The author's idea of dead souls. The idea of the poem N
1. The diversity of character of the Russian people.
2. The essence of the concept of N.V. Gogol’s poem “ Dead Souls».
3. The image of the Russian people in the poem.
4. The significance of the topic raised by the writer.
Will you wake up full of strength,
Or, fate obeying the law,
You've already done everything you could -
Created a song like a groan
And spiritually rested forever?..
N. A. Nekrasov
The topic of the Russian people and their role in the history of the country was touched upon by almost all Russian writers. On the one hand, it contains generosity, humanism and generosity of soul, endurance and will, greatness of spirit and self-sacrifice, grandiose military victories and the implementation of government projects that would seem beyond human capabilities. On the other hand, there is inconsistency, apathy, humility, and often ignorance and short-sightedness. This diversity of character gave rise to many domestic and foreign philosophers and writers talking about the great mystery of the Russian soul, the Russian people. It should be noted that the work of N.V. Gogol in many ways anticipated the development of this discussion precisely in the direction of the existence of a certain secret here.
The title of N. V. Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls” contains the main, but not the only idea of the work. The literal content boils down to the essence of Chichikov’s scam: he bought the souls of dead peasants. More deep meaning consists of thinking about what Russia is and how this state is connected with the people inhabiting it. He showed both negative and positive sides life of contemporary Russia. Trying to explain the concept of “Dead Souls,” Gogol himself noted that the images in the poem are “not portraits with worthless people“, on the contrary, they contain the traits of those who consider themselves better than others.” They count, but do they count? And we see that it is not.
According to many researchers of the writer’s work, Gogol planned, like D. Alighieri, to take his hero Chichikov first through “hell” in the first volume of “Dead Souls”, then through “purgatory” in the second volume, and finally to finish the description of the third volume “ in paradise,” that is, to complete it with the spiritual rise of Russia. N.V. Gogol saw himself as a writer-preacher contributing to the future revival of Russia. As you know, Gogol wanted to publish the first edition of Dead Souls with his own hand drawn title page. In the middle was depicted “Chichikov’s chaise,” symbolizing Russia, surrounded by “skulls,” as if personifying the “dead” souls of living people. The idea was truly grandiose. But these plans were not destined to come true.
As you know, only the first volume of the work, in which Gogol shows the negative sides of Russian life, has reached its full extent. The third volume was never started. The second was burned, although drafts have reached us. Dramatic story books reflected the inner drama of the writer himself. Gogol began writing the second volume in 1842, but three years later he burned the manuscript. Fortunately, it happens that “manuscripts don’t burn.” The part of the second volume that has survived to our time sheds light on the true intention of the writer. Gogol is trying to create positive image Russia. The tone of the narrative of the second volume changes noticeably, positive characters appear, although they stand out from the environment in which they live. The image of the young landowner Tentetnikov, the hero of the second volume, correlates with such artistic types as Onegin, Rudin, Oblomov. With inherent
Gogol shows with subtle taste and psychological authenticity a provincial thinker with a weak will and a limited view of the world. But the image of the young Russian bourgeois tax farmer Murazov, according to many critics, did not work out. It is to this character that the words condemning acquisition and hoarding belong. But in in this case the idea did not receive a reliable artistic embodiment. An obvious, although not complete, metamorphosis also occurred with the main character of the first volume, Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov. According to the author, he also had to take the path of moral purification. Here he is not yet a completely transformed or, to use a common epithet, a “revived” hero, but he is no longer that soulless and enterprising initiator of a dubious enterprise. This tendency was to lead him in the third volume to a complete spiritual resurrection.
However, this plan is discernible even in the first volume. Along with a whole gallery of “lost souls” characters, only two have a backstory and a still simmering soul. These are Chichikov and Plyushkin. The story of Plyushkin - his life tragedy. His soul hardened gradually. This is also emphasized by artistic means: either the author notes that his eyes “have not yet gone out”, then “some kind of light slid across Plyushkin’s face.” warm ray, it was not a feeling that was expressed, but some kind of pale reflection of a feeling.” From the description of his garden we see that it is overgrown, neglected, but still alive. Another important detail is that only Plyushkin has two churches on his estate. It follows that his soul has not yet completely hardened. Perhaps the plan for the third volume included a continuation of Plyushkin’s theme. The second hero real world Chichikov appears with his soul still alive. He wears telling name- Paul. Like the biblical apostle who experienced a spiritual revolution and turned his life back, Chichikov had to experience a rebirth.
However, alive soul Russia lies, according to Gogol, in the living soul of its people. The writer's faith in the Russian people is the basis of the poem's concept. It is in the people that all the best, real, sincere, majestic is stored and manifested. The admiration of both the author, and Chichikov, and the landowners is contained in the descriptions of the dead peasants. In the memory of the people who knew them, they take on an epic appearance. “Milushkin, brickmaker! could put a stove in any house. Maxim Telyatnikov, shoemaker: whatever pricks with an awl, then the boots, whatever the boots, then thank you, and even if you put a drunken mouth in your mouth! And Bremey Sorokoplekhin! Yes, that guy alone will stand for everyone, he traded in Moscow, brought one rent for five hundred rubles. After all, what kind of people!” And “carriage maker Mikheev never made any other carriages other than spring ones.” These are Sobakevich’s words, and to Chichikov’s objections that they are only a “dream,” he objects: “Well, no, not a dream! I’ll tell you what Mikheev was like, you won’t find such people: such a machine that he wouldn’t fit into this room... And in his shoulders he had such strength that a horse does not have...” Serf carpenter Cork “would be fit for the guard.” Plyushkin's fugitive serf Abakum Fyrov could not stand captivity, fled to the wide Volga expanse and “walks noisily and cheerfully” Although he has to “drag the strap under one endless song, like Rus'.” In these songs of barge haulers, sung by Russian poets and artists, Gogol and not only he heard a longing for another life.
V. S. Bakhtin talks about the contrast in the poem between the Russian heroes so beloved by Gogol and their antipodes, or more precisely anti-bogatyrs, which are Gogol’s landowners and officials, for example Sobakevich. By its appearance, appearance He is a typical hero, but in terms of his life aspirations, he is a petty person and unworthy of respect. There is no heroic nobility, no daring, no desire to protect the weak. But the image of the people also bifurcates into the “real” and “ideal” images. In the image of the “real” people appearing on the pages of the poem, pain and hope, respect and reproach, love and hatred for those traits that prevent the people from “rising into full height", realize themselves as full citizens of their country.
The difficult fate of the people is shown especially dramatically through the images of serfs. Gogol talks a lot about the condition that serfdom brings to a person, suppressing initiative and enterprise. These are the images of Uncle Mitya, the girl Pelageya, who could not distinguish between right and left, Proshka and the Moors on Plyushkin’s estate, downtrodden and humiliated to the extreme. Selifan and Petrushka are in a similar condition. As always, Gogol finds the right expression, emphasizing the writer’s humorous attitude and at the same time sympathy for the character. For example, Petrushka seemed to have a penchant for reading, but not for what he was reading about, but “more the reading itself, or, better said, the process of reading itself, that some word always comes out of the letters, which sometimes the devil knows what it means.” But they are also part of the Russian people, although not the best part.
In his poem, Gogol acts not only as a preacher, but also as a prophet. In “The Tale of Captain Kopeikin” we witness how obedience to authorities is replaced by a sense of revenge for grievances caused. At the center of the story is the hero Patriotic War 1812, a disabled person who was forced by the injustice of those in power to commit crimes. This potential power inherent in the Russian spirit was really felt by the writer: “Russian movements will rise... and they will see how deeply ingrained into the Slavic nature is what slipped only through the nature of other peoples...”.
Even in “Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka,” Gogol portrays the people not as downtrodden and oppressed, but as strong, proud, and freedom-loving. He is characterized by moral health. He is generous with inventions. One can feel his intelligence, courage, dexterity, heroic power, and spiritual scope in everything.
Gogol sees the special talent of the Russian people in the accuracy and poetry of expressions: “The Russian people express themselves strongly! And if he rewards someone with a word, then it will go to his family and posterity, he will drag it with him into service, and into retirement, and to St. Petersburg, and to the ends of the world. And no matter how cunning or ennobled your nickname is then, even if you force the writing people to derive it for a hire from the ancient princely family, nothing will help: the nickname will caw for itself at the top of its crow’s throat and say clearly where the bird flew from. What is accurately spoken is the same as what is written; it cannot be cut down with an axe. And how accurate is everything that came out of the depths of Rus', where there are no Germans, no Chukhons, or any other tribes, and everything is a nugget itself, a lively and lively Russian mind that does not reach into its pocket for a word, does not hatch it , like a mother hen chicks, but it sticks right away, like a passport on an eternal sock, and there is nothing to add later, what kind of nose or lips you have - you are outlined with one line from head to toe!
The most striking expression of the writer’s patriotic feelings in the poem is the discussion about the fate of Rus' through its comparison with the fate of the people. Comparing the “immense expanses” with the incalculable spiritual riches of her people, Gogol exclaims: “Isn’t it here, isn’t limitless thought born in you, when you yourself are endless? Shouldn't a hero be here when there is room for him to turn around and walk? And the mighty space envelops me menacingly, with terrible force reflected in the depths of my soul; My eyes were illuminated with an unnatural power: what a sparkling, wonderful, unknown distance to the earth - Rus'!
N.G. Chernyshevsky is right: “For a long time there has not been a writer in the world who would be as important for his people as Gogol is for Russia.” And, above all, for the national identity of Russia and its citizens.
Pushkin and Dostoevsky stood at the origins of a peculiar trend in the depiction of space and time: combination within work of art concrete and abstract spaces, their mutual “flow” and interaction. In this case, the specific place of action is given symbolic meaning and a high degree of generalization. In this case, the specific space becomes a universal model.
This is what happens in “Dead Souls,” when the real troika on which Chichikov was riding suddenly turns into an abstract troika, which becomes a symbol of Russia on its path to improvement.
10. Analyze one of the episodes of the poem “Dead Souls” (“Chichikov at Sobakevich”, “Chichikov at Plyushkin”, “Chichikov at Korobochka”)
Chichikov at Korobochka
Chichikov's appearance at Korobochka's takes place at night, and Chichikov does not even have time to properly look around. However, Gogol introduces the author's remark and popularly explains what kind of landowner Korobochka was. He immediately characterizes her as tight-fisted and over-frugal, constantly complaining about everything, but slowly filling her “motley little bags” with money and keeping old trash “just in case,” which will never present itself due to her extreme caution and will end up being passed on to someone spiritually. will. The author deliberately brings together such incompatible words: “spiritual testament” and “old cloak”, showing his ironic attitude towards this type of people.
In connection with Chichikov’s request, Korobochka asked herself the main question - how not to sell it too cheap. It is interesting that such an object as a dead person is easily accepted by her as a commodity, and her persistence and doubts about the “unusual enterprise” represent, for the most part, a desire to gain more. It combines the mask and the real face. The real person may be surprised to hear about Chichikov's proposal, and the mask will immediately take advantage of this surprise and turn it into practical use - as it understands it.
It is characteristic that Korobochka’s over-frugality and her numerous fears force her to commit irrational acts, and if Chichikov had not managed to understand her character and had not promised her to buy other, ordinary goods for the treasury in the future, she would never have sold her soul.
Any novelty causes unconscious fear in such people.
Chichikov at Sobakevich's
“Sobakevich reacted quite practically to Chichikov’s request. The nature of the “fist” was reflected in the way he conducted the bargaining. At first he asked for an unimaginable price (“one hundred rubles apiece”), then slowly, with great reluctance, he began to lower his price, but in such a way that he still received more from Chichikov than anyone else (“I tore off two and a half rubles for a dead soul, damn fist !").
However, Sobakevich’s attitude towards the strange enterprise is not limited to practicality. He is the only landowner who sees behind the names of the dead specific people who speaks about them with an undisguised sense of admiration: “Milushkin, brickmaker! could put a stove in any house. Maxim Telyatnikov, shoemaker: whatever the awl pricks, so do the boots, whatever the boots, then thank you... And Eremey Sorokoplekhin! Yes, this guy alone will stand for everyone, he traded in Moscow, brought one rent for five hundred rubles. What a people! No reminders from Chichikov that “after all, these are all dead people” can bring Sobakevich back to reality: He continues to talk about the dead as if they were alive. At first you might think that he is trying to confuse the buyer, inflating the price of the product, being cunning, playing. However, Sobakevich enters this game with all his senses. He is really pleased to remember Milushkin or Telyatnikov (as a master-fist, he appreciates their skill). The line between the real and the illusory is blurred: with his “dead” Sobakevich is ready to beat the “living” - “... which of these people who are now listed as living? What kind of people are these? flies, not people."
12. Look at the illustrations for Gogol’s works. Which of them seem especially close to the author’s description of the portraits of the heroes?
An excellent illustrator of “Dead Souls” was the artist P. Boklevsky.
13. Why was Gogol unable to complete “Dead Souls”? Give a detailed answer-reasoning.
The poem “Dead Souls” was closely connected with Gogol’s religious and moral quests (for this, see the answer to the 4th question).
The first time Gogol, in a state of sharp exacerbation of his illness, burned the manuscript of the second volume of Dead Souls in the summer of 1845. Gogol admitted that he himself consigned to the fire “five years of work, produced with such painful tension, where every line was a shock, where there was a lot of what constituted my best thoughts and occupied my soul.”
Gogol believed that the second volume was a failure, but in order for him to clearly see what this book should be like, it is necessary to burn what has already been written, so that there is not a single clue and hope of repeating what has already been done:
“As soon as the flames carried away the last pages of my book, its contents suddenly resurrected in a purified and bright form, like a phoenix from a fire.”
This was followed by another five years of hard work. And on the first day of 1852, Gogol informed his friends that the second volume was “completely finished.”
But in last days January, threatening symptoms began to appear in Gogol’s moral disposition and health. The death of his longtime good friend E.M. Khomyakova made a depressing impression on him, and Gogol was overcome by the fear of death.
Soon, Archpriest Matvey Konstantinovsky arrived in Moscow, who had an eye on Gogol big influence and inclined him to strict and strict fulfillment of the gospel covenants (as he understood them). Matvey Konstantinovsky inspired Gogol with the idea of destroying some of the chapters of the poem, allegedly due to their inaccuracy (the archpriest especially did not like the chapters where he himself was included) and believed that the poem could have a harmful influence on readers. Gogol might have found that the second volume remained unconvincing. What he couldn't handle main task own life.
Gogol's condition has deteriorated sharply: he has incomprehensible stomach pains, weakness, apathy, and a complete aversion to food.
On February 7, Gogol confesses and receives communion, burns the manuscript on the night of February 11-12, and dies on the morning of February 21.
It so happened that “Dead Souls” became such a work by Gogol, in which the work of a genius, his pinnacle creation, turned into a defeat for the artist, which brought him death.
This happened because Gogol’s plan was comprehensive and grandiose, but unfulfilled from the very beginning.
“Dead Souls” was conceived by the writer in three volumes. Gogol based his plan on the epic poems of Homer and the medieval poem by the Italian poet Dante “The Divine Comedy”.
In the spirit of Homer's epic poems, glorifying greek gods and heroes, Gogol intended to create a new epic, the so-called “small epic”. Its goal was ultimately glorification, a pathetic lyrical celebration of the epic picture of the transformation of some vicious characters into exclusively positive heroes, possessing best qualities Russian person. Russia had to be cleansed from filth volume by volume and in the third volume of Gogol’s book appear before all humanity in all the splendor of moral perfection, spiritual wealth and spiritual beauty. Thus, Russia would show other peoples and states the path to moral and religious salvation from the machinations of the primordial enemy of Christ and humanity - the devil, who sows evil on earth. The fiery praise of such a Russia and such a Russian man, cleansed of vices, becoming the subject of admiring chanting, turned “Dead Souls” into a poem. Consequently, the genre definition given by Gogol to his work applies to the entire three-volume plan.
It is necessary to note the greatest creative courage of Gogol, who conceived a work of enormous scale and universal significance. The idea of “Dead Souls” revealed the greatness of the writer’s soul and his artistic genius. However, it is absolutely clear that moral perfection cannot be achieved by humanity here and now, that many millennia are needed to establish such relations between people and states, the foundations of which will be the teachings of Christ and universal human values.
If Gogol had not tried to embody the moral greatness of the Russian man in artistic images, but would have presented him precisely as artistic ideal, then, quite possibly, he would have been able to complete his work. But to Gogol such a solution to a grandiose task seemed too insignificant and detracted from the whole plan. He needed to breathe living life into the dream, into the ideal, that a morally perfect Russian person would consist of flesh and blood, that he would act, communicate with other people, think and feel. With the power of imagination he tried to bring it to life. But the dream, the ideal, did not want to become a plausible reality.
Gogol did not write a utopia, where the conventions of the future are presupposed by the genre itself. His morally infallible man was supposed to look not like a utopian creation, but a life-truth. However, there was no “prototype” or model to which the artistic types imagined by Gogol were similar. Life had not yet given birth to them; they existed only in the artist’s head as abstract religious and moral ideas. It is clear that the task of creating an ideal from flesh and blood turned out to be beyond Gogol’s strength. Gogol's plan, for all its greatness and harmony, revealed a contradiction lying within it that could not be overcome. Attempts to resolve this contradiction ended in failure.
Gogol's plan also contained the greatest rise artistic idea, and its inevitable fall in the sense that it could never be completed. The victory of a genius was fraught with defeat.
The genre designation "poem" thus refers to the entire project and refers to both the epic scope and the lyrical pathos that permeates the epic narrative. In accordance with the approach to the ideal of moral perfection, lyrical pathos will increase and intensify. Artistic unconvincing perfect paintings will become more and more clear. The epic narrative, rich in lyricism, will be replaced by religious and moral sermons, teachings and prophecies. The artistic principle will give way to the religious-ethical, mystical-moral principle, expressed in the forms of rhetorical and didactic speech. At the same time, the role of the author-prophet, author-preacher, author-teacher of life and bearer of religious and mystical insights will inevitably increase.
The genre of the poem, in addition to its connection with the epic poems of Homer, as Gogol’s contemporaries noted, had a direct literary relationship to Dante’s epic medieval poem “The Divine Comedy”. Dante's poem contained three parts - “A d”, “Purgatory”, “Paradise”. It is clear that “Hell” was inhabited by sinners; those who could cleanse their souls of sins were placed in “Purgatory”. In “Paradise” the pure, immaculate souls of the righteous ended up. Gogol's plan was consistent with the structure of Dante's poem and also ended with the kingdom of paradise, to which Russia and the Russian people rushed and achieved. At the same time, Gogol’s heroes, like Dante’s hero, committed spiritual path in the circles of Hell and, rising from Hell to Purgatory, they cleansed themselves with suffering and repentance, washing away their sins and thereby saving their souls. They went to Paradise, and their best moral qualities came to life. The Russian man was a role model and acquired the status of an ideal hero.
The first volume of “Dead Souls” corresponded to “Hell” in Dante’s poem, the second to “Purgatory,” and the third to “Paradise.” Gogol's two heroes - Chichikov and Plyushkin - were supposed to move from the circles of Hell to Purgatory, then to Paradise. Gogol's plan requires that his heroes first end up in Hell. The author revealed to all readers and the characters themselves that terrible and at the same time funny spiritual abyss into which they were brought by neglect of the title, duties and duty of a person. The characters had to see the obscene grimaces of their unsightly, ugly faces in order to laugh at their images and be horrified by them.
The first volume, or, as Gogol said, the “porch” of the entire grandiose structure, must necessarily be comic, and in some places satirical. But at the same time, an inspired lyrical voice must break through the satire, constantly reminiscent of the second and, most importantly, the third volume. He, this lyrical voice, tied all three volumes together and intensified as he moved towards the last. And at the end of the first volume, Chichikov’s small and already fairly shabby chaise, driven by a troika, before our eyes turns, as if caught by an unknown force, into a troika bird and rushes across the sky and, like it, Rus' rushes, also carried by an unknown force. These lyrical lines remind the reader of the spiritual path ahead of Russia, and at the same time announce in advance that he will be a high example for other peoples and states.
From this reasoning it would be incorrect to conclude that Gogol likened the three volumes of Dead Souls to three parts " Divine Comedy» Dante. He lowered and even turned over the composition of Dante's poem. We can only talk about an analogy. Gogol wrote a poem about the restoration of the human spirit.
Gogol's plan is characterized by other important features. It is easy to see that the reliance on Dante’s “Divine Comedy” implied the universality of the concept of “Dead Souls”. Gogol thinks in extremely general categories and concepts. They can be divided into three levels: national (Russian, German, French, etc.), universal (the earthly world as a whole) and, finally, the third level, universal-religious, covering not only Russia and the earthly world as a whole, but also heavenly and beyond the grave, located beyond, on the other side of our existence. The best proof of this is the title “Dead Souls”.
In the very expression “dead souls” there is unusualness, strangeness. On the one hand, “dead souls” are deceased serfs. On the other hand, “dead souls” are characters in the poem who have ruined themselves spiritually and mentally, whose idea of the true purpose of man on earth, of his calling and the meaning of life has become distorted, deadened and dead. The characters themselves still continue to speak and move, but their souls have already died. Significant thoughts worthy of a person and deep, subtle feelings have already disappeared, sometimes forever, sometimes for a while.
There is, however, another meaning of the expression “dead souls”. According to Christian teaching, souls do not die, they remain in hell, purgatory or Paradise forever alive. The word “dead” cannot be applied to the souls of people, even those who have died, in Christianity. The flesh, the body, dies, but not the spirit, not the soul. Therefore, from this point of view, the combination “dead souls” is absurd. It is impossible. Gogol plays with all meanings. His soul can become dead, die and be revealed, like the prosecutor’s, only after death.
Therefore, during his lifetime the prosecutor did not have a soul or did he possess dead soul, which, however, is the same thing. A dead, dead soul can be transformed, resurrected to a new one, eternal life and turn to good. The universal, religious and symbolic meaning of “Dead Souls” permeates the book. Suddenly, the peasants of Sobakevich, for example, come to life: they are talked about as if they were alive. Relocation of peasants to new land- this is a deception and Chichikov’s biggest sin. New land in “Revelation of St. John the Theologian (Apocalypse)" from the New Testament calls the holy city Jerusalem, "coming down from God from heaven" and meaning the Kingdom of God. He will reveal himself to people after Last Judgment when their souls are transformed. Only thus, purified and transformed, will they see God and His Kingdom.
A trace of such a symbolic migration in the most serious meaning of the word is preserved in the poem. After Chichikov’s purchase “ dead souls"residents of city N reasoned: "... it's true, no one will sell good people, and Chichikov’s men are drunkards, but you need to take into account that this is where morality is, this is where morality lies: they are now scoundrels, but having moved to a new land, they can suddenly become excellent subjects. There have been many such examples: just in the world, and in history too.” So, people's souls can be transformed. Gogol himself intended in the third volume to bring out new, completely transformed souls of Plyushkin and Chichikov.
The all-Russian, universal and universal-religious scale in “Dead Souls” is polar opposite to another - narrow, fractional, detailed, associated with penetration into the hidden corners of local life and the dark corners of a person’s “internal economy”, into the “trash and squabbles” of everyday trifles. Gogol is attentive to the details of everyday life, clothing, and furnishings.
In order to buy dead souls, Chichikov must meet the landowners, visit them and persuade them to make a deal. In “The Author's Confession,” Gogol wrote: “Pushkin found that the plot of Dead Souls was good for me because it gave me complete freedom to travel all over Russia with the hero and bring out many different characters.” Consequently, the poem includes another important genre form - the travel novel. Finally, it is known that main character- Chichikov - in the end had to turn into an ideal person, into a hero without fear and reproach. The transformation involved re-education and self-education.
In the second volume, Chichikov had teachers-educators who made the path of moral regeneration easier for him, and he himself, repenting and suffering, gradually re-educates himself. It is clear that the novel of education also played a significant role in Gogol’s overall plan. And here at least two questions arise. Is it true that if Chichikov saves a penny and strives to get rich, then he thinks like a bourgeois, like a capitalist? To answer this question, you need to ask yourself: does Chichikov want to use his money to grow and become a moneylender? Does he dream of a plant, of a factory, does he entertain the idea of becoming an industrialist and opening his own business? No. Chichikov hopes to buy the village of Pavlovskoye in the Kherson province, become a landowner and live securely and in abundance. In his consciousness he is not a bourgeois, not a capitalist. The accumulative and bourgeois idea enters the head of the landowner, the feudal lord.
The second question is: who is Chichikov if he is not endowed with the consciousness of a bourgeois, but is still an “acquirer” and in the future dreams of becoming a landowner? “The Tale of Captain Kopeikin” helps to understand why Gogol chose an average, inconspicuous person for his anti-hero in the first volume.
Chichikov is a man of the new, bourgeois era and breathes its atmosphere. The ideas of the bourgeois era are uniquely refracted in his mind and character, in his entire personality. In the bourgeois era, money and capital become the universal idol. All kindred, friendly, love affairs exist insofar as they are based on monetary interests that are beneficial to both parties. Chichikov once saw a sixteen-year-old girl with golden hair and a delicate oval face, but his thoughts immediately turned to a dowry of two hundred thousand rubles. In other words, the bourgeois era produces evil, but invisible evil, nestled in people like Chichikov, “average”, unremarkable.
In order to more accurately understand what this phenomenon is, generalized in Chichikov, Gogol tells “The Tale of Captain Kopeikin.” At the same time, Chichikov is removed from the plot; instead, a fantastic double appears, created by the imagination of the inhabitants of the provincial city and living in the rumors that filled the province. City officials are eager to marry Chichikov, who is known as a “millionaire” and intends to make a big deal. They begin to look for a bride for Chichikov, and the governor’s wife introduces the rich, presumably unmarried Chichikov, to her daughter, a college student.
The ladies who showed exceptional interest in Chichikov the millionaire (one of them, in the spirit of Tatyana Larina, even sent him an unsigned letter with the words: “No, I have to write to you!” - here Gogol laughs at romantic, already vulgarized passions), did not forgive him a short infatuation with the governor’s daughter (“All the ladies did not like Chichikov’s treatment at all”). Chichikov’s reputation is gradually collapsing: either Nozdryov will directly declare to the governor, the prosecutor and all officials that Chichikov “traded... the dead,” then Korobochka, afraid of selling himself short, will find out how much dead souls are walking around these days. The ladies formed a “conspiracy” and finally ruined Chichikov’s “enterprise”. “Dead souls”, the governor’s daughter and Chichikov got lost and mixed up in the minds of the town’s inhabitants in an “extraordinarily strange way.”
At first, “just a nice lady,” referring to the words of Korobochka, told the “lady, pleasant in all respects” that Chichikov came to Nastasya Petrovna “armed from head to toe, like Rinald Rinaldin, and demands: “Sell,” he says, - all the souls who died." The box answers very reasonably and refuses. Why, however, Chichikov needed to imitate Rinaldino Rinaldini from the then popular novel by X. Vulpius, remained unknown, as well as why on earth the new Rinaldo Rinaldini - Chichikov - demanded dead souls. But still, the thought of Chichikov as noble robber need to remember.
During a further discussion of the “charming” Chichikov, the “lady, pleasant in all respects,” was struck by a guess: “This was just made up as a cover, but the point is this: he wants to take away the governor’s daughter. This assumption was unexpected and unusual in all respects.” If Chichikov wanted to take away the governor’s daughter, then why did he need dead souls in addition to her, if he intended to “buy dead souls, so why take away the governor’s daughter?” Confused in all this, the ladies felt that Chichikov could not decide on such a “brave passage” without “participants,” and Nozdryov was counted among such assistants.
Chichikov looks either like a noble robber or romantic hero stealing the object of his interest.
The ideological concept and construction of the poem.
In his “Author's Confession,” Gogol indicates that Pushkin gave him the idea to write “Dead Souls.” “He has long been urging me to take up big essay, and finally, once after I had read one small image of a small scene, but which, however, struck him most of all that I had read before, he said to me: “How with this ability to guess a person and show several features suddenly he was all alive, with this ability not to take on a large essay.
This is simply a sin!..”, and, in conclusion, he gave me his own plot, from which he wanted to make something like a poem himself and which, according to him, he would not give to anyone else. This was the plot of “Dead Souls”... Pushkin found that the plot of “Dead Souls” was good for me because it gave me complete freedom to travel all over Russia with the hero and bring out many different characters.”
Gogol followed Pushkin’s advice, quickly got to work and in a letter dated October 7, 1835, informed him: “I began to write Dead Souls.” The plot is spread out over a long novel and, it seems, will be very funny... In this novel I want to show at least from one side all of Rus'.”
However, in the process of work, Gogol planned to give not one, but three volumes, in which it would be possible to show Rus' not “from one side,” but comprehensively. The second and third volumes of “Dead Souls” were, according to the author, supposed to bring out positive characters along with the negative ones and show the moral revival of the “scoundrel-acquirer” Chichikov.
Such breadth of the plot and the richness of the work with lyrical passages, allowing the writer to reveal in a variety of ways his attitude to the depicted, inspired Gogol with the idea of calling “Dead Souls” not a novel, but a poem.
But Gogol burned the second volume of Dead Souls, and he did not begin the third.
The reason for the failure was that Gogol was looking for positive heroes in the world of “dead souls” - representatives of the dominant social strata at that time, and not in the popular, democratic camp.
Belinsky, back in 1842, predicted the inevitability of Gogol’s failure in implementing such a plan. “Much, too much has been promised, so much that there is nowhere to get what to fulfill the promise, because it is not yet in the world,” he wrote.
The chapters of the second volume of Dead Souls that have reached us confirm the validity of Belinsky’s thoughts. In these chapters there are brilliantly written images akin to the landowners of the first volume (Petr Petrovich Petukh, Khlobuev, etc.), but goodies(the virtuous governor-general, the ideal landowner Kostanzhoglo and the tax farmer Murazov, who made over forty million “in the most impeccable way”) are clearly not typical, not vitally convincing.
The idea of “travelling all over Rus' with the hero and bringing out many different characters” predetermined the composition of the poem. It is structured as the story of the adventures of the “acquirer” Chichikov, who buys souls that are actually dead, but legally alive, that is, not deleted from the audit lists.
Images of officials
The central place in the first volume is occupied by five “portrait” chapters (from the second to the sixth). These chapters, constructed according to the same plan, show how, on the basis of serfdom, different types serf owners and how serfdom in the 20-30s of the 19th century, due to the growth of capitalist forces, it led the landowner class to economic and moral decline. Gogol gives these chapters in a certain order. The economicless landowner Manilov (Chapter II) is replaced by the petty hoarder Korobochka (Chapter III), the careless waster of life Nozdryov (Chapter IV) is replaced by the tight-fisted Sobakevich (Chapter V). This gallery of landowners is completed by Plyushkin, a miser who brought his estate and peasants to complete ruin.
A picture of the economic collapse of corvée, subsistence farming in the estates of Manilov, Nozdryov and Plyushkin, it is drawn vividly and convincingly. But even the seemingly strong farms of Korobochka and Sobakevich are in fact unviable, since such forms of farming have already become obsolete.
The “portrait” chapters present a picture of the moral decline of the landowner class with even greater expressiveness. From an idle dreamer living in the world of his dreams, Manilov to the “club-headed” Korobochka, from her to the reckless spendthrift, liar and cheater Nozdryov, then to the brutalized fist Sobakevich and, finally, to the one who has lost all moral qualities - “a hole in humanity” - Gogol leads us to Plyushkin, showing the increasing moral decline and decay of representatives
Thus, the poem turns into a brilliant denunciation of serfdom as a socio-economic system that naturally gives rise to cultural and economic backwardness while being the arbiter of the destinies of the state. This Ideological orientation The poem is revealed primarily in the system of its images.
The gallery of portraits of landowners opens with the image of Manilov. “In appearance he was a distinguished man; His facial features were not devoid of pleasantness, but this pleasantness seemed to have too much sugar in it; in his techniques and turns there was something ingratiating favor and acquaintance. He smiled enticingly, was blond, with blue eyes.” Previously, he “served in the army, where he was considered the most modest, most delicate and most educated officer.” Living on the estate, he "sometimes comes to the city... to see educated people."
Compared to the inhabitants of the city and estates, he seems to be “a very courteous and courteous landowner,” who bears some imprint of a “semi-enlightened” environment.
However, revealing Manilov’s inner appearance, his character, talking about his attitude to the household and his pastime, drawing Manilov’s reception of Chichikov, Gogol shows the complete emptiness and worthlessness of this “existent”.
The writer emphasizes two main features in Manilov’s character - his worthlessness and sugary, meaningless daydreaming. Manilov had no living interests.
He did not take care of the housekeeping”, entrusting it entirely to the clerk. He could not even tell Chichikov whether his peasants had died since the last inspection. His house “stood alone on the jura, that is, on an elevation open to all the winds that might blow.” Instead of the shady garden that usually surrounded the manor’s house, Manilov had only “five or six birches in small clumps here and there raising their small-leaved thin tops.” And in his village there was nowhere “a growing tree or any greenery.”
Manilov’s mismanagement and impracticality is clearly evidenced by the furnishings of the rooms of his house, where next to beautiful furniture stood two armchairs, “covered simply with matting”; “a dandy candlestick made of dark bronze with three antique graces” stood on the table, and next to it was placed “some kind of simple copper invalid, lame, curled to one side and covered in fat.”
It is no wonder that such an “owner” has “a rather empty pantry,” the clerk and housekeeper are thieves, the servants are “unclean and drunkards,” and “the whole household sleeps mercilessly and hangs out the rest of the time.”
In May 1842, a new work by Gogol appeared in bookstores in both capitals. Let's try to figure out what the intent of the poem "Dead Souls" is. The cover of the book was extremely intricate; when looking at it, readers did not even know that it was made according to the sketch of the author himself. The drawing placed on the cover was obviously important for Gogol, as it was repeated in the second edition of the poem during his lifetime in 1846.
Let's get acquainted with the history of the concept of "Dead Souls" and its implementation, let's see how it changed, how the idea of creating a monumental epic canvas that would embrace all the diversity gradually crystallized Russian life. The implementation of such a grandiose plan also implied the use of appropriate artistic means, and an adequate genre, and a special, symbolic name.
Based on an already established cultural tradition, Gogol bases the plot on the hero’s journey, but before us is a special journey: it is not only and not so much the movement of a person in time and space, it is the journey of the human soul.
Let's try to clarify our thought. Instead of dashingly twisted intrigue and stories about “Chichikov’s adventures,” the reader was presented with one of the Russian provincial cities. The hero's journey boiled down to visiting five landowners who lived nearby, and the author spoke about the main character himself and his true intentions a little before parting with him. As the story progresses, the author seems to forget about the plot and talks about events that seem not even related to the intrigue. But this is not negligence, but a conscious attitude of the writer.
The fact is that, when creating the concept of the poem “Dead Souls,” Gogol followed another cultural tradition. He intended to write a work that consists of three parts, modeled on Dante's Divine Comedy. In the poem of the great Italian, the journey of a person, or rather his soul, is presented as an ascent from vice to perfection, to an awareness of the true purpose of man and world harmony. Thus, Dante’s “Hell” turned out to be correlated with the first volume of the poem: just like lyrical hero poem, making a pilgrimage to the depths of the earth, Gogol's Chichikov gradually plunges into the abyss of vice, the characters “one more vulgar than the other” appear before the reader. And in the finale, the anthem of Russia, the “three bird,” suddenly sounds. Where? Why? “This is still a secret,” Gogol wrote after finishing work on the first volume, “which should suddenly, to the amazement of everyone...”
In many ways, the implementation of the plan remained a secret, inaccessible to the reader, but the surviving chapters of the second volume and the statements of contemporaries allow us to say that the next two volumes should be correlated with “Purgatory” and “Paradise”.
So, before us is the journey of the soul, but what kind of soul? Dead? But the soul is immortal. This was pointed out to the author by the Moscow censorship committee, when the censor Golokhvastov literally shouted upon seeing only the title of the manuscript: “No, I will never allow this: the soul is immortal...” - and did not give permission to print. On the advice of friends, Gogol goes to St. Petersburg to show the manuscript to the censor there and publish the book there. However, history is repeating itself in some ways. Although censor Nikitenko gave permission to print, he demanded that changes be made to the text: change the title and remove “The Tale of Captain Kopeikin.” Reluctantly, Gogol made concessions, remaking “The Tale...” and slightly changing the title. Now it sounded different: “The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls.” But on the cover of the first edition, it was the old name that immediately caught the eye. At the insistence of the author, it was highlighted large print not only because it was related to the plot: “dead souls” turned out to be a commodity, around the purchase and sale of which Chichikov’s scam revolved. However, in official documents the dead peasants, who were listed as alive according to the revision tales, were called “declined.” His contemporary M.P. Pogodin pointed this out to the writer: “...there are no “dead souls” in the Russian language. There are revision souls, assigned souls, departed souls, and arrived souls.” It’s hard to believe that Gogol didn’t know this, but still put the word “dead” into the mouths of the poem’s heroes in relation to the souls Chichikov acquired. (Let us note in parentheses that when making a deal with Plyushkin, Chichikov buys not only the dead, but also runaway, that is, “declined” peasants, classifying them as “dead.”)
Thus, by using the word “dead,” Gogol wanted to give a special meaning to the entire work. This word helps to reveal general plan"Dead Shower"
