The world of the living and the world of dead souls. An essay in miniature on the theme of souls dead and alive in N.V. Gogol’s poem dead souls

When publishing Dead Souls, Gogol wished to design it himself title page. It depicted Chichikov’s carriage, symbolizing the path of Russia, and around there were many human skulls. The publication of this particular title page was very important for Gogol, as well as the fact that his book was published simultaneously with Ivanov’s painting “The Appearance of Christ to the People.” The theme of life and death, rebirth runs like a red thread through Gogol’s work. Gogol saw his task in correcting and directing human hearts to the true path, and these attempts were made through the theater, in civic activities, teaching and, finally, in creativity.
There is an opinion that Gogol planned to create the poem “Dead Souls” by analogy with Dante’s poem “ The Divine Comedy" This determined the proposed three-part composition of the future work. “The Divine Comedy” consists of three parts: “Hell”, “Purgatory” and “Paradise”, which were supposed to correspond to the three volumes of “Dead Souls” conceived by Gogol. In the first volume, Gogol sought to show the terrible Russian reality, to recreate “hell” modern life. In the second and third volumes, Gogol wanted to depict the revival of Russia. Gogol saw himself as a writer-preacher who, drawing on the pages of his work a picture of the revival of Russia, leads it out of the crisis.

“Dead Souls” is a synthesis of all possible ways of fighting for human souls. The work contains both direct pathos and teachings, and an artistic sermon, illustrated with images of themselves dead souls- landowners and city officials. Lyrical digressions also give the work the sense of an artistic sermon and sum up the terrible pictures of life and everyday life depicted. Appealing to all humanity as a whole and considering the ways of spiritual resurrection, revival, Gogol in lyrical digressions indicates that “darkness and evil are embedded not in the social shells of the people, but in the spiritual core” (N. Berdyaev). The subject of the writer’s study is the human souls depicted in scary pictures"unsuitable" life.

The “dead souls” of the poem are contrasted with the “living” - a talented, hardworking, long-suffering people. With a deep sense of patriotism and faith in the great future of his people, Gogol writes about him. He saw the lack of rights of the peasantry, its humiliated position and the dullness and savagery of the peasants that were the result of serfdom. Exactly dead peasants in “Dead Souls” have living souls, in contrast to the living people of the poem, whose souls are dead.
Thus, in the first volume of Dead Souls, Gogol depicts all the shortcomings, all the negative aspects of Russian reality. Gogol shows people what their souls have become. He does this because he passionately loves Russia and hopes for its revival. Gogol wanted people, after reading his poem, to be horrified by their lives and awaken from a deadening sleep. This is the task of the first volume. Describing the terrible reality, Gogol depicts to us in lyrical digressions his ideal of the Russian people, speaks of the living, immortal soul of Russia. In the second and third volumes of his work, Gogol planned to transfer this ideal to real life. But, unfortunately, he was never able to show the revolution in the soul of the Russian people, he was unable to revive dead souls. This was Gogol’s creative tragedy, which grew into the tragedy of his entire life.

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Love the book, it will make your life easier, it will help you sort out the colorful and stormy confusion of thoughts, feelings, events, it will teach you to respect people and yourself, it inspires your mind and heart with a feeling of love for the world, for people.

Maxim Gorky

The living and the dead in the poem "Dead Souls"

" " - This true story about Russia, about its past, present and future. The author puts the problem of improving the nation in direct connection with the transformation of each person.
Therefore, a conversation about the present and future of Russia turns out to be a reflection on the possibility of a moral rebirth of the soul.

In the novel “Dead Souls,” two groups of heroes can be roughly distinguished: dead souls (souls that are not capable of rebirth) and living souls (capable of rebirth or living a spiritual life). All the dead heroes of the poem are united by lack of spirituality, pettiness of interests, isolation on one passion. Dead souls - landowners shown close-up(Manilov, Sobakovich, Nozdrev, Korobochka).

In each of these heroes N.V. notes some typical features. Manilov is too sweet, sentimental, groundlessly dreamy and incapable of decisive action. Sobakevich is the embodiment of lack of spirituality, the carnal principle, and tight-fistedness (“man-fist”). Korobochka is accused of squandering, recklessness, extravagance, lying, lies, stupidity, and baseness of interests.

The world of dead souls is opposed by the living souls of serfs. They appear in lyrical digressions and in Chichikov’s thoughts, and they even have names (skillful people who love to work, craftsmen, Maxim Teletnyakov, Stepan Probka, Pimenov).

Depicting living souls in his work, the author does not idealize the people: there are people who love to drink, there are lazy people, like the lackey Petrushka, and there are also stupid ones, like Uncle Mitya. But in general, the people, although they are powerless and oppressed, stand above dead souls, and it is no coincidence that parts of the book dedicated to them are covered in light lyricism. The paradox is that dead souls live for a long time, but almost all the living ones have died.

In 1842, the poem “Dead Souls” was published. Gogol had many problems with censorship: from the title to the content of the work. The censors didn’t like the fact that the title, firstly, updated social problem fraud with documents, and secondly, concepts that are opposite from a religious point of view are combined. Gogol flatly refused to change the name. The writer’s idea is truly amazing: Gogol wanted, like Dante, to describe the whole world as Russia seemed to be, to show both the positive and negative traits, to depict the indescribable beauty of nature and the mystery of the Russian soul. All this is conveyed through various artistic means, and the language of the story itself is light and figurative. No wonder Nabokov said that only one letter separates Gogol from the comic to the cosmic. The concepts of “dead living souls” are mixed in the text of the story, as if in the Oblonskys’ house. The paradox is that alive soul in “Dead Souls” it ends up only with dead peasants!

Landowners

In the story, Gogol draws portraits of people contemporary to him, creating certain types. After all, if you take a closer look at each character, study his home and family, habits and inclinations, then they will have practically nothing in common. For example, Manilov loved lengthy thoughts, loved to show off a little (as evidenced by the episode with the children, when Manilov, under Chichikov, asked his sons various questions from school curriculum). Behind his external attractiveness and politeness there was nothing but senseless daydreaming, stupidity and imitation. He was not at all interested in everyday trifles, and he even gave away the dead peasants for free.

Nastasya Filippovna Korobochka knew literally everyone and everything that happened on her small estate. She remembered by heart not only the names of the peasants, but also the causes of their death, and on her farm she had full order. The enterprising housewife tried to provide, in addition to the purchased souls, flour, honey, lard - in a word, everything that was produced in the village under her strict leadership.

Sobakevich put a price on every dead soul, but he escorted Chichikov to the government chamber. He seems to be the most businesslike and responsible landowner among all the characters. His complete opposite turns out to be Nozdryov, whose meaning in life comes down to gambling and drinking. Even children cannot keep the master at home: his soul constantly requires more and more new entertainment.

The last landowner from whom Chichikov bought souls was Plyushkin. In the past, this man was a good owner and family man, but due to unfortunate circumstances, he turned into something asexual, formless and inhuman. After the death of his beloved wife, his stinginess and suspicion gained unlimited power over Plyushkin, turning him into a slave of these base qualities.

Lack of authentic life

What do all these landowners have in common?

What unites them with the mayor, who received the order for nothing, with the postmaster, police chief and other officials who take advantage of their official position, and whose goal in life is only their own enrichment? The answer is very simple: lack of desire to live. None of the characters feel any positive emotions, doesn't really think about the sublime. All these dead souls are driven by animal instincts and consumerism. There is no internal originality in landowners and officials, they are all just dummies, just copies of copies, they do not stand out in any way from the general background, they are not exceptional individuals. Everything high in this world is vulgarized and lowered: no one admires the beauty of nature, which the author so vividly describes, no one falls in love, no one accomplishes feats, no one overthrows the king. In the new, corrupt world, there is no longer room for the exclusive romantic personality. There is no love here as such: parents don’t love children, men don’t love women - people just take advantage of each other. So Manilov needs children as a source of pride, with the help of which he can increase his weight in his own eyes and in the eyes of others, Plyushkin doesn’t even want to know his daughter, who ran away from home in her youth, and Nozdryov doesn’t care whether he has children or not.

The worst thing is not even this, but the fact that idleness reigns in this world. At the same time, you can be very active and active person, but at the same time mess around. Any actions and words of the characters are devoid of internal spiritual filling, devoid of highest goal. The soul here is dead because it no longer asks for spiritual food.

The question may arise: why does Chichikov buy only dead souls? The answer to this, of course, is simple: he doesn’t need any extra peasants, and he will sell the documents for the dead. But will such an answer be complete? Here the author subtly shows that the world is alive and dead soul do not intersect and cannot intersect anymore. But the “living” souls are now in the world of the dead, and the “dead” have come to the world of the living. At the same time, the souls of the dead and the living in Gogol’s poem are inextricably linked.

Are there living souls in the poem “Dead Souls”? Of course there is. Their roles are played by deceased peasants, to whom various qualities and characteristics are attributed. One drank, another beat his wife, but this one was hard-working, and this one had strange nicknames. These characters come to life both in Chichikov’s imagination and in the reader’s imagination. And now we, together with the main character, imagine the leisure time of these people.

hope for the best

The world depicted by Gogol in the poem is completely depressing, and the work would be too gloomy if not for the subtly depicted landscapes and beauties of Rus'. That's where the lyrics are, that's where the life is! One gets the feeling that in a space devoid of living beings (that is, people), life has been preserved. And again, the opposition based on the living-dead principle is actualized here, which turns into a paradox. In the final chapter of the poem, Rus' is compared to a dashing troika that rushes along the road into the distance. “Dead Souls,” despite its general satirical nature, ends with inspiring lines that sound enthusiastic faith in the people.

Characteristics of the main character and landowners, description of them general qualities will be useful to 9th grade students when preparing for an essay on the topic “ Dead Alive souls" based on Gogol's poem.

Work test

Gogol wrote his work “Dead Souls” over the course of 17 years. During this period, his idea changed several times. As a result, the poem presents us with a comprehensive picture of the author’s contemporary Rus'.

It is important to note that Gogol defined the genre of his work as a poem. This is no coincidence, because in his creation the author devoted a huge amount of space to human soul. And the title of the work itself confirms this. By the expression “dead souls” Gogol meant not only the revision souls of dead peasants, but also the lives of many people buried under petty interests.

Carrying out his idea, Chichikov travels almost all over Russia. Thanks to his journey, a whole gallery of “dead” souls appears before us. These are the landowners Manilov, Korobochka, Nozdrev, Sobakevich, Plyushkin, and officials provincial town N, and Chichikov himself.

Chichikov pays visits to the landowners in a certain sequence: from less bad to worse, from those who still have a soul to the completely soulless.

Manilov appears first before us. His soullessness lies in fruitless daydreaming and inactivity. Manilov leaves a trace of these qualities on everything in his estate. The choice of place for the manor house is unsuccessful, the pretense of profundity is ridiculous (a gazebo with flat dome and the inscription “Temple of Solitary Reflection”). The same idleness is reflected in the furnishings of the rooms of the house. The living room has beautiful furniture and two armchairs covered in matting. In his office there is a book “with a bookmark on page fourteen, which he has been reading constantly for two years.” In words he loves his family, the peasants, but in reality he does not care about them at all. Manilov entrusted the entire management of the estate to a rogue clerk, who ruins both the peasants and the landowner. Idle daydreaming, inactivity, limited mental interests with apparent culture allows us to classify Manilov as an “idle sky-smoker” who contributes nothing to society.

In search of Sobakevich, Chichikov ends up with the landowner Korobochka. Her callousness is expressed in amazingly petty interests in life. Apart from the prices of hemp and honey, Korobochka doesn’t care about anything else. She is amazingly stupid (“club-headed,” as Chichikov called her), indifferent and completely disconnected from people. The landowner is not interested in everything that goes beyond the boundaries of her meager interests. When Chichikov asks if she knows Sobakevich, Korobochka replies that she doesn’t know, and therefore he doesn’t exist. Everything in the landowner’s house looks like boxes: the house is like a box, and the yard is like a box filled with all kinds of living creatures, and the chest of drawers is a box with money, and the head is like a wooden box. And the very name of the heroine - Korobochka - conveys her essence: limitations and narrow interests.

Still trying to find Sobakevich, Chichikov falls into the clutches of Nozdryov. This person is one of those people who “start as a smooth surface and end as a viper.” Nozdryov is gifted with all possible “enthusiasms”: an amazing ability to lie unnecessarily, cheat at cards, exchange for anything, arrange “stories”, buy and sell everything to the ground. He is endowed with a broad nature, amazing energy and activity. His deadness lies in the fact that he does not know how to direct his “talents” in a positive direction.

Next, Chichikov finally gets to Sobakevich. He is a strong master, a “kulak”, ready to engage in any fraud for the sake of profit. He doesn’t trust anyone: Chichikov and Sobakevich simultaneously transfer money and lists of dead souls from hand to hand. He judges city officials by himself: “A swindler sits on a swindler and drives the swindler around.” The pettiness and insignificance of Sobakevich’s soul is emphasized by the description of the things in his house. Each of Sobakevich’s objects seems to say: “And I, too, Sobakevich!” Things seem to come to life, revealing “some strange resemblance to the owner of the house himself,” and the owner himself resembles “a medium-sized bear.”

Sobakevich's soullessness took on completely inhuman forms in Plyushkin, whose peasants “died like flies.” He even deprived his own children of their livelihood. Plyushkin completes the gallery of landowner “dead souls”. He is a “hole in humanity”, personifying the complete collapse of personality. This hero is given to us in the process of degradation. In the past, he was known as an experienced, enterprising, economic landowner. But with the death of his beloved wife, his suspicion and stinginess increased to the point of highest degree. Mindless hoarding has led to the fact that a very rich owner is starving his people, and his supplies are rotting in barns. Complete soullessness is characterized by a pile of rubbish in the middle of his room - he himself has turned into rubbish, devoid of all human characteristics. He looks more like a beggar than a landowner, a man without family and without gender (either a housekeeper or a housekeeper).

The gallery of “dead souls” is complemented by images of officials county town N. They are even more impersonal than the landowners. This is a “corporation of official thieves and robbers.” They are all slackers, “mattresses”, “babies”. The mortality of officials is shown in the ball scene: no people are visible, tailcoats, uniforms, muslins, satins, and ribbons are everywhere. Their entire interest in life is focused on gossip, petty vanity, and envy.

And the serf servants, being subordinate to soulless masters, themselves become the same (for example, the black-footed girl Korobochka, Selefan, Petrushka, Uncle Mityai and Uncle Minyai). And Chichikov himself, according to Gogol, is soulless, because he only cares about his own profit, not disdaining anything.

Having paid great attention to “dead souls”, Gogol shows us the living. These are images of dead or runaway peasants. These are the peasants of Sobakevich: the miracle master Mikheev, the shoemaker Maxim Telyatnikov, the hero Stepan Probka, the skilled stove maker Milushkin. This is also the fugitive Abakum Fyrov, the peasants of the rebel villages of Vshivaya-arrogance, Borovki and Zadirailova.

It seems to me that Gogol’s view of contemporary Russia is very pessimistic. All his “living” souls are dead. While devoting enormous space to the description of “dead souls,” Gogol still believes that in the future Rus' will be reborn with the help of “living” souls. The lyrical digression about “Rus'-troika” at the end of the poem tells us about this: “The bell rings with a wonderful ringing... everything that is on earth flies past, and other peoples and states sideways and make way for it.”

Souls “dead” and “alive” in N.V. Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls”

When publishing Dead Souls, Gogol wanted to design the title page himself. It depicted Chichikov’s carriage, symbolizing the path of Russia, and around there were many human skulls. The publication of this particular title page was very important for Gogol, as well as the fact that his book was published simultaneously with Ivanov’s painting “The Appearance of Christ to the People.” The theme of life and death, rebirth runs like a red thread through Gogol’s work. Gogol saw his task in correcting and directing human hearts to the true path, and these attempts were made through the theater, in civic activities, teaching and, finally, in creativity.

There is an opinion that Gogol planned to create the poem “Dead Souls” by analogy with Dante’s poem “The Divine Comedy”. This determined the proposed three-part composition of the future work. “The Divine Comedy” consists of three parts: “Hell”, “Purgatory” and “Paradise”, which were supposed to correspond to the three volumes of “Dead Souls” conceived by Gogol. In the first volume, Gogol sought to show the terrible Russian reality, to recreate the “hell” of modern life. In the second and third volumes, Gogol wanted to depict the revival of Russia. Gogol saw himself as a writer-preacher who, drawing on the pages of his work a picture of the revival of Russia, leads it out of the crisis.

The artistic space of the first volume of the poem consists of two worlds: the real world, where the main character is Chichikov, and perfect world lyrical digressions, where the main character is the narrator.

“In this novel I want to show at least one side of all of Rus',” he writes to Pushkin. Explaining the concept of “Dead Souls,” Gogol wrote that the images of the poem are “not at all portraits with worthless people“, on the contrary, they contain the traits of those who consider themselves better than others.” This is probably why the concept of “dead souls” in Gogol's poem constantly changes its meaning, moving from one to another: these are not only dead serfs, whom the swindler Chichikov decided to buy, but also spiritually dead landowners and officials.

“Dead Souls” is a synthesis of all possible ways of fighting for human souls. The work contains both direct pathos and teachings, and artistic sermon, illustrated with images of the dead souls themselves - landowners and city officials. Lyrical digressions also give the work the sense of an artistic sermon and sum up the terrible pictures of life and everyday life depicted. Appealing to all of humanity as a whole and considering the ways of spiritual resurrection and revitalization, Gogol in lyrical digressions points out that “darkness and evil are embedded not in the social shells of the people, but in the spiritual core” (N. Berdyaev). The subject of the writer’s study is human souls, depicted in terrible pictures of an “undue” life.

The main theme of the poem-novel is the theme of the present and future fate of Russia, its present and future. Passionately believing in a better future for Russia, Gogol mercilessly debunked the “masters of life” who considered themselves bearers of high historical wisdom and creators of spiritual values. The images drawn by the writer indicate the exact opposite: the heroes of the poem are not only insignificant, they are the embodiment of moral ugliness.

The plot of the poem is quite simple: her main character, Chichikov, a born swindler and dirty entrepreneur, opens up the opportunity profitable deals With dead souls, that is, with those serfs who had already gone to another world, but were still counted among the living. He decides to buy dead souls cheaply and for this purpose goes to one of the county towns. As a result, readers are presented with a whole gallery of images of landowners, whom Chichikov visits in order to bring his plan to life. Story line works - purchase and sale of the dead shower - allowed the writer not only to show unusually clearly inner world characters, but also to characterize their typical features, the spirit of the era.

With great expressiveness, the “portrait” chapters present a picture of the decline of the landowner class. From an idle dreamer living in the world of his dreams, Manilov, to the “club-headed” Korobochka, from her to the reckless spendthrift, liar and cheater Nozdryov, then to the “real bear” Sobakevich, then to the brutalized fist Plyushkin, Gogol leads us, showing everything greater moral decline and corruption of representatives landowner's world. The poem turns into a brilliant denunciation of serfdom, the class that is the arbiter of the destinies of the state.

Gogol does not show any internal development of landowners and city residents, this allows us to conclude that the souls of the heroes real world The “dead souls” are completely frozen and petrified that they are dead. Gogol portrays landowners and officials with evil irony, shows them as funny, but at the same time very scary. After all, these are not people, but only a pale, ugly semblance of people. There is nothing human left in them. The dead fossilization of souls, the absolute lack of spirituality, is hidden both behind the measured life of the landowners and behind the convulsive activity of the city. Gogol wrote about the city of “Dead Souls”: “The idea of a city that has arisen to the highest degree. Emptiness. Idle talk... Death strikes an unmoved world. Meanwhile, the reader should imagine the dead insensibility of life even more strongly.”

The gallery of portraits of landowners opens with the image of Manilov. “In appearance he was a distinguished man; his facial features were not devoid of pleasantness, but this pleasantness seemed to have too much sugar in it; in his techniques and turns there was something ingratiating favor and acquaintance. He smiled enticingly, was blond, with blue eyes" Previously, he “served in the army, where he was considered the most modest, most delicate and most educated officer.” Living on the estate, he “sometimes comes to the city... to see the most educated people.” Compared to the inhabitants of the city and estates, he seems to be “a very courteous and courteous landowner,” who bears some imprint of a “semi-enlightened” environment. However, revealing Manilov’s inner appearance, his character, talking about his attitude to the household and pastime, drawing Manilov’s reception of Chichikov, Gogol shows complete emptiness and the worthlessness of this “existence”.

The writer emphasizes in Manilov’s character his sugary, meaningless daydreaming. Manilov had no living interests. He did not do the housework, entrusting it to the clerk. He didn’t even know if his peasants had died since the last audit. Instead of the shady garden that usually surrounded the manor’s house, Manilov has “only five or six birch trees...” with thin tops.

Manilov spends his life in idleness. He has retired from all work and does not even read anything: for two years in his office there has been a book, still on the same 14th page. Manilov brightens up his idleness with groundless dreams and meaningless “projects” (projects), such as building an underground passage in a house or a stone bridge across a pond. Instead of a real feeling, Manilov has a “pleasant smile”, instead of a thought there are some incoherent, stupid reasonings, instead of activity there are empty dreams.

Manilov himself admires and is proud of his manners and considers himself extremely spiritual and educated person. However, during his conversation with Chichikov, it becomes clear that this man’s involvement in culture is just an appearance, the pleasantness of his manners smacks of cloying, and behind the flowery phrases there is nothing but stupidity. It was not difficult for Chichikov to convince Manilov of the benefits of his enterprise: he just had to say that this was being done in the public interest and was fully consistent with the “further views of Russia,” since Manilov considers himself a person guarding public well-being.

From Manilov, Chichikov heads to Korobochka, who, perhaps, is the complete opposite of the previous hero. Unlike Manilov, Korobochka is characterized by the absence of any claims to higher culture and some kind of “simplicity”. The lack of “showiness” is emphasized by Gogol even in the portrait of Korobochka: she is too unattractive, shabby look. Korobochka’s “simplicity” is also reflected in her relationships with people. “Oh, my father,” she turns to Chichikov, “you’re like a hog, your whole back and side are covered in mud!” All Korobochka’s thoughts and desires are focused around the economic strengthening of her estate and continuous accumulation. She is not an inactive dreamer, like Manilov, but a sober acquirer, always poking around her home. But Korobochka’s thriftiness precisely reveals her inner insignificance. Acquisitive impulses and aspirations fill Korobochka’s entire consciousness, leaving no room for any other feelings. She strives to benefit from everything, from household trifles to the profitable sale of serfs, who are for her, first of all, property, which she has the right to dispose of as she pleases. She bargains, tries to raise the price, get more profit. It is much more difficult for Chichikov to come to an agreement with her: she is indifferent to any of his arguments, since the main thing for her is to benefit herself. It’s not for nothing that Chichikov calls Korobochka “club-headed”: this epithet very aptly characterizes her. The combination of a secluded lifestyle with crude acquisitiveness determines Korobochka’s extreme spiritual poverty.

Next is another contrast: from Korobochka to Nozdryov. In contrast to the petty and selfish Korobochka, Nozdryov is distinguished by his violent prowess and “broad” scope of nature. He is extremely active, mobile and perky. Without thinking for a moment, Nozdryov is ready to do any business, that is, everything that for some reason comes to his mind: “At that very moment he invited you to go anywhere, even to the ends of the world, to enter into any enterprise you want, change whatever you have for whatever you want.” Nozdryov’s energy is devoid of any purpose. He easily starts and abandons any of his undertakings, immediately forgetting about it. His ideal is people who live noisily and cheerfully, without burdening themselves with any everyday worries. Wherever Nozdryov appears, chaos breaks out and scandals arise. Boasting and lying are the main character traits of Nozdryov. He is inexhaustible in his lies, which have become so organic for him that he lies without even feeling any need to do so. He is on friendly terms with everyone he knows, considers everyone his friend, but never remains true to his words or relationships. After all, it is he who subsequently debunks his “friend” Chichikov in front of provincial society.

Sobakevich is one of those people who stands firmly on the ground and soberly evaluates both life and people. When necessary, Sobakevich knows how to act and achieve what he wants. Characterizing Sobakevich’s everyday way of life, Gogol emphasizes that everything here “was stubborn, without shakyness.” Solidity, strength - distinctive features both Sobakevich himself and the everyday environment around him. However, the physical strength of both Sobakevich and his way of life combined with some kind of ugly clumsiness. Sobakevich looks like a bear, and this comparison is not only external character: the animal nature predominates in the nature of Sobakevich, who does not have any spiritual needs. In his firm conviction, the only important thing can be taking care of own existence. The saturation of the stomach determines the content and meaning of its life. He considers enlightenment not only an unnecessary, but also a harmful invention: “They interpret it as enlightenment, enlightenment, but this enlightenment is bullshit! I would have said a different word, but just now it’s indecent at the table.” Sobakevich is prudent and practical, but, unlike Korobochka, he understands well environment, knows people. This is a cunning and arrogant businessman, and Chichikov had quite a difficult time dealing with him. Before he had time to utter a word about the purchase, Sobakevich had already offered him a deal with dead souls, and he charged such a price as if it was a question of selling real serfs. Practical acumen distinguishes Sobakevich from other landowners depicted in Dead Souls. He knows how to get settled in life, but it is in this capacity that his base feelings and aspirations manifest themselves with particular force.

However, the image of Sobakevich, it turns out, does not yet exhaust the measure of the fall of man. Pettiness, insignificance, and social ugliness reach their utmost expression in the image of Plyushkin, who completes the portrait gallery of local rulers. This is “a hole in humanity.” Everything human died in him, in in every sense words are a dead soul. Gogol leads us to this conclusion, developing and deepening the theme of the spiritual death of man. Village huts the villages of Plyushkina look “particularly dilapidated”, the manor’s house looks “invalid”, the log pavement has fallen into disrepair. What is the owner like? Against the backdrop of a miserable village, a strange figure appeared before Chichikov: either a man or a woman, in “an indeterminate dress, similar to a woman’s hood,” so torn, oily and worn out that “if Chichikov had met him, so dressed up, somewhere at the church door, I would probably give him a copper penny.”

But it was not a beggar who stood before Chichikov, but a rich landowner, the owner of a thousand souls, whose storerooms, barns and drying sheds were full of all sorts of goods. However, all this good rotted, deteriorated, turned into dust. Plyushkin’s relationship with buyers, his walks around the village collecting all sorts of rubbish, the famous piles of rubbish on his table and on his bureau expressively speak of how miserliness leads Plyushkin to senseless hoarding, which brings ruin to his household. Everything has fallen into complete disrepair, peasants are “dying like flies,” and dozens of them are on the run. The senseless stinginess that reigns in Plyushkin’s soul gives rise to suspicion of people, distrust and hostility to everything around him, cruelty and injustice towards serfs.

Was he always like this? No. This is the only character whose soul died only over time, withered away due to some circumstances. The chapter about Plyushkin begins with a lyrical digression, which has not happened in the description of any landowner. A lyrical digression immediately alerts readers to the fact that this chapter is significant and important for the narrator. The narrator does not remain indifferent and indifferent to his hero: in lyrical digressions (there are two of them in Chapter VI) he expresses his bitterness from the realization of the degree to which a person could sink.

The image of Plyushkin stands out for its dynamism among the static heroes of the real world of the poem. From the narrator we learn what Plyushkin was like before, and how his soul gradually coarsened and hardened. In the story of Plyushkin we see life tragedy. At the mention of a school friend, “some kind of warm ray slid across Plyushkin’s face, it was not a feeling that was expressed, but some kind of pale reflection of a feeling.” This means that, after all, Plyushkin’s soul has not yet completely died, which means that there is still something human left in it. Plyushkin’s eyes were also alive, not yet extinguished, “running from under his high eyebrows, like mice.” Chapter VI contains detailed description Plyushkin's garden, neglected, overgrown and decayed, but alive. The garden is a kind of metaphor for Plyushkin’s soul. There are two churches on Plyushkin’s estate alone. Of all the landowners, only Plyushkin utters an internal monologue after Chichikov’s departure. This distinguishes Plyushkin from all other landowners shown by Gogol.

All the landowners, so vividly and ruthlessly shown by Gogol, as well as central character poems are living people. But can you say that about them? Can their souls be called alive? Didn’t their vices and base motives kill everything human in them? The change of images from Manilov to Plyushkin reveals an ever-increasing spiritual impoverishment, an ever-increasing moral decline of the owners of serf souls. By calling his work “Dead Souls,” Gogol meant not only the dead serfs whom Chichikov was chasing, but also all the living heroes of the poem who had long since become dead.

The second one is exposed and no less important reason According to Gogol, the death of souls is a rejection of God. “Every road must lead to the temple.” On the way, Chichikov did not meet a single church. “What twisted and inscrutable paths humanity has chosen,” exclaims Gogol. He sees the road of Russia as terrible, full of falls, swamp fires and temptations. But still, this is the road to the Temple, for in the chapter about Plyushkin we meet two churches; The transition to the second volume - Purgatory from the first - hellish, is being prepared. This transition is blurred and fragile, just as Gogol deliberately blurred the antithesis “alive - dead” in the first volume. Gogol deliberately makes the boundaries between the living and the dead unclear, and this antithesis takes on a metaphorical meaning. Chichikov's enterprise appears before us as a kind of crusade.

The hero of the real world of the poem, who has a soul, is Chichikov. It is in Chichikov that the unpredictability and inexhaustibility of the living soul is most clearly shown, albeit not God knows how rich, even if it is becoming scarcer, but alive. Chapter XI is devoted to the history of Chichikov’s soul, it shows the development of his character. After all, it was Chichikov who had to cleanse himself and move from “Hell” to “Purgatory” and “Paradise”.

Thus, in the first volume of Dead Souls, Gogol depicts all the shortcomings, all the negative aspects of Russian reality. Gogol shows people what their souls have become. He does this because he passionately loves Russia and hopes for its revival. Gogol wanted people, after reading his poem, to be horrified by their lives and awaken from a deadening sleep. This is the task of the first volume. Describing the terrible reality, Gogol depicts to us in lyrical digressions his ideal of the Russian people, speaks of the living, immortal soul of Russia. In the second and third volumes of his work, Gogol planned to transfer this ideal to real life. But, unfortunately, he was never able to show the revolution in the soul of the Russian people, he was unable to revive dead souls. This was Gogol’s creative tragedy, which grew into the tragedy of his entire life.