Dead souls who are living souls. Who are the "dead souls" in the poem? The meaning of the name: literal and metaphorical

PRISONER

Open the dungeon for me
Give me the shine of the day
black eyed girl,
Black-maned horse.
I am young beauty
First kiss sweetly
Then I'll jump on a horse
In the steppe, like the wind, I will fly away.

But the prison window is high
The door is heavy with a lock;
Black eyed far away
In his magnificent chamber;
Good horse in a green field
Without a bridle, alone, at will
Jumping, cheerful and playful,
Tail spreading in the wind...

I am alone - there is no consolation:
The walls are bare all around
Dimly shining lamp beam
Dying fire;
Only heard: behind the doors
With sonorous steps
Walks in the silence of the night
Unanswered sentry.

Ticket number 6Composition of the novel "A Hero of Our Time"

The novel was created in 1838-1840. The novel was based on Caucasian memoirs obtained in another reference to the Caucasus (1837). The theme is an image of the fate of a contemporary. The novel is devoid of chronological order. The plot and the plot of the novel do not coincide.

The main task facing M. Yu. Lermontov when creating the novel “A Hero of Our Time” was to draw the image of his contemporary, “as he understands him and ... often met him.” This man is thinking, feeling, talented, but unable to find a worthy application for his “immense forces”. The novel consists of five parts, the action of which takes place in different time, in different places. are changing characters, the narrators on whose behalf the narration is being told change. With this creative reception The author manages to give a versatile characterization of his main character. V. G. Belinsky called such a composition of the novel “five paintings inserted into one frame”.
If we consider the causal-temporal sequence of the action of the novel (plot), we will see it as follows: A young officer goes on business to the Caucasus. On the way, he stops in Taman. There he meets with smugglers, they rob him and even try to drown him. (The story "Taman".)
Arriving in Pyatigorsk, the hero is faced with a "water society". An intrigue ensues, leading to a duel. For participation in the duel in which Grushnitsky dies, Pechorin is sent to serve in the fortress. ("Princess Mary")
While serving in the fortress, Pechorin persuades Azamat to steal Bela for him. When Azamat brings his sister, Pechorin helps him steal Karagez, Kazbich's horse. Kazbich kills Bela. (The story of Bela.)
“Once it happened (Pechorin) to live for two weeks in a Cossack village.” Here the hero tests in practice the theory of predestination, fate. At the risk of his life, he disarms a drunken Cossack who had killed a man shortly before. (The story "The Fatalist")
Having survived a lot, having lost faith in everything, Pechorin sets off to travel and dies on the road. (The story "Maxim Maksimych".)
Seeking to uncover inner world hero, the author refuses the event-based order of presentation. The plot of the novel breaks the chronological course of events. The stories are arranged in the following order: “Bela”, “Maxim Maksimych”, “Taman”, “Princess Mary”, “Fatalist”.
This construction of the novel allows the reader to gradually acquaint the reader with the hero, with his inner world.
In "Bel" we see Pechorin through the eyes of Maxim Maksimych, an old officer. This is a rather superficial description of the character of the hero: “He was a nice guy ... just a little strange. After all, for example, in the rain, in the cold all day hunting; everyone will get cold, tired - but nothing to him. And another time he sits in his room, the wind smells, he assures that he has caught a cold; the shutter will knock, he will shudder and turn pale; and with me he went to the boar one on one ... "
In Maxim Maksimych, Pechorin is described by a passing officer, a man who, in his own way, cultural level close to Pechorin. Here we see a rather detailed portrait with some psychological remarks. The portrait occupies one and a half pages of text. Here the author drew a figure, gait, clothes, hands, hair, skin, facial features. He pays special attention to the description of the hero's eyes: “...they did not laugh when he laughed!.. This is a sign of either an evil disposition or a deep constant sadness. Because of their half-lowered eyelashes, they shone with some kind of phosphorescent brilliance... It was not a reflection of the heat of the soul or a playful imagination: it was a brilliance like the brilliance of smooth steel, dazzling, but cold...” The portrait is so eloquent that we have before us rises a visible image of a man who has gone through a lot and is devastated.
The remaining three stories are told in the first person. The author simply publishes Pechorin's journal, that is, his diaries. In them, the character of the hero is given in development.
The diaries begin with Taman, where, while still quite young, the hero is going through a romantic adventure. He is full of life, trusting, curious, thirsty for adventure._
In "Princess Mary" we meet a person capable of introspection. Here Pechorin characterizes himself, he explains how his bad properties were formed: “... such was my fate from childhood! Everyone read on my face signs of bad qualities that were not there; but they were assumed - and they were born ... I became secretive ... I became vindictive ... I became envious ... I learned to hate ... I began to deceive ... I became a moral cripple ... ”
On the night before the duel, Pechorin asks himself: “Why did I live? for what purpose was I born? ... And, it’s true, it existed, and, it’s true, I had a high purpose, because I feel immense strength in my soul ... ”This is an understanding of one’s destiny in life a few hours before a possible death is the culmination not only of the story “Princess Mary”, but of the entire novel “A Hero of Our Time”. In "Princess Mary" the author, perhaps for the first time in Russian literature, gave the deepest psychological picture your hero.
The story "The Fatalist" bears the stamp philosophical reflection Lermontov about fate. His hero is painfully looking for an answer to the question: is it possible to change fate? He is testing his fate. Nobody ordered him to disarm the killer, and it's none of his business at all. But he wants to check if anything depends on the person? If today he is destined to stay alive, then he will remain alive. And nothing can change this predestination. Therefore, he goes on a deadly experiment and remains alive.
Thus, the location of the stories in the novel is not chronological order allowed the author to more deeply reveal the personality of his hero. On the whole, A Hero of Our Time is a socio-psychological novel. However, the parts of which it consists, in accordance with the socio-psychological tasks facing the author, gravitate towards the most different genres. So, "Bela" can be called romantic story, “Maxim Maksimych” - a travel essay, “Taman” - an adventure story, “Princess Mary” - a lyrical diary, “Fatalist” - a philosophical short story.
So, in “A Hero of Our Time” the composition is one of the most active elements in recreating the history of the human soul. The principle of chronological sequence is replaced by the psychological sequence of “recognition” of the hero by the reader.

Ticket number 7Moral problems in the novel "A Hero of Our Time"

The novel “A Hero of Our Time” is the first in the history of Russian literature realistic novel with deep philosophical content. In the preface to the novel, Lermontov writes that his novel is a portrait of "not one person, but a portrait made up of the vices of our entire generation in their full development."
Pechorin lived in the first years after the defeat of the December uprising. These were difficult years for Russia. The best people executed, exiled to the Siberian mines, others renounced their free-thinking ideas. In order to preserve faith in the future, to find the strength in oneself for active work in the name of the coming triumph of freedom, one had to have a noble heart, one had to be able to see the real ways of fighting and serving the truth.
The overwhelming majority of thinking people in the 30s of the 19th century were precisely those who did not manage or did not yet have time to acquire this clarity of purpose, to give their strength to the struggle, from whom the ingrained order of life took away faith in the expediency of serving good, faith in its coming triumph. The dominant type of the era was that type human personality, which is known in the history of Russian social thought under the bitter name extra person.
Pechorin belongs entirely to this type. Before us is a young twenty-five-year-old man, suffering from his restlessness, in despair asking himself the question: “Why did I live, for what purpose was I born?” Pechorin is not an ordinary representative of the secular aristocracy. He stands out from the background of the people around him with his originality. He knows how to critically approach any event, to any person. It gives clear and accurate characteristics to people. He quickly and correctly understood Grushnitsky, Princess Mary, Dr. Werner. Pechorin is bold, has great endurance and willpower. He is the only one who rushes into the hut, where the killer Vulich is sitting with a pistol, ready to kill the first one who enters him. He does not show his excitement when he stands under Grushnitsky's pistol.
Pechorin is an officer. He serves, but is not served. And when he says: “My ambition is suppressed by circumstances,” it is not difficult to understand what he means: many were just making a career in those years, and “circumstances” did not prevent them from doing so.
Pechorin has an active soul, requiring will, movement. He prefers an inactive life to expose his forehead to Chechen bullets, looking for oblivion in risky adventures, changing places, but all this is just an attempt to somehow dissipate, to forget about the vast emptiness that oppresses him. He is haunted by boredom and the consciousness that living like this is hardly "worth the trouble."
In Pechorin, nothing betrays the presence of any public interests. The spirit of skepticism, disbelief, denial, which is sharply reflected in Pechorin's entire inner warehouse, in the cruel coldness of his merciless aphorisms, speaks for itself. And it is not for nothing that the hero often repeats that “he is not capable of great sacrifices for the good of mankind,” that he is used to “doubting everything.”
The main spring of Pechorin's actions is individualism. He goes through life without sacrificing anything for others, even for those he loves: he also loves only “for himself”, for his own pleasure. Lermontov reveals Pechorin's individualism and considers not only his psychology, but also the ideological foundations of his life. Pechorin is a true product of his time, a time of search and doubt. He is in an invariable split spirit, the seal of constant introspection lies on his every step. “There are two people in me: one lives in the full sense of the word, the other thinks and judges him,” Pechorin says.
For Pechorin does not exist public ideals. What moral principles does he follow? “Of two friends, one is always the slave of the other,” he says. Hence his inability to true friendship and love. He is a selfish and indifferent person, looking "at the suffering and joys of others only in relation to himself." Pechorin considers himself the creator of his own destiny and his only judge. Before his conscience, he constantly reports, he analyzes his actions, trying to penetrate into the sources of "good and evil."
With the life story of Pechorin, Lermontov shows that the path of individualism is contrary to human nature, its needs.
A person begins to acquire true joys and a true fullness of life only where relations between people are built according to the laws of goodness, nobility, justice, and humanism.

Ticket number 8Features of the genre and composition of the poem "Dead Souls"

Gogol had long dreamed of writing a work "in which all of Rus' would appear." It was supposed to be a grandiose description of the life and customs of Russia in the first third of the 19th century. Such a work was the poem "Dead Souls", written in 1842. The first edition of the work was called "The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls." Such a name reduced the true meaning of this work, translated into the field of an adventure novel. Gogol did this for censorship reasons, 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 the poem, Gogol calls it either a poem or a novel. To understand the features of the genre of the poem "Dead Souls", you can compare this work with the "Divine Comedy" by Dante, a poet of the Renaissance. Her 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 lyrical hero to hell, they go through all the circles, a whole gallery of sinners passes before their eyes. The fantasy of the plot does not prevent Dante from revealing the theme of his homeland Italy, her fate. In fact, Gogol conceived to show the same circles of hell, but the hell of Russia. No wonder the title of the poem "Dead Souls" ideologically echoes the title of the first part of Dante's poem "The Divine Comedy", which is called "Hell". Gogol, along with satirical denial, introduces an element of glorifying, creative image of Russia. This image is associated with a "high lyrical movement", which in the poem sometimes replaces the comic narrative.

A significant place in the poem "Dead Souls" is occupied by digressions and inserted episodes, which is typical for the poem as literary genre. In them, Gogol deals with 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 contrasted here gloomy pictures Russian life.

So, let's go for the hero of the poem "Dead Souls" Chichikov in N.

From the very first pages of the work, we feel the fascination of the plot, since the reader cannot assume that after the meeting of Chichikov with Manilov there will be meetings with Sobakevich and Nozdrev. The reader cannot guess about the end of the poem either, because all its characters are drawn according to the principle of gradation: one is worse than the other. For example, Manilov, if considered as a separate image, cannot be perceived as goodie(on the table he has a book open on the same page, and his politeness is feigned: "Let me not allow you to do this>>), but compared to Plyushkin, Manilov even wins in many ways. However, Gogol put the image of Korobochka in the center of attention , since it is a kind of single beginning of all 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 bureaucracy runs through all of Gogol's work: it stands out both in the Mirgorod collection and in the comedy The Inspector General. 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 has great importance for disclosure ideological content works. The form of the tale gives the story vital character: she denounces the government.

The world of "dead souls" in the poem is opposed by a lyrical image people's Russia about which Gogol writes with love and admiration.

Behind scary world landlord and bureaucratic Russia, Gogol felt the soul of the Russian people, which he expressed in the image of a rapidly rushing forward troika, embodying the forces of Russia: So, we settled on what Gogol depicts in his work. He portrays the social disease of society, but we should also dwell on how Gogol manages to do this.

First, Gogol uses the techniques of social typification. In the image of the gallery of landowners, he skillfully combines the general and the individual. Almost all of his characters are static, they do not develop (except for Plyushkin and Chichikov), they are captured by the author as a result. This technique emphasizes once again that all these Manilovs, Korobochki, Sobakevichs, Plyushkins are dead souls. To characterize his characters, Gogol also uses his favorite technique of characterizing a character through a detail. Gogol can be called a "genius of detail", so accurately sometimes the details reflect the character and inner world of the character. What is worth, for example, the description of the estate and the house of Manilov! When Chichikov drove into the Manilov estate, he drew attention to the overgrown English pond, to the rickety arbor, to the dirt and desolation, to the wallpaper in Manilov’s room, either gray or blue, to two chairs covered with matting, which the hands never reached at the owner. All these and many other details lead us to main feature, made by the author himself: "Neither this nor that, but the devil knows what it is!" Let's remember Plyushkin, this "hole in humanity", who even lost his gender.

He goes out to Chichikov in a greasy dressing gown, some unthinkable scarf on his head, everywhere desolation, dirt, dilapidation. Plyushkin extreme degree of degradation. And all this is conveyed through a detail, through those little things in life that A. page Pushkin so admired: “Not a single writer has ever had this gift to expose the vulgarity of life so vividly, to be able to outline the vulgarity of a vulgar person in such force that all that trifle, which escapes from the eyes, would have flashed large in the eyes of everyone.

main topic poems are the fate of Russia: its past, present and future. In the first volume, Gogol revealed the theme of the past of the motherland. The second and third volumes he conceived were to tell about the present and future of Russia. This idea can be compared with the second and third parts of " Divine Comedy» Dante: "Purgatory" and "Paradise". However, these plans were not destined to come true: the second volume was 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 rushing to? Give me an answer! Doesn't give an answer."

Ticket number 9Souls dead and alive. Dead Souls

Who are the "dead souls" in the poem?

“Dead Souls” - this title carries something terrifying ... Not revisionists - dead souls, but all these Nozdrevs, Manilovs and others - these are dead souls and we meet them at every step, ”wrote Herzen.

In this meaning, the expression "dead souls" is no longer addressed to the peasants - living and dead - but to the masters of life, landowners and officials. And its meaning is metaphorical, figurative. After all, physically, financially, “all these Nozdrevs, Manilovs and others” exist and for the most part flourish. What can be more certain than the bear-like Sobakevich? Or Nozdryov, about whom it is said: “He was like blood with milk; health seemed to spurt from his face. But physical being is not yet human life. Vegetative existence is far from true spiritual movements. "Dead souls" denote in this case deadness, soullessness. And this lack of spirituality manifests itself in at least two ways. First of all, it is the absence of any interests, passions. Remember what is said about Manilov? “You won’t expect any lively or even arrogant words from him, which you can hear from almost anyone if you touch the subject that bullies him. Everyone has his own, but Manilov had nothing. Most hobbies or passions cannot be called high or noble. But Manilov did not have such passion either. He didn't have anything at all. And the main impression that Manilov made on his interlocutor was a feeling of uncertainty and "mortal boredom."

Other characters - landowners and officials - are far from being so impassive. For example, Nozdrev and Plyushkin have their own passions. Chichikov also has his own "enthusiasm" - the enthusiasm of "acquisition". And many other characters have their own "bullying object", setting in motion a wide variety of passions: greed, ambition, curiosity, and so on.

So, in this respect, "dead souls" are dead in different ways, to different degrees and, so to speak, in different doses. But in another respect they are dead in the same way, without distinction or exception.

Dead soul! This phenomenon seems contradictory in itself, composed of mutually exclusive concepts. Can there be a dead soul, a dead person, that is, something that is by its nature animate and spiritual? Can't live, shouldn't exist. But it exists.

A certain form remains from life, from a person - a shell, which, however, regularly sends vital functions. And here another meaning of Gogol's image of "dead souls" is revealed to us: dead souls of the revision, that is, symbol dead peasants. Revision dead souls are concrete, reviving faces of peasants who are treated as if they were not people. And the dead in spirit - all these Manilovs, Nozdrevs, landowners and officials, a dead form, a soulless system of human relationships ...

All these are facets of one Gogol concept - "dead souls", artistically realized in his poem. And the facets are not isolated, but make up a single, infinitely deep image.

Following his hero, Chichikov, moving from one place to another, the writer leaves no hope of finding such people who would carry the beginning of a new life and rebirth. The goals that Gogol and his hero set for themselves are diametrically opposed in this respect. Chichikov is interested in dead souls in the literal and figurative sense of the word - revisionist dead souls and people who are dead in spirit. And Gogol is looking for a living soul in which a spark of humanity and justice burns.

At the beginning of work on the poem, N.V. Gogol wrote to V.A. Zhukovsky: "What a huge, what an original plot! What a diverse bunch! All Rus' will appear in it." So Gogol himself defined the scope of his work - all of Rus'. And the writer was able to show in its entirety both negative and positive sides Russian life of that era. Gogol's idea was grandiose: like Dante, to portray the path of Chichikov, first in "hell" - I volume of "Dead Souls", then "in purgatory" - II volume of "Dead Souls" and "in paradise" - Volume III. But this plan was not carried out to the end, only Volume I reached the reader in full, in which Gogol shows negative sides Russian life.

In Korobochka, Gogol presents us with another type of Russian landowner. Household, hospitable, hospitable, she suddenly becomes "club-headed" in the scene of the sale of dead souls, afraid to sell too cheap. This is the type of person on his mind.

In Nozdryov, Gogol showed a different form of decomposition of the nobility. The writer shows us two essences of Nozdryov: at first he is an open, daring, direct face. But then you have to make sure that Nozdryov's sociability is an indifferent familiarity with everyone you meet and cross, his liveliness is an inability to concentrate on some serious subject or business, his energy is a waste of energy in carousing and debauchery. His main passion, according to the writer himself, is "to spoil your neighbor, sometimes for no reason at all."

Sobakevich is akin to Korobochka. He, like her, is a hoarder. Only unlike Korobochka, this is a smart and cunning hoarder. He manages to deceive Chichikov himself. Sobakevich is rude, cynical, uncouth; No wonder he is compared with an animal (bear). By this Gogol emphasizes the degree of man's savagery, the degree of necrosis of his soul. Plyushkin completes this gallery of "dead souls". It's eternal in classical literature the image of a miser. Plyushkin is an extreme degree of economic, social and moral decay of the human personality.

To the gallery of the landowners who are essentially " dead souls", adjoin and provincial officials.

Who can we call living souls in the poem, and do they exist? I think Gogol did not intend to oppose the life of the peasantry to the suffocating atmosphere of the life of officials and landlords. On the pages of the poem, the peasants are far from being depicted in pink colors. The footman Petrushka sleeps without undressing and "always carries with him some special smell." The coachman Selifan is not a fool to drink. But it is precisely for the peasants that Gogol has both kind words and a warm intonation when he speaks, for example, of Pyotr Neumyvay-Koryto, Ivan Koleso, Stepan Probka, and the resourceful peasant Yeremey Sorokoplekhin. These are all the people whose fate the author thought about and asked the question: "What have you, my hearts, been doing in your lifetime? How did you survive?"

But there is at least something bright in Rus', not susceptible to corrosion under any circumstances, there are people who make up the "salt of the earth." Did Gogol himself come from somewhere, this genius of satire and singer of the beauty of Rus'? Eat! Must be! Gogol believes in this, and therefore at the end of the poem appears artistic image Rus'-troika, rushing into the future, in which there will be no nostrils, plushies. A trio bird rushes forward. "Rus, where are you going? Give me an answer. Doesn't give an answer."

A short essay-reasoning on literature on the topic: Peasant Rus' in the poem "Dead Souls" for grade 9. The image of the people in the poem

When we hear mention of " Dead souls Gogol, the "acquirer" Chichikov and the galaxy of vicious landowners trailing behind him involuntarily pop up before our eyes. And this is the right association, because the most frequent topics for reflection were precisely these images, it is not without reason that the poem is called “Dead Souls”. But how many people tried to find on what pages Gogol hid living souls, bright images in which the author's hope for the future of Russia is felt? Are they there at all? Maybe the writer saved these characters for two other volumes that he never finished? And, in the end, do these “living souls” exist at all, or is there only evil in us, inherited from those same landlords?

I want to dispel doubts right away: for an inquisitive reader, Gogol has living souls in store! You just have to look closely at the text. The writer only mentions them in passing, either not wanting to show these images ahead of time, or strictly observing the concept of the work, in accordance with which there should have been only dead souls. We see these images on the pages of the "revision tales" that Sobakevich wrote about his dead peasants in the hope of selling them at a higher price. Stepan Cork was listed with him as “a hero who would have been suitable for the guard”, Maxim Telyatnikov - “a miracle, not a shoemaker”, Yeremey Sorokoplekhin - the one that “brought five hundred rubles a quitrent”. Also, some runaway peasants of Plyushkin were awarded a mini-biography. For example, Abakum Fyrov, a free barge hauler, pulling his strap "under one endless, like Rus', song." All these people flash only once, few even stop at their names at the first reading, but it is with the help of their stories that Gogol creates an even greater contrast between the “dead and the living” in the poem. It turns out a double oxymoron: on the one hand, living people are presented in the poem as “dead”, hopeless, vulgar, and people who have gone to another world seem to us more “alive” and brighter. Isn't this a hint that Gogol sees only decline in a country where worthy people, the foundation on which the power stands, "go to the ground", and the "dead" landowners continue to grow rich and profit from honest workers?

The writer expresses his idea that all the greatness of the country rests not on vile landowners who do not bring any benefit to the Fatherland, but on the contrary, only breed its poverty, raging with fat, ruining their serfs. All the hope of the author rests on the Russian people, ordinary people who are oppressed and offended in every possible way, but who do not give up, truly loving their country and paving the right path for the “troika bird” with their own efforts.

It is difficult to understand who is really a “dead soul” and who is not, because in Gogol it is not so unambiguous and is understood after repeated reading. “A real book cannot be read at all - it can only be re-read,” Nabokov said, and this is definitely about Dead Souls. There are many unresolved questions in this poem, but there are just as many answers given by the author to the fact that there is our country and the people in it, who is a great evil on Russia's path to prosperity, and who, not knowing the greatness of their everyday small deeds, is all leads her to well-being and success.

Interesting? Save it on your wall!

Who are the "dead souls" in the poem?

In this meaning, the expression "dead souls" is no longer addressed to the peasants - living and dead - but to the masters of life, landowners and officials. And its meaning is metaphorical, figurative. After all, physically, financially, “all these Nozdrevs, Manilovs and others” exist and for the most part flourish. What can be more certain than the bear-like Sobakevich? Or Nozdryov, about whom it is said: “He was like blood with milk; health seemed to spurt from his face. But physical existence is not yet human life. Vegetative existence is far from true spiritual movements. “Dead souls” in this case mean deadness, lack of spirituality. And this lack of spirituality manifests itself in at least two ways. First of all, it is the absence of any interests, passions. Remember what is said about Manilov? “You won’t expect any lively or even arrogant words from him, which you can hear from almost anyone if you touch the subject that bullies him. Everyone has his own, but Manilov had nothing. Most hobbies or passions cannot be called high or noble. But Manilov did not have such passion either. He didn't have anything at all. And the main impression that Manilov made on his interlocutor was a feeling of uncertainty and "mortal boredom."

A certain form remains from life, from a person - a shell, which, however, regularly sends vital functions. And here another meaning of Gogol's image of "dead souls" is revealed to us: the revision dead souls, that is, the conventional designation of dead peasants. Revision dead souls are concrete, reviving faces of peasants who are treated as if they were not people. And the dead in spirit - all these Manilovs, Nozdrevs, landowners and officials, a dead form, a soulless system of human relationships ...

All these are facets of one Gogol concept - "dead souls", artistically realized in his poem. And the facets are not isolated, but make up a single, infinitely deep image.

Following his hero, Chichikov, moving from one place to another, the writer leaves no hope of finding such people who would carry the beginning of a new life and rebirth. The goals that Gogol and his hero set for themselves are diametrically opposed in this respect. Chichikov is interested in dead souls in the literal and figurative sense of the word - dead souls of the revision and people who are dead in spirit. And Gogol is looking for a living soul in which a spark of humanity and justice burns.