The image of officials in N.V. Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls. Characteristics of officials in the poem Dead Souls Main occupations of officials in Dead Souls

Before going to the landowners, Chichikov spent some time in the city of NN. Here he had the opportunity to meet officials and learn about their way of life. N.V. Gogol called his poem “Dead Souls” not because Chichikov wanted to pull off a scam to buy “dead” peasant souls. This name is due to the fact that the writer wanted to draw attention to landowners and officials, whose souls had long since died.

Officials in the city are presented as a selection. Both the governor and the prosecutor - they are all spiritually impersonal people. Chichikov, when he approached the officials, immediately learned that in order to achieve something from them, he had to pay a bribe. Otherwise, you can't hope for anything. Officials must help people; this is their main responsibility. However, this is not important to them, they do not care about people, they only think about personal gain.

The wives of officials do not work anywhere, and do not do anything at all. They only think about having a good time, and their husbands fully support them in this. Chichikov was even in the same house where officials were meeting. They played cards from three o'clock in the afternoon until two o'clock in the morning. This is what people whose job it is to help people and resolve serious issues do.

They do not develop in any way, and they are not interested in anything except card games. They, like the landowners, have long been impoverished in soul. Other people's problems are alien to them; they have “dead souls.” Officials do not hesitate to rob not only the population, but also the state. They feel their impunity and this situation resembles our country now. Therefore, Gogol’s work is more relevant than ever.

Images of officials in the poem “Dead Souls”
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol more than once addressed the topic of bureaucratic Russia. This writer’s satire affected contemporary officials in such works as “The Inspector General,” “The Overcoat,” and “Notes of a Madman.” This theme is also reflected in N.V. Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls,” where, starting from the seventh chapter, bureaucracy is the focus. In contrast to the portraits of landowners depicted in detail in this work, the images of officials are given in only a few strokes. But they are so masterful that they give the reader a complete picture of what a Russian official was like in the 30s and 40s of the 19th century.
This is the governor, embroidering on tulle, and the prosecutor with thick black eyebrows, and the postmaster, the wit and philosopher, and many others. The miniature portraits created by Gogol are well remembered for their characteristic details, which give a complete picture of a particular character. For example, why is the head of the province, a person occupying a very responsible government position, described by Gogol as a good-natured man who embroiders on tulle? The reader is forced to think that he is not capable of anything else, since he is characterized only from this side. And a busy person is unlikely to have time for such an activity. The same can be said about his subordinates.
What do we know from the poem about the prosecutor? It is true that he, as an idle man, sits at home. This is how Sobakevich speaks of him. One of the most significant officials in the city, called upon to monitor the rule of law, the prosecutor did not bother himself with public service. All he did was sign papers. And all the decisions were made for him by the solicitor, “the first grabber in the world.” Therefore, when the prosecutor died, few could say what was outstanding about this man. Chichikov, for example, thought at the funeral that the only thing the prosecutor could be remembered for was his thick black eyebrows. “...Why he died or why he lived, only God knows” - with these words Gogol speaks of the complete meaninglessness of the life of a prosecutor.
And what meaning is the life of the official Ivan Antonovich Kuvshinnoe Rylo filled with? Collect more bribes. This official extorts them using his official position. Gogol describes how Chichikov placed a “piece of paper” in front of Ivan Antonovich, “which he did not notice at all and immediately covered with a book.”
N.V. Gogol in the poem “Dead Souls” not only introduces the reader to individual representatives of the bureaucracy, but also gives them a unique classification. He divides them into three groups - lower, thin and thick. The lower ones are represented by petty officials (clerks, secretaries) Most of them are drunkards. The thin ones are the middle stratum of the bureaucracy, and the fat ones are the provincial nobility, who know how to derive considerable benefit from their high position.
The author also gives us an idea of ​​the lifestyle of Russian officials in the 30s and 40s of the nineteenth century. Gogol compares officials with a squadron of flies swooping down on tasty morsels of refined sugar. They are occupied by playing cards, drinking, lunches, dinners, and gossip. In the society of these people, “meanness, completely disinterested, pure meanness” flourishes. Gogol portrays this class as thieves, bribe-takers and slackers. That is why they cannot convict Chichikov of his machinations - they are bound by mutual responsibility, each, as they say, “has a cannon.” And if they try to detain Chichikov for fraud, all their sins will come out.
In “The Tale of Captain Kopeikin,” Gogol completes the collective portrait of an official he gave in the poem. The indifference that the disabled war hero Kopeikin faces is terrifying. And here we are no longer talking about some small county officials. Gogol shows how a desperate hero, who is trying to get the pension he is entitled to, reaches the highest authorities. But even there he does not find the truth, faced with the complete indifference of a high-ranking St. Petersburg dignitary. Thus, Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol makes it clear that vices have affected the entire bureaucratic Russia - from a small county town to the capital. These vices make people “dead souls.”
The author's sharp satire not only exposes bureaucratic sins, but also shows the terrible social consequences of inactivity, indifference and thirst for profit.

Officials are a special social stratum, a “link” between the people and the authorities. This is a special world, living by its own laws, guided by its own moral principles and concepts. The topic of exposing the depravity and limitations of this class is topical at all times. Gogol dedicated a number of works to her, using the techniques of satire, humor, and subtle irony.

Arriving in the provincial town of N, Chichikov pays visits to the city's dignitaries in accordance with etiquette, which prescribes visiting the most significant persons first. The first on this “list” was the mayor, to whom “the hearts of the citizens trembled with an abundance of gratitude,” and the last was the city architect. Chichikov acts on the principle: “Don’t have money, have good people to work with.”

What was the provincial city like, about whose welfare the mayor was so “concerned”? There is “bad lighting” on the streets, and the house of the “father” of the city is like a “bright comet” against the background of the dark sky. In the park the trees “became ill”; in the province - crop failures, high prices, and in a brightly lit house - a ball for officials and their families. What can you say about the people gathered here? - Nothing. Before us are “black tailcoats”: no names, no faces. Why are they here? – Show yourself, make the right contacts, have a good time.

However, “tailcoats” are not uniform. “Thick” (they know how to manage things better) and “thin” (people who are not adapted to life). “Fat” people buy real estate, registering it in their wife’s name, while “thin” people let everything they have accumulated go down the drain.

Chichikov is going to make a deed of sale. The “white house” opens to his gaze, which speaks of the purity of the “souls of the positions located in it.” The image of the priests of Themis is limited to a few characteristics: “wide necks”, “lots of paper”. The voices are hoarse among the lower ranks, majestic among the bosses. The officials are more or less enlightened people: some have read Karamzin, and some “have not read anything at all.”

Chichikov and Manilov “move” from one table to another: from the simple curiosity of youth - to Ivan Antonovich Kuvshinny’s snout, full of arrogance and vanity, creating the appearance of work in order to receive the due reward. Finally, the chairman of the chamber, shining like the sun, completes the deal, which should be noted, which is carried out with the light hand of the police chief - a “benefactor” in the city, receiving twice as much income as all his predecessors.

The extensive bureaucratic apparatus in pre-revolutionary Russia was a true disaster for the people. Therefore, it is natural that the satirical writer pays attention to him, sharply criticizing bribery, sycophancy, emptiness and vulgarity, low cultural level, and the unworthy attitude of bureaucrats towards their fellow citizens.

The officials depicted in “Dead Souls” are strong because of their mutual responsibility. They feel a commonality of their interests and the need to defend themselves together when necessary. They have the characteristics of a special class in a class society. They are the third force, the average force, the average majority that actually governs the country. The concept of civil and public responsibilities is alien to provincial society; for them, a position is only a means of personal pleasure and well-being, a source of income. Among them there is bribery, servility to higher officials, and a complete lack of intelligence. The bureaucracy has rallied into a corporation of embezzlers and robbers. Gogol wrote in his diary about provincial society: “The ideal of the city is emptiness. Gossip that has gone beyond limits.” Among officials, “meanness, completely disinterested, pure meanness” flourishes. Officials for the most part are uneducated, empty people who live according to a pattern and who give up in a new everyday situation.
The abuses of officials are most often ridiculous, insignificant and absurd. “You take things inappropriately” - that’s what is considered a sin in this world. But it is the “vulgarity of everything as a whole,” and not the size of the criminal acts that horrifies readers. “A stunning mud of little things,” as Gogol writes in the poem, has swallowed up modern man.

The bureaucracy in “Dead Souls” is not only “flesh of the flesh” of a soulless, ugly society; it is also the foundation on which this society rests. While provincial society considers Chichikov a millionaire and a “Kherson landowner,” the officials treat the newcomer accordingly. Since the governor “gave the go-ahead,” then any official will immediately fill out the necessary papers for Chichikov; Of course, not for free: after all, nothing can erase the initial habit of taking bribes from a Russian official. And Gogol, with short but unusually expressive strokes, painted a portrait of Ivan Antonovich Kuvshinnoye Rylo, who can safely be called a symbol of Russian bureaucracy. He appears in the seventh chapter of the poem and speaks only a few words. Ivan Antonovich is essentially not even a person, but a soulless “cog” of the state machine. And other officials are no better.

What is the value of a prosecutor, who has nothing but thick eyebrows...
When Chichikov’s scam was revealed, the officials were confused and suddenly “found ... sins in themselves.” Gogol laughs angrily at how bureaucrats in positions of power, mired in criminal activity, help the swindler in his dirty machinations, fearing their exposure.
To the greatest extent, the lack of spirituality of the state machine is shown by Gogol in “The Tale of Captain Kopeikin.” Faced with the bureaucratic mechanism, the war hero turns not even into a speck of dust, he turns into nothing. And in this case, the fate of the captain is unjustly decided not by the provincial semi-literate Ivan Antonovich, but by a metropolitan nobleman of the highest rank, a member of the Tsar himself! But even here, at the highest state level, a simple honest person, even a hero, has nothing to hope for understanding and participation. It is no coincidence that when the poem passed censorship, it was “The Tale of Captain Kopeikin” that was mercilessly cut by the censors. Moreover, Gogol was forced to rewrite it almost anew, significantly softening the tonality and smoothing out the rough edges. As a result, little remains of “The Tale of Captain Kopeikin” that was originally intended by the author.
Gogol's city is a symbolic, “collective city of the entire dark side,” and bureaucracy is an integral part of it.

« Dead Souls"is one of the brightest works of Russian literature. According to the strength and depth of ideas, according to
In artistic mastery, “Dead Souls” ranks with such masterpieces of Russian classical literature as “Woe from Wit” by Griboyedov, “Eugene Onegin” and “The Captain’s Daughter” by Pushkin, as well as with the best works of Goncharov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Leskov.

When starting to create “Dead Souls,” Gogol wrote to Pushkin that in his work he wanted to show “from one side” all of Rus'. “All Rus' will appear in it!” - he also told Zhukovsky. Indeed, Gogol was able to illuminate many aspects of the life of contemporary Russia, to reflect with wide completeness the spiritual and social conflicts in its life.

Undoubtedly, " Dead Souls And" were very relevant for their time. Gogol even had to change the title when publishing the work, as it irritated the censors. The high political effectiveness of the poem is due to both the sharpness of the ideas and the topicality of the images.
The poem widely reflected the Nikolaev reactionary era, when all initiative and freethinking were suppressed, the bureaucratic apparatus grew significantly, and a system of denunciations and investigations was in place.

Dead Souls poses extremely important questions both for its time and for Russia in general: the question of serfs and landowners, bureaucracy and corruption in all spheres of life.

Depicting contemporary Russia, Gogol devoted significant space to the description of: provincial (VII-IX chapters) and capital (“The Tale of Captain Kopeikin”).

Provincial officials are represented in the images of officials of the city of N. It is characteristic that they all live as one family: they spend their leisure time together, address each other by name and patronymic (“My dear friend Ilya Ilyich!”), and are hospitable. Gogol doesn't even mention their last names. On the other hand, officials are bound by mutual responsibility in matters related to their service.

The widespread bribery that reigned in Russia was also reflected in Gogol’s work. This motive is very important in the description of life Officialdom in the poem Dead Souls: the police chief, despite the fact that he visits the Gostiny Dvor as if it were his own storeroom, enjoys the love of the merchants because he is not proud and courteous; Ivan Antonovich accepts a bribe from Chichikov deftly, with knowledge of the matter, as a matter of course.

The motive of bribery also appears in the biography of Chichikov himself, and the episode with a certain generalized petitioner can be considered a digression on bribes.

All officials treat service as an opportunity to make money at someone else’s expense, which is why lawlessness, bribery and corruption flourish everywhere, disorder and red tape reign. Bureaucracy is a good breeding ground for these vices. It was in his conditions that Chichikov’s scam was possible.

Because of their “sins” in their service, all officials are afraid of being checked by an auditor sent by the government. Chichikov's incomprehensible behavior terrifies the city Officialdom in the poem Dead Souls: “Suddenly both of them turned pale; fear is more sticky than the plague and is communicated instantly. “Everyone suddenly found sins in themselves that didn’t even exist.” Suddenly they have assumptions, there are rumors that Chichikov is Napoleon himself, or Captain Kopeikan, an auditor. The motif of gossip is typical for describing the life of Russian society in the literature of the 19th century; it is also present in “Dead Souls”.

The position of an official in society corresponds to his rank: the higher the position, the greater the authority, respect, and the preferable it is to get to know him. Meanwhile, there are some qualities necessary “for this world: pleasantness in appearance, in turns of speech and actions, and agility in business...” All of this was possessed by Chichikov, who knew how to carry on a conversation, present himself favorably to society, unobtrusively show respect, provide service. “In a word, he was a very decent person; That’s why it was so well received by the society of the city of N.”

Officials generally do not engage in service, but spend their time in entertainment (dinners and balls). Here they indulge in their only “good occupation” - playing cards. Playing cards is more common for fat people than for thin people, and that’s what they do at the ball. The city fathers devote themselves to playing cards without reserve, showing imagination, eloquence, and liveliness of mind.

Gogol did not forget to point out the ignorance and stupidity of officials. Saying sarcastically that many of them “were not without education,” the author immediately points out the limits of their interests: “Lyudmila” by Zhukovsky, Karamzin or “Moscow News”; many didn’t read anything at all.

Having introduced “The Tale of Captain Kopeikin” into the poem, Gogol also introduced a description of the capital’s officials. Just like in a provincial town, Bureaucracy Petersburg is subject to bureaucracy, bribery, and veneration of rank.

Despite the fact that Gogol presented Bureaucracy more as one whole, individual images can also be distinguished. Thus, the governor, representing in his person the highest city power, is shown in a somewhat comic light: he had “Anna around his neck” and, perhaps, was presented to the star; but, however, he was “a great good-natured man and sometimes even embroidered on tulle himself.” He was “neither fat nor thin.” And if Manilov says that the governor is “the most respectable and most amiable person,” then Sobakevich directly declares that he is “the first robber in the world.” It seems that both assessments of the governor’s personality are correct and characterize him from different sides.

The prosecutor is an absolutely useless person in the service. In his portrait, Gogol points out one detail: very thick eyebrows and a seemingly conspiratorial winking eye. One gets the impression of dishonesty, uncleanliness, and cunning of the prosecutor. Indeed, such qualities are characteristic of court officials, where lawlessness flourishes: the poem mentions two of the many cases where an unjust trial was committed (the case of a fight between peasants and the murder of an assessor).

The inspector of the medical board is no less frightened by the talk about Chichikov than the others, since he is also guilty of sins: in the infirmaries there is no proper care for the sick, so people die in large numbers. The inspector is not embarrassed by this fact, he is indifferent to the fate of ordinary people, but he is afraid of the auditor, who can punish him and deprive him of his position.

Nothing is said about the postmaster’s occupation of postal affairs, which indicates that he does not do anything remarkable in his service: just like other officials, he is either inactive or trying to loot and profit. Gogol mentions only
The fact that the postmaster is engaged in philosophy and makes large extracts from books.

Some lyrical digressions also serve to reveal the images of officials. For example, a satirical digression about fat and thin typifies the images of officials. The author divides men into two kinds, characterizing them depending on their physical appearance: thin men love to look after women, and fat men, preferring to play whist over ladies, know how to “manage their affairs better” and always firmly and invariably occupy reliable places.

Another example: Gogol compares Russian officials with foreigners - “wise men” who know how to treat people of different status and social status differently. Thus, speaking about the veneration of officials and their understanding of subordination, Gogol creates the image of a kind of conditional manager of the office, radically changing in appearance depending on whose company he is in: among subordinates or in front of his boss.

The world presented by Gogol, called " Officialdom in the poem “Dead Souls”"very colorful, many-sided. Comic images of officials, collected together, create a picture of the ugly social structure of Russia. Gogol’s creation evokes both laughter and tears, because even after more than a century, it allows you to recognize familiar situations, faces, characters, destinies. Great Gogol’s talent, which so uniquely vividly accurately described reality, pointed out the ulcer of society, which they could not heal even a century later.

Composition: Officialdom in the poem “Dead Souls”