Tragic and comic in The Inspector General (Gogol N.V.)
This feature of Gogol’s utopia also attracts attention. The most important thing must happen outside the immediate perception of the “Inspector General”. The experiences that renew the reader or viewer and all the spiritual work generated by them should unfold only when the reading or performance is already left behind (remember that the entire stage action of “Dénouement” recreates the situation after the performance). Gogol’s correspondence regarding “The Inspector General” also takes the problem of transforming the audience beyond its direct contact with The Inspector General himself. In this regard, the project of practical implementation of the utopian ideas outlined in the new play is interesting. We are talking about a new separate edition and a new performance of “The Inspector General”, dedicated to the benefit performance of M. S. Shchepkin. And it is impossible not to notice that Gogol sets two mandatory, from his point of view, conditions. Firstly, “The Inspector General” should be presented in the form in which it acquired after revision in 1841–1842, when the presence of a utopian plan in the comedy became more noticeable. Secondly, “The Inspector General” should be staged only together with “The Inspector General’s Denouement” (“with the addition of a tail,” as Gogol put it in a letter to Shchepkin on October 24, 1846). The author of The Inspector General insisted especially stubbornly on the second condition. Having encountered resistance from Shchepkin and partly from S.P. Shevyrev, whom he also tried to attract to the implementation of his project, Gogol tries to convince them and even makes concessions by reworking a new play. When it becomes clear that “The Inspector General’s Denouement” in any version is unacceptable to his correspondents, he abandons his project. The logic of his position is clear: either his comedy will be re-published along with the play that complements it (essentially, together with teaching, instruction, sermon), or it should not be published or staged on the theater stage. It turns out that his utopian plan seems impossible to him without combining the two plays into one whole. Apparently, Gogol suspected that “The Inspector General” by itself could not create the effect necessary to achieve his goal, that in the very artistic nature of his comedy there was some kind of obstacle that prevented it from being turned into a force that brings “formidable purification.”
In the search for this internal obstacle, one cannot ignore two obvious patterns that can be traced in the stage and creative stories of The Inspector General. The first of them boiled down to the following: in those productions in which it was possible to achieve stunning tragedy in the sound of the finale (in the production of V. E. Meyerhold, for example), the play ceased to be funny
Apparently, Gogol was not mistaken. Both laughter principles are combined inseparably in The Inspector General, and they are combined throughout the entire duration of the action. On the one hand, the most important law of satirical structure is observed all the time: none of the characters are corrected throughout the action, their original qualities remain the same, only revealing themselves more deeply and fully. But on the other hand, comedic metamorphoses occur here all the time, “upsetting,” as Galich would say, “the actual forms and relationships” of the depicted world.
Already the news of the upcoming appearance of the auditor disrupts the routine order in the life of Gogol’s city. The street immediately becomes entangled with a broom, a case with a hat, a marital letter with a tavern bill. Things and ideas are shifted from their places by the new situation, chaos penetrates the system, and this chaos gives rise to something like creative ferment. The primary impetus is given from the outside, but it awakens the internal elements of “urban” life. In the characters of the characters, some kind of latent obsession, or, rather, many different obsessions, reminiscent of the “enthusiasm” of the heroes of “Dead Souls”, intensifies and takes on an explosive character. The judge, without ceasing, is being smart, the trustee of charitable institutions is constantly spoiling his colleagues, the postmaster, obeying impulses of curiosity, every now and then opens and keeps other people's letters forever, etc. Everyone has their own such obsession, but they are all brought together by the ability to almost instantly reach extreme tension and pour out uncontrollable pressure into words, into action, into emotional excitement that captivates those around you.
Here lie the sources of irrational energy, grotesquely transforming the world depicted by Gogol. This energy is emitted primarily by Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky: they not only announce the appearance of the expected inspector, but also literally create him from the few details at their disposal. The desire to be the first to meet the auditor and the first to announce him to everyone acquires almost magical power. They need an auditor, and Khlestakov immediately becomes an auditor, for now only for them. Then their passionate impulse is transferred to other characters.
The power of this collective obsession ignites Khlestakov's own ambitions and his own energy. In the lying scene, he really looks the way people around him need to see him. And then the act of universal joint creativity creates a new reality. In the scenes of the fourth act, Khlestakov seems to become the inspector expected by everyone, fully fulfilling all his expected functions. And everyone else, as if infected by his lightness, is drawn into his game and already dares to do previously unimaginable desires, requests, actions, ascending in unbridled dreams to ranks, fame, luxury, and comfort unattainable in reality.
Even later, the rapid, almost vaudeville pace of the action makes it possible to weave another eccentric metamorphosis into its dynamics: sitting down to write a letter to his friend Tryapichkin, Khlestakov instantly turns into a lively accuser-feuilletonist. And in the scene of reading this letter, intercepted by the postmaster, several officials, as if in a clown show, alternately act as Khlestakov’s deputies, repeating and emphasizing the scathing assessments and characteristics given to him.
The news of the real auditor and the general “petrification” turn out to be another metamorphosis. Of course, this is a metamorphosis of a completely different kind than all the previous ones. The finale is a miracle in the precise sense of the word: it is a sharp violation of the already outlined laws of the depicted world. And yet, this is yet another metamorphosis, and, in a certain sense, prepared. It is prepared at least by the fact that the consciousness of the reader or viewer is already accustomed to the very possibility of continuous transformations of one thing into another. The depicted world is plastic enough for a miracle to happen in it. And at the same time, it is insolvent enough for a catastrophe to occur within it. Both main qualities of this world are united in the potential aspiration to another existence.
We can talk about a kind of interference between satirical denunciation and the actual comedic dynamics. The growing tension of the “auditor situation” contributes to the merciless exposure of social untruth: it is this that reveals its laws and “mechanism”. But it also introduces comedic “cheerful turmoil” (the expression of N. Ya. Berkovsky) into the world of familiar forms of life and consciousness, transforming absurdity into creative chaos, causing a “Dionysian” ferment of awakened elements and a rapid flow of destructive-creative transformations. Both functions are not only combined, but also connected: metamorphoses reveal the “obsessions” of the characters, “obsessions” generate the energy of metamorphoses.
True, the inseparability of two interacting structural and semantic principles creates contradictions that require resolution. The fact that the cheerful play of the creative forces of life and consciousness is constantly embodied in transformations, with all their tangibility - deceptive, gives the dynamics of action obvious ambivalence. It is this that requires an outcome: the metamorphoses that transform the comedic world captivate the consciousness that perceives them, but cannot satisfy it. There is something seductive and at the same time untrue about them: the feeling of the miraculous is excited, but also held back by the constant feeling that all transformations are not happening “for real.” And satirical ridicule - the very thing that with its sharpness holds back the ready to soar into boundless comedic delight - it, in turn, is held back by the fact that it cannot manifest itself in unconditional purity, by the fact that it is complicated by the cheerful adventurism of comedic laughter, by the fact that pleasure, Delivered by a comedy game with depicted reality, it can turn any ugliness into a “pearl of creation.” “Gogol involuntarily reconciles with laughter,” Herzen wrote about this in the book “Past and Thoughts”
"authorized person" was printed, and it became clear to everyone that Khlestakov was not a person at all.
Having subordinated the comic to the psychological depiction of characters, Gogol consistently abandoned the methods of external comedy: all kinds of brawls, blows with a stick, funny falls, distortion of words, stuttering, tongue twisters, puns, characteristic of contemporary vaudevilles. In “The Inspector General” there are only a few scenes close to the tradition of rude comedy. Giving urgent orders to receive the “auditor”, the Governor confuses the words and says that “everyone should pick up the street,” instead of saying “by broom.” A minute later he wants to put on a paper case instead of a hat. Bobchinsky, who overheard the conversation between Gorodnichy and Khlestakov, falls along with the door. An amusing confusion is contained in the note received by Anna Andreevna from her husband, which mentions “God’s mercy for two pickled cucumbers” and “half a portion of caviar, a ruble and twenty-five kopecks.” Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky, congratulating Anna Andreevna on her daughter’s “engagement,” “approached at the same time and butted heads.”
However, even ridiculous confusion in comedy can be motivated by the situation. So, the Mayor is in a hurry and worried when he wants to write one line to his wife in the presence of Khlestakov. There is no blank paper in the room, but there are unpaid bills, which the viewer learns about from Khlestakov’s previous conversation with Osip. One of these accounts was the cause of the misunderstanding.
Bobchinsky's eavesdropping, which became the reason for his absurd fall, can be explained not by the desire to find out the secret, since the Governor would have told about the content of his conversation with the "auditor", but by the desire to see the "actions" of the nobleman, that is, the desire of Gogol's hero to join something lofty and mysterious. It is not for nothing that later the same Bobchinsky, trying to signify his existence in the world, will ask Khlestakov to tell “all the different nobles there” in St. Petersburg, “that Peter Ivanovich Bobchinsky lives in such and such a city.”
One of the meanings of rude comedy in Gogol is to expose vice to the public, to neutralize it with laughter. In this sense, Gogol's farcical elements come closest to the traditions of folk humor. However, none of these amusing misunderstandings becomes a source of action in The Inspector General. They characterize the atmosphere of haste, confusion, and fear, but are not the reason for changes in the plot.
“The Inspector General” is a comedy of characters. The comic in it is almost entirely subordinated to the depiction of types and arises from the manifestation of their psychological and social properties. Gogol finds opportunities for the development of the plot not in external shocks - events coming from outside, but in those “surprises” that manifest themselves in the characters themselves. Laughing at the characters of a comedy, the viewer laughs not at their “crooked nose, but at their crooked soul.”
Legacy of N.V. Gogol cannot be imagined without the comedy “The Inspector General,” in which the great writer carried out a public execution by laughing at officials who were embezzlers, bribe-takers, and sycophants. As a satirist, Gogol attaches especially great importance to comedy. Its strength is laughter, which castigates many aspects of social life. No writer has had the gift of showing so clearly the vulgarity of life, the vulgarity of every person. The driving force in The Inspector General is not a love affair, but the state of society. The plot of the comedy is based on the commotion among officials awaiting the auditor and their desire to hide their affairs from him.
The comedy also ridiculed the everyday side of life of the city's inhabitants: mustiness and vulgarity, insignificance of interests, hypocrisy and lies, arrogance and gossip. The comedy is already emphasized by the names of the acting characters: Khlestakov, Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky, Tyapkin-Lyapkin, Ukhovertov, Poshlepkina, etc. The most comical thing, perhaps, is that one “empty” person is trying to deceive others who are just as “empty.” We are talking about the imaginary auditor - Khlestakov. The image of Khlestakov is written with exceptional artistic power and breadth of typical generalization. According to Gogol’s definition, Khlestakov is “one of those people who are called empty in the offices. He speaks and acts without any consideration.” Khlestakov himself does not know what he will say in the next minute; “Everything in it is a surprise and a surprise” for himself. He is comical in his desire to appear better than he is. For this, Khlestakov uses lies: “He lies with feeling; his eyes express the pleasure he received from this.”
But the most basic, characteristic feature of Khlestakov is the desire to play a role at least one inch higher than the one assigned to him.
The action in “The Inspector General” dates back to the early 30s of the century before last. Gogol very accurately depicts life and people at that time and gives them a general diagnosis. The satirist's penetrating gaze penetrates everywhere and nowhere does he find anything good. All the images in the play are comical and absurd.
So, the daughter and wife of the mayor look very funny in an attempt to recapture Khlestakov from each other:
“Anna Andreevna.<. ..>However, he really liked me: I noticed that he kept looking at me.
Marya Antonovna. Oh, mamma, he was looking at me!”
The inseparable couple Dobchinsky and Bobchinsky are comical. Bobchinsky dreams of one thing: “I humbly ask you, when you go to St. Petersburg, tell all the different nobles there: senators and admirals, that, your Excellency or Excellency, Peter Ivanovich Bobchinsky lives in such and such a city. Just say: Pyotr Ivanovich Bobchinsky lives.” And Dobchinsky is talking about something else - to see his eldest son under his last name: “That is, it just says so, but he was born to me as completely as if in marriage, and all this, as it should, I then completed legally - with the bonds of marriage - sir . So, if you please, I want him now to be completely, that is, my legitimate son, sir, and to be called like me: Dobchinsky, sir.”
The whole essence of the play is that everyone wants something impossible: the mayor sees Khlestakov as his future son-in-law and dreams of living in St. Petersburg; Tyapkin-Lyapkin dreams that judicial matters will be resolved on their own; Anna Andreevna dreams of a young lover, etc. All attempts by the characters to look significant make the reader laugh.
Gogol painted in The Inspector General the world of provincial officials of one of the cities of Russia. In essence, the play revealed the everyday life of provincial Russia. Each image, without losing its individual character, represents a typical phenomenon of that time - the beginning of the 19th century. And we still laugh at the heroes of The Inspector General, comparing them with their contemporaries.
“Gogol’s Comedy The Inspector General” - Make a poster for the play. Declaration of love. Act I, scene 5. Officials discuss Khlestakov's letter. Scene of lies. Denouement is an event that ends an action. There were other similar stories told by Gogol's contemporaries. Homework. Mayor's wife and daughter. The story was typical for its time.
“Lessons from Gogol the Inspector General” - “Power and society in the comedy of N.V. Gogol "The Inspector General". Why are binary lessons on law needed in combination with other humanities: Binary lesson on literature and law “Power and society in the comedy of N.V. Gogol “The Inspector General” (8th grade). Binary lesson. Topic of a binary lesson on literature and law (8th grade):
“Comedy The Inspector General” - Development of actions. N.V. Gogol. The author belongs to famous Russian writers. Exposing the moral and social vices of bureaucracy in the comedy “The Inspector General.” It got me thinking... The climax. Seeing off Khlestakov. "Silent" scene. The beginning. Dictionary: The social and moral vices of bureaucracy have been revealed.
“Gogol the Inspector General” - 1842 - final edition of the play. Anton Antonovich draftsman - Dukhanovsky, mayor (city manager). N.V. Gogol worked on the text of the comedy for 17 years. IVAN ALEXANDROVICH KHLESTAKOV, OFFICIAL FROM St. Petersburg. "Inspector". “THE AUDITOR” Staged in the theatre. N.V. Gogol. 1851 - the author made the last changes to one of the replicas of Act 4.
“Gogol's Lesson the Inspector General” - Basic facts of the life and work of N.V. Gogol (dates are indicated according to the old style). Ivan Kuzmich Shpekin, postmaster. Fevronya Petrovna Poshlepkina, mechanic. Guests and guests, merchants, townspeople, petitioners. The success of each group member is the success of the whole group! Stepan Ivanovich Korobkin Stepan Ilyich Ukhovertov, private bailiff.
“Gogol the Inspector Literature” - April 19, 1836 on the stage of the Alexandria Theater in St. Petersburg. To Saratov. Artemy Filippovich Strawberry, trustee of charitable institutions. What institutions in Tsarist Russia were called godly? What is significant about 1836 for N.V. Gogol and A.S. Pushkin? What comedy hero were they talking about like that? I tell everyone openly that I take bribes, but with what bribes?
There are 8 presentations in total
1 Plot suggested by A.S. Pushkin.
3 Artistic techniques of satirical comedy.
4 Instructions N.V. Gogol for actors.
5 The public's reaction to the comedy and the tragedy of the writer's fate in Russia.
Comic in the work of N.V. Gogol’s “The Inspector General” is due to the fact that the entire plot was born from a “purely Russian anecdote”, at the request of the writer proposed to him by A.S.
Pushkin. A funny story about how a newcomer is mistakenly mistaken for an auditor, they try to hide existing official abuses and appease their superiors, allows you to show in color and detail all the shortcomings of society.
In the article “The Author's Confession” (1847) N.V. Gogol formulated his plan as follows: “In The Inspector General, I decided to collect in one pile everything bad in Russia that I knew then, all the injustices that are done in those places and in those cases where justice is most required from a person, and laugh at everything at once.”
Having laughed off during the performance, the viewer was subsequently forced to seriously think about the fact that all the characters in the comedy resemble many real-life officials, landowners, merchants, police officers, and provincial ladies. Among the heroes of The Inspector General there are no outright villains, scoundrels, or irreconcilable enemies.
In general, they are “hospitable and good-natured people.” Everyone knows about the “weaknesses” and abuses of others, but no one considers it necessary to fight it. Yes, the mayor constantly demands donations from merchants, but he turns a blind eye to the fact that merchants supply low-quality goods for state needs. The judge considers cases of “slip-ups” and takes advantage of the benefits that the disputing parties can offer him, and also has a relationship with the wife of a local landowner. But no one will interfere in this. The problems of hospitals and educational institutions do not concern anyone; they can teach and treat at random. Everyone knows about the violations, and everyone is silent. “Minor” abuses are considered the norm, and those who commit them are considered worthy members of society. The same mayor “although he is a bribe-taker, he behaves very respectably.”
From this it is clear that the comedy “The Inspector General” is satirical. Satire creates a largely conventional image, which is achieved through hyperbolization and grotesquery.
A striking example of hyperbolization is Khlestakov’s monologue in the sixth scene of the third act. As Khlestakov realizes that he can get away with any lie, having been pampered by delicious food and universal veneration, he gives free rein to unbridled imagination, ascribes to himself the authorship of all the works he has ever heard of, draws pictures of how he controlled the whole department, and almost imagined that he was to be promoted to field marshal, but he slipped and was sent to rest from breakfast.
The techniques of satirical grotesque allowed N.V. Gogol to create vivid artistic images. In “Notes for Gentlemen Actors,” the author writes that the judge “speaks in a deep voice, with an elongated drawl, wheezing and gulping, like an ancient clock that first hisses and then strikes.” In Khlestakov’s letter to Tryapichkin it is said that the mayor is “stupid as a gray gelding”, and Strawberry is “a perfect pig in a yarmulke.”
It is impossible not to note the “talking” names characteristic of Russian classical comedy: the already mentioned judge Lyapkin-Tyapkin, who performs his duties at random, the doctor Gibner, whose patients “recover like flies,” the policeman Derzhimorda, who indiscriminately distributes blows to the right and to blame.
As a person familiar with the stage since childhood, N.V. Gogol gave very important instructions for the actors playing in The Inspector General. “The less an actor thinks about making people laugh and being funny, the more funny the role he takes will be revealed. The funny will be revealed by itself precisely in the seriousness with which each of the persons depicted in the comedy is busy with his work.”
These recommendations, unfortunately, were not taken into account in the production of the Saratov Youth Theater. Khlestakov, performed by A. Kuzin, almost grunted while eating soup in a hotel, loudly banging his spoon on the plate; in the presence of the mayor and his wife, he was lying on the stage in an embrace with Marya Antonovna, which looked absurd. The audience laughed, but, in my opinion, this was a clear overuse of comic techniques on the verge of clownery, going against the way N.V. intended to play the roles. Gogol.
The idea of the comedy “The Inspector General”, the purpose of its creation, is not at all for the amusement and entertainment of the public. N.V. Gogol assessed his work this way: “Through the laughter, which had never before appeared in me with such force, the reader heard sadness. I myself felt that my laughter was not what it was before.”
The censors did not notice anything reprehensible in the comedy, and it was allowed to be staged. However, the audience, who recognized themselves in the heroes of the work, were deeply offended by the author. They came to the conclusion that “The Inspector” undermines the authority of the authorities, insults and defames employees.
The tragedy of the comedy “The Inspector General” lies not only in the fact that “moderate disorder” in Russia was and remains a common occurrence, but also in the fact that a large part of society took up arms against the author as an exposer of shortcomings. N.V. Gogol wrote about the situation of the satirical writer in Russia: “It’s sad when you see what a pitiful state our writer is in. Everything is against him, and there is no side with any equal strength for him.”
Nevertheless, the comedy “The Inspector General” has enjoyed continued popularity since its first publication in 1836 to the present day. It is still relevant today, since the vices of society that are ridiculed in it are ineradicable. The audience continues to laugh at themselves, but life goes on as before.
Updated: 2017-12-08
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