The life of peasants in the poem Dead Souls table. Images of peasants in “Dead Souls”
Sep 26 2014
Images of peasants in N.V. Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls.” What is the real world of Dead Souls? This is a world whose typical representatives are Manilov, Nozdrev, Sobakevich, police chief, prosecutor and many others. Gogol describes them with evil irony, without mercy or pity. He shows them as funny and absurd, but it is laughter through tears. This is something terrible that has always been superfluous for Russia.
The real world of Dead Souls is scary, disgusting, and insane. This is a world devoid of spiritual values, a world of immorality and human shortcomings. It is clear that this world is not a place for Gogol’s ideal, therefore his ideal in the first volume of Dead Souls is only in lyrical digressions and is removed from reality by a huge abyss. Landowners, residents of the provincial town of N, are not the only inhabitants of the real world. Peasants also live in it.
But Gogol in no way distinguishes living peasants from the crowd of immoral Manilovites, Nozdryovites and prosecutors. Living peasants actually appear to the reader as drunkards and ignoramuses. Men arguing whether the wheel will reach Moscow; stupid Uncle Mityai and Uncle Minyai; the serf Manilov, asking to earn money, and himself going to drink, all of them do not evoke sympathy from either the readers or the author: he describes them with the same evil irony as the landowners.
But there are still exceptions. These are the main representatives of the people in the poem - Selifan and Petrushka. The evil irony is no longer visible in their description. And although Selifan does not have any high spirituality or morality, he is often stupid and lazy, but still he is different from Uncle Mitya and Uncle Minay.
Gogol often laughs at Selifan, but it is a good laugh, a laugh from the heart. The author’s thoughts about the soul of the common people and an attempt to understand their psychology are associated with the image of Selifan. In “Dead Souls” the exponent of the ideal is folk Russia, described in lyrical digressions.
Gogol presents his ideal from two perspectives: as a generalized people in lyrical digressions, as a concretization of this ideal in the images of dead peasants, “dead souls.” In the final lyrical digression, Gogol notes that such a “three bird” flying across vast expanses “could only be born among a lively people.” Where Chichikov, copying the names of the dead peasants he had just bought, pictures in his imagination their earthly life, Gogol imagines how they lived, how their fate turned out, how they died. In general, such reasoning is not characteristic of Chichikov. One gets the impression that Gogol himself is arguing this.
The images of dead peasants in the poem are ideal. Gogol endows them with such qualities as heroism and strength. Bogatyr-carpenter Stepan Cork. This is what Sobakevich said about him: “What kind of power she was!
If he had served in the guard, God knows what they would have given him, three arshins and an inch in height!” And what hardworking, skillful people are these shoemaker Maxim Telyatnikov and carriage maker Mikheev. It’s hard not to notice with what delight he writes about these men!
He feels sorry for them, sympathizes with their hard life. Gogol contrasts this dead people, but with a living soul, with the living people of the poem, whose soul is dead. In “Dead Souls,” Gogol shows us not only the strange reality of Russian life, but at the same time, in merical digressions, Gogol depicts to us his ideal of the future Russia and the Russian people, which is very far from modern life. It is likely that in the second, burned volume, Gogol intended to transfer this ideal image into real life, to bring it into reality. After all, Gogol fervently believed that Russia would someday emerge from this terrible world, that it would be reborn, and this moment would definitely come.
In his famous address to the “bird-troika”, Gogol did not forget the master to whom the troika owes its existence: “It seems that not a cunning, it seems, road projectile, not grabbed by an iron screw, but hastily, alive, with one ax and a chisel, the Yaroslavl equipped and assembled you a quick guy." There is another hero in the poem about swindlers, parasites, owners of living and dead souls. Gogol's unnamed hero is a serf slave. In “Dead Souls,” Gogol composed such a dithyramb for the Russian serfs, contrasting them with landowners and officials with such direct clarity that it cannot go unnoticed.
The tragic fate of the enslaved people is reflected in the images of serfs. Gogol speaks of the dullness and savagery that slavery brings to man. In this light, we must consider the images of Uncle Mitya, the girl Pelageya, who could not distinguish between right and left, Plyushkin’s Proshka and Mavra, downtrodden to the extreme. Social suppression and humiliation were imprinted on Selifan and Petrushka. The latter even had a noble impulse to read books, but he was more attracted “not by what he read about, but more by the reading itself, or, better to say, by the process of reading itself, which is where some word always comes out of the letters, which sometimes the devil knows what it means.”
The images of the people are presented in two planes, forming an acute contradiction of shadow and light. On the one hand, Gogol’s humor in describing men is a klutz, on the other hand, peasant Rus' is depicted with sympathy. The men's conversation about the wheel of Chichikov's chaise is the melancholy of the "idiocy of village life." The theme of “idiocy,” slavery, and hopeless existence comes up more than once in the poem, embodied in Petrushka, in Selifan, in his patience, conversations with horses, reasoning about the merits of his master. The “idiocy of village life” emanates from the peasants’ explanations about Manilovka and Zamanilovka, and from the scene where a crowd of peasants cannot budge the carriages of Chichikov and the governor’s daughter.
The dead peasants in the poem are contrasted with the living peasants with their poor inner world. They are endowed with fabulous, heroic features. Selling the carpenter Stepan, the landowner Sobakevich describes him like this: “What kind of power she was! If he had served in the guard, God knows what they would have given him, three arshins and an inch in height.” So Chichikov, returning after successful transactions with the sellers of dead souls, overwhelmed by feelings incomprehensible to himself, imagines the biographies of the slaves he bought. Here is Cork Stepan, the carpenter who fell from the bell tower - a hero, he would be fit for the guard. Shoemaker Maxim Telyatnikov, who learned his craft from a German, but burned out on obviously rotten raw materials and died from heavy drinking. The carriage maker Mikhei created carriages of extraordinary strength and beauty. Stove maker Milushkin could install a stove in any house. And Eremey Sorokoplekhin “brought five hundred rubles per quitrent!” And again and again young, healthy, hard-working, gifted people are resurrected in Chichikov’s wild imagination. All this is strikingly different from the rest of Gogol’s narrative - the author’s sympathy and love for the common people is expressed so broadly, with such a will to generalize. For the first time, the most living people stand up in the poem. In Chichikov's list, fugitives are also listed next to the dead. When meeting the names and nicknames of the fugitives, Chichikov becomes completely delighted: “And really, where is Fyrov now? He walks noisily and cheerfully on the grain pier, having arranged himself with the merchants. Flowers, ribbons on a hat, the whole gang of barge haulers is having fun... That's where you'll get your work done, barge haulers! And together, as before they walked and raged, you will set to work and sweat, dragging the strap under one endless song, like Rus'...” And here we see real images of peasants, full of life, not oppressed by poverty, slavery and lawlessness.
By giving such different images of serfs, Gogol makes it clear to the reader that the squalor of peasant life is a consequence of the structure of society. “Dead Souls” does not contain only negative images. Along with the collective image of social evil, the image of the Russian people was created. And the people are the positive hero of the poem.
XIX century - truly the century of the heyday of Russian classical literature, the century that gave birth to such titans as Pushkin and Lermontov, Turgenev and Dostoevsky... This list can be continued further, but we will focus on the name of the great Russian writer - Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, a writer, according to V. G. Belinsky, who continued the development of Russian literary thought after the death of A. S. Pushkin.
Gogol, who dreamed of creating a work “in which all of Rus' would appear,” realized his intention by writing the poem “Dead Souls.”
The title of the work, at first glance, means Chichikov’s scam - the purchase of such a human soul; they are evil, greedy, careless, corrupt.
And serfs, on the contrary, are alive, even if we are talking about dead (in the physical, biological sense) people. They are the best representatives of the Russian people, they personify the truth, the people's truth, because... they all come from the people.
To confirm our thought, let us turn to the text of “Dead Souls”.
In many chapters of the poem, a description of the peasants is given (from the very beginning, where the men standing at the tavern discuss “whether this wheel will get to Moscow... or not”), but the most vivid images of the serfs are presented in the fifth chapter, during the bargaining between Chichikov and Sobakevich.
Sobakevich, wanting to exact the highest price for his “soul,” talks about dead peasants: “... For example, coachmaker Mikheev! After all, he never made any other carriages except spring ones. And it’s not like Moscow work happens, that on one part is so strong, it will cover it and cover it with varnish!”
And he is not alone - he is followed by a whole series of bright, real, living images: Cork Stepan, a carpenter, a man of enormous strength, Milushkin, a brickmaker who “could put a stove in any house,” Maxim Telyatnikov, a shoemaker, Eremey Sorokoplekhin, who brought "a quitrent of five hundred rubles."
This list continues in the seventh chapter, when Chichikov examines the notes of Plyushkin and Sobakevich: “When he [Chichikov] then looked at these leaves, at the men who, for sure, were once men, worked, plowed, drank, drove, deceived the bar , or maybe they were simply good men, then some strange feeling, incomprehensible to him, took possession of him. Each of the notes seemed to have some special character. And through this, it was as if the men themselves received their own character.. "
It was as if the men were coming to life, thanks to the details: “Only Fedotov had it written: “father is unknown”..., another - “a good carpenter”, a third - “knows the business and doesn’t take drunken drinks”, etc.
Even on Chichikov they had a softening effect: “he was touched in spirit and, sighing, said: “My fathers, how many of you are crammed here!”
Running through the names and surnames, Chichikov involuntarily imagined them alive, or rather, they themselves were “resurrected” thanks to their reality and “liveness.” And then a string of truly folk characters ran before the reader’s eyes: Pyotr Savelyev Don’t Respect the Trough, Grigory You’ll Not Get There, Eremey Karyakin, Nikita Volokita, Abakum Fyrov and many, many others.
Chichikov reflected on their fate: how he lived, how he died (“Eh, the Russian people! They don’t like to die their own death!... Did you have a bad time at Plyushkin’s or did you just, of your own accord, walk through the forests and rip off passers-by?... ")
Even in this fragment one can hear the people's melancholy, the people's longing for freedom, the downtroddenness, the doom of the Russian peasant to bondage or running and robbery.
In lyrical digressions, Gogol creates an image of a truly living people's soul. The author admires the daring, generosity, talent and intelligence of the Russian people.
We shouldn’t forget about Selifan and Petrushka, Chichikov’s servants: the fragments of the poem where they are present are imbued with deep sympathy along with the point: this is Selifan’s “conversation” with the horses, lovingly nicknamed Assessor and Bay, and a joint visit to the tavern and sleep after drinking, and much more. They also embarked on the path of death, because... they serve the master, lie to him and are not averse to drinking,
Peasants whose lot is poverty, hunger, overwork, disease; and landowners using serfdom - this is the reality of the mid-19th century.
It is worth mentioning the author’s admiration not only for the characters of the people, but also for the liveliness and brightness of the words of ordinary people. Gogol lovingly says that the “three bird” flying across the vast expanses of the Russian land “could only have been born among a lively people.” The image of the “Russian troika”, which acquires a symbolic meaning, is inextricably linked by the author with the images of the “efficient Yaroslavl peasant”, who with one ax and chisel made a strong carriage, and the coachman, perched “on God knows what” and dashingly driving the troika. After all, it is only thanks to such people that Rus' rushes forward, striking the beholder of this miracle. It is Russia, like the “irresistible troika”, forcing “other peoples and states” to give it way, and not the Russia of the Manilovs, Sobakeviches and Plyushkins that is Gogol’s ideal.
Showing the truly valuable qualities of the soul through the example of ordinary people, Gogol appeals to readers to preserve “all-human movements” from their youth.
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 claims that along with “dead people” in Russia there is a place for heroes, because every title, every position requires heroism. 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 Mokiya Kifovich. However, the author believes that if the people open their eyes to their omissions, to their “dead souls,” then Russia will finally fulfill its heroic mission. And this Renaissance must begin with the common people.
Thus, Gogol shows in the poem “Dead Souls” unforgettable images of the simple Russian serf peasantry, forgotten, but spiritually alive, gifted and talented.
Other writers will continue Gogol’s tradition in describing the people: Leskov, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Nekrasov, Tolstoy and others.
And, despite the ugliness of reality and the peasantry, Gogol believes in the revival of the Russian nation, in the spiritual unity of the country, which stretches for many miles. And the basis of this revival is people who come from the people, pure and bright images, contrasted in “Dead Souls” with the callousness and fossilization of the bureaucratic-landlord machine of Tsarist Russia, based on backward serfdom.
In the poem “Dead Souls” Gogol managed to depict Rus' in all its greatness, but at the same time with all its vices. In creating the work, the writer sought to understand the character of the Russian people, with whom he pinned hopes for a better future for Russia. There are many characters in the poem - various types of Russian landowners living idly in their noble estates, provincial officials, bribe-takers and thieves who have concentrated state power in their hands. Following Chichikov on his journey from one landowner's estate to another, the reader is presented with bleak pictures of the life of the serf peasantry.
The landowners treat the peasants as their slaves and dispose of them as things. Plyushkin's yard boy, thirteen-year-old Proshka, always hungry, who only hears from the master: “stupid as a log,” “fool,” “thief,” “mug,” “here I am with a birch broom for your taste.” “Perhaps I’ll give you a girl,” Korobochka says to Chichikov, “she knows the way, just watch!” Don’t bring it, the merchants have already brought one from me.” The owners of serf souls saw in the peasants only working cattle, suppressed their living soul, and deprived them of the opportunity for development. Over the course of many centuries of serfdom, such traits as drunkenness, insignificance and darkness formed in the Russian people. This is evidenced by the images of the stupid Uncle Mityai and Uncle Minyai, who cannot separate the horses that are entangled in the lines, the image of the yard girl Pelageya, who does not know where the right is and where the left is, the conversation of two men discussing whether the wheel will reach the Moscow or to Kazan. This is also evidenced by the image of the coachman Selifan, who drunkenly makes lengthy speeches addressed to the horses. But the author does not blame the peasants, but gently ironizes and laughs good-naturedly at them.
Gogol does not idealize the peasants, but makes the reader think about the strength of the people and their darkness. Such characters evoke both laughter and sadness at the same time. These are Chichikov’s servants, the girl Korobochka, the men encountered along the way, as well as the “dead souls” bought by Chichikov that come to life in his imagination. The author’s laughter evokes the “noble impulse for enlightenment” of Chichikov’s servant Petrushka, who is attracted not by the content of the books, but by the reading process itself. According to Gogol, he didn’t care what to read: the adventures of a hero in love, an ABC book, a prayer book, or chemistry.
When Chichikov reflects on the list of peasants he bought, a picture of the life and backbreaking labor of the people, their patience and courage is revealed to us. Copying the acquired “dead souls,” Chichikov imagines their earthly life in his imagination: “My fathers, how many of you are crammed here! What have you, my dear ones, done in your lifetime?” These peasants who died or were oppressed by serfdom are hardworking and talented. The glory of the wonderful carriage maker Mikheev is alive in people's memory even after his death. Even Sobakevich says with involuntary respect that that glorious master “should only work for the sovereign.” Brickmaker Milushkin “could install a stove in any house,” Maxim Telyatnikov sewed beautiful boots. Ingenuity and resourcefulness are emphasized in the image of Eremey Sorokoplekhin, who “traded in Moscow, bringing in one rent for five hundred rubles.”
The author speaks with love and admiration about the hardworking Russian people, about talented craftsmen, about the “efficient Yaroslavl peasant” who brought together the Russian troika, about the “lively people”, “the lively Russian mind”, and with pain in his heart he talks about their destinies. Shoemaker Maxim Telyatnikov, who wanted to get his own house and little shop, becomes an alcoholic. The death of Grigory You Can't Get There, who out of melancholy turned into a tavern, and then straight into an ice hole, is absurd and senseless. Unforgettable is the image of Abakum Fyrov, who fell in love with a free life, attached to barge haulers. The fate of Plyushkin's fugitive serfs, who are doomed to spend the rest of their lives on the run, is bitter and humiliating. “Oh, Russian people! He doesn’t like to die his own death!” - Chichikov argues. But the “dead souls” he bought appear before the reader more alive than the landowners and officials who live in conditions that deaden the human soul, in a world of vulgarity and injustice. Against the backdrop of the dead-heartedness of landowners and officials, the lively and lively Russian mind, the people's prowess, and the broad scope of the soul stand out especially clearly. It is these qualities, according to Gogol, that are the basis of the national Russian character.
Gogol sees the mighty power of the people, suppressed, but not killed by serfdom. It is manifested in his ability not to lose heart under any circumstances, in festivities with songs and round dances, in which the national prowess and the scope of the Russian soul are manifested in full. It is also manifested in the talent of Mikheev, Stepan Probka, Milushkin, in the hard work and energy of the Russian person. “Russian people are capable of anything and get used to any climate. Send him to Kamchatka, just give him warm mittens, he claps his hands, an ax in his hands, and goes to cut himself a new hut,” say officials, discussing the resettlement of Chichikov’s peasants to the Kherson province.
By depicting pictures of people's life, Gogol makes readers feel that the suppressed and humiliated Russian people are suppressed, but not broken. The protest of the peasantry against the oppressors is expressed both in the revolt of the peasants of the village of Vshivaya-arrogance and the village of Borovka, who wiped out the zemstvo police in the person of assessor Drobyazhkin, and in an apt Russian word. When Chichikov asked the man he met about Plyushkin, he rewarded this master with the surprisingly accurate word “patched.” “The Russian people are expressing themselves strongly!” - exclaims Gogol, saying that there is no word in other languages, “which would be so sweeping, lively, so bursting out from under the very heart, so seething and vibrant, like a well-spoken Russian word.”
Seeing the difficult life of the peasants, full of poverty and deprivation, Gogol could not help but notice the growing indignation of the people and understood that his patience was not limitless. The writer fervently believed that the life of the people should change; he believed that hardworking and talented people deserve a better life. He hoped that the future of Russia did not belong to the landowners and “knights of a penny,” but to the great Russian people, who harbored unprecedented opportunities, and that is why he ridiculed the contemporary Russia of “dead souls.” It is no coincidence that the poem ends with the symbolic image of a three-bird. It contains the result of many years of Gogol’s thoughts about the fate of Russia, the present and future of its people. After all, it is the people who oppose the world of officials, landowners, and businessmen, like a living soul against a dead one.
All topics in the book “Dead Souls” by N.V. Gogol. Summary. Features of the poem. Essays":
Summary of the poem “Dead Souls”: Volume one. Chapter first
Features of the poem “Dead Souls”
N.V. Gogol constantly sends the reader to the images of those who create everything in Rus': hemp, houses, ponds. The images of peasants in “Dead Souls” stand behind the majestic fantastic bird troika. It owes its origin to the skillful hands of craftsmen from the people.
Sarcasm and sympathy
The words of the great classic about the people reveal different moods. The author laughs and cries. He feels sorry and offended for those who have become dull and savage from their miserable existence. Gogol shows the result of slavery. A person loses what is given to him by nature and turns into a doll without thoughts and life. Such characters include the following representatives of the peasantry:
- Uncle Mityai;
- Girl Pelageya;
- Proshka;
- Mavra.
There is sarcasm in the lines about each of these characters. Pelageya does not know the directions (right, left), Plyushkin's serfs (Mavra and Proshka) are terribly beaten down. The same attitude towards the men serving the main character. Parsley once loved to read and connect letters into words. Now he is a degenerate drunkard, a lazy man and a slob.
Sympathy always stands next to sarcasm. Selivan talks with animals, in them he found true friends who are able to listen and support.
There are scenes that combine humor with sarcasm. They, according to some literary scholars, expose the “idiocy” of the peasants. The most striking of these scenes is the meeting of two crews. The men could not share Chichikov's chaise, which collided with the governor's daughter. Pavel Ivanovich manages to immerse himself in dreams and thoughts about a woman, while stupid peasants push the carriages in different directions.
Dead but alive
The author's description of the scenes of trading of dead souls is puzzling. The stupid serfs on the estates begin to look worse and funnier than the deceased craftsmen offered as a commodity. What characteristics are selected by landowners - sellers for those who served them faithfully:
- Carpenter Stepan. 3 arshins in height, heroic strength. He could have been given the highest rank in the guard. Stepan dies, falling from the bell tower.
- Carriage master Micah. His spring carriages were beautiful and durable. The beauty of the work performed, according to the author, is extraordinary.
- Shoemaker Maxim. The peasant learned the skill from a German. He failed to maintain his craft. He started using rotten raw materials, drank it and died.
- Furnace master Milushkin. The stove maker could install the stove in any room, firmly and soundly.
Some peasants in the poem “Dead Souls” do not have exact information about their profession, but their labor brought the landowners a good rent. Eremey Sorokoplekhin, for example, 500 rubles. Behind each is talent, health and hard work.
Gogol sympathizes with the common people, who contain such a mass of lazy people.
Lists of men
Chichikov studies the lists of serfs he acquired from the landowners of the provincial town. Leaves covered with letters come to life. Folk characters appear before your eyes. They work hard, then drink while sitting in taverns. The Rus-troika rushes past them. The horse-drawn wagon was made by a “quick Yaroslavl man.” He worked with an ax and a chisel, but the crew turned out to be breathtaking. The drivers drive in such a way that it is unclear what they are sitting on. There is so much spirit in the serfs who rush across Rus', not afraid of the night, nor the wind, nor the cold. They are not asked when and where to take the owner, they clearly carry out their assignments, turning those who lead them into soulless, cruel people.
