Landowners in the poem "Dead Souls" by Gogol. Why can the landowners whom Chichikov visits be called dead souls? based on the poem Dead Souls (Gogol N.V.) Landowners in the story Dead Souls

The meaning of the name.

Formally, “dead souls” are considered to be deceased peasants who are still listed in “revision tales.” However, is Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol referring the reader to them when he calls his poem “Dead Souls”? Hardly. The meaning of the title is that despite the fact that the dead peasants can be called dead souls, the very landowners who sell them to Chichikov are truly deprived of their souls. In the landowners and officials who support serfdom, all the best qualities of a living person have died: humanism, hard work, lofty thoughts and ideas. Their way of life, on the contrary, is characterized by peace, immobility and complete stagnation of views and ideas. Mortality is rarely opposed to movement and renewal of life. And we find genuine living souls in those people who are bought and sold like goods.

Image of Chichikov.

Chichikov is one of the most important images of the poem, an ambiguous character and capable of development, which distinguishes him favorably from the landowners and officials depicted in the poem. Chichikov does not have inherited capital, his father left him only half a ruble, so he has to use a certain energy and labor (albeit very dubious), which means he is not a dead soul at all. But all his good qualities are put at the service of acquisition. The motto of his life becomes his father’s instruction: “Take care and save a penny.”

Chichikov's attitude towards money is not the same as that of landowners. On the one hand, he knows their value, and on the other hand, wealth for him is not an end in itself, as for Plyushkin, but a means of affirmation in society.

From the very beginning, the author avoids clear and understandable characteristics of Chichikov, showing, on the one hand, his mediocrity, and on the other, his ability to instantly transform himself depending on the circumstances. Chichikov can speak his language with almost everyone and is able to charm everyone. It is no coincidence that the author emphasizes such versatility of the hero. According to Gogol's plan, Chichikov had to go through three volumes of the poem, and in the end be transformed. So that his good qualities would finally be put to the service of the state and virtue.

It is very important to pay attention to Chichikov’s name - Pavel. Paul is one of the apostles who was first a persecutor of Christ and then became a saint. Here it is - the idea of ​​​​rebirth, which the author intended to carry through the entire work.

Images of landowners.

When creating images of landowners, Gogol does not depict the integral, complete character of the heroes; he singles out one or two main features in each. For example, Manilov is sweetness and projectism, Korobochka is cudgel-headed, Nozdryov is rudeness, Sobakevich is rudeness, Plyushkin is greed. That is why each hero can be characterized in just a few words.

There are several versions explaining why the landowners are located in this order. The first, traditional version is expressed by Herzen, guided by the words of Gogol himself. According to this version, the composition of the novel is based on the decline of humanity in man. That is, according to this version, the most human among the landowners is Manilov, while Plyushkin is frozen in an unchangeable inhuman state. The second version, on the contrary, assumes that Plyushkin is the most humane of all landowners, while Manilov cannot be called such. After all, “if you have not sinned, you will not repent.” The third version assumes the concept of a staggered arrangement of landowners. Chichikov travels from the non-economic Manilov to the economic Korobochka. From the non-economic Nozdryov to the economic Sobakevich.

Landowners in the poem "Dead Souls" by Gogol

The author called “Dead Souls” a poem and thereby emphasized the significance of his creation. The poem is a lyric-epic work of significant volume, distinguished by its depth of content and wide coverage of events. This definition (poem) is still controversial.

With the publication of Gogol's satirical works, the critical direction in Russian realistic literature is strengthened. Gogol's realism is more saturated with accusatory, flagellating force - this distinguishes him from his predecessors and contemporaries. Gogol's artistic method was called critical realism. What is new with Gogol is the sharpening of the main character traits of the hero; hyperbole becomes the writer’s favorite technique - an exorbitant exaggeration that enhances the impression. Gogol found that the plot of “Dead Souls,” suggested by Pushkin, was good because it gave complete freedom to travel all over Russia with the hero and create a wide variety of characters.

According to Herzen, Gogol turned “to the local nobility and exposed this unknown people, who kept behind the scenes away from roads and big cities. Thanks to Gogol, we finally saw them... without masks, without embellishment.”

The author arranged the chapters about landowners, to whom more than half of the first volume is devoted, in a strictly thought-out order: the wasteful dreamer Manilov is replaced by the thrifty Korobochka; She is opposed by the ruined landowner, the rascal Nozdryov; then again a turn to the economic landowner-kulak Sobakevich; The gallery of serf owners is closed by the miser Plyushkin, who embodies the extreme degree of decline of the landowner class.

Reading “Dead Souls,” we notice that the writer repeats the same techniques in depicting landowners: he gives a description of the village, the manor’s house, the appearance of the landowner. The following is a story about how certain people reacted to Chichikov’s proposal to sell dead souls. Then Chichikov’s attitude towards each of the landowners is depicted and a scene of the purchase and sale of dead souls appears. This coincidence is not accidental. A monotonous closed circle of techniques allowed the artist to flaunt conservatism, the backwardness of provincial life, the isolation and limitations of the landowners, and to emphasize stagnation and dying.

We learn about the “very courteous and courteous landowner Manilov” in the first chapter, where the author depicts his appearance, especially his eyes - as sweet as sugar. The new acquaintance was crazy about Chichikov, “she shook his hand for a long time and asked him to convincingly honor him by coming to the village.” While looking for Manilovka, Chichikov confused the name and asked the men about the village of Zamanilovka. The writer plays on this word: “The village of Manilovka could not lure many with its location.” And then a detailed description of the landowner’s estate begins. “The manor’s house stood alone on the south... open to all the winds...” On the slope of the mountain “two or three flower beds with lilac and yellow acacia bushes were scattered in English style; ...a gazebo with a flat green dome, wooden blue columns and the inscription “Temple of Solitary Reflection”, lower down a pond covered with greenery...” And finally, the “gray log huts” of the men. The owner himself looks behind all this - the Russian landowner, nobleman Manilov. Unmanaged, the house was poorly constructed, with pretensions to European fashion, but lacking elementary taste. This landowner has more than two hundred peasant huts.

The dullness of the appearance of the Manilov estate is complemented by a landscape sketch: a “pine forest darkening to the side with a dull bluish color” and a completely uncertain day: “either clear, or gloomy, but some kind of light gray color.” Dreary, bare, colorless. Gogol exhaustively revealed that such a Manilovka could lure few people.

Gogol completes the portrait of Manilov in an ironic manner: “his facial features were not devoid of pleasantness.” But this pleasantness seemed to have “too much sugar in it.” Sugar is a detail indicating sweetness. And then a devastating description of the author himself: “There is a kind of people known by the name: so-so people, neither this nor that, neither in the city of Bogdan, nor in the village of Selifan.”

Manilov lacks economic savvy. “When the clerk said: “It would be good, master, to do this and that,” “Yes, not bad,” he usually answered.” Manilov did not manage the farm, did not know his peasants well, and everything was falling into disrepair, but he dreamed of an underground passage, of a stone bridge across a pond, which two women forded, and with trading shops on both sides of it.

The writer's gaze penetrates Manilov's house, where the same disorder and lack of taste reigned. Some rooms were unfurnished; two armchairs in the owner's office were covered with matting. In the office there were piles of ash on the windowsill; a book, open on page 14 for two years, was the only evidence of the owner’s work in the office.

Mrs. Manilova is worthy of her husband. Her life is devoted to sweet lisping, bourgeois surprises (a beaded toothpick case), languid long kisses, and housekeeping is a low occupation for her. “Manilova is so well brought up,” Gogol quips.

Manilov’s character is expressed in a special manner of speaking, in a storm of words, in the use of the most delicate turns of phrase: let me not allow this, no, excuse me, I will not allow such a pleasant and educated guest to pass behind. Manilov’s beautiful spirit and his ignorance of people are revealed in his assessment of city officials as “most respectable and most amiable” people. Step by step, Gogol inexorably exposes the vulgarity of a vulgar person, irony is constantly replaced by satire: “There is Russian cabbage soup on the table, but from the heart,” the children, Alcides and Themistoclus, are named after ancient Greek commanders as a sign of the education of their parents.

During a conversation about the sale of dead souls, it turned out that many peasants had already died (probably they had a hard time living with Manilov). At first, Manilov cannot understand the essence of Chichikov’s idea. “He felt that he needed to do something, to propose a question, and what question - the devil knows. He finally ended by letting out smoke again, but not through his mouth, but through his nasal nostrils.” Manilov shows “concern for the future views of Russia.” The writer characterizes him as an empty phrase-monger: where does he care about Russia if he cannot restore order in his own household.

Chichikov easily manages to convince his friend of the legality of the transaction, and Manilov, as an impractical and unbusinesslike landowner, gives Chichikov dead souls and takes on the costs of drawing up the deed of sale.

Manilov is tearfully complacent, devoid of living thoughts and real feelings. He himself is a “dead soul”, doomed to destruction just like the entire autocratic-serf system of Russia. Manilovs are harmful and socially dangerous. What consequences for the economic development of the country can be expected from Manilov’s management!

The landowner Korobochka is thrifty, “gains a little money little by little,” lives secluded in her estate, as if in a box, and her homeliness over time develops into hoarding. Narrow-mindedness and stupidity complete the character of the “club-headed” landowner, who is distrustful of everything new in life. The qualities inherent in Korobochka are typical not only among the provincial nobility.

Following Korobochka in Gogol's gallery of freaks is Nozdryov. Unlike Manilov, he is restless, nimble, lively, but his energy is wasted on trifles in a cheating card game, in petty dirty tricks of lies. With irony, Gogol calls him “in some respects a historical person, because wherever Nozdryov was, there were stories,” that is, without a scandal. The author gives him what he deserves through the mouth of Chichikov: “Nozdryov is a man of rubbish!” He squandered everything, abandoned his estate and settled at the fair in a gaming house. Emphasizing the vitality of the Nozdrevs in Russian reality, Gogol exclaims: “Nozdrev will not be removed from the world for a long time.”

The hoarding characteristic of Korobochka turned into genuine kulaks among the practical landowner Sobakevich. He looks at the serfs only as labor force and, even though he has built huts for the peasants that were wonderfully cut down, he will skin three of them. He transferred some peasants to the monetary-tire system, which was beneficial to the landowner. The image of Sobakevich was created in Gogol’s favorite hyperbolic manner. His portrait, in which the comparison with a bear is given, the situation in the house, the harshness of his reviews, his behavior at dinner - everything emphasizes the animal essence of the landowner.

Sobakevich quickly saw through Chichikov’s idea, realized the benefits and charged a hundred rubles per head. The tight-fisted landowner sold off the dead souls for his own benefit, and even deceived Chichikov by slipping him one female person. “Fist, fist, and a beast to boot!” - this is how Chichikov characterizes him. Sobakevich adapts to capitalist living conditions.

Seeing Plyushkin for the first time, Chichikov “for a long time could not recognize what gender the figure was: a woman or a man. The dress she was wearing was completely indefinite, very similar to a woman’s hood, on her head was a cap worn by village courtyard women, only her voice seemed somewhat hoarse for a woman: “Oh woman! - he thought to himself and immediately added: “Oh no!” “Of course, woman!” It could not even occur to Chichikov that he was a Russian gentleman, a landowner, the owner of serf souls. The passion for accumulation disfigured Plyushkin beyond recognition; he saves only for the sake of hoarding... He starved the peasants, and they are “dying like flies” (80 souls in three years). He himself lives from hand to mouth and dresses like a beggar. (According to Gogol’s apt words, Plyushkin has turned into some kind of hole in humanity.) In the era of growing monetary relations, Plyushkin’s household is run in the old fashioned way, based on corvee labor, the owner collects food and things, senselessly accumulates for the sake of accumulation. He ruined the peasants, ruining them with backbreaking work. Plyushkin saved, and everything he collected rotted, everything turned into “pure manure*. The author exposes the theft of people's labor in the chapter about Plyushkin even more forcefully than in the chapter about Nozdrev. A landowner like Plyushkin cannot be the support of the state and move its economy and culture forward. And the writer sadly exclaims: “And a person could condescend to such insignificance, pettiness, and disgustingness! Could have changed so much! And does this seem true? Everything seems to be true, anything can happen to a person.”

Gogol endowed each landowner with original, specific features. Whatever the hero, he is a unique personality. But at the same time, his heroes retain generic, social characteristics: low cultural level, lack of intellectual demands, desire for enrichment, cruelty in treatment of serfs, moral uncleanliness, lack of an elementary concept of patriotism. These moral monsters, as Gogol shows, are generated by feudal reality and reveal the essence of feudal relations based on the oppression and exploitation of the peasantry.

Gogol's work stunned, first of all, the ruling circles and landowners. The ideological defenders of serfdom argued that the nobility was the best part of the Russian population, passionate patriots, the support of the state. Gogol dispelled this myth with images of landowners. Herzen said that the landowners “pass before us without masks, without embellishment, flatterers and gluttons, obsequious slaves of power and ruthless tyrants of their enemies, drinking the life and blood of the people... “Dead Souls” shocked all of Russia.”

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Landowners in Gogol's poem "Dead Souls"

The five landowners are the first in a row of “dead souls.” They are not capable of any high movement of the soul. They are limited and primitive in their aspirations. They are vulgar people because their interests are also vulgar in their materiality. The spiritual world of landowners is shallow and insignificant. Things express their inner essence. Why have people fallen so low? Not only personal life is the reason for this, but also social conditions led to this.

Landowners are not specific people, they are also types that characterize entire groups of their own kind. Gogol talks bitterly about man, about his fate in the modern world, about the absurdity of a state where the owners are the “Sobakevichs” and the “Plyushkins.”

One of the representatives of this layer is Manilov. Manilov's characterization is negative. The author's detail and irony helps to understand this. He “was a distinguished man, his facial features were not devoid of pleasantness, but this pleasantness seemed to have too much sugar in it... he smiled enticingly, was fair-haired, with blue eyes.” “At home he spoke very little and mostly reflected and thought...” Considering himself an educated man, he wants to “follow this kind of science so that it would stir the soul in such a way, would give, so to speak, this kind of guy...” Gogol makes it clear that Manilov’s thoughts do not have no reason: “In his office there was always some kind of book, bookmarked on page fourteen, which he had been constantly reading for two years.” The surrounding things, the entire way of life, thoughts, feelings and actions of this hero clearly indicate that Manilov is a “so-so” person, neither this nor that, neither in the city of Bogdan, nor in the village of Selifan.

Korobochka is also a representative of the landowners. Gogol does not like Korobochka. He is also annoyed by the “old dress”, put away just in case; and clocks hissing like snakes, old wallpaper and an abundance of flies. Time in Korobochka's house froze forever. It makes you feel sleepy and the windows look out onto the barnyard. The hostess has merged with her household and turned into a part of it. “Korobochka” is not just a surname, it is a way of life and thoughts. It is not for nothing that from the lips of Chichikov, an active and active person, the word “club-headed” sounds. The box cannot think differently than it is used to. She's afraid of it. To her, “club-headedness” means fear of the unusual and stupidity.

In the story, the author ironically talks about all landowners. Among them is Nozdryov, a lively and restless person. So why is he also a dead soul? In Nozdryov’s character, Gogol highlights his aimless activity, his constant readiness to do something: “... he invited you to go anywhere, even to the ends of the world, to enter into any enterprise you want, to exchange whatever you have for whatever you want.” But Nozdryov does not complete a single task he begins, since all his undertakings are aimless. This reckless driver simply, without any shame, brags and deceives everyone who meets him. According to him, in his stable there is a bay stallion, “for which Nozdryov is afraid that he paid ten thousand.” But the field of “Russians is so dead that you can’t see the ground,” he even caught one himself “by the hind legs.” Nozdryov is a man without principles. His appearance always speaks of an impending scandal: “Not a single meeting where he was present was complete without a story. Some kind of story would certainly happen: either the gendarmes would lead him out of the hall by the hand, or his own friends would force him to do so. If this doesn’t happen, then something will happen that won’t happen with others.” The author ironically calls Nozdryov a “historical man.”

Speaking about dead souls, Gogol leads readers to the idea that the real “dead souls” are the souls of landowners who have long stopped dreaming of something lofty, who only care about their own existence and enrichment in any way. So is Sobakevich. He is rude and clumsy. His appearance is frightening: when Chichikov glanced sideways at Sobakevich, this time he seemed very similar to a medium-sized bear... his tailcoat was completely bear-colored... he walked at random and constantly stepped on other people’s feet.” Approaching the village of Sobakevich, Chichikov drew attention to the solid buildings. The owner does not care about beauty, but everything in the house is stable. Each thing is clumsy and seems to say: “And I, too, are Sobakevich!” In a conversation with Chichikov, he expresses anger towards those around him. Everyone, in his opinion, is a swindler: “They’ll kill you for a penny.” The author is disgusted by both heroes. Each of them wants to deceive the other and is afraid that he will be deceived. Sobakevich, unlike previous heroes, is associated with economic activity. He is a cunning man, but Gogol constantly exposes him, paying special attention to his values. Sobakevich's interests are limited. The goal of his life is material enrichment and a hearty lunch. With all this, Sobakevich is a good owner, his men live well. Whether he was born a bear or whether his life was “bear-shaped” is more a disaster than a hero’s fault.

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The poem “Dead Souls” is one of the most significant works of Russian literature. Gogol masterfully reflected the problems of Russia, its vices and shortcomings. He identified unique types of people who have a special national flavor. The writer’s goal was to “illuminate a picture taken from a despicable life,” and he succeeded. Therefore, Russia, the homeland of dead souls, became the most vivid and realistic image in the work.

The author decided to show the degradation of Russia using the example of the nobility - the main supporting class of the state. If even the nobles are dead souls, what can we say about the other, lower strata of society who look to the courtiers and landowners as examples to follow? The writer begins the description of the vices of the “best people of the fatherland” with the hypocritical and lazy dreamer Manilov. This inactive person squanders his fortune and does not justify his privileged position. Such people can only talk, but are not going to do anything for the good of their homeland, so they only take from Russia, but do not give it anything in return.

The ruined Nozdryov is the antithesis of Korobochka. This man has undermined the credibility of his class, because he has sunk to the extreme degree of dishonor. He wanders in the status of “a guest worse than a Tatar” and is forced to live at the mercy of other nobles. He squandered the property of his ancestors, leaving his descendants poor and disgraced. It was because of such frivolous and vicious people that Russia gradually became merchant, and not noble. The privileged class began to humiliate itself in front of uneducated and greedy traders.

Then the author depicted the type of economic landowner Sobakevich. However, he did not become a positive image either. He turned out to be so narrow-minded and limited that after getting to know his club-headed person it became clear: with such people Russia will not move forward and will not become better. They look into the past and are ready to stay in it forever.

The gallery of images of landowners in the poem “Dead Souls” is closed by the miser Plyushkin (), who embodies the extreme degradation of the human being: “A person could condescend to such insignificance, pettiness, disgusting!” - writes the author. Gogol. The landowner destroyed all the goods he had earned, drove away the children and starved the peasants to death with poverty. With such people, Russia is in danger of falling into the abyss.

In the poem, Gogol reveals the vices of the city, as well as the bureaucratic class, which represents the state and, in this case, discredits it. District officials of the city of N thought only about how to line their pockets and deceive the townspeople. They are all connected by a single criminal network that surrounds the city. Patriotism is alien to them, like other moral concepts. In depicting this, the author does not mean just one city, he means the whole of autocratic Russia.

The new type of person that Chichikov represents in the poem is hardly better than the old ones. As a bankrupt nobleman, he is forced to make a living through fraud. “It’s fairest,” writes Gogol, “to call him the owner-acquirer.” Chichikov's life credo is to save a penny. Therefore, the hero makes money in every possible way, not disdaining crime. Gogol also mercilessly ridicules the vices of this new type in order to prove that Russia is not on the same path with him.

Thus, Gogol described a gallery of images of landowners, revealing the pressing problems of the country. This is how the image of Russia in the poem “Dead Souls” was formed from fragments, an image long-suffering and deep, in need of change. And the author still hopes for a good future. The extraordinary potential of the Russian is manifested in the images of the “Yaroslavl efficient man”, the carpenter-hero Stepan Probka, the miracle shoemaker Makeich Telyatin, the carriage maker Mezheev. The people's love of freedom, their spiritual wealth, and their “lively and lively” mind give Gogol incentives to believe in his country and love it no matter what. Therefore, he compares Rus' with a flying “unbeatable troika”, which is shunned by “other peoples and states.”