Characteristics of Plyushkin in the poem “Dead Souls”: description of appearance and character. Plyushkin Brief description of Plyushkin from dead souls

In the person of the hero of “Dead Souls” Plyushkin, Gogol brought out a psychopathic miser. He pointed out in this pitiful old man the terrible consequences of the passion to “acquire” without a goal - when acquisition itself becomes the goal, when the meaning of life is lost. In “Dead Souls” it is shown how, from a reasonable, practical person needed for the state and family, Plyushkin turns into a “growth” on humanity, into some kind of negative value, into a “hole”... To do this, he only had to lose his meaning life. Before, he worked for the family. His ideal of life was the same as that of Chichikov - and Plyushkin was happy when a noisy, joyful family greeted him returning home to rest. Then life deceived him - he remained a lonely, angry old man, for whom all people seemed to be thieves, liars, robbers. A certain inclination towards callousness increased over the years, his heart became harder, his previously clear economic eye dimmed - and Plyushkin lost the ability to distinguish between large and small in the household, necessary from unnecessary - he directed all his attention, all his vigilance to the household, to the storerooms, glaciers... He stopped engaging in large-scale grain farming, and bread, the main basis of his wealth, rotted in barns for years. But Plyushkin collected all sorts of junk in his office, even stole buckets and other things from his own men... He lost hundreds, thousands, because he did not want to give up a penny or a ruble. Plyushkin had completely lost his mind, and his soul, which had never been distinguished by greatness, was completely crushed and vulgarized. Plyushkin became a slave to his passion, a pitiful miser, walking in rags, living from hand to mouth. Unsociable, gloomy, he lived out his unnecessary life, tearing even his parental feelings for his children out of his heart. (Cm. , .)

Plyushkin. Drawing by Kukryniksy

Plyushkin can be compared with “ stingy knight“, with the only difference that in Pushkin “avarice” is presented in a tragic light, in Gogol in a comic light. Pushkin showed what gold did to a valiant man, a great man, - Gogol in “Dead Souls” showed how a penny perverted an ordinary, “average man”...

Brief description Plyushkina in the work “ Dead Souls"is a realistic description of the old landowner, his character and way of life. The fact is that this character is presented by the author in an unusual manner for him - without humor.

Stepan Plyushkin is one of the landowners in the poem by N.V. Gogol "Dead Souls". This is one of the most significant and profound characters not only of the mentioned work, but of all Russian literature in general.

The hero first appears in the sixth chapter, when he comes to the landowner to buy “dead souls” from him.

The image and characteristics of Plyushkin in the poem “Dead Souls”

The landowner is incredibly stingy and unkind.

The hero symbolizes spiritual collapse strong man, drowned in the vice of boundless stinginess, bordering on cruelty: a huge amount of food is stored in the landowner’s barns, which no one is allowed to take, as a result of which the peasants go hungry, and the supplies are lost as unnecessary.

Plyushkin is quite rich, he has a whole thousand serfs on his account. However, despite this, the old man lives like a beggar, eating crackers and dressing in rags.

Symbolism of the surname

Like most characters in Gogol's works, Plyushkin's surname is symbolic. With the help of contrast or synonymy of the surname in relation to the character of the corresponding character, the author reveals certain features of a given personality.

The meaning of the surname Plyushkina symbolizes an unusually stingy and greedy person, whose goal is the accumulation of material wealth without a specific purpose for their use. As a result, the collected wealth is not spent anywhere or is used in minimal quantities.

It is noteworthy that Plyushkin’s name practically does not appear in the text of the work. In this way, the author shows the hero’s callousness, detachment, and the absence in him of even a hint of humanity.

The fact that the landowner's name is Stepan can be learned from his words about his daughter, whom he calls by her patronymic. By the way, ordinary men from other estates did not know such a surname at all, calling the landowner by the nickname “patched.”

Plyushkin family

This character is the only one of all the landowners who has a fairly detailed biography. The hero's life story is very sad.

In the plot narration, Plyushkin appears before us as a completely lonely person leading a hermit’s lifestyle. The wife who inspired him to be his best human qualities and made his life meaningful, long ago left this world.

In their marriage they had three children, whom their father raised with great care and compassion. great love. During the years of family happiness, Plyushkin was completely different from his current self. At that time, he often invited guests to his house, knew how to enjoy life, and had a reputation as an open and friendly person.

Of course, Plyushkin was always very economical, but his stinginess always had reasonable limits and was not so reckless. His clothes, although not sparkling with newness, still looked neat, without a single patch.

After the death of his wife, the hero changed a lot: he became extremely distrustful and very stingy. The last straw that hardened Plyushkin’s temper was new problems in the family: the son lost a large sum at cards, the eldest daughter ran away from home, and the youngest died.

Surprisingly, glimmers of light sometimes illuminate the dark recesses of the dead soul of the landowner. Having sold his “souls” to Chichikov and reflecting on the issue of drawing up a deed of sale, Plyushkin remembers his school friend. At this moment, a faint reflection of feeling appeared on the old man’s wooden face.

This fleeting manifestation of life, according to the author, speaks of the possibility of the revival of the hero’s soul, in which, as if in twilight, the dark and light sides mixed with each other.

Description of the portrait and first impression of Plyushkin

When meeting Plyushkin, Chichikov first mistakes him for the housekeeper.

After talking with the landowner, main character realizes with horror that he was mistaken.

In his opinion, the old man looks more like a beggar than a rich owner of the estate.

All of him appearance, like this: a long chin covered with a scarf; small, colorless, mobile eyes; a dirty, patched robe indicates that the hero has completely lost touch with life.

Appearance and condition of the suit

Plyushkin's face is very elongated and at the same time is distinguished by excessive thinness. The landowner never shave, and his beard began to look like a horse comb. Plyushkin has no teeth left at all.

The hero’s clothes can hardly be called such; they look more like old rags - the clothes look so worn and unkempt. At the time of the story, the landowner is about 60 years old.

The character, demeanor and speech of the landowner

Plyushkin is a man with a difficult character. Likely, negative traits, which manifested itself so clearly in him in his old age, also took place in previous years, but their so bright appearance was smoothed out by family well-being.

But after the death of his wife and daughter, Plyushkin finally broke away from life, became spiritually impoverished, and began to treat everyone with suspicion and hostility. The landowner experienced such an attitude not only towards strangers, but also towards relatives.

By the age of 60, Plyushkin had become very unpleasant due to his difficult character. Those around him began to avoid him, his friends visited him less and less, and then completely stopped all communication with him.

Plyushkin’s speech is abrupt, laconic, caustic, loaded with colloquial expressions, for example: “poditka, they beat, ehva!, actor, already, podtibrila.”

The landowner is able to notice any little things and even the most insignificant errors and shortcomings. In this regard, he often finds fault with people, expressing his comments by shouting and cursing.

Plyushkin is not capable of good deeds; he has become insensitive, distrustful and cruel. He doesn’t even care about the fate of his own children, and the old man suppresses his daughter’s attempts to establish a relationship with him in every possible way. In his opinion, his daughter and son-in-law are trying to get closer to him in order to get material benefits from him.

It is noteworthy that Plyushkin absolutely does not understand the true consequences of his actions. He actually fancies himself a caring landowner, although, in fact, he is a tyrant, an incredible miser and a stingy man, a rude and grumpy old man who destroys the destinies of the people around him.

Favorite activities

The joy in Plyushkin's life consists of only two things - constant scandals and the accumulation of material wealth.

The landowner likes to spend time completely alone. He sees no point in receiving guests or acting as such. For him, this is just a waste of time that can be spent on more useful activities.

Despite large financial savings, the landowner leads an ascetic lifestyle, denying literally everything not only to relatives, servants and peasants, but also to himself.

Another favorite pastime of Plyushkin is to grumble and become poor. He believes that the supplies stored in his barns are not enough, there is not enough land and there is not even enough hay. In fact, the situation is completely opposite - there is plenty of land, and the amount of reserves is so huge that they spoil right in the storage facilities.

Plyushkin loves to create scandals for any reason, even if it is an insignificant trifle. The landowner is always dissatisfied with something and demonstrates it in the most rude and unsightly form. A picky old man is very difficult to please.

Attitude to the economy

Plyushkin is a rich but very stingy landowner. However, despite the huge reserves, it seems to him that they are not enough. As a result, a huge number of unused products become unusable without leaving the storage facility.

Having a large fortune at his disposal, including 1000 serfs, Plyushkin eats crackers and wears rags - in a word, he lives like a beggar. The landowner has not been monitoring what is going on on his farm for many years, but at the same time he does not forget to control the amount of liquor in the decanter.

Plyushkin's life goals

In short, the landowner has no specific goal in life. Plyushkin is completely absorbed in the process of accumulating material resources without a specific purpose for their use.

House and interior of rooms

Plyushkin's estate reflects the spiritual desolation of the character himself. The buildings in the villages are very old, dilapidated, the roofs have long since become leaky, the windows are clogged with rags. There is devastation and emptiness all around. Even the churches look lifeless.

The estate seems to be falling apart, which indicates that the hero has fallen out of real life: instead of the main things, the focus of his attention is on empty and meaningless tasks. It’s not for nothing that this character is practically devoid of a name and patronymic - it’s as if he doesn’t exist.

The Plyushkin estate is striking in its appearance - the building is in a terrible, dilapidated condition. From the street, the house looks like an abandoned building in which no one has lived for a long time. It’s very uncomfortable inside the building – it’s cold and dark all around. Natural light enters only one room – the owner’s room.

The whole house is littered with old things, which are becoming more and more every year - Plyushkin never throws away broken or unnecessary things, because he thinks that they can still be useful.

The landowner's office is also in complete disarray. The appearance of the room embodies real chaos. There is a chair that cannot be repaired, as well as a clock that has stopped long ago. In the corner of the room there is a dump - in the shapeless heap you can see an old shoe and a broken shovel.

Attitude towards others

Plyushkin is a picky, scandalous person. Even the most insignificant reason is enough for him to start a quarrel. The hero shows his dissatisfaction in the most unsightly way, stooping to rudeness and insults.

The landowner himself is completely confident that he is behaving caringly and kindly, but people simply do not notice or appreciate this, because they are biased towards him.

Probably due to the fact that his son once lost at cards and did not return home, Plyushkin is prejudiced towards officers, considering them all to be spendthrifts and gamblers.

Plyushkin's attitude towards the peasants

Plyushkin treats the peasants cruelly and irresponsibly. The appearance, clothing and dwellings of the serfs look almost the same as those of the owner. They themselves walk around half-starved, skinny, exhausted. From time to time, escapes occur among the peasants - Plyushkin's existence as a serf looks less attractive than life on the run.

The landowner speaks negatively about his serfs - in his opinion, they are all quitters and slackers. In fact, the peasants work honestly and diligently. It seems to Plyushkin that the serfs are robbing him and doing their work very poorly.

But in reality, things are different: the landowner intimidated his peasants so much that, despite the cold and hunger, they under no circumstances dare to take anything from the master’s storehouse.

Did Plyushkin sell Dead Souls to Chichikov?

The landowner sells about two hundred “souls” to the main character. This number exceeds the number of “peasants” that Chichikov purchased from other sellers. This traces Plyushkin’s desire for profit and accumulation. When entering into a deal, the hero understands perfectly well what it is and what profit he can get for it.

Quoted description of Plyushkin

Conclusion

The image of Plyushkin and the characteristics of his essence serve as an illustrative example of how much a person can sink morally and physically. It is no coincidence that the author calls this hero “a hole in humanity.”

Plyushkin is not interested in spiritual development his personality, he is indifferent to his own inner world. The landowner is characterized by pettiness, stinginess and a complete lack of deep feelings. There is no shame, no conscience, no sympathy in him.

The name Plyushkina became a household name. It denotes pathological greed, pettiness and stinginess. IN modern world the so-called “Plyushkin syndrome” occurs quite often and characterizes those people who strive for the aimless accumulation of material resources.

Stepan Plyushkin - a character in N. V. Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls”, the fifth and last “seller” dead souls. He is the personification of complete death human soul. In this character, a bright personality was lost, consumed by stinginess. Despite Sobakevich’s persuasion not to go to him, Chichikov still decided to visit this landowner, since it is known that he has a high mortality rate among peasants. Being the owner of 800 or more souls, Plyushkin lives in a dilapidated estate, eats crumbs, wears old, patched things, and also poorly supports his charges. He picks up every unnecessary trinket that comes his way and brings it home. And the desolation and clutter of his house clearly demonstrates the disorder in the mind of Plyushkin himself.

It is known about this character that he was previously a rich and economic landowner and the father of three children, but after the death of his beloved wife he completely changed. His children left him: his eldest daughter married a cavalryman and left, his son joined the army and then lost, youngest daughter died. The relationship with the children went wrong. Having a rich fortune, he does not want to help them with a penny. Knowing all this, Chichikov is afraid to even start talking about his “business.” However, the old man surprisingly well accepts his offer to ransom the “dead souls” and even offers help in drawing up a deed of sale in the city, since the chairman is his old friend. According to the author, this character is deeply unhappy. Shadow and light were forever mixed in his soul.

One of Gogol's most striking characters, literary hero, whose name has long become a household name, a character who is remembered by everyone who read “Dead Souls” - landowner Stepan Plyushkin. His memorable figure closes the gallery of images of landowners presented by Gogol in the poem. Plyushkin, who even gave his name to the official disease (Plyushkin syndrome, or pathological hoarding), is essentially a very rich man who led a vast economy to complete decline, and a huge number of serfs to poverty and a miserable existence.

This fifth and final companion of Chichikov is a vivid example of how deadened the human soul can become. Therefore, the title of the poem is very symbolic: it not only directly indicates that we are talking about “dead souls” - as dead serfs were called, but also about the pitiful souls of landowners and officials, devoid of human qualities, devastated.

Characteristics of the hero

("Plyushkin", artist Alexander Agin, 1846-47)

Gogol begins the reader’s acquaintance with the landowner Plyushkin with a description of the surroundings of the estate. Everything indicates desolation, insufficient funding and the absence of a strong hand of the owner: dilapidated houses with leaky roofs and windows without glass. The sad landscape is enlivened by the owner's garden, although neglected, but described in much more positive colors: clean, tidy, filled with air, with a “regular sparkling marble column.” However, Plyushkin’s home again evokes melancholy, around there is desolation, despondency and mountains of useless, but extremely necessary for the old man, rubbish.

Being the richest landowner in the province (the number of serfs reached 1000), Plyushkin lived in extreme poverty, eating scraps and dried crackers, which did not cause him the slightest discomfort. He was extremely suspicious; everyone around him seemed treacherous and unreliable, even his own children. Only the passion for hoarding was important for Plyushkin; he collected everything he could get his hands on on the street and dragged it into the house.

("Chichikov at Plyushkin's", artist Alexander Agin, 1846-47)

Unlike other characters, Plyushkin's life story is given in full. The author introduces the reader to the young landowner, talking about a good family, his beloved wife and three children. Neighbors even came to the zealous owner to learn from him. But the wife died, the eldest daughter ran away with the military man, the son joined the army, which the father did not approve of, and the youngest daughter also died. And gradually the respected landowner turned into a person whose entire life is subordinated to accumulation for the sake of the accumulation process itself. All other human feelings, which had not previously been bright, faded away in him completely.

It is interesting that some professors of psychiatry mentioned that Gogol very clearly and at the same time artistically described a typical case of senile dementia. Others, for example, psychiatrist Ya.F. Kaplan, deny this possibility, saying that psychopathological traits do not appear sufficiently in Plyushkin, and Gogol simply illuminated the state of old age, which he encountered everywhere.

The image of the hero in the work

Stepan Plyushkin himself is described as a creature dressed in unkempt rags, looking like a woman from afar, but the stubble on his face still made it clear that the main character was a representative of the stronger sex. Given the general amorphousness of this figure, the writer focuses attention on individual facial features: a protruding chin, a hooked nose, lack of teeth, eyes expressing suspicion.

Gogol, a great master of words, shows us with bright strokes a gradual but irreversible change in human personality. A person, in whose eyes intelligence shone in previous years, gradually turns into a pitiful miser who has lost all his best feelings and emotions. The main goal of the writer is to show how terrible the coming old age can be, how small human weaknesses can turn into pathological traits under certain life circumstances.

If the writer simply wanted to portray a pathological miser, he would not go into details of his youth, a description of the circumstances that led to his current state. The author himself tells us that Stepan Plyushkin is the future of the fiery young man in old age, that unsightly portrait, upon seeing which the young man would recoil in horror.

("Peasants at Plyushkin", artist Alexander Agin, 1846-47)

However, Gogol leaves a small chance for this hero: when the writer conceived the third volume of the work, he planned to leave Plyushkin - the only landowner Chichikov met - in an updated, morally revived form. Describing the landowner’s appearance, Nikolai Vasilyevich separately highlights the old man’s eyes: “the little eyes had not yet gone out and ran from under his high eyebrows, like mice...”. And the eyes, as we know, are the mirror of the human soul. In addition, Plyushkin, seemingly having lost all human feelings, suddenly decides to give Chichikov a gold watch. True, this impulse immediately fades away, and the old man decides to include the watch in the deed of gift, so that after death at least someone will remember him with a kind word.

Thus, if Stepan Plyushkin had not lost his wife, his life could have turned out quite well, and his old age would not have turned into such a deplorable existence. The image of Plyushkin completes the gallery of portraits of degraded landowners and very accurately describes the lowest level to which a person can slide in his lonely old age.

Work:

Dead Souls

Stepan Plyushkin is the last “seller” of dead souls. This hero personifies the complete death of the human soul. In the image of P. the author shows the death of the bright and strong personality, consumed by the passion of stinginess.

The description of P.'s estate (“he does not grow rich according to God”) depicts the desolation and “cluttering” of the hero’s soul. The entrance is dilapidated, there is a special disrepair everywhere, the roofs are like a sieve, the windows are covered with rags. Everything here is lifeless - even the two churches, which should be the soul of the estate.

P.’s estate seems to be falling apart into details and fragments; even the house - in some places one floor, in others two. This indicates the collapse of the owner’s consciousness, who forgot about the main thing and focused on the tertiary. He no longer knows what is going on in his household, but he strictly monitors the level of liquor in his decanter.

Portrait of P. (either a woman or a man; a long chin covered with a scarf so as not to spit; small, not yet extinguished eyes, running around like mice; a greasy robe; a rag on his neck instead of a scarf) speaks of the hero’s complete “fallout” from the image of a rich landowner and from life in general.

P., alone of all the landowners, has a fairly detailed biography. Before the death of his wife, P. was a zealous and wealthy owner. He carefully raised his children. But with the death of his beloved wife, something broke in him: he became more suspicious and stingier. After troubles with the children (the son lost at cards, the eldest daughter ran away, and the youngest died), P.’s soul finally became hardened - “a wolfish hunger of stinginess took possession of him.” But, oddly enough, greed did not take control of the hero’s heart to the last limit. Having sold Chichikov is dead souls, P. wonders who could help him draw up a bill of sale in the city. He recalls that the Chairman was his schoolmate. This memory suddenly revives the hero: “... on this wooden face... expressed... a pale reflection of feeling.” But this is only a momentary glimpse of life, although the author believes that P. is capable of rebirth. At the end of the chapter about P. Gogol describes a twilight landscape in which shadow and light are “completely mixed” - just like in P.’s unfortunate soul.

Chichikov's visit to Plyushkin.

After Sobakevich, Chichikov goes to Plyushkin. The dilapidation and poverty of the estate immediately catches his eye. Despite the fact that the village was large and 800 peasants lived in it, Ch. notes that all the houses were old and rickety, people lived in terrible poverty.

The house was also not very beautiful. Perhaps it used to be a beautiful and rich building, but years passed, no one looked after it, and it fell into complete disrepair.

The owner only used a few rooms, the rest were locked. All but two windows were closed or covered with newspaper. Both the house and the estate fell into complete disrepair.

In the interior, Ch. notices huge piles of rubbish. The owner is so greedy that he picks up every item, and sometimes goes so far as to steal items from his peasants, even ones he doesn’t need at all. All the furniture was old and dilapidated, like the house itself. Unsightly paintings hung on the walls. It was clear that the owner had not bought anything new for a long time.

Plyushkin's appearance was so poor and unkempt that Ch. at first mistook him for the housekeeper. His clothes were very worn, his face seemed to never be able to express any feelings. Ch. says that if he had seen him at the temple, he would certainly have taken him for a beggar. He is surprised and at first cannot believe that this man has 800 souls.

The story told by the author helps us understand P-n’s personality. Gogol writes that earlier P-n was a good and thrifty owner. But his wife died, the children moved away, and he was left alone. The most characteristic feature P-na is stinginess and greed. He is sincerely glad when he learns about the purchase of Ch-vym’s souls, because he understands that it is very profitable for him. His face even “reflects a faint semblance of feeling.”

PLYUSHKIN is a character in the poem by N.V. Gogol’s “Dead Souls” (first volume, 1842, under the title “The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls”; second, volume 1842-1845).

Literary sources of the image of P. are images of misers from Plautus, J.-B. Molière, Shylock W. Shakespeare, Gobsek O. Balzac, Baron A.S. Pushkin, also, obviously, Prince Ramirsky from D.N. Begichev’s novel “Family” Kholmsky", Melmoth the Elder from C.R. Methurin's novel "Melmoth the Wanderer", Baron Baldwin Furenhoff from I.I. Lazhechnikov's novel "The Last Newcomer". The life prototype of P.’s image was probably the historian M.M. Pogodin. Gogol began writing a chapter about P. in the house of Pogodin, famous for his stinginess, near Moscow; Pogodin’s house was surrounded by a garden, which served as a prototype for P.’s garden (cf. A. Fet’s memoirs: “in Pogodin’s office there was unimaginable chaos. Here all kinds of ancient books lay in piles on the floor, not to mention hundreds of manuscripts with works begun, the places of which, as well as banknotes hidden in various books were known only to Pogodin.”) Gogol’s predecessor of P. is the image of Petromikhali (“Portrait”). P.'s surname is a paradoxical metaphor in which self-denial is embedded: the bun - a symbol of contentment, a joyful feast, cheerful excess - is contrasted with P.'s gloomy, decrepit, insensitive, joyless existence. The image of a moldy cracker left over from the Easter cake brought by P.'s daughter is identical to the metaphorical meaning his last name. P.’s portrait is created with the help of hyperbolic details: P. appears as a sexless creature, more like a woman (“The dress she was wearing was completely indefinite, very similar to a woman’s hood, there was a cap on her head...”), Chichikov takes P. for the housekeeper, since she has on her belt P. has the keys, and he scolds the man with “rather obscene words”; “the little eyes had not yet gone out and were running like mice”; “One chin only protruded very far forward, so that he had to cover it with a handkerchief every time so as not to spit.” On the greasy and oily robe, “instead of two, there were four flaps dangling” (a comic doubling characteristic of Gogol); the back, stained with flour, “with a large hole lower down.” The fictitious image (hole, hole) becomes a common noun for the universal human type of miser: P. - “a hole in humanity.” The objective world around P. testifies to rottenness, decay, dying, and decline. Korobochka's thriftiness and Sobakevich's practical prudence in P. turns into the opposite - “into rot and a hole” (“luggage and stacks turned into pure manure, flour into stone; cloth and linens turned into dust). P.'s economy still maintains a grandiose scale: huge storerooms, barns, drying linens, cloth, sheepskins, dried fish, and vegetables. However, the bread is rotting in the storerooms, green mold covers the fences and gates, the log pavement moves “like piano keys,” there are dilapidated peasant huts all around, where “many roofs leak like a sieve,” two rural churches are empty. P.’s house is an analogue of the medieval castle of the miser from a Gothic novel (“This strange castle looked like some kind of decrepit invalid…”); it is full of cracks, all the windows, except for the two “low-blind” windows behind which P. lives, are boarded up. The symbol of P.’s “heroic” stinginess, acquisitiveness taken to the extreme limit, is a giant castle in an iron loop on the main gate of P.’s house. The image of P.’s garden, through which the chisel of nature passed, making it a beautiful garden, contrasts with the image of the “decrepit castle "(hell) and is a prototype of P.'s appeal - Gogol's thought to resurrect P. from the dead in the 3rd volume of the poem, hinting at the “Garden of Eden.” On the other hand, in the description of P.’s garden there are metaphors with elements of P.’s real portrait (“thick stubble” of the “gray-haired chapyzhnik”), and “the neglected area of ​​the garden acts as a kind of emblem of a person who left his “spiritual economy” without care, according to Gogol” (E. Smirnova). The deepening of the garden, “yawning like a dark mouth,” also reminds of hell for those whose soul dies alive, which happens to P. From a zealous, exemplary owner, whose mills, fulling mills moved at a measured pace, cloth factories, carpenters worked looms, spinning mills,” P. transforms into a spider. At first, P. is a “hardworking spider”, busily running “at all ends of his economic web,” he is famous for his hospitality and wisdom, his pretty daughters and son, a broken boy who kisses everyone. (Compare with Nozdryov; symbolically Nozdryov is P.’s son, throwing his wealth to the wind.) After the death of his wife, the eldest daughter runs away with the headquarters captain - P. sends her a curse; P. refuses funds to his son, who became a military man and violated the will of his father, and also curses him; buyers, unable to bargain with P., stop buying goods from him. P.'s "spider" essence is evolving. P.’s things are deteriorating, time stops, eternal chaos freezes in P.’s rooms: “It seemed as if the floors were being washed in the house and all the furniture had been piled here for a while. On one table there was even a broken chair, and next to it a clock with a stopped pendulum, to which the spider had already attached a web.” The concrete metonymy of the image of P., separated from him, like a soul from a dead body, is a worn cap on the table. Objects shrink, dry out, turn yellow: a lemon “no bigger than a hazelnut,” two feathers, “dried up, as if in consumption,” “a toothpick, completely yellowed, with which the owner, perhaps, picked his teeth even before the French invaded Moscow.” . A dusty heap in the corner, where P. drags all sorts of rubbish: a piece of wood he found, an old sole, an iron nail, a clay shard, a bucket stolen from a gaping woman - symbolizes the complete degradation of everything human.” In contrast to Pushkin's Baron, P. is depicted not surrounded by piles of chervonets, but against the background of decay that destroyed his wealth. “P.’s stinginess is like the other side of his falling away from people...” (E. Smirnova). P.'s mental abilities are also in decline, reduced to suspicion and insignificant pettiness: he considers the servants to be thieves and swindlers; compiling a list of “dead souls” on a quarter sheet of paper, he laments that it is impossible to separate another eighth, “sparingly molding line after line.” Delighted with Chichikov’s stupidity, P. remembers the hospitality and offers Chichikov a decanter of liqueur “in the dust, like in a sweatshirt” and a cracker from the Easter cake, from which he first orders the mold to be scraped off and the crumbs taken to the chicken coop. P.'s bureau, where he buries Chichikov's money, symbolizes the coffin where, in the depths of inert matter, his soul is buried, a spiritual treasure that died from money-grubbing (cf. the Gospel parable about a talent buried in the ground). Outstanding performers of the role of P. in dramatizations and film adaptations of the poem are L.M. Leonidov (MKhAT, 1932) and I.M. Smoktunovsky (1984). An incident in the artistic fate of this image was the fact that in R.K. Shchedrin’s opera “Dead Souls” (1977) the role of P. was intended for a singer (mezzo-soprano).