Dead souls meaning. The meaning of the title of the poem N

(Option 1)

The title of Gogol's poem "Dead Souls" has many meanings. There is no doubt that the poem was influenced by Dante's Divine Comedy. The title “Dead Souls” ideologically echoes the title of the first part of Dante’s poem – “Hell”.

WITH " dead souls“The plot of the work itself is connected: Chichikov buys up dead peasants, who are listed as “souls” in revision tales, so that, having drawn up a bill of sale, he can pledge the purchased peasants as living ones to the guardianship council and receive a tidy sum for them.

The social orientation of the work is associated with the concept of “dead soul”. Chichikov's idea is ordinary and fantastic at the same time. It is common because the purchase of peasants was an everyday matter, and fantastic because those from whom, according to Chichikov, “only one sound that is not tangible with the senses” are sold and bought. No one is outraged by this deal; the most distrustful are only slightly surprised. “It has never happened before to sell... dead people. I would have given up the living ones, so I gave two girls to the archpriest for three years, one hundred rubles each,” says Korobochka. In reality, a person becomes a commodity, where paper replaces people.

The content of the concept of “dead soul” is gradually changing. Abakum Fyrov, Stepan Probka, coachman Mikhey and other dead peasants bought by Chichikov are not perceived as “dead souls”: they are shown as bright, original, talented people. This cannot be attributed to their owners, who turn out to be “dead souls” in the true sense of the word.

But “dead souls” are not only landowners and officials: they are “unresponsive dead inhabitants”, terrible “with the motionless coldness of their souls and the barren desert of their hearts.” Any person can turn into Manilov and Sobakevich if “an insignificant passion for something small” grows in him, forcing him “to forget great and holy duties and see great and holy things in insignificant trinkets.” “Nozdryov will not leave the world for a long time. He’s everywhere between us and maybe he’s just wearing a different caftan.” It is no coincidence that the portrait of each landowner is accompanied by a psychological commentary that reveals its universal meaning. In the eleventh chapter, Gogol invites the reader not just to laugh at Chichikov and other characters, but “to deepen this difficult question into the interior of one’s own soul: “Isn’t there some part of Chichikov in me too?” Thus, the title of the poem turns out to be very capacious and multifaceted.

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 for ordinary people the soul is only what distinguishes a living person from a dead person. In the episode of the prosecutor’s death, those around him realized that he “had a real soul” only when he became “only a soulless body.”

(Option 2)

The title of N. V. Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls” reflects main idea works. If you take the title of the poem literally, you can see that it contains the essence of Chichikov’s scam: Chichikov bought dead peasants (“souls”).

There is an opinion that Gogol planned to create “Dead Souls” by analogy with “ Divine Comedy"Dante, which consists of three parts: "Hell", "Purgatory", "Paradise". The three volumes conceived by N.V. Gogol had to correspond to them. In the first volume, N.V. Gogol wanted to show the terrible Russian reality, to recreate “hell” modern life, in the second and third volumes - the spiritual rise of Russia.

In himself, N.V. Gogol saw a writer-preacher who, painting a picture of the revival of Russia, leads it out of the crisis. When publishing " Dead souls» N.V.

The world of “Dead Souls” is divided into two parts: the real world, where the main character is Chichikov, and the ideal world of lyrical digressions, in which main character- N.V. Gogol himself.

Manilov, Sobakevich, Nozdrev, prosecutor - here typical representatives real world. Throughout the entire poem, their character does not change: for example, “Nozdryov at thirty-five years old was the same as at eighteen and twenty.” The author constantly emphasizes the callousness and soullessness of his heroes. Sobakevich “had no soul at all, or he had it, but not at all where it should be, but, like immortal Koshchei, somewhere behind the mountains and is covered with such a thick shell that everything that moved at the bottom did not produce any shock on the surface.” All the officials in the city have the same frozen souls without the slightest development. N.V. Gogol describes officials with evil irony.

At first we see that life in the city is in full swing, but in reality it is just a meaningless bustle. In the real world of the poem, a dead soul is a common occurrence. For these people, the soul is only what distinguishes a living person from a dead one. After the death of the prosecutor, everyone realized that he “had a real soul” only when all that was left of him was “only a soulless body.”

The title of the poem is a symbol of life county town N., and this city, in turn, symbolizes all of Russia. N.V. Gogol wants to show that Russia is in crisis, that the souls of people have petrified and died.

In an ideal world there is alive soul the narrator, and therefore it is N.V. Gogol who can notice all the baseness of life in the fallen city. In one of the lyrical digressions, the souls of the peasants come to life when Chichikov, reading the list of the dead, resurrects them in his imagination.

In the real world of “Dead Souls” there are only two heroes whose souls have not yet completely died, these are Chichikov and Plyushkin. Only these two characters have a biography, we see them in development, that is, before us are not just people with frozen souls, but we see how they got to this state.

The ideal world of “Dead Souls,” which appears to readers in lyrical digressions, is the complete opposite of the real world. In an ideal world there are not and cannot be dead souls, since there are no Manilovs, Sobakevichs, or prosecutors. For the world of lyrical digressions, the soul is immortal, since it is the embodiment of the divine principle of man.

Thus, in the first volume of “Dead Souls” N.V. Gogol depicts all the negative aspects of Russian reality. The writer reveals to people that their souls have become dead, and, pointing out the vices of people, thereby brings their souls back to life.

(Option 3)

N.V. Gogol was always concerned with the problems of spirituality - both of society as a whole and of the individual. In his works, the writer sought to show society “the full depth of its real abomination.” Ironically, laughing at human vices, Gogol sought to avoid the deadness of the soul.

The meaning of the title of the poem “Dead Souls,” firstly, is that the main character, Chichikov, buys dead souls from landowners in order to pledge two hundred rubles each to the guardianship council and thus make up capital for himself; secondly, Gogol shows in the poem people whose hearts have hardened and their souls have ceased to feel anything. What is destroying these officials and landowners? According to Gogol, “acquisition is the fault of everything,” therefore it is the theme of the penny that appears everywhere in the work, where we're talking about about dead souls.

The father bequeathed to Chichikov: “... most of all, take care and save a penny...” Subsequently, following this advice, Chichikov from an ordinary boy turned into a businessman and a trickster, with almost nothing sacred left in his soul. Apparently, this is why D.S. Merezhkovsky called Chichikov “the wandering knight of money.”

Just as the schoolboy Pavlusha sewed five rubles into bags, Korobochka collected “little by little money into colorful bags placed in the chest of drawers.” Gogol, through the mouth of Chichikov, calls Korobochka “club-headed,” meaning, apparently, not only that she is a narrow-minded woman, but also that she is callous in soul and heart. Korobochka, like Chichikov, only had a passion for accumulation. Plyushkin also has this same trait, only in an exaggerated form. Every day he walked around his village, picking up everything that came his way, and putting it in a pile in the corner of the room. It was about this hero that Gogol wrote: “And a person could condescend to such insignificance and disgust!” If we compare Plyushkin's pile and Chichikov's traveling box, we can come to the conclusion that these are similar things, with the only difference being that Chichikov has all the items: soap dish, razors, sandboxes, inkwells, feathers, sealing wax, business tickets, theater tickets and others, papers, money - according to plan. Moral life None of the landowners and officials have any, they are spiritually dead.

Some researchers believe that the sequence according to which Chichikov ended up with the landowners is similar to Dante’s nine circles of hell, where the severity of sins increases from the first circle to the ninth, actually from Manilov to Plyushkin. One may not agree with this statement, but it is quite possible to assume that every landowner is a kind of sin, the severity of which only the Lord can judge.

In general, “Dead Souls” is a work about the contrast and unpredictability of Russian reality (the very name of the poem is an oxymoron). The work contains both a reproach to people and admiration for Russia. Gogol wrote about this in Chapter XI of Dead Souls. The writer argued that along with “ dead people“In Russia there is a place for heroes, because every title, every position requires heroism. Why? Yes, because they, these places, are disgraced by bribe takers and bureaucrats. The Russian people, “full of the creative abilities of the soul,” have a heroic mission. However, this mission, according to Gogol, in the times described in the poem is practically impossible, since there is a possibility of manifestation of heroism, but the morally shattered Russian people do not see them behind something superficial and unimportant. This is the plot insert of the poem about Kif Mokievich and Mokia Kifovich. However, Gogol believes that if the people open their eyes to their omission, to their dead souls, then Russia will finally fulfill its heroic mission.

The poem also contains characters who are spiritually alive and given development. These are peasants who died, but who had spiritual life during their lifetime: Fedotov, Pyotr Savelyev Neuvazhai-Koryto, Stepan Probka - “that hero who would have been fit for the guard,” Maxim Telyatnikov, Grigory You’ll Not Get There, Eremey Karyakin, Nikita and Andrey Volokita , Popov, Abakum Fyrov and others. And most importantly, it is the living soul of the narrator, and therefore it is N.V. Gogol who can notice all the baseness of life in the fallen city.

“Dead Souls” can be considered a confessional work, since N.V. Gogol noticed shortcomings not only in those around him, but also in himself. The writer said that he endowed the heroes of the poem “with my own rubbish, on top of their own nastyness.” Gogol believed that his work would make readers think about their soul: whether it is alive or not.

The meaning of the name and the originality of the genre of the poem by N.V. Gogol's "Dead Souls"

Plan

Introduction

1 Main part

1.1 The meaning of the title of the poem “Dead Souls”

1.2 Definition of N.V. Gogol of the Dead Souls genre

1.3 Genre originality of the poem “Dead Souls”

2 Conclusions on the genre uniqueness of “Dead Souls”

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

“Dead Souls” is a brilliant work by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. It was on him that Gogol placed his main hopes.

"Dead Souls" - poem. The history of its creation covers almost the entire creative life writer. The first volume was created in 1835 - 1841 and was published in 1842. The writer worked on the second volume from 1840 to 1852. In 1845 he first burned ready text. By 1851 he finished new option volumes - and burned it on February 11, 1852, shortly before his death.

“Dead Souls” are closely connected with the name of Pushkin and were created under his influence. Pushkin gave Gogol the plot of Dead Souls. Gogol spoke about this in “The Author's Confession”: “Pushkin 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.

Soon Gogol read the first chapters of the poem to Pushkin. He himself spoke about this: “When I began to read the first chapters from “Dead Souls” to Pushkin in the form as they were before, Pushkin, who always laughed when I read (he was a lover of laughter), began to gradually become more and more gloomy and darker, and finally became completely gloomy. When the reading ended, he said in a voice of melancholy: “God, how sad our Russia is.” It amazed me. Pushkin, who knew Russia so well, did not notice that all this was a caricature and my own invention! It was then that I saw what a matter taken from the soul means, and spiritual truth in general, and in what a terrifying form for a person darkness and the frightening absence of light can be presented. Since then, I began to think only about how to soften the painful impression that “Dead Souls” could make.

Let's remember this: Gogol in “Dead Souls” was looking for such a combination of darkness and light that the pictures he created would not terrify a person, but would give hope.

But where is the light in his paintings? It seems that if it exists, it is only in lyrical digressions - about the healing endless road, about fast driving, about Rus', which rushes like a “brisk, unovertaken troika.” That’s right, but it has long been noticed that none other than Chichikov travels along these roads, and almost in his head a reasoning imbued with lyrical pathos is born...

The world of the poem “Dead Souls” is a world where events, landscapes, interiors, people are as reliable as they are fantastic; to shift these images in your consciousness to one or the other pole means to impoverish them; the tension between the poles expresses Gogol’s attitude towards Russia, its past, present and future.

So what is the meaning of the title of the poem? Why did Gogol call “Dead Souls” a poem? How to understand this?

The purpose of this study is to find out the meaning of the title of the poem “Dead Souls” and explain the features of the genre of this work.

To do this, it is necessary to solve the following problems:

1. Creatively study the poem “Dead Souls.”

2. Trace N.V. Gogol’s opinion about the poem.

3. Consider critical materials about the poem “Dead Souls”.

1 Main part

1.1 The meaning of the title of the poem “Dead Souls”

The title “Dead Souls” is so ambiguous that it has given rise to a host of reader guesses, scientific disputes and special studies.

The phrase “dead souls” sounded strange in the 1840s and seemed incomprehensible. F. I. Buslaev said in his memoirs that when he “first heard the mysterious title of the book, he first imagined that it was some kind of science fiction novel or story like “Viy.” Indeed, the name was unusual: the human soul was considered immortal, and suddenly dead souls!

“Dead souls,” wrote A. I. Herzen, “this title carries something in itself terrifying" The impression of the name was strengthened by the fact that this expression itself was not used in literature before Gogol and was generally little known. Even experts in the Russian language, for example, Moscow University professor M.P. Pogodin, did not know it. He wrote indignantly to Gogol: “There are no dead souls in the Russian language. There are revision souls, assigned souls, departed souls, and arrived souls.” Pogodin, collector of ancient manuscripts, expert historical documents and the Russian language, wrote to Gogol from full knowledge affairs. Indeed, this expression was not found either in government acts, or in laws and other official documents, or in scientific, reference, memoir, fiction. M. I. Mikhelson, reprinted many times in late XIX century collection catchphrases Russian language quotes the phrase “dead souls” and makes reference only to Gogol’s poem! Mikhelson did not find any other examples in the enormous literary and dictionary material he reviewed.

Whatever the origins, the main meanings of the title can only be found in the poem itself; here, and in general, every well-known word acquires its own, purely Gogolian connotation.

There is a direct and obvious meaning of the name, arising from the history of the work itself. The plot of “Dead Souls,” like the plot of “The Inspector General,” was given to him, according to Gogol, by Pushkin: he told the story of how a cunning businessman bought landowners are dead souls, i.e. dead peasants. The fact is that since Peter’s time in Russia, every 12–18 years, audits (checks) of the number of serfs were carried out, since for a male peasant the landowner was obliged to pay the government a “poll tax”. Based on the results of the audit, “revision tales” (lists) were compiled. If during the period from revision to revision a peasant died, he was still listed on the lists and the landowner paid taxes for him - until new lists were compiled.

It was these dead people who were considered alive that the rogue businessman decided to buy up on the cheap. What was the benefit here? It turns out that the peasants could be pledged to the Guardian Council, that is, they could receive money for each “dead soul”.

The highest price that Chichikov had to pay for the “dead soul” of Sobakevich was two and a half. And in the Guardianship Council he could receive 200 rubles for each “soul”, i.e. 80 times more.

Chichikov's idea is ordinary and fantastic at the same time. It is common because the purchase of peasants was an everyday matter, and fantastic because those from whom, according to Chichikov, “only one sound, intangible by the senses, are sold and bought.”

No one is outraged by this deal; the most distrustful are only slightly surprised. In reality, a person becomes a commodity, where paper replaces people.

So, the first, most obvious meaning of the name: “dead soul” is a peasant who has died, but exists in a paper, bureaucratic “guise”, and who has become the subject of speculation. Some of these “souls” have their own names and characters in the poem, they are told about different stories, so that even if it is reported how death happened to them, they come to life before our eyes and look, perhaps, more alive than other “characters.”

« Milushkin, brickmaker! He could install 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 it’s a drunken mouth...

Carriage maker Mikheev! After all, I never made any other carriages other than spring ones...

And Cork Stepan, the carpenter? After all, what kind of power was that! If he had served in the guard, God knows what they would have given him, three arshins and an inch tall!”

Secondly, Gogol meant landowners by “dead souls”

serf-owners who oppressed the peasants and interfered with the economic and cultural development countries.

But “dead souls” are not only landowners and officials: they are “unresponsive dead inhabitants”, terrible “with the motionless coldness of their souls and the barren desert of their hearts.” Any person can turn into Manilov and Sobakevich if “an insignificant passion for something small” grows in him, forcing him “to forget great and holy duties and see great and holy things in insignificant trinkets.”

It is no coincidence that the portrait of each landowner is accompanied by a psychological commentary that reveals its universal meaning. In the eleventh chapter, Gogol invites the reader not just to laugh at Chichikov and other characters, but to “deepen this difficult question inside one’s own soul: “Isn’t there some part of Chichikov in me too?” Thus, the title of the poem turns out to be very capacious and multifaceted.

The artistic fabric of the poem consists of two worlds, which can be conventionally designated as the “real” world and the “ideal” world. Real world the author shows by recreating contemporary reality. 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 for ordinary people the soul is only what distinguishes a living person from a dead person.

The title given by Gogol to his poem was “Dead Souls,” but on the first page of the manuscript submitted to the censor, censor A.V. Nikitenko added: “The Adventures of Chichikov, or... Dead Souls.” That’s what Gogol’s poem was called for about a hundred years.

This cunning postscript muffled social significance poem, distracted readers from thoughts about the terrible title “Dead Souls”, emphasized the significance of Chichikov’s speculations. A.V. Nikitenko reduced the original, unprecedented name given by Gogol to the level of the names of numerous novels of sentimental, romantic, protective directions, which lured readers with amazing, ornate titles. The naive trick of the censor did not reduce the value genius creation Gogol. Currently, Gogol's poem is published under the title given by the author - “Dead Souls”.

In May 1842, the first volume of Gogol's Dead Souls was published. The work was conceived by the author while he was working on The Inspector General. In Dead Souls, Gogol addresses the main theme of his work: the ruling classes of Russian society. The writer himself said: “My creation is huge and great, and its end will not come soon.” Indeed, “Dead Souls” is an outstanding phenomenon in the history of Russian and world satire.

"Dead Souls" - a satire on serfdom

“Dead Souls” - a work In this Gogol is a successor Pushkin's prose. He himself speaks about this on the pages of the poem in a lyrical digression about two types of writers (Chapter VII).

Here the peculiarity of Gogol's realism is revealed: the ability to expose and show close-up all the flaws human nature, which are not always obvious. “Dead Souls” reflected the basic principles of realism:

1. Historicism. The work is written about modern writer time - the turn of the 20-30s of the 19th century - then serfdom experienced a serious crisis.
2. Typical character and circumstances. Landowners and officials are depicted satirically with a clearly expressed critical focus, the main social types. Special attention Gogol pays attention to details.
3. Satirical typification. It is achieved author's description characters, comic situations, appeal to the past of heroes, hyperbolization, use of proverbs in speech.

Meaning of the name: literal and metaphorical

Gogol planned to write a work in three volumes. He took Dante Alighieri’s “The Divine Comedy” as a basis. Likewise, Dead Souls was supposed to consist of three parts. Even the title of the poem refers the reader to Christian principles.

Why "Dead Souls"? The name itself is an oxymoron, a juxtaposition of the incomparable. The soul is a substance that is inherent in the living, but not in the dead. Using this technique, Gogol gives hope that not all is lost, that the positive principle in the crippled souls of landowners and officials can be reborn. This is what the second volume should have been about.

The meaning of the title of the poem “Dead Souls” lies on several levels. On the very surface there is a literal meaning, because dead peasants were called dead souls in bureaucratic documents. Actually, this is the essence of Chichikov’s fraud: to buy dead serfs and take money as collateral. The main characters are shown in the circumstances of the sale of peasants. “Dead souls” are the landowners and officials themselves that Chichikov encounters, because there is nothing human or living left in them. They are ruled by the thirst for profit (officials), feeble-mindedness (Korobochka), cruelty (Nozdryov) and rudeness (Sobakevich).

The deep meaning of the name

All new aspects are revealed as you read the poem “Dead Souls”. The meaning of the title, hidden in the depths of the work, makes us think about the fact that any person, a simple layman, can eventually turn into Manilov or Nozdryov. It is enough for one small passion to settle in his heart. And he will not notice how vice will grow there. To this end, in Chapter XI, Gogol calls on the reader to look deep into his soul and check: “Is there some part of Chichikov in me too?”

Gogol laid down in the poem “Dead Souls” a multifaceted meaning of the title, which is revealed to the reader not immediately, but in the process of comprehending the work.

Genre originality

When analyzing “Dead Souls,” another question arises: “Why does Gogol position the work as a poem?” Really, genre originality creations are unique. In the process of working on the work, Gogol shared his creative discoveries with friends in letters, calling “Dead Souls” both a poem and a novel.

About the second volume of "Dead Souls"

In a state of deep creative crisis Over the course of ten years, Gogol wrote the second volume of Dead Souls. In correspondence, he often complains to friends that things are going very slowly and are not particularly satisfying.

Gogol turns to the harmonious, positive image landowner Kostanzhoglo: judicious, responsible, using scientific knowledge in the structure of the estate. Under its influence, Chichikov reconsiders his attitude to reality and changes for the better.

Seeing “life’s lies” in the poem, Gogol burned the second volume of “Dead Souls.”

Name of this work Gogol, is primarily associated with the main character Chichikov, who bought up dead peasants. To start your own business. But in fact, he wanted to sell these dead souls and get rich.

But this is not the only meaning of the title of this work; the author wanted to show true souls society, that they have long since hardened and died. This is evident from the fact that each character in this work has no spiritual development.

Chichikov travels all over Russia in order to buy more peasants for his new estate. But he sees that most rich people see almost nothing around them except their base desires. The landowner Manilov does not do anything and does not do any useful things. He spends all his time talking and talking, or indulging in daydreams.

The landowner Sobakevich is like an animal, he is all his own free time, is eating something. And the portion sizes are so huge that an ordinary person cannot afford them.

The box from which Chichikov bought souls dead peasants. She loves nothing in life except trading, and you can only talk to her on this topic or on the topic of food. Because she loves to eat and treats everyone to all kinds of dishes.

This is Plyushkin in general separate character, who is not only dead in soul, but also does not fit into any framework normal person. Collect so much goodness and all sorts of things, but do not use them and do not sell them or give them to poor people.

This is blatant greed, in the work it is written in detail that Plyushkin has mountains of moldy bread, could it really not have been given to other people?

All landowners like Korobochka, Sobakevich, Nozdryov do not live a spiritual life, but are busy filling their pockets and bellies, eating all kinds of dishes.

Officials are also not at all interested in anything other than their work, in order to receive profit and bribes from all the visitors who come to them. The landowners overeat and rejoice at the new dishes. Plyushkin is not even interested in new and tasty dishes; he is busy accumulating his unprecedented wealth. He has reached the end of his rope in this matter, he collects all his wealth, but eats food worse than the beggars. This is the highest level of stinginess.

Initially, Gogol wanted to write the poem “Dead Souls” in three parts, raising the souls of the entire society, from the very bottom, from hell then to purgatory, and then when these sick souls are cured, they go to heaven.

Hence the meaning of the work: society is in a terrible dead-end development. Spiritual development No. But the author still hopes that people will come to their senses and their souls will go to heaven. And peace, high spirituality will reign in the world and high moral principles will be valued.

What is the meaning of the name?

In 1842, the first volume of one of the most famous and sensational works of N.V. was released. Gogol’s prose poem “Dead Souls,” the title of which illustrates the dominant idea of ​​the work. As N. Berdyaev said about Gogol: “The most mysterious figure in Russian literature.” So what is the author hiding under such a mystical name for his brainchild?

The main motive of the prose poem “The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls” is multifaceted and multifaceted. The idea for the plot was taken on the friendly advice of Pushkin and on the basis of the plot suggested by him. This entire work is a medical history, an awareness of the horror and shame that a person experiences when he sees his real face in the mirror. Under the veil of the false, the author shows us the real truth. Gogol in his poem increasingly notes the callousness and cowardice of his heroes.

If we think straightforwardly, then a dead soul is a person’s lack of rational ideology, the passivity of his activities and the primitiveness of his activities and aspirations. In this case, it no longer matters which social circle the character belongs to, because the dead soul is society as a whole. On the one hand, this is the designation of a deceased serf, a “revision soul”, which according to documents is listed as alive. Many characters, starting with Chichikov, are already defined by the very act of buying and selling non-existent people. Completely perverted relationships are formed, turned upside down. At first it appears that city ​​life is seething, but in reality it is just ordinary fuss.

Dead soul in inner world poems are common. Here, for people, the soul is only what distinguishes a dead person from a living one. This is what A.I. wrote about the poem. Herzen: ““Dead Souls” - this title itself carries something terrifying in itself.” Indeed, hidden behind all this is another, completely different, deeper meaning: to reveal the entire plan in three parts, like Dante’s three-part poem “The Divine Comedy”. It is assumed that Gogol intended to create three volumes corresponding to the chapters “Hell”, “Purgatory” and “Paradise”, where in the first part he wanted to reveal the terrifying Russian reality, the “hell” of the modern way of life, and in the second and third parts of the three-volume set - the spiritual the rise of Russia.

From this we can conclude that N.V. Gogol tried to reveal real picture life landed nobility, a hopeless dead end, decline and spiritual decay using the example of the heroes of the work. The author in the first part of “Dead Souls” tries to convey negative traits Russian life, he hints to people that their souls have become dead, and, pointing out their vices, brings them back to life.

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Introduction

Back in 1835, Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol began work on one of his most famous and significant works - the poem “Dead Souls”. Almost 200 years have passed since the publication of the poem, but the work remains relevant to this day. Few people know that if the author had not made some concessions, the reader might not have seen the work at all. Gogol had to edit the text many times just so that the censor would approve the decision to publish it. The version of the title of the poem proposed by the author did not suit the censorship. Many chapters of “Dead Souls” were changed almost completely and were added lyrical digressions, and the story about Captain Kopeikin lost its harsh satire and some characters. The author, if you believe the stories of his contemporaries, even wanted to place on the title page of the publication an illustration of a chaise surrounded by human skulls. There are several meanings for the title of the poem “Dead Souls”.

Name ambiguity

The title of the work “Dead Souls” is ambiguous. Gogol, as you know, conceived a three-part work by analogy with Dante’s “Divine Comedy”. The first volume is Hell, that is, the abode of dead souls.

Secondly, the plot of the work is connected with this. In the 19th century, dead peasants were called “dead souls.” In the poem, Chichikov buys documents for deceased peasants, and then sells them to the guardianship council. Dead souls were listed as alive in the documents, and Chichikov received a considerable sum for this.

Thirdly, the name emphasizes the acute social problem. The fact is that at that time there were a great many sellers and buyers of dead souls; this was not controlled or punished by the authorities. The treasury was emptying, and enterprising swindlers were making a fortune for themselves. The censorship strongly recommended that Gogol change the title of the poem to “The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls,” shifting the emphasis to Chichikov’s personality rather than to an acute social problem.

Perhaps Chichikov’s idea will seem strange to some, but it all comes down to the fact that there is no difference between the dead and the living. Both are for sale. Both dead peasants and landowners who agreed to sell documents for a certain reward. A person completely loses his human outline and becomes a commodity, and his entire essence is reduced to a piece of paper that indicates whether you are alive or not. It turns out that the soul turns out to be mortal, which contradicts the main postulate of Christianity. The world is becoming soulless, devoid of religion and any moral and ethical guidelines. Such a world is described epically. The lyrical component lies in the description of nature and the spiritual world.

Metaphorical

The meaning of the title “Dead Souls” by Gogol is metaphorical. It becomes interesting to look at the problem of the disappearance of boundaries between the dead and the living in the description of the purchased peasants. Korobochka and Sobakevich describe the dead as if they were alive: one was kind, the other was a good plowman, the third had golden hands, but those two did not take a drop into their mouths. Of course, there is a comic element in this situation, but on the other hand, all these people who once worked for the benefit of the landowners are presented in the readers’ imagination as alive and still living.

The meaning of Gogol's work, of course, is not limited to this list. One of the most important interpretations lies in the characters described. After all, if you look, then everything characters, except for the dead souls themselves, turn out to be inanimate. Officials and landowners have been mired in routine, uselessness and aimlessness of existence for so long that the desire to live does not appear in them in principle. Plyushkin, Korobochka, Manilov, the mayor and the postmaster - they all represent a society of empty and senseless people. The landowners appear before the reader as a series of heroes, arranged according to the degree of moral degradation. Manilov, whose existence is devoid of everything worldly, Korobochka, whose stinginess and pickiness knows no bounds, the lost Plyushkin, ignoring obvious problems. The soul in these people died.

Officials

The meaning of the poem “Dead Souls” lies not only in the lifelessness of the landowners. Officials present a much more frightening picture. Corruption, bribery, nepotism. A common person finds himself hostage to the bureaucratic machine. The piece of paper becomes the determining factor human life. This can be seen especially clearly in “The Tale of Captain Kopeikin.” A war disabled person is forced to go to the capital only to confirm his disability and apply for a pension. However, Kopeikin is unable to understand and break the management mechanisms, unable to come to terms with the constant postponement of meetings, Kopeikin commits a rather eccentric and risky act: he sneaks into the official’s office, threatening that he will not leave until his demands are heard. The official quickly agrees, and Kopeikin loses his vigilance from the abundance of flattering words. The story ends with the civil servant's assistant taking Kopeikin away. No one heard anything more about Captain Kopeikin.

Vices exposed

It is no coincidence that the poem is called “Dead Souls.” Spiritual poverty, inertia, lies, gluttony and greed kill a person’s desire to live. After all, anyone can turn into Sobakevich or Manilov, Nozdryov or the mayor - you just need to stop striving for something other than your own enrichment, come to terms with the current state of affairs and implement some of the seven deadly sins, continuing to pretend that nothing is happening.

The text of the poem contains wonderful words: “but centuries pass after centuries; Half a million Sidneys, bumpkins and boibaks sleep soundly, and rarely is a husband born in Rus' who knows how to pronounce it, this almighty word “forward.”

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