Description of the provincial city. Composition “The image of the city in Gogol’s novel“ Dead Souls
(end) The contrast between fussy external activity and internal ossification is striking. The life of the city is dead and meaningless, like the whole life of this crazy modern world. The features of alogism in the image of the city are brought to the limit: the story begins with them. Let us recall the stupid, meaningless conversation of the peasants, whether the wheel will roll to Moscow or to Kazan; the comical idiocy of the signs "And here is the establishment", "Foreigner Ivan Fedorov" ... Do you think Gogol composed this?
Nothing like this! In the remarkable collection of essays on the life of the writer E. Ivanov "Apt Moscow Word" an entire chapter is devoted to the texts of signboards. The following are given: "Kebab master from a young Karachay lamb with Kakhetian wine.
Solomon", "Professor of chansonnet art Andrei Zakharovich Serpoletti". And here are completely "Gogol" ones: "Hairdresser Musyu Zhoris-Pankratov", "Parisian hairdresser Pierre Musatov from London. A haircut, a breeze and a perm. "Where are the poor "Foreigner Ivan Fedorov" before them!
But E. Ivanov collected curiosities at the beginning of the 20th century - that is, more than 50 years have passed since the creation of "Dead Souls"!
Both the "Paris hairdresser from London" and "Mussie Zhoris Pankratov" are the spiritual heirs of Gogol's heroes. In many ways, the image of the provincial city in Dead Souls resembles the image of the city in The Inspector General. But - pay attention! - Enlarged scale. Instead of a town lost in the wilderness, from where "if you ride for three years, you won't reach any state," the central city is "not far from both capitals." Instead of the small fry of the mayor - the governor. And life is the same - empty, meaningless, illogical - "dead life".
The artistic space of the poem consists of two worlds, which can be conditionally designated as the "real" world and the "ideal" world. The author builds the "real" world by recreating the contemporary reality of Russian life. In this world live Plyushkin, Nozdrev, Sobakevich, the prosecutor, the chief of police and other heroes who are original caricatures of Gogol's contemporaries. D.S. Likhachev emphasized that "all the types created by Gogol were strictly localized in the social space of Russia. For all the universal features of Sobakevich or Korobochka, they are all at the same time representatives of certain groups of the Russian population of the first half of the 19th century."
According to the laws of the epic, Gogol recreates a picture of life in the poem, striving for the maximum breadth of coverage. It is no coincidence that he himself admitted that he wanted to show "at least from one side, but the whole of Russia." Having painted a picture of the modern world, creating caricature masks of his contemporaries, in which the weaknesses, shortcomings and vices characteristic of the era are exaggerated, brought to the point of absurdity - and therefore both disgusting and funny - Gogol achieves the desired effect: the reader sees how immoral his world is. And only then the author reveals the mechanism of this distortion of life. The chapter "Knight of the penny", which is placed at the end of the first volume, becomes an "inserted short story" compositionally. Why do people not see how vile their lives are?
And how can they understand this, if the only and main instruction received by the boy from his father, the spiritual covenant, is expressed in two words: "save a penny"?" Comic lies everywhere, - said N.V. Gogol.
Living among it, we do not see it: but if the artist transfers it to art, to the stage, then we ourselves will wallow with laughter. "He embodied this principle of artistic creativity in Dead Souls. Letting readers see how terrible and their lives are comical, the author explains why people themselves do not feel this, at best they do not feel it acutely enough. pointers to see what the world around him is like. The "ideal" world is built in strict accordance with true spiritual values, with that lofty ideal to which the human soul aspires.
The author himself sees the "real" world so voluminously precisely because it exists in a "different system of coordinates", lives according to the laws of the "ideal" world, judges himself and life by the highest criteria - by striving for the Ideal, by proximity to it. The title of the poem contains the deepest philosophical meaning. Dead souls are nonsense, the combination of the incompatible is an oxymoron, because the soul is immortal. For the "ideal" world, the soul is immortal, for it is the embodiment of the Divine principle in man.
And in the "real" world there may well be a "dead soul", because the day of his soul is only what distinguishes a living person from a dead person. In the episode of the prosecutor's death, those around him guessed that he "was definitely a soul" only when he became "only a soulless body." This world is insane - it has forgotten about the soul, and lack of spirituality is the cause of decay, the true and only one. Only with an understanding of this reason can the revival of Rus' begin, the return of lost ideals, spirituality, the soul in its true, highest meaning. The "ideal" world is the world of spirituality, the spiritual world of man.
There is no Plyushkin and Sobakevich in it, there cannot be Nozdryov and Korobochka. It has souls - immortal human souls. It is ideal in every sense of the word, and therefore this world cannot be recreated epic. The spiritual world describes a different kind of literature - lyrics. That is why Gogol defines the genre of the work as lyrical-epic, calling "Dead Souls" a poem.Recall that the poem begins with a meaningless conversation between two peasants: will the wheel reach Moscow; from a description of the dusty, gray, endlessly dreary streets of a provincial town; with all sorts of manifestations of human stupidity and vulgarity. The first volume of the poem is completed by the image of the Chichikov britzka, ideally transformed in the last lyrical digression into a symbol of the ever-living soul of the Russian people - a wonderful "troika bird". The immortality of the soul is the only thing that gives the author faith in the obligatory revival of his heroes - and of all life, therefore, of all of Rus'.
Based on materials: Monakhova O.P.
Malkhazova M. V. Russian literature of the XIX century.
1. The role of Pushkin in the creation of the poem.
2. Description of the city.
3. Officials of the provincial city NN.
It is known that A. S. Pushkin was highly valued by N. V. Gogol. Moreover, the writer often perceived the poet as an adviser or even a teacher. It is Pushkin who owes much to the lovers of Russian literature in the appearance of such immortal works of the writer as "The Inspector General" and "Dead Souls".
In the first case, the poet simply suggested a simple plot to the satirist, but in the second he made him seriously think about how an entire era can be represented in a small work. Alexander Sergeevich was sure that his younger friend would certainly cope with the task: “He always told me that not a single writer had this gift to expose the vulgarity of life so vividly, to outline the vulgarity of a vulgar person in such force that all that trifle, which eludes the eyes, would have flashed large in the eyes of everyone. As a result, the satirist managed not to disappoint the great poet. Gogol quickly determined the concept of his new work, Dead Souls, based on a fairly common type of fraud in the purchase of serfs. This action was already filled with more significant meaning, being one of the main characteristics of the entire social system of Russia during the reign of Nicholas.
The writer thought for a long time about what his work is. Pretty soon, he came to the conclusion that "Dead Souls" is an epic poem, since it "embraces not some features, but the entire era of time, among which the hero acted with the way of thinking, beliefs and even knowledge that humanity did at that time ". The concept of the poetic is not limited in the work only to lyricism and author's digressions. Nikolai Vasilyevich set his sights on more: on the volume and breadth of the idea as a whole, on its universality. The action of the poem takes place approximately in the middle of the reign of Alexander I, after the victory in the Patriotic War of 1812. That is, the writer returns to the events of twenty years ago, which gives the poem the status of a historical work.
Already on the first pages of the book, the reader gets acquainted with the main character - Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, who, on personal business, stopped by the provincial town of NN. nothing special, no different from other similar cities. The guest noticed that “yellow paint on stone houses was very striking and gray on wooden houses was modestly dark. The houses were one, two and one and a half stories high with an eternal mezzanine, very beautiful, according to provincial architects. In places, these houses seemed lost among the wide, field-like streets and endless wooden fences; in some places they crowded together, and here there was noticeably more movement of the people and liveliness. All the time emphasizing the mediocrity of this place and its similarity with many other provincial cities, the author hinted that the life of these settlements, for sure, also differed little. So, the city began to acquire a completely generalizing character. And now, in the imagination of readers, Chichikov no longer finds himself in a specific place, but in some collective image of the cities of the Nikolaev era: double-headed state eagles, which have now been replaced by a laconic inscription: "Drinking House". The pavement was bad everywhere.”
Even in the description of the city, the author emphasizes the hypocrisy and deceitfulness of the inhabitants of the city, or rather, its managers. So, Chichikov looks into the city garden, consisting of thin trees that have not taken root well, but the newspapers said that “our city was decorated, thanks to the care of the civil ruler, with a garden consisting of shady, broad-branched trees, giving coolness on a hot day.”
Governor of the city of NN. like Chichikov, he was "not fat or thin, had Anna around his neck, and it was even said that he was introduced to the star, however, he was a big good man and sometimes even embroidered on tulle." Pavel Ivanovich on the very first day of his stay in the city traveled with visits to all secular society, and everywhere he managed to find a common language with new acquaintances. Of course, Chichikov’s ability to flatter and the narrow-mindedness of local officials played a significant role in this: “The governor will be somehow casually hinted that you enter his province like in paradise, the roads are velvet everywhere ... He said something very flattering about the city guards to the police chief ; and in conversations with the vice-governor and the chairman of the chamber, who were still only state councilors, he even said by mistake twice: "your excellency", which they liked very much. This was enough for everyone to recognize the newcomer as a completely pleasant and decent person and invite him to the governor's party, where the "cream" of the local society gathered.
The writer ironically compared the guests of this event with squadrons of flies that rush in the midst of July summer on white refined sugar. Chichikov did not lose face here either, but behaved in such a way that soon all officials and landowners recognized him as a decent and most pleasant person. Moreover, this opinion was dictated not by any good deeds of the guest, but solely by his ability to flatter everyone. Already this fact eloquently testified to the development and customs of the inhabitants of the city of NN. Describing the ball, the author divided the men into two categories: “... some are thin, who all hung around the ladies; some of them were of such a kind that it was difficult to distinguish them from Petersburg ... Another kind of men were fat or the same as Chichikov ... These, on the contrary, squinted and backed away from the ladies and looked only around .. They were honorary officials in the city.” Immediately, the writer concluded: "... thick people know how to do their business better in this world than thin ones."
Moreover, many representatives of high society were not without education. So, the chairman of the chamber recited V. A. Zhukovsky’s “Lyudmila” by heart, the police chief was a wit, others also read N. M. Karamzin, some “Moskovskie Vedomosti”. In other words, the good level of education of officials was questionable. However, this did not at all prevent them from managing the city, if necessary, jointly defending their interests. That is, a special class was formed in a class society. Allegedly freed from prejudice, officials perverted the laws in their own way. In the city of N.N. as in other similar cities, they enjoyed unlimited power. It was enough for the chief of police to blink, passing by the fish row, and food was brought to his house for preparing a sumptuous dinner. It was the customs and not too strict customs of this place that allowed Pavel Ivanovich to achieve his goals so quickly. Very soon the main character became the owner of four hundred dead souls. The landowners, without hesitation and caring for their own benefit, willingly ceded their goods to him, and at the lowest price: dead serfs were not needed in the economy.
Chichikov did not even need to make an effort to make deals with them. The officials also did not ignore the most pleasant guest and even offered him their help for the safe delivery of the peasants to the place. Pavel Ivanovich made only one serious miscalculation, which led to trouble, he outraged the local ladies with his indifference to their persons and increased attention to the young beauty. However, this does not change the opinion of local officials about the guest. Only when Nozdryov blabbed in front of the governor that a new person was trying to buy dead souls from him, did high society become thoughtful. But even here it was not common sense that ruled, but gossip that grew like a snowball. That is why Chichikov began to be credited with the kidnapping of the governor's daughter, and the organization of the peasants' revolt, and the manufacture of counterfeit coins. Only now officials have begun to feel such anxiety about Pavel Ivanovich that many of them have even lost weight.
As a result, society generally comes to an absurd conclusion: Chichikov is Napoleon in disguise. The inhabitants of the city wanted to arrest the main character, but they were very afraid of him. This dilemma led the prosecutor to his death. All these unrest unfold behind the back of the guest, because he is sick and does not leave the house for three days. And it never occurs to any of his new friends to just talk to Chichikov. Having learned about the current situation, the main character ordered to pack his things and left the city. As completely and vividly as possible, Gogol in his poem showed the vulgarity and meanness of the mores of the provincial cities of that time. Ignorant people in power in such places set the tone for the entire local society. Instead of managing the province well, they held balls and parties, solving their personal problems at public expense.
“All Rus' will appear in it,” N.V. Gogol himself wrote about his work. Sending his hero on a journey through Russia, the author seeks to show everything that is characteristic of the Russian national character, everything that forms the basis of Russian life, the history and modernity of Russia, tries to look into the future ... From the height of his ideas about the ideal, the author judges “everything terrible, amazing mud of little things that have entangled our lives.
The insightful look of N.V. Gogol explores the life of Russian landowners, peasants, the state of people's souls. He does not bypass his attention and the Russian city.
In one of the manuscripts relating to the sketches of the poem, N.V. Gogol writes: “The idea of the city. Emptiness that has arisen to the highest degree. Empty talk. Gossip that has crossed the limits, how it all arose from idleness and took on the expression of the ridiculous in the highest degree. And then - a tragic look at this idea: “How the emptiness and powerless idleness of life are replaced by a muddy, meaningless death. How senseless this terrible event is… Death strikes the unmoving world.” Let's see what embodiment this original idea of Gogol received.
As in The Inspector General, in Dead Souls N.V. Gogol draws a generalized picture of the Russian city, the administrative and bureaucratic center in general. And therefore, as always, the writer shows us the city through the image of officials.
The governor, a rather significant figure in tsarist Russia, embroiders charmingly on tulle, and this is his main advantage. The chief of police enters the shops as if he were at home, but, as the merchants say, "but he certainly won't give you away." The prosecutor, according to Sobakevich, is an idle person ... the lawyer Zolotukha does everything for him. The ability of the official of the serf expedition Ivan Antonovich, the pitcher snout, to take bribes has become a proverb. Gogol always believed in the high purpose of the state, and therefore the complete disregard of officials for their duties is especially terrible for him.
A position for them is only a means of acquiring ranks, an opportunity to live an idle, carefree life. The entire administrative system in the city is arranged in such a way that it is easier for officials to take bribes, rob the treasury and have fun. All officials are interconnected, and therefore will not betray each other. It is no coincidence that in the drafts of the poem, Sobakevich gives the following description of the city: "The whole city is a robber's den."
But not only administrative relations in the city in themselves are of interest to N.V. Gogol. As in the landowner, the writer tries to find a soul in the officials of the provincial city - and does not find it. It is no coincidence that N. V. Gogol, thinking about what constitutes the main features of the city, emphasizes: an untouched world. In Gogol's philosophy, movement is one of the main categories. Everything immovable is not only dead in its essence, but also incapable of rebirth.
The key episode that reveals the essence of life in the city is the death of the prosecutor. On the one hand, it is comic in nature, but on the other, perhaps, it is more than tragic. There are two reasons for this. The first is that, according to N.V. Gogol, “... the appearance of death was just as scary in a small person as it is scary in a great person.” The second is connected with the general Gogol concept of man.
“Here, prosecutor! lived, lived, and then died! and now they will print in the newspapers that he died, to the regret of his subordinates and all the people
- New!
The theme of Russia and its future has always worried writers and poets. Many of them tried to predict the fate of Russia and explain the situation in the country. So N.V. Gogol reflected in his works the most important features of the era, contemporary to the writer, ...
Unlike Nozdryov, Sobakevich cannot be counted as people hovering in the clouds. This hero stands firmly on the ground, does not entertain illusions, soberly evaluates people and life, knows how to act and achieve what he wants. With the character of his life, Gogol is in everything ...
Gogol, according to V. G. Belinsky, "was the first to look boldly and directly at Russian reality." The writer's satire was directed against the "general order of things", and not against individuals, bad executors of the law. Predatory money-grubber Chichikov, landowners...
N.V. Gogol is one of the greatest figures in Russian classical literature. The pinnacle of the writer's work is the poem "Dead Souls" one of the outstanding works of world literature, according to Belinsky, "creation, ...
THE IMAGE OF THE CITY IN THE POEM OF N. V. GOGOL. Compositionally, the poem "Dead Souls" consists of three externally closed, but internally interconnected circles - the landlords, the city, Chichikov's biography, united by the image of the road, plotted by the protagonist's scam.
But the middle link - the life of the city - itself consists, as it were, of narrowing circles, gravitating towards the center; this is a graphic representation of the provincial hierarchy. Interestingly, in this hierarchical pyramid, the governor, embroidering on tulle, looks like a puppet figure. True life is in full swing in the civil chamber, in the "Temple of Themis". And this is natural for administrative-bureaucratic Russia. Therefore, the episode of Chichikov's visit to the chamber becomes central, the most significant in the theme of the city.
The description of presence is the apotheosis of Gogol's irony. The author recreates the true sanctuary of the Russian Empire in all its ridiculous, ugly form, reveals all the power and at the same time the weakness of the bureaucratic machine. Gogol's mockery is merciless: before us is a temple of bribery, his only "living nerve."
In this alleged temple, in this citadel of depravity, the image of Hell is being revived - though vulgarized, comic - but truly Russian Hell. A kind of Virgil also arises - he turns out to be a “petty demon” - a chamber official who “served our friend, as Virgil once served Dant, and led them into the presence room, where there were only wide chairs and in them in front of a table, behind a mirror and two thick books sat alone, like the sun, the chairman. In this place, Virgil felt such reverence that he did not dare to put his foot there ... ”How brilliant Gogol's irony! How incomparable is the chairman - the "sun" of the Civil Chamber! How inimitably comical is this wretched Paradise, before which the collegiate registrar is seized with awe! And the funniest - as well as the most tragic, terrible! - the fact that the newly-minted Virgil truly honors the chairman with the sun, his office with Paradise, his guests with holy angels ...
How smaller, how fulfilled souls are in such a world! How pathetic and insignificant are their ideas about the fundamental concepts for a Christian - Paradise, Hell, soul!
What is considered a soul is best shown in the episode of the prosecutor’s death: after all, the people around guessed that “the deceased had, for sure, a soul” only when he died and became “only a soulless body.” For them, the soul is a physiological concept! And this is a spiritual disaster.
In contrast to the quiet, measured life of the landowners, where time seems to be frozen, the life of the city is in full swing, bubbling. But this life is illusory, it is not activity, but empty vanity. What stirred up the city, made everything move in it? Gossip about Chichikov. All this is funny and terrible at the same time. Empty talk that develops into spiritual emptiness is the main idea of Gogol's city.
The contrast between fussy external activity and internal ossification is striking. The life of the city is dead and meaningless, like the whole life of this crazy world. The features of alogism in the image of the city are brought to the limit: the story begins with them. Remember the stupid, meaningless conversation of the peasants, the wheel will roll to Moscow or Kazan; the comical idiocy of the signs “And here is the establishment”, “Foreigner Ivan Fedorov” ...
In many ways, the image of the provincial city in Dead Souls resembles the image of the city in The Inspector General. But the scale has been enlarged: instead of a town lost in the wilderness, from where “if you ride for three years, you won’t reach any state”, the central city is “not far from both capitals”. Instead of the small fry of the mayor - the governor. But life - empty, illogical, meaningless - is the same: "dead life."
In N. V. Gogol's poem "Dead Souls" a panorama of Russia of the 30s of the 19th century is revealed to the reader, because the writer's intention was to "show at least from one side, but all of Rus'." It is this global idea that explains the genre originality of the work: the genre of the poem allows you to combine both epic and lyrical beginnings in one text, that is, the author's voice, his position, his pain are very strong in Dead Souls, and the poem also implies a wider coverage of the events depicted . One of the tasks of the work is to characterize all social strata of society, which is why the poem includes the landlords, the provincial nobility, the bureaucracy, the metropolitan society, and the peasants.
The work begins with a description of the provincial town NN, a typical Russian town of that time (it is no coincidence that the town does not have a specific name, because any other may take its place).
First, the reader gets acquainted with the inhabitants of the city - two peasants who are discussing the cart that has entered the gate with Chichikov sitting in it. Their conversation is very colorful: the peasants wonder if the wheel of the chaise will reach Moscow first, and then Kazan. Gogol, on the one hand, ironically draws his characters: two idle peasants solve a completely useless problem; on the other hand, the reader is already ready for the perception of "dead souls", which later will turn out to be both officials of a provincial city and landowners. Against their background, the peasants are the only "living souls", distinguished by their lively mind, curiosity, thirst for life, and interest in it.
The reader gets a second impression of the provincial city when he gets acquainted with the hotel where Chichikov stays. The author emphasizes in every possible way the fact that the hotel is no different from similar establishments in other cities: it is long, two stories high, the top of which is painted with “eternal yellow paint”, and there are shops in the bottom; "dead" rooms with cockroaches and doors lined with chests of drawers. The author does not hide his irony in relation to the life of a provincial town, for example, he compares the face of a sbitennik with his own samovar, emphasizing that the difference between them is only in the beard.
To characterize the city, the reaction of Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov is important, who, having rested, went to inspect the surrounding area. The hero was satisfied, because "the city was in no way inferior to other provincial cities." The wretchedness and gloom of the Russian provinces is striking: yellow and gray paint, a wide street with randomly located houses on it, endless wooden fences, shabby shops, the absurdity of which Gogol emphasizes with an inscription on one of them: "Foreigner Vasily Fedorov"; drinking establishments were most often encountered, which indicates the main hobby of the city's residents. The writer draws attention to the condition of the pavement, since roads are, in a sense, the face of the city. The city garden, which, according to newspaper reports, was supposed to be “shady, broad-branched trees that give coolness on a hot day,” actually consisted of thin twigs, and this fact testifies, firstly, to the activities of city rulers, and in - secondly, about the venality and hypocrisy of the city press.
Thus, without getting acquainted with the city authorities, the reader gets an idea about them and their activities "for the good of the city." When Gogol presents a gallery of local officials, whom (without exception) Chichikov visits to pay his respects, they are first of all characterized by the fact that Pavel Ivanovich is treated kindly by everyone and accepted as one of his own, he is immediately invited to a house party, some to lunch, some for Boston, some for a cup of tea.
Naturally, the hallmark of the city is its governor, whose belonging to the class "neither fat nor thin" gives him a kind of right to power. Usually, when introducing a person, they try to point out his best qualities, and if this is a person on whom the fate of a city or country depends, then it is necessary to determine his business qualities. The distinctive feature of the governor was that he had Anna around his neck. Sneering at him, Gogol emphasizes that, despite Anna, the governor was kind and even embroidered on tulle. It is unlikely that all this can be useful for the head of the city, as well as for a huge number of other city officials: vice-governor, prosecutor, chairman of the chamber, police chief, farmer, head of state-owned factories, and so on (all, the author hints, it is impossible to remember) .
It is significant that the "powerful of this world" do not even have names, because the most important thing that is valued in this society is rank, and only this criterion is important for evaluating Gogol's officials. In addition, the author makes it clear to the reader that in the place of the city NN there can be any other provincial city and there will be the same set of "performing service" people. The ladies of the city do not have names either, because for them the main thing is appearance, so one will be considered “a lady just pleasant”, the other - “a lady pleasant in all respects”. Describing them, Gogol claims that they "were what they call presentable", thereby emphasizing that compliance with conventions, following etiquette are the meaning of life for this circle of people.
The climactic scene of the episode is the scene of the governor's ball. Gogol very subtly chooses artistic means to describe the local society. The most convex is the comparison of the audience present with black flies on the "white shining refined sugar during the hot July summer..." , then fly away again, then fly again. That is, their movement is completely meaningless, chaotic, and the fly people themselves do not cause any positive emotions.
In addition, Gogol gives a certain classification of the men present at the ball, thereby showing that we are not faced with individuals, but only human types, and their typicality is determined primarily by external factors, and these factors “work” not only in the provincial town of NN , but also "everywhere". Men were divided into thin, fat, and also not too fat, but not thin either, and the fate of each turned out to be predetermined precisely by which group he belonged to. The faces are also extremely colorful: the fat ones are full and round, with warts, pockmarked; hair either cut low or slicked down; facial features are rounded and strong; Naturally, these are honorary officials of the city and they know how to "handle their own business." Among the thin, courting ladies and dancing are considered the most important activities at the ball, and among the thick ones, cards, which officials indulge in with all seriousness: “All conversations have completely stopped, as always happens when they finally indulge in a sensible occupation.”
Thus, a provincial town is, as it were, a cross-section of the life of Russia as a whole, with its structure, political and social, with its vices and shortcomings, with its bureaucratic apparatus, unusually numerous and equally bankrupt, with its grayness and lack of education, eternal drunkenness, idleness. and so on. Getting acquainted with Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov with the provincial city of NN, the reader comprehends the originality of Russian life in the thirties of the nineteenth century and plunges into the position of the author, shares his pain and his hope for the future of Russia.
Review. The writing is distinguished by literacy and thoughtfulness. The author is fluent in the text of Gogol's poem and skillfully uses it to prove his thoughts. From the work it becomes clear that the author understood Gogol's position and realized that the image of a provincial town is a significant page in the characterization of all of Russia.
