of many of Gogol’s works are based on an absurd anecdote, an exceptional case, an emergency. And the more anecdotal and extreme the outer shell of the plot seems, the brighter, more reliable, and more typical the real picture of life appears to us. Here is one of the peculiar features of the art of a talented writer.
Gogol began working on Dead Souls in mid-1835, that is, even earlier than on The Inspector General. On October 7, 1835, he informed Pushkin that he had written three chapters of Dead Souls. But the new thing has not yet captured Nikolai Vasilyevich. He wants to write a comedy. And only after “The Inspector General,” already abroad, Gogol really took up “Dead Souls.”
Gogol conceived Dead Souls as “a very long novel, which, it seems, will be very funny.” The author intended “Dead Souls” “for the mob,” and not for the noble reader, for the bourgeoisie in its various strata, the urban philistinism, dissatisfied with the landowner system, the privileged position of the nobility, and the arbitrariness of bureaucratic rule. They, “almost all poor people,” as Gogol noted the social characteristics of his readers, demanded exposure, a critical attitude towards the way of life established by the ruling class. Gogol, a “gentleman-proletarian” (according to A. Herzen), without a noble passport, without an estate, who changed several professions in search of income, was close to these reading strata. He began to depict Russian reality in the form of a novel, because the social themes and method of critical depiction of life in this genre corresponded to the interests and tastes of the new reader, met “universal needs,” served as a weapon in the class struggle, and expressed the demands of advanced social groups.
Gogol wanted to create such a novel, satisfying the “worldwide... general need” for a critical attitude to reality, giving broad pictures of life, setting out both life and the rules of morality.
But work on “Dead Souls,” capturing new aspects of life, new heroes, made one anticipate the possibilities of an ever broader development of the work, and already in 1836 Gogol called “Dead Souls” a poem. “The thing that I am sitting and working on now,” Gogol wrote to Pogodin from Paris, “and which I have been thinking about for a long time, and which I will think about for a long time, doesn't look like a story or a novel, long, long, several volumes, its title is “Dead Souls”. If God helps me fulfill my poem, then this will be my first decent creation. All Rus' will respond to him.”
The further the work on the new work progressed, the more grandiose its scale seemed to Gogol and the more complex the tasks that faced him. Three years pass in hard work.
In the fall of 1839, circumstances forced Gogol to travel to his homeland and, accordingly, take a forced break from work. Eight months later, Gogol decided to return to Italy to speed up work on the book. In October 1841, he came to Russia again with the intention of publishing his work - the result of six years of hard work.
In December, the final corrections were completed, and the final version of the manuscript was submitted to the Moscow Censorship Committee for consideration. Here “Dead Souls” met with a clearly hostile attitude. As soon as Golokhvastov, who chaired the meeting of the censorship committee, heard the name “Dead Souls,” he shouted: “No, I will never allow this: the soul can be immortal - there cannot be a dead soul - the author is arming himself against immortality!” They explained to Golokhvastov that we were talking about revision souls, but he became even more furious: “This certainly cannot be allowed... this means against serfdom!” Here the committee members chimed in: “Chichikov’s enterprise is already a criminal offense!” When one of the censors tried to explain that the author did not justify Chichikov, they shouted from all sides: “Yes, he does not, but now he has exposed him, and others will follow the example and buy dead souls...”
Gogol was eventually forced to withdraw the manuscript and decided to send it to St. Petersburg.
In December 1841, Belinsky visited Moscow. Gogol turned to him with a request to take the manuscript with him to St. Petersburg and facilitate its speedy passage through the St. Petersburg censorship authorities. The critic willingly agreed to carry out this assignment and on May 21, 1842, with some censorship corrections, “The Adventures of Chichikov or Dead Souls” was published.
The plot of “Dead Souls” consists of three externally closed, but internally very interconnected links: landowners, city officials and the biography of Chichikov. Each of these links helps to more thoroughly and deeply reveal Gogol’s ideological and artistic concept.

Chapter 2. Chapter 2. The poem “Dead Souls” as a critical image of the life and customs of the 19th century
2.1. Genre originality and composition of the poem “Dead Souls”
Gogol called “Dead Souls” a poem, but the famous critic V.G. Belinsky defined their genre as a novel. In the history of Russian literature, this definition of Belinsky was established, and “Dead Souls,” keeping the word “poem” in the subtitle, was recognized as a brilliant novel from Russian life. Belinsky's definition of the genre, developed in his articles (1835-1847), was based on the experience of studying the evolution of Russian realism in the 30-40s, the works of foreign novelists, it was forged in polemics with critics of different directions, especially reactionary and Slavophile, and changed over a number of years when Belinsky wrote about Dead Souls. In Gogol literature, in cases where the genre of “Dead Souls” is considered, Belinsky’s views and their evolution in resolving the issue are not taken into account and are not analyzed; “Dead Souls” must be recognized as a novel or poem. Meanwhile, it is Belinsky’s doctrine of the novel that has been the fundamental theory of this genre to this day.
In the very first article written after the poem’s publication in 1842, Belinsky, noting the humorous nature of Gogol’s talent, wrote: Most of us understand “comic” and “humour” as buffoonish, as a caricature - and we are sure that many are not joking , with a sly and satisfied smile from their insight, they will say and write that Gogol jokingly called his novel a poem..." (1.220) This was the answer to N. Polevoy, who wrote in the "Russian Bulletin": "We did not at all think of condemning Gogol for what he called "Dead Souls" poem. Of course, the name is a joke” (10.29). It should be noted that in 1842 Belinsky accepted the genre of “Dead Souls” as a poem, based on the high, pathetic lyricism of Gogol, on the author’s promise to show “Russia from the other side” in the second and third parts and bring out new faces, new heroes.
The appearance of K. S. Aksakov’s sensational brochure “A few words about Gogol’s poem “The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls”” confronted Belinsky with the problem of the genre as an expression of the content, ideological meaning and artistic method of Gogol’s work.
K. S. Aksakov argued in his brochure that in Gogol’s poem “the ancient epic rises before us”, that in Gogol’s artistic manner he sees “epic contemplation ... ancient, true, the same as in Homer”, which can and should compare Gogol with Homer, that “Dead Souls” is a poem similar to the “Iliad”.
Belinsky sharply objected to the comparison of “Dead Souls” with the “Iliad”: “It was in vain that he (the author of the brochure) did not delve into these deeply significant words of Gogol: “And for a long time it was determined for me by the wonderful power to walk hand in hand with my strange heroes, to survey the whole enormously rushing life, look at it through laughter visible to the world and invisible, unknown to him tears"(1.255). Belinsky now sees the justification for the genre in the tone of the depiction of Russian life, in humor combined with invisible tears unknown to the world, and in lyricism. Belinsky emphasized the critical pathos of Dead Souls, refuting Aksakov’s thoughts about Gogol’s supposedly contemplative attitude towards the reality he depicts.
In the next book of “Notes of the Fatherland,” Belinsky again wrote about “Dead Souls” and again examined the question of why Gogol called “Dead Souls” a poem. The genre of Gogol's work was not yet clear to him. In the interval between Belinsky’s two articles, a review of O. Senkovsky’s “Dead Souls” appeared, where he mocks the word “poem” in the appendix to “Dead Souls”. Belinsky explains these ridicule by saying that Senkovsky “does not understand the meaning of the word “poem.” As can be seen from his hints, the poem must certainly glorify the people in the person of its heroes. Perhaps “Dead Souls” is called a poem in this sense; but it is possible to carry out some kind of judgment on them in this regard when the other two parts of the poem come out.”
These words show Belinsky’s reflection on the reasons for Gogol’s choice of the poem genre for “Dead Souls.” He still does not refuse to call “Dead Souls” a poem, but now in a very special understanding of this definition, almost equal to refusal. He wrote that " Bye I am ready to accept the word poem in relation to “Dead Souls” as equivalent to the word “creation”.
In his review of the second edition of Dead Souls (1846), Belinsky, as always, highly ranks Gogol’s work, but now definitely calls them not a poem, but a novel. In the quoted words of Belinsky one can see recognition of the depth of a living social idea, the significance of the pathos of “Dead Souls”. But now the recognition of the importance of the main idea makes it possible for Belinsky to definitely call them a novel.
Belinsky finally recognized Gogol’s “Dead Souls” as a social novel, and did not change this recognition in further statements about “Dead Souls.” In accordance with this historically correct definition of the genre given by Belinsky, it must be admitted that Gogol’s calling “Dead Souls” a poem should be taken only in a conditional meaning, because the author called a poem a work that does not possess the main features of this genre.
At the beginning of 1847, the article “On the historical and literary opinions of Sovremennik” appeared by Yu.F. Samarin (10.35), who continued the line of Aksakov, Shevyrev and other conservatives and Slavophiles in denying the social significance of Gogol’s work. Publicists and critics of the right camp continued to struggle with Belinsky’s understanding of the enormous social significance of “Dead Souls.”
Samarin argued that “Dead Souls” brought reconciliation, that is, they affirmed the socio-political foundations of the feudal state, and thereby muffled the political struggle of the progressive strata of society, disoriented the reader in his desire to “realize himself” and his role, his activities as a citizen and patriot. The starting point of the views of Belinsky and his opponents was the contrasting concepts of the Russian historical process. Belinsky recognized the inevitability of the replacement of one social system by another, more progressive one, while his opponents idealized the past and asserted the inviolability of the serfdom system.
Belinsky noted the enormous influence of Gogol’s works on the further development of the “natural school” towards the creation of a Russian realistic novel. The historicism of Belinsky’s thinking led him to define the genre of “Dead Souls” as novel, and this was the victory of the advanced, progressive beginning of Russian life and literature of the mid-19th century.
In literature, there are non-traditional and mixed genres, which include those works that, in form and content, do not fit into the framework of the traditional interpretation of a particular type or genre of literature. In other words, according to different characteristics they can be classified as different types of literature.
A similar work is Gogol’s prose poem “Dead Souls”. On the one hand, the work is written in prose speech and has all the necessary components - the presence of a main character, a plot led by the main character, and the spatio-temporal organization of the text. In addition, like any prose work, “Dead Souls” is divided into chapters and contains multiple descriptions of other characters. In other words, Gogol’s text fully meets the requirements of the epic type, with one exception. Gogol did not just call his text a poem.
The plot of “Dead Souls” is structured in such a way that we first observe the collegiate adviser Chichikov in communication with people of different classes, but most of all with officials of the provincial city of NN and landowners, owners of the estates closest to the city. And only when the reader has looked closely at the hero and other characters and realized the meaning of what is happening, he becomes acquainted with the biography of the hero.
If the plot boiled down to the story of Chichikov, “Dead Souls” could be called a novel. But the author not only draws people and their relationships - he himself intrudes into the narrative: he dreams, saddens, jokes, addresses the reader, remembers his youth, talks about the hard work of writing. All this creates a special tone of the story.
The relationship of parts in “Dead Souls” is strictly thought out and subject to creative intent.
Chapter 1 of the poem is a kind of introduction. The author introduces readers to the main characters: Chichikov and his constant companions - Petrushka and Selifan, the landowners Manilov, Nozdrev, Sobakevich. Here is a sketch of the society of provincial officials. Chapters two to six are devoted to landowners, who personify the “noble” class of Russia, the “masters of life.” In chapters 7 – 10, provincial society is masterfully depicted. City leaders, minor officials, ladies “simply pleasant” and “pleasant in all respects” pass in a motley crowd before the reader’s mind’s eye. Chapter 11 gives a biography of Chichikov, the acquirer of dead souls. The final lines of “Dead Souls” are dedicated to his beloved homeland: Gogol, the patriot, sings of the greatness and strength of Russia.
A significant place in the ideological and compositional structure of the work is occupied by lyrical digressions and inserted episodes, which is characteristic of the poem as a literary genre.
In his lyrical digressions, Gogol touches on the most pressing, most important social issues. The author's thoughts about the high purpose of man, about the fate of the homeland and people are contrasted with gloomy pictures of Russian life. Herzen said that “when you read “Dead Souls,” “you are overcome with horror; With every step you get stuck, you sink deeper. The lyrical place suddenly revives, illuminates and is now replaced again by a picture that reminds even more clearly what pit of hell we are in...”
Extra-plot, inserted episodes, scenes, paintings, and the author’s reasoning are organically included in the poem. For example, in Chapter 1, Gogol casually sketches portraits of thin and fat officials. "Alas! Fat people know how to manage their affairs in this world better than thin people,” writes the author. Chapter 3 gives a satirical portrait of a certain ruler of the chancellery. Among his subordinates, the ruler is “Prometheus, decisive Prometheus!.. and a little higher than him, with Prometheus such a transformation will take place, which even Ovid would not invent: a fly, even smaller than a fly, is destroyed into a grain of sand!” In chapter 9, Gogol talks about an incident that happened in the village of Lousy Arrogance. The peasants “razed off the face of the earth... the zemstvo police in the person of the assessor.” Chapter 10 contains “The Tale of Captain Kopeikin,” a disabled veteran of the Patriotic War of 1812, who arrived in St. Petersburg to ask for “royal mercy.” Extra-plot, inserted episodes, portrait sketches and scenes help provide comprehensive coverage of the life of various social strata of Tsarist Russia, from downtrodden peasants to important dignitaries. “Dead Souls” reflected the entire country with its good and evil.
etc.................

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INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1. ARTISTIC ORIGINALITY OF THE POEM

"DEAD SOULS"

1.1 The concept and sources of the poem “Dead Souls”

2.3 Lyrical digressions of “Dead Souls” and their ideological content

CONCLUSION

LIST OF REFERENCES USED

dead soul chichikov retreat

INTRODUCTION

Gogol’s creative pinnacle, one of the masterpieces of Russian and world literature, is “Dead Souls.” In justifying the need for a very careful rereading of this seemingly well-known work from school years, one can refer to V. G. Belinsky, who wrote: “Like any deep creation, “Dead Souls” are not revealed from the first reading: reading them a second time, exactly you are reading a new, never-before-seen work. "Dead Souls" require study."

The poem was published in May 1842 under the title “The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls” (the title was changed under pressure from censorship; for the same reason, “The Tale of Captain Kopeikin” was dropped from the poem). “We haven’t had such a movement for a long time as we have now on the occasion of Dead Souls,” wrote one of his contemporaries, recalling the controversy caused by the appearance of the book. Some critics accused Gogol of caricature and slander of reality. Others noted their high artistry and patriotism (the latter definition belonged to Belinsky). The controversy reached particular tension after the appearance of K. Aksakov’s brochure “A few words about Gogol’s poem: “The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls”,” which developed the idea of ​​​​resurrecting the ancient epic in the poem. Behind the idea of ​​epicness and orientation towards Homer there stood an affirmation of the dispassionateness of Gogol’s writing, which is generally characteristic of epic. Belinsky was the first to enter into polemics with Aksakov. Gogol himself at this time went abroad, to Germany, and then to Rome, having previously entrusted the publication of the first collected works of his works to N. Ya. Prokopovich (published in 1842).

In Rome, he worked on the second volume of Dead Souls, begun back in 1840. This work, with interruptions, would continue for almost 12 years, that is, almost until Gogol’s death. Contemporaries were looking forward to the continuation of the poem, but instead, in 1847, “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends” was published in St. Petersburg, the dual purpose of which (as Gogol formulated it for himself) was to explain why the second volume has not yet been written, and prepare readers for its subsequent perception. “Selected Places” affirmed the idea of ​​spiritual life-building, the goal of which would be the creation of an “ideal heavenly state.” The very title of the poem (“dead souls”) suggested the possibility of the opposite: the existence of “living” souls). The key to this should have been the resurrection of the main character for a new “wonderful” life, as well as the appearance of new, compared to the first volume, “positive” characters: exemplary landowners (Kostanjoglo and Vasily Platonov), officials, heroes who could be perceived as alter ego of the author himself (for example, Murazov) and about which we know from the five surviving chapters of the draft editions.

On January 1, 1852, Gogol finally reports that the second volume is “completely finished.” At the end of January, Father Matvey, Gogol’s spiritual father, comes to Moscow. The content of their conversations that took place during these days remains unknown, but there is indirect evidence that it was Father Matvey who advised Gogol to burn part of the chapters of the poem, citing the harmful influence they could have on readers. So, on the night of February 11-12, 1852, the white manuscript of the second volume was burned. Subsequently, Andrei Bely called Gogol’s fate “a terrible revenge,” comparing Matvey’s father with a terrible horseman in the Carpathians: “... the earth carried out its terrible revenge on him. The face that Gogol saw did not save Gogol: this face became for him “a horseman in the Carpathians.” Gogol ran away from him."

Gogol died on February 21, 1852 - ten days after the manuscript of the poem was burned. On his tombstone were carved the words of the prophet Jeremiah: “I will laugh at my bitter words.”

“Dead Souls” is one of the most read and revered works of Russian classics. No matter how much time separates us from this work, we will never cease to be amazed at its depth, perfection and, probably, we will not consider our idea of ​​it exhausted. Reading “Dead Souls”, you cultivate in yourself the noble moral ideas that every brilliant work of art carries with it. Gogol showed the whole of modern Russia, satirically depicting the local nobility and provincial bureaucracy. But if you think about it, the disgusting and pathetic traits of Gogol’s characters have not yet been eliminated and are clearly manifested today. This is the relevance of the study of this work.

The purpose of this work is to reveal the ideological and artistic originality of “Dead Souls”.

The object of the study is N.V. Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls”.

Subject of research: the unique ideological and artistic originality of the work.

This goal involves solving the following tasks:

1. Consider the artistic originality of the poem “Dead Souls”

2. Reveal the intent and sources of the poem “Dead Souls.”

3. Determine the genre uniqueness of the poem

4. Analyze the features of the plot and composition of the poem

5. Explore the features of the image of Chichikov, as well as landowners in the poem.

6. Understand the role of lyrical digressions in the poem “Dead Souls” and their ideological content.

Research methods: descriptive, biographical, cultural-historical, structural.

CHAPTER 1. ARTISTIC ORIGINALITY OF THE POEM “DEAD SOULS”

1.1 The idea and sources of the plot of the poem

It is believed that, just like the plot of The Government Inspector, the plot of Dead Souls was suggested to Gogol by Pushkin. There are two known stories associated with the name of Pushkin and comparable to the plot of “Dead Souls”. During his stay in Bessarabia (1820-1823), administrative abuses took place in Bendery: deaths were not registered here, and the names of the dead were transferred to other persons, fugitive peasants who flocked here from all over Russia; for this reason, the inhabitants of the town were called the “immortal society.” Subsequently, while already in Odessa, Pushkin asked his Bessarabian friend I.P. Liprandi: “Is there anything new in Bendery?” P. I. Bartenev wrote about another incident related to Pushkin’s stay in Moscow in the notes to the memoirs of V. A. Sollogub: “In Moscow, Pushkin was running with one friend. There was also a certain P. (an old dandy). Pointing him out to Pushkin, the friend told about him how he bought up dead souls, pawned them and got a big profit<…>This was before 1826.” It is interesting that this episode evoked a direct artistic reaction from Pushkin himself: “One could make a novel out of this,” he said casually.”

However, there is information that Gogol, regardless of Pushkin, had heard a lot about stories with dead souls. According to the story of a distant relative of the writer M. G. Anisimo-Yanovskaya, her uncle, a certain Kharlampy Petrovich Pivinsky, who lived 17 versts from Yanovshchina (another name for the Gogoley estate Vasilievka) and was engaged in distilling, was frightened by rumors that such a trade would be allowed only to landowners, owning no less than fifty souls. Pivinsky (who had only thirty souls) went to Poltava “and paid a quitrent for his dead peasants, as if for the living... And since his own, and with the dead, were far from fifty, he filled the chaise with vodka and drove off neighbors and bought dead souls from them for this vodka...” Anisimo-Yanovskaya claims that “the entire Mirgorod region” knew this story.

Another episode, allegedly also known to Gogol, was reported by his fellow student at the Nizhyn Gymnasium of Higher Sciences P. I. Martos in a letter to P. I. Bartenev: “About “Dead Souls” I can tell you the following... In Nizhyn<…>, at the gymnasium of higher sciences of Prince Bezborodko, there was a certain K-ach, a Serb; enormous in stature, very handsome, with a long mustache, a terrible explorer - somewhere he bought the land on which he is located - it is said in the deed of sale - 650 souls; the amount of land is not specified, but the boundaries are clearly indicated. ...What happened? This land was a neglected cemetery. This very incident was told to Gogol abroad by Prince N. G. Repnin.”

Here, however, it is necessary to make a reservation that if Repnin told Gogol this episode, it was already abroad, when work on “Dead Souls” had already begun. But at the same time, it is known that abroad, in the process of writing the poem, Gogol continued to collect material and ask friends about various “incidents” that “could happen when buying dead souls” (letter to V. A. Zhukovsky from Paris on November 12, 1836) .

With a completely everyday origin, the very formula “dead souls”, included in the title of the work, was rich in themes, both literary and philosophical-religious. The actual everyday aspect of this formula was recorded by V.I. Dal in the first edition of the “Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language” (1863): “Dead souls, people who died between two national censuses, but are listed as having paid taxes, in person” (article “ Soul") . However, in the religious and philosophical aspect, Gogol’s formula was antithetical to the biblical concept of a “living soul” (cf.: “And the Lord God created man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul” - Bible, Genesis , 2, 7). In addition, the oxymoronic expression “dead soul” and its derivatives - “dead life”, “living death” - have become widespread in Western European poetry since the Middle Ages; Wed also in V. K. Kuchelbecker’s mystery “Izhora”: “What I could be intelligent // My dead soul does not believe”). In the poem, the formula “dead soul” - “dead souls” was refracted in many ways by Gogol, acquiring more and more new semantic nuances: dead souls - dead serfs, but also spiritually dead landowners and officials, buying up dead souls as an emblem of the deadness of the living.

1.2 Genre originality of the poem

In terms of genre, Dead Souls was conceived as a “high road” novel. Thus, in a certain sense, they correlated with Cervantes’ famous novel “Don Quixote,” which Pushkin also pointed out to Gogol at one time (a parallel that Gogol later insisted on in “The Author’s Confession”). As M. Bakhtin wrote, “at the turn of the XVI-XVII centuries. Don Quixote rode out onto the road to meet all of Spain on it, from the convict going to the galleys to the duke.” Also, Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov “goes out onto the road” to meet here, in Gogol’s own words, “all of Rus'” (from a letter to Pushkin on October 7, 1835). Thus, the genre characterology of Dead Souls as a travel novel is immediately outlined. At the same time, it is predetermined from the very beginning that this journey will be of a special kind, namely the wandering of a rogue, which additionally fits “Dead Souls” into another genre tradition - the picaresque novel, picaresque, widely spread in European literature (the anonymous “Life of Lazarillo with Tormes”, “Gilles Blas” by Lesage, etc.). In Russian literature, the most prominent representative of this genre before “Dead Souls” was the novel by V. T. Narezhny “Russian Zhilblaz, or The Adventures of Prince Gavrila Simonovich Chistyakov.”

The linear construction of the novel, which was intended by picaresque (a work whose content is the amusing adventures of a rogue), immediately gave the work an epic character: the author led his hero through “a chain of adventures and changes, in order to present at the same time a true picture of everything significant in features and the morals of the time he took” (this characteristic of a “lesser kind of epic”, given by Gogol already in the mid-40s in the “Training Book of Literature for Russian Youth”, was in many ways applicable to “Dead Souls”). And yet, the playwright’s experience was not in vain: it was he who allowed Gogol to do the almost impossible, to integrate a linear plot, seemingly the most distant from the dramatic principle, into a special “dramatic” whole. According to Gogol himself, the novel “flies like a drama, united by the lively interest of the persons themselves of the main incident, in which the characters are entangled and which, at a boiling pace, forces the characters themselves to develop and reveal their characters stronger and faster, increasing their enthusiasm.” So in “Dead Souls,” their purchase by Chichikov (the main incident), expressed plotally in a chain of episodes (chapters), most of them coinciding with the hero’s visit to one or another landowner, unites all the characters with a common interest. It is no coincidence that Gogol builds many episodes of the book on parallels and on the repetition of actions, events and even individual details: the reappearance of Korobochka, Nozdryov, Chichikov’s symmetrical visit to various “city dignitaries” at the beginning and end of the book - all this creates the impression of a ring composition. The role of the catalyst of action that fear played in The Inspector General is now played by gossip - “a condensed lie,” “a real substrate of the fantastic,” where “everyone adds and applies a little, and the lie grows like a snowball, threatening to turn into a snowfall.” . The circulation and growth of rumors - a technique inherited by Gogol from another great playwright, Griboyedov, further organizes the action, speeds up its pace, leading the action to a rapid denouement in the finale: “Like a whirlwind, the hitherto dormant city shot up!”

In fact, the plan for “Dead Souls” was initially conceived by Gogol as a three-part combination of relatively independent, completed works. In the midst of Gogol's work on the first volume, Dante begins to occupy him. In the first years of Gogol’s life abroad, many factors contributed to this: meetings with V. A. Zhukovsky in Rome in 1838-1839, who at that time was keen on the author of The Divine Comedy; conversations with S.P. Shevyrev and reading his translations from Dante. Directly in the first volume of Dead Souls, the Divine Comedy echoed with a parodic reminiscence in the 7th chapter, in the scene of “executing the bill of sale”: the wanderer in the afterlife kingdom Chichikov (Dante) with his temporary companion Manilov, with the help of a petty official (Virgil), find themselves on on the threshold of the “sanctuary” - the office of the chairman of the civil chamber, where the new guide - “Virgil” leaves the Gogol hero (in the “Divine Comedy” Virgil leaves Dante before ascending to Heavenly Paradise, where his path, as a pagan, is forbidden).

But, apparently, the main impulse that Gogol received from reading The Divine Comedy was the idea of ​​​​showing the story of the human soul passing through certain stages - from a state of sinfulness to enlightenment - a story that receives concrete embodiment in the individual fate of the central character. This gave a clearer outline to the three-part plan of “Dead Souls”, which now, by analogy with the “Divine Comedy”, began to be presented as the ascent of the human soul, passing through three stages on its way: “Hell”, “Purgatory” and “Paradise”.

This also led to a new genre understanding of the book, which Gogol initially called a novel and to which he now gave the genre designation of a poem, which forced the reader to additionally correlate Gogol’s book with Dante’s, since the designation “sacred poem” (“poema sacra”) appears in Dante himself ( “Paradise”, canto XXV, line 1) and also because at the beginning of the 19th century. in Russia, “The Divine Comedy” was steadily associated with the genre of the poem (the poem was called “The Divine Comedy”, for example, by A.F. Merzlyakov in his “Brief outline of the theory of belles-lettres”; 1822), well known to Gogol. But, in addition to the Dantean association, Gogol’s calling “Dead Souls” a poem also reflected other meanings associated with this concept. Firstly, most often a “poem” was defined as a high degree of artistic perfection; such a meaning was assigned to this concept in Western European, in particular, German criticism (for example, in “Critical Fragments” by F. Schlegel). In these cases, the concept served not so much as a genre definition as an evaluative one and could appear regardless of the genre (it was in this vein that Griboyedov wrote about “Woe from Wit” as a “stage poem”, V. G. Belinsky called “Taras Bulba” a “poem” ”, and N.I. Nadezhdin called all literature “an episode of a lofty, boundless poem, represented by the original life of the human race”).

However, in Gogol’s given designation, and this should also be kept in mind, there was also an element of polemic. The fact is that, in terms of genre, a poem was considered a concept applicable only to poetic works - both small and large forms (“Any work written in verse, imitating graceful nature, can be called a poem,” wrote N. F. Ostolopov in “Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Poetry,” and in this sense, “The Divine Comedy” more naturally fell under such a classification). In other cases, this concept acquired, as already mentioned, an evaluative meaning. Gogol used the word “poem” in relation to a large prose form (which initially would have been more natural to define as a novel) precisely as a direct designation of the genre, placing it on the title page of the book (graphically he further strengthened the meaning: on the title page created from his drawing the word “ poem" dominated both the title and the author's surname). The definition of “Dead Souls” as a poem, writes Yu. V. Mann, came to Gogol along with the awareness of their genre uniqueness. This uniqueness lay, firstly, in the universal task that overcame the one-sidedness of the comic and, especially, satirical perspective of the book (“all of Rus' will respond to it”), and, secondly, in its symbolic significance, since the book addressed fundamental problems the purpose of Russia and human existence.

Thus, the genre origins of “Dead Souls” are diverse. They synthesize into a single artistic whole the elements of the picaresque novel, the genre of travel and essay, socio-psychological and satirical novel, high and parody poem.

1.3 Features of the plot and composition of the poem

The composition of “Dead Souls” is harmonious and Pushkin-like proportionate.

There are a total of 11 chapters in Volume 1. Of these, Chapter I is a detailed exposition. The next 5 chapters (II-VI), starting and developing the action, at the same time represent 5 complete short stories-essays, in the center of each of them is a detailed portrait of one of the landowners of the province, where Chichikov arrived in the hope of carrying out the scam he had planned . Each portrait is a certain type.

In the next five chapters (VII-XI) mainly officials of the provincial city are depicted. However, these chapters are no longer structured as separate essays with one main character in the center, but as a consistently developing chain of events taking on an increasingly plot-intensive character.

Chapter XI concludes Volume 1 and at the same time, as it were, returns the reader to the beginning of the story.

In Chapter I, Chichikov's entry into the city of NN is depicted, and a hint is already made of the outset of the action. In Chapter XI, the denouement occurs, the hero hastily leaves the city, and here Chichikov’s background is given. In general, the chapter represents the completion of the plot, its denouement, and exposition, the “unraveling” of the protagonist’s character and an explanation of the secret of his strange “negotiation” associated with the purchase of dead souls.

When studying the system of images in “Dead Souls,” you should especially think about the peculiarities of character typification, in particular the images of landowners. Usually, for all their individual uniqueness, they emphasize the social features of the feudal landowners during the period of the decomposition of the feudal system that began in Russia, which, in particular, is discussed in all school and university textbooks.

In general, this is correct, but far from sufficient, since with this approach the unusual breadth of artistic generalization in these images remains unclear. Reflecting in each of them a variety of the social type of the landowner-serf, Gogol did not limit himself to this, because for him not only social-species specificity is important, but also the universal human characteristic of the depicted artistic type. A truly artistic type (including Gogol’s) is always broader than any social type, because it is depicted as an individual character in which the social-species, class-group complexly correlates with the social-clan, holistic-personal, universal - with the greater or a lesser predominance of one of these principles. That is why Gogol’s artistic types contain features characteristic not only of landowners or officials, but also of other classes, estates and social strata of society.

It is noteworthy that Gogol himself repeatedly emphasized the non-isolation of his heroes by social-class, social-species, narrow group and even time frames. Speaking about Korobochka, he notes: “He is a respectable and even a statesman, but in reality he turns out to be a perfect Korobochka.” Having masterfully characterized the “broad” nature of the “historical man” Nozdryov, the writer in this case does not attribute all his diverse properties exclusively to the feudal landowner of his era, asserting: “Nozdryov will not be removed from the world for a long time. He is everywhere among us and, perhaps, only he walks around in a different caftan; but people are frivolously undiscerning, and a person in a different caftan seems to them a different person."

For all their undoubted socio-psychological limitations, the characters of Gogol’s characters are far from schematic one-dimensionality; they are living people with a lot of individual shades. The same, according to Gogol, “many-sided person” Nozdryov with his “bouquet” of negative qualities (reveler, gambler, shameless liar, brawler, etc.) is attractive in some way: his irrepressible energy, ability to quickly get along with people, a kind of democracy, selflessness and profligacy, the absence of hoarding. The only trouble is that all these human qualities acquire an ugly development in him; they are not illuminated by any meaning, truly human goals.

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

If, for example, Lermontov predominantly portrayed the resistance of the “inner man” to the external circumstances of life surrounding him, then Gogol in “Dead Souls” focuses on his subordination to these circumstances, up to “dissolution” in them, focusing, as a rule, on the final the result of this process. This is how Manilov, Korobochka, and Nozdryov are represented. But already in the depiction of Sobakevich there is also another tendency - to understand the origins of the process of spiritual death of a person: “Were you really born a bear,” the poem says about Sobakevich, “or have you been bearded by provincial life, grain crops, fuss with peasants, and Through them you became what is called a man-fist.”

The more a person loses his human qualities, the more Gogol strives to get to the bottom of the reasons for his mental deadness. This is exactly how he makes a “hole in humanity” by Plyushkin, unfolding his life’s background, talking about that time “when he was just a thrifty owner,” “he was married and a family man,” an exemplary one, when in his “intellect was visible; His speech was imbued with experience and knowledge of the world, and the guest was pleased to listen to him; the friendly and talkative hostess was famous for her hospitality; Two pretty daughters came out to meet them, both blond and fresh as roses, a son ran out, a broken boy...”

And then the author, without skimping on details, shows how Plyushkin’s frugality gradually turned into senseless stinginess, how marital, paternal and other human feelings died away. His wife and youngest daughter died. The eldest, Alexandra Stepanovna, ran away with the officer in search of a free and happy life. The son, having become an officer, lost at cards. Instead of material or moral support, Plyushkin sent them his father’s curse and became even more withdrawn into himself and his all-consuming passion for hoarding, which became more and more meaningless over time.

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

But even in such a “monster” the writer looks for remnants of humanity. In this regard, an indicative episode is when Plyushkin, during a “bargaining” with Chichikov, remembered his only acquaintance in the city, who had been his classmate in childhood: “And some kind of warm ray suddenly slid across this wooden face, it was not a feeling that was expressed, but some kind of that pale reflection of feeling...”

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

The backstory of the main character, the “scoundrel” Chichikov, is given in even more detail, who, according to the writer’s plan, was supposed to undergo a significant internal evolution over the course of three volumes.

The types of officials are described more succinctly, but no less meaningfully, for example, a prosecutor with thick eyebrows and an involuntary winking left eye. Rumors and rumors about the story of Chichikov’s purchase of dead souls had such an effect on him that he “began to think and think and suddenly... out of nowhere he died.” They sent for a doctor, but soon they saw that the prosecutor “was already one soulless body.” And only then did his fellow citizens “learn with condolences that the deceased definitely had a soul, although out of his modesty he never showed it.”

The comic and satirical nature of the image here imperceptibly transforms into a different, moral and philosophical tone: the deceased is lying on the table, “the left eye no longer blinked at all, but one eyebrow was still raised with some kind of questioning expression. What the dead man asked, why he died or why he lived, only God knows about this.”

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

We talk a lot and rightly about social satire in “Dead Souls”, not always noticing their moral and philosophical subtext, which over time, and especially in our time, is increasingly gaining not only historical, but also modern interest, highlighting in concrete terms the historical content of “Dead Souls” has a universal human perspective.

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

To all these dead souls the writer contrasts, first of all, the “living souls” of peasants who died, as a rule, not their own, but a forced death, or who could not withstand the oppression of serfdom and became fugitives, such as the carpenter Stepan Probka (“a hero who would have been fit for the guard” ), shoemaker Maxim Telyatnikov (“whatever pierces the awl, so will the boots”), the amazing brickmaker Milushkin, Abakum Fyrov, who “loved the free life” and became a barge hauler, and others.

Gogol emphasizes the tragedy of the destinies of most of them, who are increasingly “thinking” about their powerless lives - like that Grigory You Can’t Get There, who “thought and thought, but out of nowhere turned into a tavern, and then straight into cut the hole and remember their name.” And the writer makes a meaningful conclusion: “Eh! Russian people! doesn’t like to die a natural death!” .

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

Even the “well-intentioned” Chichikov, annoyed by the failure of his cunning idea, hastily leaving the governor’s ball, unexpectedly attacks both the balls and the entire idle life of the ruling classes associated with them: “Damn you, everyone who invented these balls!.. Well, Why are you so stupidly happy? In the province there are poor harvests, high prices, so they are for balls!.. But at the expense of peasant dues...”

Chichikov occupies a special place in the figurative and semantic structure of “Dead Souls” - not only as the main character, but also as the ideological, compositional and plot-forming center of the poem. Chichikov’s travel, which formed the basis of his adventurous and mercantile intentions, gave the writer the opportunity, in his words, to “travel... all over Russia and bring out many different characters,” to show “all of Rus'” in its contradictions and dormant potentials.

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

The basis of the plot in the 1st volume of “Dead Souls” is Chichikov’s misadventures associated with his scam based on the purchase of dead souls. The news of this excited the entire provincial city. The most incredible assumptions were made as to why Chichikov needed dead souls.

General confusion and fear were intensified by the fact that a new governor-general had been appointed to the province. “Everyone suddenly found sins in themselves that didn’t even exist.” The officials wondered who Chichikov was, whom they so kindly received by his dress and manners: “is he the kind of person who needs to be detained and captured as ill-intentioned, or is he the kind of person who can himself seize and detain them all as ill-intentioned?” .

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

Conclusion from the chapter: Gogol sought to show the terrible face of Russian reality, to recreate the “Hell” of Russian modern life.

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

The macro-composition of the poem “Dead Souls”, that is, the composition of the entire planned work, was suggested to Gogol by Dante’s immortal “Divine Comedy”: Volume 1 - the hell of serfdom, the kingdom of dead souls; Volume 2 - purgatory; Volume 3 is heaven. This plan remained unfulfilled. One can also note the gradual spiritual degradation of the landowners as the reader gets to know them. This picture creates in the reader a rather difficult emotional feeling from the symbolic steps along which the human soul moves to hell.

CHAPTER 2. THE POEM “DEAD SOULS” AS A CRITICAL IMAGE OF LIFE AND MARKS OF THE 19TH CENTURY

2.1 The image of Chichikov in the poem “Dead Souls”

With the image of Chichikov, Gogol introduced into Russian literature the type of bourgeois-acquirer that was emerging in Russian reality, who relies not on titles and wealth bestowed by fate, but on personal initiative and enterprise, on a “penny” multiplied into capital, bringing him with him everything: benefits life position in society, nobility, etc.

This type had undoubted advantages over the type of patriarchal landowner-nobleman, who lived according to customs inherited, like material wealth, from fathers and grandfathers.

It is no coincidence that Chichikov is always on the road, on the move, in trouble, while other characters are sedentary and inert in all respects. Chichikov achieves everything in life on his own. More than once he amassed a substantial fortune and failed, but again and again, with the same energy, he rushed towards his cherished goal - to get rich at any cost, by any means.

But this limited life goal, promiscuity and uncleanliness in the means of achieving it ultimately negated his positive qualities, emptying him spiritually, ultimately also turning him into a dead soul.

At the same time, Chichikov is a very capacious image-type. It is not for nothing that officials alternately mistake him for an official of the Governor General's office, for a counterfeiter, for a robber in disguise, or even for Napoleon released from Helena Island. Despite all the absurdity of the assumptions of the frightened officials, they are not completely groundless: in Chichikov there really is something that makes him similar to all these human “specimens”; he goes back to each of them in some way. Even with Napoleon he has something in common: the same active individualism, turning into egocentrism and causing the limitations of all goals; the same indiscriminateness in the means of achieving them; climbing to these goals literally “over corpses,” through the suffering and death of one’s own kind. As soon as he arrived in the city, Chichikov wondered “whether there were any diseases in the province, epidemic fevers, some kind of killer fevers, smallpox, and the like.”

Only one of the guesses, “who Chichikov really is,” turned out to be completely unfounded when the postmaster suddenly declared: “This, gentlemen... is none other than Captain Kopeikin!” .

It should be emphasized that “The Tale of Captain Kopeikin,” despite the fact that it does not seem to be connected either with the main action of the poem or with the image of Chichikov, carries great ideological and artistic content that complements and deepens the main meaning of “Dead Souls” . It is not for nothing that Gogol himself valued it so much and was deeply worried about the threat of its confiscation by censorship, about which he wrote on April 10, 1842 to P. A. Pletnev: “The destruction of Kopeikin greatly embarrassed me! This is one of the best passages in the poem, and without it there is a hole that I cannot pay or sew up with anything.”

In this “poem within a poem” (cf. the words of the postmaster: “this is... in some way a whole poem”) the narrative goes beyond the province, involving St. Petersburg, the highest bureaucratic and ruling circles in its sphere, and extremely expands its scope, covering all of Russia.

In addition, with the image of Captain Kopeikin, a hero and invalid of the Patriotic War of 1812, a representative of the democratic lower classes of the country, the theme of rebellion sounds again and with renewed vigor. Of course, Gogol, not being in any way a revolutionary, did not call for rebellion. However, as a great and honest realist artist, he could not help but show the patterns of rebellious tendencies under the existing socially unjust social and government system.

The postmaster’s story about Captain Kopeikin is suddenly interrupted when the listeners learn that Kopeikin, having lost faith in “royal help,” becomes the leader of a gang of robbers in his homeland, in the Ryazan forests: “Just allow me, Ivan Andreevich,” the police chief suddenly said, interrupting him: “ after all, Captain Kopeikin, you yourself said, is missing an arm and a leg, and Chichikov has...” The postmaster himself could not understand how it really didn’t immediately occur to him, and he only “slammed his hand with all his might on to his forehead, calling himself publicly in front of everyone “veal.” The illogical thinking of characters and narrators, familiar to us from Gogol’s previous works.

This technique is widely used in Dead Souls, primarily to comprehend the main storyline, and through it, the entire reality displayed. The author forces, if not officials, then readers to ask themselves the question: is there more logic in the everyday purchases and sales of “living souls”, living people?

It is difficult to say with certainty how Chichikov would have appeared at the end of the three-volume poem. But, regardless of the final plan, in the 1st volume Gogol managed to create a realistic type of great generalizing power. Belinsky immediately noted his significance: “Chichikov as an acquirer is no less, if not more than Pechorin - a hero of our time.” An observation that has not lost its relevance even now. The virus of acquisition, acquisition at any cost, when all means are good, when the biblical truth bequeathed for centuries is forgotten: “man does not live by bread alone” - this virus is so strong and tenacious that it easily penetrates everywhere, bypassing not only spatial, but also temporal borders. Chichikov's type has not lost its life-generalizing meaning in our days and in our society; on the contrary, it is experiencing its powerful revival and development. Addressing the readers, Gogol invited everyone to ask themselves the question: “Isn’t there some part of Chichikov in me?” At the same time, the writer advised not to rush to answer, not to nod at others: “Look, look, there’s Chichikov... he’s gone!” . This advice is addressed to everyone living today.

2.2 Features of the depiction of landowners in the poem

The images drawn by Gogol in the poem were received ambiguously by his contemporaries: many reproached him for drawing a caricature of contemporary life and depicting reality in a funny, absurd way. Gogol unfolds before the reader a whole gallery of images of landowners (leading his main character from the first of them to the last) primarily in order to answer the main question that occupied him - what is the future of Russia, what is its historical destiny, what modern life contains at least a small hint of a bright, prosperous future for the people, which will be the key to the future greatness of the nation. In other words, the question that Gogol asks at the end, in a lyrical digression about the “Russian Troika,” permeates the entire narrative as a leitmotif, and the logic and poetics of the entire work, including the images of landowners, are subordinated to it.

The first of the landowners whom Chichikov visits in the hope of buying dead souls is Manilov. Main features: Manilov is completely divorced from reality, his main occupation is fruitless soaring in the clouds, useless project-making. This is evidenced both by the appearance of his estate (a house on a hill, open to all the winds, a gazebo - a “temple of solitary reflection”, traces of begun and unfinished buildings), and the interior of living quarters (assorted furniture, piles of pipe ashes laid out in neat rows on window sill, some kind of book, for the second year laid on the fourteenth page, etc.). When drawing an image, Gogol pays special attention to details, interiors, things, through them showing the characteristics of the owner’s character. Manilov, despite his “great” thoughts, is stupid, vulgar and sentimental (lisping with his wife, “ancient Greek” names of not quite neat and well-mannered children). The internal and external squalor of the depicted type encourages Gogol, starting from it, to look for a positive ideal, and to do this “by contradiction.” If complete isolation from reality and fruitless head-in-the-clouds lead to something like this, then perhaps the opposite type will give us some hope? Korobochka in this respect is the complete opposite of Manilov. Unlike him, she does not have her head in the clouds, but, on the contrary, is completely immersed in everyday life. However, the image of Korobochka does not give the desired ideal. Pettiness and stinginess (old coats stored in chests, money put in a stocking for a “rainy day”), inertia, dull adherence to tradition, rejection and fear of everything new, “club-headedness” make her appearance almost more repulsive than the appearance of Manilov . Despite all the dissimilarity between the characters of Manilov and Korobochka, they have one thing in common - inactivity. Both Manilov and Korobochka (albeit for opposing reasons) do not influence the reality around them. Perhaps an active person will be a model from whom the younger generation should take an example? And, as if in response to this question, Nozdryov appears. Nozdryov is extremely active. However, all his hectic activities are mostly scandalous in nature. He is a regular at all the drinking and carousing in the area, he exchanges everything for anything (he tries to sell Chichikov puppies, a barrel organ, a horse, etc.), he cheats when playing cards and even checkers, he mediocrely squanders the money that he gets from selling harvest. He lies without any need (it was Nozdryov who subsequently confirms the rumor that Chichikov wanted to steal the governor’s daughter and took him as an accomplice, without batting an eyelid he agrees that Chichikov is Napoleon who escaped from exile, etc.) d.). Repeatedly he was beaten, and by his own friends, and the next day, as if nothing had happened, he appeared to them and continued in the same spirit - “and he is nothing, and they, as they say, are nothing.” As a result, Nozdrev’s “activities” cause almost more troubles than the inaction of Manilov and Korobochka. And yet, there is a feature that unites all three types described - it is impracticality.

The next landowner, Sobakevich, is extremely practical. This is the type of “master”, “fist”. Everything in his house is durable, reliable, made “to last forever” (even the furniture seems to be filled with complacency and wants to shout: “Iya Sobakevich!”). However, all of Sobakevich’s practicality is aimed at only one goal - obtaining personal gain, to achieve which he stops at nothing (“cursing” Sobakevich of everyone and everything - in the city, according to him, there is one decent person - the prosecutor, “yes and he, if you look at it, is a pig,” Sobakevich’s “meal”, when he eats mountains of food and so on, it seems, is capable of swallowing the whole world in one sitting, the scene with the purchase of dead souls, when Sobakevich is not at all surprised by the very object of the purchase - sales, but immediately feels that the matter smells of money that can be “ripped off” from Chichikov). It is absolutely clear that Sobakevich is even further from the sought-after ideal than all previous types.

Plyushkin is a kind of generalizing image. He is the only one whose path to his current state (“how he got to this life”) is shown to us by Gogol. Giving the image of Plyushkin in development, Gogol raises this final image to a kind of symbol that contains Manilov, Korobochka, Nozdryov, and Sobakevich. What is common to all the types depicted in the poem is that their lives are not sanctified by thought, a socially useful goal, and are not filled with concern for the common good, progress, or the desire for national prosperity. Any activity (or inaction) is useless and meaningless if it does not contain concern for the good of the nation or country. That is why Plyushkin turns into a “hole in humanity”, that is why his repulsive, disgusting image of a miser who has lost all human form, stealing old buckets and other rubbish from his own peasants, turning his own house into a dump, and his serfs into beggars, - - that is why his image is the final stop for all these manilas, boxes, nozdrevs and dogs. And it is precisely “a hole in humanity,” like Plyushkin, that Russia may turn out to be if it does not find the strength to tear away all these “dead souls” and bring to the surface of national life a positive image - active, with a mobile mind and imagination, zealous in business and, most importantly, - hallowed by concern for the common good. It is characteristic that it was precisely this type that Gogol tried to bring out in the second volume of Dead Souls in the image of the landowner Kostanzhoglo. However, the surrounding reality did not provide material for such images - Kostanzhoglo turned out to be a speculative scheme that had nothing to do with real life. Russian reality supplied only manilas, boxes, nozdrevs and Plyushkins - “Where am I? I don’t see anything... Not a single human face,.. There’s only a snout, a snout...” Gogol exclaims through the mouth of the Governor in “The Inspector General” (compare with the “evil spirits” from “Evenings...” and “Mirgorod” : a pig’s snout sticking out of the window in “Sorochinskaya Fair”, mocking inhuman faces in “The Enchanted Place”). That is why the words about Rus'-troika sound like a sad cry of warning - “Where are you rushing?.. Doesn’t give an answer...”.

So, the main and main meaning of the poem is that Gogol wanted, through artistic images, to understand the historical path of Russia, to see its future, to feel the sprouts of a new, better life in the reality surrounding him, to discern those forces that would turn Russia off the sidelines of world history and include into the general cultural process. The image of landowners is a reflection of precisely this search. Through extreme typification, Gogol creates figures of a national scale, representing the Russian character in many forms, in all its inconsistency and ambiguity. The types derived by Gogol are an integral part of Russian life; these are precisely Russian types, which, no matter how bright, are just as stable in Russian life - until life itself radically changes.

Like the images of landowners, the images of officials, a whole gallery of which Gogol unfolds before the reader, perform a certain function. Showing the life and customs of the provincial town of NN, the author tries to answer the main question that concerns him - what is the future of Russia, what is its historical purpose, what in modern life contains at least the slightest hint of a bright, prosperous future for the people.

The theme of bureaucracy is an integral part and continuation of the ideas that Gogol developed when depicting landowners in the poem. It is no coincidence that the images of officials follow the images of landowners. If the evil embodied in the owners of the estates - in all these boxes, Manilovs, Sobakevichs, Nozdrevs and Plyushkins - is scattered throughout the Russian expanses, then here it appears in a concentrated form, compressed by the living conditions of the provincial city. A huge number of “dead souls” gathered together creates a special monstrously absurd atmosphere.

If the character of each of the landowners left a unique imprint on his house and estate as a whole, then the city is influenced by the entire huge mass of people (including officials, since officials are the first people in the city) living in it. The city turns into a completely independent mechanism, living according to its own laws, dispatching its needs through offices, departments, councils and other public institutions. And it is officials who ensure the functioning of this entire mechanism. The life of a civil servant, which is not imprinted with a high idea, the desire to promote the common good, becomes an embodied function of the bureaucratic mechanism. Essentially, a person ceases to be a person, he loses all personal characteristics (unlike the landowners, who had, albeit ugly, but still their own physiognomy), even loses his own name, since a name is still a kind of personal characteristic, and becomes simply a Postmaster, Prosecutor, Governor, Chief of Police, Chairman or the owner of an unimaginable nickname like Ivan Antonovich Kuvshinnoe Rylo. A person turns into a detail, a “cog” of the state machine, the micromodel of which is the provincial city of NN. The officials themselves are unremarkable, except for the positions they occupy.

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The meaning of the title of the poem “Dead Souls” and the definition of N.V. Gogol of her genre. The history of the creation of the poem, features of the storyline, the original combination of darkness and light, the special tone of the narrative. Critical materials about the poem, its influence and genius.

abstract, added 05/11/2009


A study of Gogol's method of characterizing heroes and social structure through portrait and everyday details. The artistic world of the poem "Dead Souls". Principles of revealing the characters of landowners. The hidden character traits of the hero. The basis of the plot of the poem.

abstract, added 03/27/2011


Pavel Chichikov is the main character of N. Gogol's poem "Dead Souls". Acquirer-adventurer type; the embodiment of a new evil for Russia - quiet, average, but enterprising. The origin and formation of the character of the hero; manners, speech, clothing, spiritual basis.

presentation, added 12/12/2013


Specificity of the epic. Reading and introductory classes. Dependence of the methodology for analyzing a work on its type and genre. Questions of literary theory. Study of the poem by N.V. Gogol "Dead Souls". Working with the literary concepts of “satire” and “humour”.

1. “Dead Souls” as a realistic work

b) Principles of realism in the poem:

Historicism

Gogol wrote about his modernity - approximately the end of the 20s - the beginning of the 30s, during the period of the crisis of serfdom in Russia.

Typical characters in typical circumstances

The main trends in the depiction of landowners and officials are satirical description, social typification and a general critical orientation. “Dead Souls” is a work of everyday life. Particular attention is paid to the description of nature, the estate and interior, and the details of the portrait. Most of the characters are shown statically. Much attention is paid to details, the so-called “mud of little things” (Plyushkin’s character). Gogol correlates different plans: universal scales (a lyrical digression about a three-bird bird) and the smallest details (a description of a trip along extremely bad Russian roads).

Means of satirical typification

a) Author's characteristics of the characters, b) Comic situations (for example, Manilov and Chichikov cannot separate at the door), c) Appeal to the past of the heroes (Chichikov, Plyushkin), d) Hyperbole (the unexpected death of the prosecutor, the extraordinary gluttony of Sobakevich), e) Proverbs (“Neither in the city of Bogdan, nor in the village of Selifan”), f) Comparisons (Sobakevich is compared to a medium-sized bear, Korobochka is compared to a mongrel in the manger).

2. Genre originality of “Dead Souls”

Calling his work a “poem,” Gogol meant: “a lesser kind of epic... Prospectus for a textbook of literature for Russian youth. The hero of epics is a private and invisible person, but significant in many respects for observing the human soul.”

The poem is a genre that goes back to the traditions of the ancient epic, in which integral existence was recreated in all its contradictions. The Slavophiles insisted on this characteristic of “Dead Souls,” appealing to the fact that elements of the poem, as a glorifying genre, are also present in “Dead Souls” (lyrical digressions). Gogol, in letters to friends, called “Dead Souls” not only a poem, but also a novel. Dead Souls contains features of an adventure, picaresque, and social novel. However, it is customary not to call “Dead Souls” a novel, since there is practically no love intrigue in the work.

3. Features of the plot and composition of “Dead Souls”

Features of the plot of “Dead Souls” are associated primarily with the image of Chichikov and his ideological and compositional role. Gogol: “The author leads his life through a chain of adventures and changes in order to present at the same time a true picture of everything significant in the traits and morals of the time he took... a picture of shortcomings, abuses, vices.” In a letter to V. Zhukovsky, Gogol mentions that he wanted to show “all of Rus'” in the poem. The poem is written in the form of a journey, disparate fragments of Russian life are combined into a single whole. This is the main compositional role of Chichikov. The independent role of the image comes down to describing a new type of Russian life, an entrepreneur-adventurer. In Chapter 11, the author gives a biography of Chichikov, from which it follows that the hero uses either the position of an official or the mythical position of a landowner to achieve his goals.

The composition is built on the principle of “concentric circles” or “closed spaces” (city, estates of landowners, all of Russia).

The theme of the homeland and people in the poem “Dead Souls”

Gogol wrote about his work: “All of Rus' will appear in it.” The life of the ruling class and the common people is given without idealization. Peasants are characterized by ignorance, narrow-mindedness, and downtroddenness (the images of Petrushka and Selifan, the yard girl Korobochka, who does not know where is right and where is left, Uncle Mityai and Uncle Minyai, who are discussing whether Chichikov’s chaise will reach Moscow and Kazan). Nevertheless, the author warmly describes the talent and other creative abilities of the people (a lyrical digression about the Russian language, a characterization of the Yaroslavl peasant in a digression about the bird-troika, Sobakevich’s register of peasants).

Much attention is paid to the popular revolt (the story of Captain Kopeikin). The theme of the future of Russia is reflected in Gogol’s poetic attitude towards his homeland (lyrical digressions about Rus' and the three-bird).

About the second volume of “Dead Souls”

Gogol, in the image of the landowner Kostanzhoglo, tried to show a positive ideal. It embodied Gogol's ideas about the harmonious structure of life: reasonable management, a responsible attitude to the work of all those involved in organizing the estate, the use of the fruits of science. Under the influence of Kostanzhoglo, Chichikov had to reconsider his attitude to reality and “correct.” Feeling the “untruth of life” in his work, Gogol burned the second volume of Dead Souls.

Gogol has long dreamed of writing a work “in which all of Rus' would appear.” This was supposed to be a grandiose description of the life and customs of Russia in the first third of the 19th century. The poem “Dead Souls,” written in 1842, became such a work. The first edition, for censorship reasons, was entitled “The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls.” This name reduced the true meaning of this work and evoked associations with an adventure novel. Gogol did this in order for the poem to be published.

Why did Gogol call his work a poem? The definition of the genre became clear to the writer only at the last moment, since, while still working on it, Gogol called it either a poem or a novel. To understand the motivation of the author of “Dead Souls,” one can compare this work with “The Divine Comedy” by Dante, a poet of the Renaissance. Its influence is felt in Gogol's poem. The Divine Comedy consists of three parts. In the first part, the shadow of the ancient Roman poet Virgil appears to the poet, which accompanies the lyrical hero to hell, they go through all the circles, a whole gallery of sinners passes before their eyes. The fantastic nature of the plot does not prevent Dante from revealing the theme of his homeland - Italy, and its fate. In fact, Gogol planned to show the same circles of hell, but hell in Russia. It is not for nothing that the title of the poem “Dead Souls” echoes the title of the first part of the “Divine Comedy” - “Hell”.

Gogol, along with satirical negation, introduces a glorifying, creative element - the image of Russia. Associated with it is the “high lyrical movement”, which in the poem at times replaces the comic narrative. A significant place in the poem “Dead Souls” is occupied by lyrical digressions and inserted episodes, which is typical for the poem as a literary genre. In them, Gogol touches on the most pressing Russian social issues. The author’s thoughts about the high purpose of man, about the fate of the Motherland and the people are here contrasted with gloomy pictures of Russian life.

So, let’s follow the hero of the poem “Dead Souls” Chichikov to the city of N. From the very first pages of the work we feel the structure of the composition, although the reader cannot assume that after Chichikov’s meeting with Manilov there will be meetings with Sobakevich and Nozdrev. The reader cannot guess the outcome of the plot.

All characters are developed according to the principle: one is worse than the other. For example, Manilov, if he is considered as a separate image, cannot be perceived as a positive hero (he has had a book on his table for a long time, open on the same page, and his politeness is feigned: “Let us not allow this to happen to you.” ), but compared to Plyushkin, Manilov wins in many ways. However, Gogol placed the image of Korobochka at the center of the story, since she is a kind of unified beginning of all the characters. According to Gogol, this is a symbol of the “box man”, which contains the idea of ​​​​an irrepressible thirst for hoarding.

The theme of exposing officialdom runs through Gogol’s entire work: it appears in the collection “Mirgorod”, and in the comedy “The Inspector General” it becomes key. In the poem “Dead Souls” it is intertwined with the theme of serfdom.

“The Tale of Captain Kopeikin” occupies a special place in the poem. It is plot-related to the poem, but is of great importance for revealing the ideological content of the work. The form of a tale gives the story the character of a parable, but in fact it is a satire on the government.

The world of “dead souls” in the poem is contrasted with the lyrical image of people’s Russia, about which Gogol writes with love and admiration. Behind the terrible world of the landowner and bureaucratic power, Gogol felt the soul of the Russian people, which he expressed in the image of a quickly rushing troika, embodying the forces of Russia: “Aren’t you, Rus', like a brisk, unstoppable troika rushing?”

Almost all the characters in the poem are static, they do not develop. This technique emphasizes once again that all these Manilovs, Korobochki, Sobakevichs, Plyushkins are dead souls. To characterize the characters, Gogol also uses his favorite technique - characterizing the character through detail. What is it worth, for example, the description of Manilov’s estate and house! When Chichikov drove into the estate, he drew attention to the overgrown English pond, to the rickety gazebo, to the dirt and desolation, to the wallpaper in the room - either gray or blue, to two chairs covered with matting, to which the owner never gets around to it. All these and many other details lead us to the main characteristic made by the author himself: “Neither this nor that, but the devil knows what it is!” Let us remember Plyushkin, this “hole in humanity”, even whose gender is not immediately determined: he comes out to Chichikov in a greasy robe, on his head some kind of unimaginable scarf, desolation, dirt, disrepair are everywhere. Plyushkin is an extreme degree of decline. And all this is conveyed through detail, through those little things in life that A. S. Pushkin admired so much: “No other writer has ever had this gift to expose the vulgarity of life so clearly, to be able to outline the vulgarity of the vulgar in such a powerful way.” a person, so that all the little things that escape the eyes would flash large into everyone’s eyes.”

The main theme of the poem is the fate of Russia: its past, present and future. In the first volume, Gogol revealed the theme of the past of his homeland. The second and third volumes he conceived were supposed to tell about the present and the future. This idea can be compared with the second and third parts of Dante's Divine Comedy: “Purgatory” and “Paradise”. However, these plans were not destined to come true: the second volume turned out to be unsuccessful in concept, and the third was never written. Therefore, Chichikov’s trip remained a trip into the unknown. Gogol was at a loss, thinking about the future of Russia; “Rus, where are you going? Give an answer! Doesn't give an answer."