The composition of the poem “Dead Souls” and its features (Gogol N.)

The plot and composition of “Dead Souls” are determined by the subject of the image - Gogol’s desire to comprehend Russian life, the character of Russian people, the fate of Russia. We are talking about a fundamental change in the subject of the image compared to the literature of the 20-30s: the artist’s attention is transferred from the image of an individual to a portrait of society. In other words, the novelistic aspect of the genre content (depiction of the private life of an individual) is replaced by a moral descriptive one (portrait of society at the non-heroic moment of its development). Therefore Gogol is looking for

A plot that would provide the widest possible coverage of reality.

The plot of the trip opened up such an opportunity: “Pushkin found that the plot of “Dead Souls” was good for me because it gave me complete freedom to travel with the hero all over Russia and bring out many different characters.” Therefore, the motive of movement, road, path turns out to be the leitmotif of the poem.

This motif receives a completely different meaning in the famous lyrical digression of the eleventh chapter: the road with a rushing chaise turns into the path along which Rus' flies, “and, looking askance, they turn aside

And other peoples and states give it way.” This leitmotif also contains unknown paths of Russian national development:
“Rus', where are you going, give me the answer? Doesn’t give an answer,” offering an antithesis to the paths of other peoples: “What crooked, deaf, narrow, impassable roads that lead far to the side have been chosen by humanity...”

The image of the road embodies both the hero’s everyday path (“but for all that his road was difficult...”), and the author’s creative path: “And for a long time it was determined for me by the wonderful power to walk hand in hand with my strange heroes...”

The plot of the journey gives Gogol the opportunity to create a gallery of images of landowners. At the same time, the composition looks very rational: the exposition of the plot of the journey is given in the first chapter (Chichikov meets officials and some landowners, receives invitations from them), followed by five chapters in which the landowners “sit”, and Chichikov travels from chapter to chapter, buying up dead souls.

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From the very beginning of his writing career, Gogol dreamed of writing a work “in which all of Rus' would appear.” This was supposed to be a grandiose description of the life and customs of Russia in the first third of the 19th century. The poem “Dead Souls,” written in 1842, became such a work. The first edition of the book was called “The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls.” This name reduced […]...
Gogol has long dreamed of writing a work “in which all of Rus' would appear.” This was supposed to be a grandiose description of the life and customs of Russia in the first third of the 19th century. The poem “Dead Souls,” written in 1842, became such a work. The first edition, for censorship reasons, was entitled “The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls.” Such a name reduced the true meaning of this work, causing [...]
The compositional originality of N.V. Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls” is determined by the creative task that the author set for himself. Initially, the writer intended to create a grandiose work consisting of three parts. In the first volume, readers would have been presented with a satirical depiction of the author’s contemporary Russia, and in the following volumes the awakening of the hero’s soul and his moral resurrection should have occurred. The author was able to complete [...]
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“The Tale of Captain Kopeikin” (Analysis of a fragment of N.V. Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls”) The theme of exposing officialdom runs through all of Gogol’s work: it stands out both in the collection “Mirgorod” and in the comedy “The Inspector General”. In the poem “Dead Souls” it is intertwined with the theme of serfdom. In addition, Gogol, wherever possible, ridicules officials and the inertia of statesmen. A special place in […]...
Why did Gogol call his work “Dead Souls,” written in 1842, a poem? The definition of the genre became clear to the writer only at the last moment, since, while still working on the poem, Gogol called it either a poem or a novel. The work, called “The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls” at the first publication for censorship reasons, was certainly not a light adventure novel, [...]
“Dead Souls” is an oxymoronic title that reflects the complex, multifaceted issues of the poem. It should also be taken into account that its concept changed, and at the same time, all new facets of meaning were included in the title of the work. Firstly, “dead soul” is a phrase from bureaucratic jargon denoting a dead peasant. There are scams around with serfs who, despite the fact of death, continue to be listed in […]...
1. “Dead Souls” – history of creation and design. 2. The main idea of the work. 3. Souls “dead” and “living” in the poem. 4. The meaning of composition in understanding the work. 5. Russia is a country of “living” souls. N.V. Gogol’s desire, which had been brewing for several decades, to write a large epic work dedicated to the fate of Russia, led the writer to the idea of the poem “Dead Souls.” It started […]...
Rus', where are you going? Give an answer. Doesn't give an answer. N.V. Gogol Looking at the gallery of characters drawn by Gogol in the first volume of “Dead Souls,” you involuntarily ask the question: which of them is the main character? Of course, it is absurd to look for him among the landowners. Neither sweet to the point of cloying, stupid Manilov, nor the “club-headed” Korobochka, nor the “hysterical man” Nozdryov, a petty dirty trick and […]...
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N.V. Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls” was created in the 40s of the 19th century. Gogol did not work on any of his works, including “The Inspector General,” with such passion, with such faith in his calling as a citizen writer, with which he created “Dead Souls.” He did not devote so much deep creative thought, hard work and time to any other work as to his […]...
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One of the remarkable features of Pushkin’s genius is the harmony of his works in terms of their plot and compositional structure. Clarity, definiteness, harmony and proportionality are the main compositional properties of Pushkin’s creations. Belinsky noted that in Pushkin’s works “the end is in harmony with the beginning.” Indeed, one of the poet’s favorite techniques was a ring composition, when the action in the finale returns to the place from where […]...
Its plot and composition are organized in accordance with the problematics and ideological and thematic uniqueness of the novel. In its center is the image of Bazarov, which unites the entire artistic canvas of the work. Its significance is obvious: out of the 28 chapters of the novel, it does not appear in only two. The plot, limited to a fairly narrow time frame, develops clearly and dynamically. With the arrival of Arkady and his friend in […]...
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Gogol carefully and lovingly studies the Russian folk language, he enters various colloquial words and expressions into his “Notebooks” and draws handfuls of them for his works. Many folk words and expressions, overheard by Gogol in life and introduced into the poem, give it not only even greater realistic authenticity, but also an undoubted nationality. This is complemented by […]...
1. Chichikov’s life path. 2. The goal and means of the hero. 3. The tenacity of a businessman. From the labors of the righteous one cannot make stone chambers. Russian folk proverb Traditionally, the image of Chichikov, the main character of N.V. Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls,” is usually viewed as clearly negative. However, is the hero so straightforward and simple as to rank him among the host of textbook villains? Could […]...
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Nikolai Vasilyevich spent a long time thinking about what the meaning of the novel would be. As a result, I came to the conclusion that it was necessary to show all of Rus', the people with all their shortcomings, negative traits, and contradictory characters. Gogol wanted to touch people, to show them what was happening in the world, what they should be afraid of. He wanted readers to get acquainted with his [...]
According to Gogol’s plan, the composition of the poem “Dead Souls” was supposed to consist of three volumes, like Dante’s “Divine Poem,” but only the first volume was realized, according to the author - “the porch to the house.” This is a kind of “Hell” of Russian reality. In volume 2, similar to “Purgatory,” new positive heroes were supposed to appear and, using the example of Chichikov, it was supposed to show the path of purification and resurrection […]...
The plot of the poem was suggested to Gogol by Pushkin. Collegiate adviser Chichikov came to the city to buy peasants who were on the lists before the new revision tale. Then they can be pledged to the treasury and capitalized on this, and their former masters will be happy to give up the dead so that the taxes on them will not be so high. So Pavel Ivanovich meets [...]
The name of this work by 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 the true souls of society that they have long been hardened and [...]
1. Gogol's original plan. 2. Two compositional bases. 3. The satirical plan of the poem. Chichikov's place is in it. 4. Preaching plan of the poem. 5. Place of author's digressions. The features of the compositional structure of N.V. Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls” are determined primarily by the creative task that the author set for himself. The original author's plan included three books united by a common idea - [...]
The characters are interesting primarily because of their pronounced typification. In the fate of the writer, the poem played the role of an unbearable load. N.V. Gogol was able to master only half of what he originally planned, and eternal doubts broke him halfway. We can say that N.V. Gogol felt and understood more than he could express in words, despite all the colorfulness of his language. He put it on [...]
You yourself understand that every phrase came to me through deliberation, long considerations, that it is harder for me to part with it than for another writer, for whom it costs nothing to replace one thing with another in one minute. N.V. Gogol Few writers possessed such magic of words as Gogol. He considered taking care of language one of the most important tasks of an artist. Gogol always [...]
FEATURES OF THE GENRE AND COMPOSITION OF THE POEM “DEAD SOULS” Defining the genre of his own work, N.V. Gogol called “Dead Souls” a poem. This genre definition was maintained at all stages of work, right up to the publication of the book. This is due, first of all, to the fact that in “Dead Souls”, which were originally thought of under the sign of “gaiety” and comedy, there is also another, non-comic element – [...]
...The further continuation becomes clearer and more majestic in the head, from which something colossal may eventually emerge. From a letter from N.V. Gogol to S.T. Aksakov. 1840 Let's read this epigraph. How do I understand it? Everything seems clear and understandable, except for one thing: “... something colossal.” One gets the impression that he planned all this in the first volume and is “cunning” with [...]
Writer's personality. The world of Gogol's word We begin the lesson by reflecting on the personality of Gogol. It seems to us that in many ways, awareness of the depth of the creator’s personality helps to realize the grandeur of the work he created. During the mini-lecture, we dwell on the inconsistency of the writer’s character, presenting statements of his contemporaries about him (at the same time inviting students to think about the question: Why did Gogol’s contemporaries often give him completely opposite […]...
N.V. Gogol intended to create his poem “Dead Souls”, taking as a model the “Divine Comedy” of the Italian Renaissance poet Dante Alighieri. Just as Dante divided his work into three honors (“Hell”, “Purgatory” and “Paradise”), so Gogol’s poem was supposed to consist of three volumes. But this grandiose plan was not destined to be fully realized. Entirely Gogol […]...
Plot and compositional features. The originality of the ideological and thematic content of the comedy determines the features of its construction. He said this very precisely in his critical sketch “A Million Torments”; Goncharov: “Two comedies seem to be nested within one another: one, so to speak, is private, petty, domestic, between Chatsky, Sofia, Molchalin and Liza: this is the intrigue of love, the everyday motive of all comedies. When the first one is interrupted, in the interval there is […]...
According to Gogol, Pushkin best of all grasped the originality of the writing style of the future author of “Dead Souls”: “Not a single writer had this gift to expose the vulgarity of life so clearly, to be able to outline in such force the vulgarity of a vulgar person, so that all the little things that elude eye, would flash large in everyone’s eyes.” Indeed, the main means of depicting Russian life […]...
Chapter 1 A certain gentleman arrives in the provincial town of NN, staying at a hotel and “with extreme subtlety” began asking the servants about the local officials and landowners. The curious gentleman turns out to be collegiate adviser Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov. The next day he visited many city officials, starting with the governor. In conversations with them, Chichikov was extremely kind and always modest […]...
When starting to work on the poem “Dead Souls,” Gogol set himself the goal of “showing at least one side of all of Rus'.” The poem is based on a plot about the adventures of Chichikov, an official who buys “dead souls.” This composition allowed the author to talk about various landowners and their villages, which Chichikov visits in order to complete his deal. The face of landowner Russia is represented […]...
The poem “Dead Souls” continues the main Gogol theme that runs through all of his work: the belittlement and disintegration of man in the illusory and absurd world of Russian reality. But now it is enriched with an idea of what the true, high spirit of Russian life is, what it can and should be. This idea permeates the main theme of the poem: the writer’s reflection on Russia […]...
In the story “Telegram” K. Paustovsky raises the theme of human indifference and loneliness. The plot is based on a simple story about how an elderly mother, forgotten by her daughter, busy with her work in the city, dies alone. Compositionally, the story is divided into three parts: the first tells about the life of Katerina Petrovna in the village of Zaborye. The second is dedicated to his daughter Nastya. In the third part there is […]...
Artistic features. According to Gogol, Pushkin best of all grasped the originality of the writing style of the future author of “Dead Souls”: “Not a single writer had this gift to expose the vulgarity of life so clearly, to be able to outline in such force the vulgarity of a vulgar person, so that all the little things that escape from the eyes, it would flash large in everyone’s eyes.” Indeed, the main means of depiction [...]
The meaning of the title of the poem by N.V. Gogol’s “Dead Souls” I. Introduction The title of the poem is symbolic (see Glossary, Art. Symbol) and contains many meanings. II. Main part The phrase “dead souls” is paradoxical, because the soul is immortal. The simplest meaning: “dead souls” were peasants who were listed as alive on paper, but in fact were already dead. In this image one can already see the deadness of the clerical [...]

Plot and compositional features of the poem “Dead Souls” by N. V. Gogol

The plot and composition of "Dead Souls" are determined by the subject of the image - Gogol's desire to comprehend Russian life, the character of Russian people, the fate of Russia. We are talking about a fundamental change in the subject of the image compared to the literature of the 20s and 30s: the artist’s attention is transferred from the image of an individual to a portrait of society.

The image of the road embodies both the hero’s everyday path (“but for all that his road was difficult...”) and the author’s creative path: “And for a long time it was determined for me by the wonderful power to walk hand in hand with my strange heroes...” Moreover that Chichikov travels in it, that is, thanks to it, the plot of the journey becomes possible; The britzka also motivates the appearance of the characters of Selifan and the horses; thanks to her, she manages to escape from Nozdryov; the chaise collides with the carriage of the governor's daughter and thus a lyrical motif is introduced, and at the end of the poem Chichikov even appears as the kidnapper of the governor's daughter. The britzka seems to be endowed with its own will and sometimes does not obey Chichikov and Selifan, goes its own way and in the end dumps the rider into impassable mud - so the hero, against his own will, ends up with Korobochka, who greets him with affectionate words: “Eh, my father, yes "You're like a hog, your whole back and side are covered in mud! Where did you get so greasy?" In addition, the chaise, as it were, determines the ring composition of the first volume: the poem opens with a conversation between two men about how strong the chaise wheel is, and ends with the breakdown of that very wheel, which is why Chichikov has to stay in the city. The plot of the journey gives Gogol the opportunity to create a gallery of images of landowners. At the same time, the composition looks very rational: the exposition of the plot of the journey is given in the first chapter (Chichikova meets officials and some landowners, receives invitations from them), followed by five chapters in which the landowners “sit”, and Chichikov travels from chapter to chapter, buying up dead souls. Gogol in “Dead Souls,” as in “The Inspector General,” creates an absurd artistic world in which people lose their human essence and turn into a parody of the possibilities inherent in them by nature. In an effort to detect signs of death and loss of spirituality (soul) in the characters, Gogol resorts to the use of everyday detail. Each landowner is surrounded by many objects that can characterize him. Details associated with certain characters not only live autonomously, but also “add up” into a kind of motive. For example, the motif of desolation, necrosis, and degradation is associated with Plyushkin, as a result of which a grotesque metaphorical image of a “hole in humanity” arises. With Manilov there is a motif of oversweetness, creating a kind of parody of the hero of sentimental novels. The position in the gallery of images of landowners also characterizes each of them. There is a widespread opinion that each subsequent landowner is “deader” than the previous one, that is, in the words of Gogol, “my heroes follow, one more vulgar than the other.” But is this exactly what Gogol meant? Is Plyushkin the worst of them all? After all, this is the only hero who has a backstory, only a semblance of life flashed on his face, “suddenly some kind of warm ray slipped, not a feeling was expressed, but some pale reflection of a feeling.” Therefore, one cannot judge Plyushkin as the worst - it’s just that the very measure of vulgarity by the sixth chapter becomes unbearable. Yu. Mann considers the sixth chapter to be a turning point. Plyushkin's evolution introduces the theme of change for the worse into the poem. After all, Plyushkin, the only one who was once “alive,” appears in the most disgusting guise of a dead soul. It is with this image that the lyrical digression in the sixth chapter is connected about the fiery young man who “would recoil in horror if they showed him his own portrait in old age.” Therefore, we can call the sixth chapter the culmination of the poem: presenting the tragic theme of change for the worse for Gogol, it completes the plot of the journey, because Plyushkin is the last of the landowners whom Chichikov visited. So, the plot of the journey is exhausted, but the poem still has five chapters: therefore, the work is based on some other plot. Such a plot, from the point of view of Yu. Mann, turns out to be a mirage intrigue. In fact, the purpose of Chichikov’s journey is a mirage in the most literal sense of the word: he buys “one sound intangible to the senses.” The beginning of the mirage intrigue occurs during a conversation with Manilov, when a strange guest offers the owner a “negotiation”. At this moment, the purpose of Chichikov’s journey becomes clear. The purchase of “dead people”, which, however, would be listed as living according to the audit, is undertaken by the hero to commit fraud on a legal basis: he wants not only to gain weight in society, but also to pledge his strange purchase to the board of guardians, that is, to receive money. In essence, Chichikov’s journey is an endless pursuit of a mirage, of emptiness, of people who have passed away, of what cannot be in the human will.

And according to the laws of Gogol’s artistic world, the mirage begins to materialize and take on real features. The more dead Chichikov buys, the more significant his purchase turns out to be: dead souls come to life and become reality. In fact, why does Sobakevich begin to praise his dead peasants and say complete nonsense: “Another swindler will deceive you, sell you rubbish, not souls; but I have a strong nut, everything is for selection.” Does he want, by describing the merits of the coachman Mikheev, the carpenter Stepan Probka, the shoemaker Maxim Telyatnikov, the brickmaker Milushkin, to simply deceive Chichikov? But this is impossible, both understand perfectly well that they simply do not exist and all their qualities are in the past. It’s more likely not a matter of deception, but of Sobakevich’s unintentionality: in the same way he will describe the merits of his peasants in the city, after the deed of sale has been completed, when no deception is no longer needed: the dead souls bought by Chichikov become alive before our eyes, and the landowners say about them as if they were alive. The purchased peasants also “come to life” at the beginning of the seventh chapter, when Chichikov draws up documents for completing the deed of sale, and “a strange feeling, incomprehensible to him, took possession of him.” “It seemed as if the men were alive just yesterday.” The author, as it were, intercepts the internal monologue of his hero, talks about the fate of the peasants, in whom all aspects of the Russian folk character were embodied.

By the beginning of the seventh chapter, the plot of the journey is exhausted - Chichikov arrives in the city to draw up a deed of purchase. This moment, the happy denouement of the plot of the journey, turns out to be the culmination of the mirage intrigue: the mirage, which Chichikov was chasing, materializes legally, the hero becomes a Kherson landowner and himself forgets that “souls are not entirely real.” Emptiness, fiction, bought up by Chichikov, receives full legal status! He begins to live his own life, gives rise to many rumors in the city, and acquires more and more plausible details. Peasants bought without land, it turns out, are bought to be brought to the Kherson province; there is a river and a pond; celebrating the purchase, they drank to the prosperity of the peasants and their happy resettlement; upon Chichikov’s return, Selifan receives some economic orders: “gather all the newly resettled men to make a personal roll call of everyone.” And at that moment, when the hero himself forgets about the nature of his “negotiation,” Nozdryov and Korobochka appear in the city, breaking Chichikov’s crystal mirage. But having broken, the mirage, like a crumbling mirror, forms many fragments in which its creator, Chichikov, is reflected in a distorted light. In the judgments of the city residents, he turns out to be a millionaire, a maker of counterfeit notes, a kidnapper of the governor's daughter, Napoleon who fled from the island, Captain Kopeikin. It is in the last four chapters of the poem that the image of the provincial city of NN is concretized. In the drafts from the time he was working on the first volume, the writer formulated the meaning of this image: “The idea of a city, Emptiness that has arisen to the highest degree. Idle talk, Gossip that has crossed the limits, how all this arose from idleness and took on the expression of the ridiculous to the highest degree.” "The mirage intrigue ends at the moment when all the gossip about Chichikov stops. The death of the prosecutor puts an end to them. All the attention of the townspeople switches to this event. Only after this does Chichikov, forgotten, leave the city. The ideological and compositional role of the image of Chichikov is predetermined in the first place due to the fact that he owned the idea of the scam, to carry it out he was given the right to freely move around the artistic space of the poem, the author almost never parted with him.It is especially worth noting that if it were not for Chichikov, there would be neither the plot of the journey, nor the poem itself. But it is not they, not his fate, that are the main subject of the image in Gogol. It is the specificity of the subject of the image that forces us to turn to the genre originality of the work

The genre nature of Gogol's work is complex and not easy to define. The writer himself tried to point out the originality of “Dead Souls” by calling his book a poem, but he did not give a decoding of this concept, which forces readers and researchers of Gogol - from the moment the book was published to this day - to look for the key to the interpretation of its genre appearance. Can Dead Souls be considered a novel? When talking about a novel, we usually mean an epic work of great artistic form, in which the narrative is focused on the fate of an individual in his relation to the world around him, on the formation, development of his character and self-awareness.

If the story about the origin, upbringing and attempts of the hero to ensure for himself “a life in all comforts, with all the prosperity” appeared at the beginning of the story, people and events would unite around the hero, would become connected with his fate, turning " Dead Souls" into a novel, a picaresque type novel, where the anti-hero goes through a series of successes and defeats. But for Gogol, Chichikov’s adventures are only a path to solving another, main task for him. What did it consist of? Let us return to the definition that Gogol himself gave to “Dead Souls”. He called his work a poem, just as Pushkin considered “Eugene Onegin” a “novel in verse.” Gogol's work can rightfully be called a poem. This right is given to him by the poetry, musicality, expressiveness of the language, saturated with such figurative comparisons and metaphors that can only be found in poetic speech. And most importantly, the constant presence of the author, which makes “Dead Souls” a lyrical-epic work. All reality depicted in it passes through the prism of the author's consciousness. In lyrical digressions, Gogol poses and resolves literary questions.

The peculiar genre structure of “Dead Souls” allows Gogol to depict a picture of the morals of all of Russia, while showing the general, not the particular, not the life story of one person, but a “diverse bunch” of Russian characters. The lyrical beginning brings these observations to the level of philosophical reflections on the fate of Russia in the family of humanity.

The composition of “Dead Souls” is harmonious and Pushkin-like proportionate.

There are a total of 11 chapters in Volume 1. Of these, Chapter I is a detailed exposition. The next 5 chapters (II-VI), starting and developing the action, at the same time represent 5 complete short stories-essays, in the center of each of them is a detailed portrait of one of the landowners of the province, where Chichikov arrived in the hope of carrying out the scam he had planned . Each portrait is a certain type.

In the next five chapters (VII-XI) mainly officials of the provincial city are depicted. However, these chapters are no longer structured as separate essays with one main character in the center, but as a consistently developing chain of events taking on an increasingly plot-intensive character.

Chapter XI concludes Volume 1 and at the same time, as it were, returns the reader to the beginning of the story.

In Chapter I, Chichikov's entry into the city of NN is depicted, and a hint is already made of the outset of the action. In Chapter XI, the denouement occurs, the hero hastily leaves the city, and here Chichikov’s background is given. In general, the chapter represents the completion of the plot, its denouement, and exposition, the “unraveling” of the protagonist’s character and an explanation of the secret of his strange “negotiation” associated with the purchase of dead souls.

When studying the system of images in “Dead Souls,” you should especially think about the peculiarities of character typification, in particular the images of landowners. Usually, for all their individual uniqueness, they emphasize the social features of the feudal landowners during the period of the decomposition of the feudal system that began in Russia, which, in particular, is discussed in all school and university textbooks.

In general, this is correct, but far from sufficient, since with this approach the unusual breadth of artistic generalization in these images remains unclear. Reflecting in each of them a variety of the social type of the landowner-serf, Gogol did not limit himself to this, because for him not only social-species specificity is important, but also the universal human characteristic of the depicted artistic type. A truly artistic type (including Gogol’s) is always broader than any social type, because it is depicted as an individual character in which the social-species, class-group complexly correlates with the social-clan, holistic-personal, universal - with the greater or a lesser predominance of one of these principles. That is why Gogol’s artistic types contain features characteristic not only of landowners or officials, but also of other classes, estates and social strata of society.

It is noteworthy that Gogol himself repeatedly emphasized the non-isolation of his heroes by social-class, social-species, narrow group and even time frames. Speaking about Korobochka, he notes: “He is a respectable and even a statesman, but in reality he turns out to be a perfect Korobochka.” Having masterfully characterized the “broad” nature of the “historical man” Nozdryov, the writer in this case does not attribute all his diverse properties exclusively to the feudal landowner of his era, asserting: “Nozdryov will not be removed from the world for a long time. He is everywhere among us and, perhaps, only he walks around in a different caftan; but people are frivolously undiscerning, and a person in a different caftan seems to them a different person."

For all their undoubted socio-psychological limitations, the characters of Gogol’s characters are far from schematic one-dimensionality; they are living people with a lot of individual shades. The same, according to Gogol, “many-sided person” Nozdryov with his “bouquet” of negative qualities (reveler, gambler, shameless liar, brawler, etc.) is attractive in some way: his irrepressible energy, ability to quickly get along with people, a kind of democracy, selflessness and profligacy, the absence of hoarding. The only trouble is that all these human qualities acquire an ugly development in him; they are not illuminated by any meaning, truly human goals.

There are positive beginnings in the characters of Manilov, Korobochka, Sobakevich, and even Plyushkin. But these are, more precisely, the remnants of their humanity, which further highlight the lack of spirituality that has triumphed in them under the influence of the environment.

If, for example, Lermontov predominantly portrayed the resistance of the “inner man” to the external circumstances of life surrounding him, then Gogol in “Dead Souls” focuses on his subordination to these circumstances, up to “dissolution” in them, focusing, as a rule, on the final the result of this process. This is how Manilov, Korobochka, and Nozdryov are represented. But already in the depiction of Sobakevich there is also another tendency - to understand the origins of the process of spiritual death of a person: “Were you really born a bear,” the poem says about Sobakevich, “or have you been bearded by provincial life, grain crops, fuss with peasants, and Through them you became what is called a man-fist.”

The more a person loses his human qualities, the more Gogol strives to get to the bottom of the reasons for his mental deadness. This is exactly how he makes a “hole in humanity” by Plyushkin, unfolding his life’s background, talking about that time “when he was just a thrifty owner,” “he was married and a family man,” an exemplary one, when in his “intellect was visible; His speech was imbued with experience and knowledge of the world, and the guest was pleased to listen to him; the friendly and talkative hostess was famous for her hospitality; Two pretty daughters came out to meet them, both blond and fresh as roses, a son ran out, a broken boy...”

And then the author, without skimping on details, shows how Plyushkin’s frugality gradually turned into senseless stinginess, how marital, paternal and other human feelings died away. His wife and youngest daughter died. The eldest, Alexandra Stepanovna, ran away with the officer in search of a free and happy life. The son, having become an officer, lost at cards. Instead of material or moral support, Plyushkin sent them his father’s curse and became even more withdrawn into himself and his all-consuming passion for hoarding, which became more and more meaningless over time.

Along with pathological stinginess and suspicion, hypocrisy develops in him, designed to create a semblance of lost spiritual properties. In some ways, Gogol anticipated the image of Judushka Golovlev, for example, in the scene of Plyushkin’s reception of his “runaway” daughter with her “two little ones”: “Alexandra Stepanovna once came twice with her little son, trying to see if she could get something; Apparently, camp life with a captain captain was not as attractive as it seemed before the wedding. Plyushkin, however, forgave her and even gave his little granddaughter a button to play with... but he didn’t give her any money. Another time, Alexandra Stepanovna arrived with two little ones and brought him a cake for tea and a new robe, because the priest had such a robe that he was not only ashamed to look at, but even ashamed. Plyushkin caressed both granddaughters and, sitting them one on his right knee and the other on his left, rocked them in exactly the same way as if they were riding horses, took a cake and a robe, but gave absolutely nothing to his daughter; And with that, Alexandra Stepanovna left.”

But even in such a “monster” the writer looks for remnants of humanity. In this regard, an indicative episode is when Plyushkin, during a “bargaining” with Chichikov, remembered his only acquaintance in the city, who had been his classmate in childhood: “And some kind of warm ray suddenly slid across this wooden face, it was not a feeling that was expressed, but some kind of that pale reflection of feeling...”

By the way, according to the plan, Plyushkin was supposed to appear in the subsequent volumes of Dead Souls, if not resurrected morally and spiritually, then having realized, as a result of a strong life shock, the extent of his human fall.

The backstory of the main character, the “scoundrel” Chichikov, is given in even more detail, who, according to the writer’s plan, was supposed to undergo a significant internal evolution over the course of three volumes.

The types of officials are described more succinctly, but no less meaningfully, for example, a prosecutor with thick eyebrows and an involuntary winking left eye. Rumors and rumors about the story of Chichikov’s purchase of dead souls had such an effect on him that he “began to think and think and suddenly... out of nowhere he died.” They sent for a doctor, but soon they saw that the prosecutor “was already one soulless body.” And only then did his fellow citizens “learn with condolences that the deceased definitely had a soul, although out of his modesty he never showed it.”

The comic and satirical nature of the image here imperceptibly transforms into a different, moral and philosophical tone: the deceased is lying on the table, “the left eye no longer blinked at all, but one eyebrow was still raised with some kind of questioning expression. What the dead man asked, why he died or why he lived, only God knows about this.”

This cardinal vital question is posed - why did a person live, why does a person live? - a question that worried so little about all these seemingly prosperous inhabitants of the provincial city with their souls deadened alive. Here one involuntarily recalls the words of Pechorin from “A Hero of Our Time”: “Why did I live? For what purpose was I born?

We talk a lot and rightly about social satire in “Dead Souls”, not always noticing their moral and philosophical subtext, which over time, and especially in our time, is increasingly gaining not only historical, but also modern interest, highlighting in concrete terms the historical content of “Dead Souls” has a universal human perspective.

The deep unity of these two aspects was noticed by Herzen. Immediately after reading Gogol’s poem, he wrote in his diary: “Dead souls” - this title itself carries something terrifying... not the revision dead souls, but all these Nozdryovs, Manilovs and tutti quaiili - these are the dead souls, and we meet them at every step. Where are the common, living interests?.. After our youth, don’t we all, one way or another, lead one of the lives of Gogol’s heroes? One remains in Manilov’s dull daydreaming, another rages like Nozdryov, the third is Plyushkin, etc. One active person is Chichikov, and that one is a limited rogue.”

To all these dead souls the writer contrasts, first of all, the “living souls” of peasants who died, as a rule, not their own, but a forced death, or who could not withstand the oppression of serfdom and became fugitives, such as the carpenter Stepan Probka (“a hero who would have been fit for the guard” ), shoemaker Maxim Telyatnikov (“whatever pierces the awl, so will the boots”), the amazing brickmaker Milushkin, Abakum Fyrov, who “loved the free life” and became a barge hauler, and others.

Gogol emphasizes the tragedy of the destinies of most of them, who are increasingly “thinking” about their powerless lives - like that Grigory You Can’t Get There, who “thought and thought, but out of nowhere turned into a tavern, and then straight into cut the hole and remember their name.” And the writer makes a meaningful conclusion: “Eh! Russian people! doesn’t like to die a natural death!” .

When talking about the central conflict in the artistic structure of the poem, we must keep in mind its peculiar two-dimensionality. On the one hand, this is the conflict of the protagonist with landowners and officials, based on Chichikov’s adventure of buying up dead souls. On the other hand, this is a deep-seated conflict between the landowner-bureaucratic, autocratic-serf elite of Russia and the people, primarily the serf peasantry. Echoes of this deep-seated conflict are heard every now and then on the pages of Dead Souls.

Even the “well-intentioned” Chichikov, annoyed by the failure of his cunning idea, hastily leaving the governor’s ball, unexpectedly attacks both the balls and the entire idle life of the ruling classes associated with them: “Damn you, everyone who invented these balls!.. Well, Why are you so stupidly happy? In the province there are poor harvests, high prices, so they are for balls!.. But at the expense of peasant dues...”

Chichikov occupies a special place in the figurative and semantic structure of “Dead Souls” - not only as the main character, but also as the ideological, compositional and plot-forming center of the poem. Chichikov’s travel, which formed the basis of his adventurous and mercantile intentions, gave the writer the opportunity, in his words, to “travel... all over Russia and bring out many different characters,” to show “all of Rus'” in its contradictions and dormant potentials.

Thus, when analyzing the reasons for the collapse of Chichikov’s idea of enrichment through the acquisition of dead souls, it is worth paying special attention to two seemingly side episodes - Chichikov’s meeting with a young blonde who turned out to be the governor’s daughter, and the consequences of these meetings. Chichikov allowed himself sincere human feelings only for a moment, but this was enough to confuse all his cards, to destroy his plan, which was so prudently carried out. Of course, the narrator says, “it is doubtful that gentlemen of this kind... are capable of love...” But, “it is clear that the Chichikovs also turn into poets for a few minutes in their lives...”. As soon as Chichikov, in his fleeting infatuation, forgot about the role he had assumed and stopped paying due attention to “society” in the person of primarily the ladies, they were not slow to take revenge on him for such neglect, picking up the version of dead souls, flavoring it in their own way with the legend of abduction governor's daughter: “All the ladies did not like Chichikov’s treatment at all.” And they all at once “set off each in their own direction to riot the city,” i.e. set him up against the recent universal favorite Chichikov. This “private” storyline in its own way highlights the complete incompatibility in the mercantile and prudent world of business success with sincere human feelings and movements of the heart.

The basis of the plot in the 1st volume of “Dead Souls” is Chichikov’s misadventures associated with his scam based on the purchase of dead souls. The news of this excited the entire provincial city. The most incredible assumptions were made as to why Chichikov needed dead souls.

General confusion and fear were intensified by the fact that a new governor-general had been appointed to the province. “Everyone suddenly found sins in themselves that didn’t even exist.” The officials wondered who Chichikov was, whom they so kindly received by his dress and manners: “is he the kind of person who needs to be detained and captured as ill-intentioned, or is he the kind of person who can himself seize and detain them all as ill-intentioned?” .

This social “ambivalence” of Chichikov as a possible bearer of both law and lawlessness reflected their relativity, opposition and interconnectedness in the society depicted by the writer. Chichikov was a mystery not only for the characters in the poem, but also in many ways for its readers. That is why, drawing attention to it, the author was in no hurry to solve it, placing the exposition explaining the origins of this nature in the final chapter.

Conclusion from the chapter: Gogol sought to show the terrible face of Russian reality, to recreate the “Hell” of Russian modern life.

The poem has a circular “composition”: it is framed by the action of the first and eleventh chapters: Chichikov enters the city and leaves it. The exposition in “Dead Souls” has been moved to the end of the work. Thus, the eleventh chapter is, as it were, the informal beginning of the poem and its formal end. The poem begins with the development of the action: Chichikov begins his path to the “acquisition” of dead souls. The construction of “Dead Souls” is logical and consistent. Each chapter is completed thematically, it has its own task and its own subject of the image. The chapters devoted to the depiction of landowners are structured according to the following scheme: a description of the landscape, the estate, home and life, the appearance of the hero, then the dinner and the landowner’s attitude towards the sale of dead souls are shown. The composition of the poem contains lyrical digressions, inserted short stories (“The Tale of Captain Kopeikin”), and a parable about Kif Mokievich and Mokia Kofovich.

The macro-composition of the poem “Dead Souls”, that is, the composition of the entire planned work, was suggested to Gogol by Dante’s immortal “Divine Comedy”: Volume 1 - the hell of serfdom, the kingdom of dead souls; Volume 2 - purgatory; Volume 3 is heaven. This plan remained unfulfilled. One can also note the gradual spiritual degradation of the landowners as the reader gets to know them. This picture creates in the reader a rather difficult emotional feeling from the symbolic steps along which the human soul moves to hell.

N.V. Gogol, while writing “Dead Souls,” could not decide for a very long time whether it was a novel or a poem. And yet, the author settled on the fact that “Dead Souls” is a lyric epic poem, because a significant place in it is occupied by lyrical digressions and inserted episodes, which is typical for this literary genre. Consequently, in “Dead Souls” the lyrical and epic principles are equal.

The task of the epic part is to show “although from one side Rus',” and lyrical digressions add poetry to the work. For example, at the end of the first volume, the author introduces the image of a trio of birds, which rushes along the road and personifies all of Rus'. What pride and love for the Fatherland sounds in this episode. In my opinion, the introduction of lyrical digressions into the epic plot is a specific feature of the compositional integrity of this poem.

The originality of “Dead Souls” lies in its special construction. So, in the first chapter, the author gives a general description of the provincial city and briefly introduces the reader to the main character. In the next five chapters, Chichikov visits landowners and buys dead souls from them. Moreover, the author describes the serf owners in order of degradation: one is worse than the other. For example, Manilov, as an independent character, cannot be perceived positively (he does not read, does not develop, does not do housework, has feigned politeness), but in comparison with Nozdryov, a brawler and a liar, the first landowner looks spiritually much higher. And if we compare Korobochka and Plyushkin, then Nastasya Petrovna also wins with some character traits: although she does not develop, like Plyushkin, she is a landowner - a model of thriftiness.

It is no coincidence that the writer builds each chapter according to a certain scheme: a description of the village, the estate, the interior of the house, the meeting of the owner, the dinner scene, the serf owner’s reaction to Chichikov’s proposal. And so throughout all five chapters he uses the same typing methods.

Another interesting feature is that the reader learns the biography of the main character not at the beginning of the work, but only at the end of the first volume. We have already learned about what Chichikov did, what the consequences of his journey were, but the reasons that prompted Pavel Ivanovich to start these “adventures” are not yet known to us. It turns out that the engine of this idea is the covenant given to Pavlusha as a child by his father: “save a penny, it will never give out...”

Thus, a feature of the composition of the poem “Dead Souls” is the unusual arrangement of the chapters of the entire work, the existence of lyrical digressions, and ways of typifying the images of landowners, built according to the same method.

It found its expression in the fact that the images of landowners, peasants, the description of their life, economy and morals are depicted in the poem so clearly that after reading this part of the poem, you remember it forever. The image of landowner-peasant Rus' was very relevant in Gogol’s time due to the aggravation of the crisis of the serfdom system. Many landowners have ceased to be useful to society, have fallen morally and become hostages of their rights to land and people. Another layer of Russian society began to come to the fore - city residents. As earlier in “The Inspector General,” in this poem Gogol presents a broad picture of officialdom, ladies’ society, ordinary townspeople, and servants.

So, the image of Gogol’s contemporary Russia determines the main themes of “Dead Souls”: the theme of the homeland, the theme of local life, the theme of the city, the theme of the soul. Among the motifs of the poem, the main ones are the road motif and the path motif. The road motif organizes the narrative in the work, the path motif expresses the central author’s idea - the acquisition by Russian people of a true and spiritual life. Gogol achieves an expressive semantic effect by combining these motifs with the following compositional device: at the beginning of the poem, Chichikov’s chaise enters the city, and at the end it leaves. Thus, the author shows that what is described in the first volume is part of an unimaginably long road in finding the way. All the heroes of the poem are on the way - Chichikov, the author, Rus'.

“Dead Souls” consists of two large parts, which can be roughly called “village” and “city”. In total, the first volume of the poem contains eleven chapters: the first chapter, describing Chichikov’s arrival, acquaintance with the city and urban society, should be considered expositional; then there are five chapters about landowners (chapters two - six), in the seventh Chichikov returns to the city, at the beginning of the eleventh he leaves it, and the next content of the chapter is no longer connected with the city. Thus, the description of the village and the city account for equal parts of the text of the work, which fully correlates with the main thesis of Gogol’s plan: “All of Rus' will appear in it!”

The poem also has two extra-plot elements: “The Tale of Captain Kopeikin” and the parable of Kif Mokievich and Mokia Kifovich. The purpose of including a story in the text of the work is to clarify some of the ideas of the poem. The parable serves as a generalization, connecting the characters of the poem with the idea of the purpose of intelligence and heroism as two priceless gifts given to man.

It is also noteworthy that the author tells the “story of Chichikov” in the eleventh chapter. The main purpose of placing the hero's backstory at the end of the chapter is that the author wanted to avoid the reader's preconceived, prepared perception of events and the hero. Gogol wanted the reader to form his own opinion about what was happening, observing everything as if it were in real life.

Finally, the relationship between the epic and the lyrical in the poem also has its own ideological meaning. The first lyrical digression in the poem appears at the end of the fifth chapter in a discussion about the Russian language. In the future, their number increases; at the end of Chapter 11, the author speaks with patriotism and civic passion about Rus', the bird-three. The lyrical beginning in the work increases because Gogol’s idea was to establish his bright ideal. He wanted to show how the fog that had thickened over “sad Russia” (as Pushkin described the first chapters of the poem) dissipates in the dream of a happy future for the country.

The composition of the poem “Dead Souls” and its features (Gogol N.)

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