Can the heroes of dead souls be called modern? "Dead Souls": the meaning of the name

A short essay-discussion on the topic “The image of Chichikov in the poem Dead souls with quotes" for 9th grade. Personality characteristics of Chichikov. Why is the penny knight a dead soul? Is he capable of moral rebirth?

Not all people understand the true greatness of Dead Souls. Many people think that this is “a book that was assigned to read at school” and nothing more. In fact, Gogol's poem is not just a boring part school curriculum, these are images, characters, portraits that have been alive from the 19th century to our time, and, unfortunately, will never disappear. The dead souls here are not only landowners, but also partly main character, Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov. Whether he is a living soul or a dead one is a moot point. So let’s try to understand the image of one of the first swindlers in Russian literature.

Many say that Gogol had a rather positive attitude towards his hero, because initially his idea was to “re-educate” Chichikov for the third planned volume, but only one has reached us, and therefore we can only refer to him. In the first part, Chichikov is a dead soul, although not comparable in “vulgarity” to the landowners. Gogol himself thinks almost the same way: “But a virtuous person is still not taken as a hero.”

You can even call him “a hero of his and our time,” because Chichikov is a man with petty passions. How many young people are now obsessed with greed, how many swindlers hide behind the honorable name “businessman”? Chichikov is exactly like this, and since childhood: then he misunderstood his father’s notorious “take care of a penny.” The vulgarity of Chichikov’s soul is blamed on his father, who allegedly taught him bad things. But this is not entirely true. It is quite remarkable that Gogol writes: “He was born simply, as the proverb says: neither like his mother, nor like his father, but like a passing fellow.” That is, the writer draws a line of demarcation between the son and the parents. After all, Chichikov by nature is closer to the philistinism than to his noble roots.

Although his father was poor, he taught his son the “science of wise stinginess” and not the frantic search for profit by any means. Chichikov Sr. himself “occupied all positions in the house.” That is, he does not so much strive for profit as simply save. And he taught his son morality and practicality, and not bad things: “Don’t lie, listen to your elders and carry virtue in your heart.” The only thing that can be blamed on the father is his monologue about terrible greed and frugality. But he did not follow this as ardently as his son did. Pavlusha apparently had this nasty trait in her from birth.

Chichikov's estate

And Chichikov quickly began to turn into what he seemed destined to become from the very beginning. Buttering towards teachers, a cynical attitude towards friendship, hypocrisy and greed - all this only progressed in him. Gogol writes: “It cannot be said, however, that the nature of our hero was so harsh and callous and that his feelings were so dulled that he knew neither pity nor compassion; he felt both, he would even like to help, but only so that it would not be a significant amount, so as not to touch the money that should not have been touched.”

It seems to us last words the author's words are written with irony. For the hero, everything comes down to money, he dreams of beautiful life and saves it in order to increase it and then not need anything. These are quite sensible thoughts, and Chichikov also clearly has a talent for running a business, but he is so cynical that these are no longer dreams, but mania. Going over your head, indifferently playing on feelings - everything is allowed in order to live happily ever after. His entire biography is a slippery slope from one scam to another.

How Gogol sees his heroes

For some reason, Gogol saw in Chichikov a person capable of re-education, but later burned the second volume due to the lack of " life truth” and did not proceed to the third. Maybe partly because the Chichikovs will never be re-educated? The author himself contradicts himself in his expressions. He begins to describe Chichikov’s biography with the following words: “No, it’s time to finally hide the scoundrel too. So, let’s harness the scoundrel!” And later he softens the expression: “It is most fair to call him: owner, acquirer. Acquisition is the fault of everything; because of him, deeds were carried out that the world calls not very pure.”

By drawing this contradictory image, Gogol wanted to show his contemporaries why unprincipled businessmen who were not brought up on moral ideals, but on the thirst for wealth and luxury. Whether the writer gave such people a chance to repent and return to a righteous life is a debatable question. Perhaps, in the continuation of the poem, the vector of development of the hero’s spiritual qualities would have changed radically, but Pavlusha remained frozen in history as a practical cynic, repeating his “Take care of your penny” like the “Our Father.” The Chichikovs are the problem of Russia.

Every time has its own heroes. They determine his face, character, principles, ethical guidelines. With the advent of "Dead Souls" entered Russian literature new hero, unlike its predecessors. The elusive, slippery feeling is felt in the description of his appearance. “In the chaise sat a gentleman, not handsome, but not bad-looking either, not too fat, not too thin; one cannot say that he is old, but it is not that he is too young...” It is even difficult for Gogol to determine his position, to give a name to this new phenomenon. In the end, the word was found: “It is most fair to call him: owner, acquirer.” This is a representative of the new, bourgeois relations that are taking shape in Russian life.

Chichikov grew up, although in a noble, but poor family, in a house with small windows that were not opened either in winter or in flight. Poverty, humiliation, and loneliness gradually convinced Pavlusha that there was only one way to establish herself in life - money. For the rest of his life he remembered his father’s will: “You will do everything and you will lose everything with a penny.”
Having experienced failures in the service, Chichikov poses a fair question to himself: “Why me? Why did trouble befall me?... and why should I disappear like a worm?” Chichikov does not want to “disappear” and is looking for ways to adapt to a new life. The method of enrichment he invented can be called an adventure, a scam. But time itself told him: the disorder in the country, the difficult situation of the peasants. “And now the time is convenient, recently there was an epidemic, quite a few people died out, thank God. The landowners played cards, wrapped themselves up and squandered their money; “everyone has come to serve in St. Petersburg: names have been abandoned, they are managed haphazardly, taxes are becoming more difficult to pay every year.” The goods that Chichikov buys are, even today, unusual for either the ear or the mind - dead souls. But no matter how scary the unusualness of the scam offered to the landowners may be, its obvious benefits blinds one to the fact that in most cases Chichikov manages to persuade the landowners to sell him “dead souls.”

And in addition, Chichikov possesses many qualities of a man of the “new time”, a “businessman”, a “speculator”: pleasantness in behavior and concessions, and liveliness in business affairs - “everything turned out to be necessary for this world.” There was only one thing missing from the clever entrepreneur - a living human soul. Chichikov expelled all living compulsions from his life. Human feelings, the “brilliant joy” of life gave way to practicality, ideas of success, and calculation. At the end of the first volume, Chichikov did not achieve his goal. He not only experienced commercial failures, but also suffered a moral loss. But in the life of our hero there have already been defeats, and they did not force Chichikov to give up his dream of life “in all comforts, with all prosperity.” And it seems to me that he will realize it someday. After all, he has no other dreams and goals. And failure will make him more experienced and cunning. Or isn’t that why Chichikov smiles because he’s racing miles away in a troika?

Manilov is a character in N.V. Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls”. The name Manilov (from the verb “to lure”, “to lure”) is played ironically by Gogol. It parodies laziness, fruitless daydreaming, projectism, and sentimentality. (A historical prototype, according to...

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The first thing that distinguishes Chichikov and Plyushkin from the rest of the characters in the poem is that they have a past - a biography. The biography of these heroes is the story of the “fall of the soul”; but if the soul “fell”, it means that it was once pure, which means that its revival is possible - through repentance.

It is no coincidence that Gogol distinguishes Chichikov from a number of other characters in the poem, talking about the hero’s past and giving his character development. According to the plan, the author was going to “lead Chichikov through the temptation of possessiveness, through life’s dirt and abomination to moral rebirth.” The hero's name is Paul, and this is the name of the apostle who experienced a spiritual revolution. If we take into account the fact that the Apostle Paul was at first one of the persecutors of Christ, and then became an ardent spreader of Christianity throughout the world, then his namesake, Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, had to be reborn, revive the souls of people, guide them on the true path. And already in the first volume there are prerequisites for this. What is necessary for repentance, for cleansing the soul? Inner self, inner voice. The author gives Chichikov the right to mental life, to “feelings” and “thoughts.” “With some vague feeling he looked at the houses...”; “there was an unpleasant, vague feeling in his heart...”; “Some strange feeling, incomprehensible to himself, took possession of him,” Gogol records moments of his hero’s inner voice. Moreover, there are often cases when, in lyrical digressions, Chichikov’s inner voice turns into the author’s voice or merges with it - for example, a digression about the dead men of Sobakevich or about the girl Chichikov met (“Anything can be made of her, she can be a miracle, or maybe rubbish will come out, and rubbish will come out!”). Gogol trusts Chichikov to talk about Russian heroism, to admire the power and vastness of Rus'. The basis of the tragedy and at the same time the comedy of this image is that all human feelings in Chichikov are hidden deep inside, and he sees the meaning of life in acquisition. His conscience sometimes awakens, but he quickly calms it down, creating a whole system of self-justifications: “I didn’t make anyone unhappy: I didn’t rob the widow, I didn’t let anyone into the world...”. In the end, Chichikov justifies his crime. This is the path of degradation from which the author warns his hero. The writer calls on Chichikov, and with him the readers, to take the “straight path, similar to the path leading to a magnificent temple,” this is the path of salvation, the revival of the living soul in everyone.

The chapter about Plyushkin is compositionally highlighted by Gogol; it is located exactly in the middle of Chichikov’s journey through the surrounding landowners’ estates. The chapter begins and ends lyrical digressions, which was not the case when describing other landowners. All other stories follow the same pattern: Chichikov gets acquainted with the estate, the house, then buys peasants, has dinner and leaves. But the chapter dedicated to Plyushkin seems to interrupt this monotonous chain: the life story, a detailed biography of the hero is shown, that is, before us is not just a man with a frozen soul, but we see how he reached such a state. In the distant past, he was an exemplary owner, the direct opposite of all the other landowners of Dead Souls: “But there was a time when he was just a thrifty owner! He was married and a family man, and his neighbor came to have dinner with him, listen and learn from him about housekeeping and wise stinginess... Too strong feelings were not reflected in his facial features, but intelligence was visible in his eyes; His speech was imbued with experience and knowledge of the world, and the guest was pleased to listen to him.” It becomes clear that at first Plyushkin was a completely different person. In early Plyushkin there is only the possibility of his future vice. This is hinted at by “wise stinginess” and the absence of “too strong feelings.” Gogol describes the dying of an initially good person.

If in all other landowners their typicality was emphasized, then in Plyushkin the author sees not so much a phenomenon characteristic of landowner Russia, but a kind of exception. Even Chichikov, who has seen “a lot of all kinds of people,” has “never seen this before,” and in the author’s description of Plyushkin it is said that “a similar phenomenon rarely comes across in Rus'.” The state in which Chichikov finds him is truly terrifying. Drawing a portrait of Plyushkin, the author thickens the colors to the limit: Chichikov could not even “recognize what gender the figure was: a woman or a man,” and in the end decided that in front of him was the housekeeper. But, perhaps, even the housekeeper will not wear the rags that Plyushkin wears: on his robe, “the sleeves and upper flaps were so greasy that they looked like yuft, the kind that goes on boots.” Gogol gives a devastating description of Plyushkin - “a hole in humanity.” But did his soul die completely? In revealing the image of Plyushkin, it is incredibly important not only to describe his clothes, but also his appearance. Although Gogol writes that the face of this character was nothing special, it stands out from the gallery of previous faces: “the little eyes had not yet gone out and ran from under the high eyebrows, like mice, when, sticking out their sharp muzzles from dark holes, they were alert ears and blinking their whiskers, they look out to see if a cat or a naughty boy is hiding somewhere, and they sniff the very air suspiciously.” Plyushkin has the most lively eyes of all the heroes. Maybe not human, but alive! At the mention of his comrade’s name, “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 there is something alive left in him, that his soul has not frozen, has not ossified at all. The sixth chapter contains a detailed description of Plyushkin’s garden, overgrown, neglected, but still alive. The garden is a kind of metaphor for the hero’s soul. Only on his estate there are two churches. Of all the landowners, only Plyushkin pronounces an accusatory monologue after Chichikov’s departure.

It is very important to know the intention of the second and third volumes of Dead Souls. Of all the heroes of the first volume, Gogol wanted to lead only two through purification to the rebirth of the soul in the third volume - Chichikov and Plyushkin. This means that the author’s position is far from being as straightforward as it might seem at first glance. It is Plyushkin, according to the author, who remains, albeit insignificant, but still a chance for spiritual rebirth.

So, Chichikov and Plyushkin, unlike other characters in the poem, are shown in development, but in the opposite development, that is, in degradation, and, according to Gogol’s plan, they were supposed to be reborn in the second volume of the work.

But Manilov, for example, has nowhere to degrade. It has long frozen, like a bookmark in a book that has been lying on page fourteen for two years.

The main work of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, undoubtedly, was the poem “Dead Souls”, the first volume of which was written in 1842. The poem was written mostly abroad, where Gogol went after the unsuccessful premiere of The Government Inspector, but the author still talks about Russia, its present and future. According to the original plan, the work should have consisted of three volumes. The first volume described Russian reality, with all its unrest that was happening in society and in ruling circles, the second volume proposed ways of revival, and the third - a society, perhaps a utopian heavenly tomorrow, which should ultimately reign on Russian soil. But the writer was never able to fully cope with his task, so the second volume of “Dead Souls” was burned twice by its creator. It never came to the third.

But the first volume was saved and published. Against the background of Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov’s scam (the purchase of dead peasants, but still listed as alive according to the revision tale), Gogol masterfully depicts the diverse Russian life of different segments of the population and shows the negative sides of the rulers. At the same time, the entire depth was revealed main topic works. The concepts of “dead” and “living” in the poem gradually move from their true lexical meaning to a symbolic one. The landowners and officials of the city of N are representatives of the so-called “dead souls” who have long stopped in their spiritual development, and Chichikov is a typical “ living soul", the man who must lead Russia onto the path of revival.

Gogol's Chichikov is a very unusual image, personifying a great force that conquers all evil. Throughout the first volume, he is constantly on the road. His home, unlike the “dead” landowners, is the road. The road leads to a bright future and symbolizes life. Already at the very beginning of the poem, Gogol gives a description of his main character:

In the chaise sat a gentleman, not handsome, but not bad-looking either, neither too fat nor too thin; One cannot say that he is old, but not that he is young.

The author describes his hero not as a person, but as a mystical creature without certain external data. The reader should not be distracted by appearance Chichikov, so as not to miss the main thing - his mission. Pavel Ivanovich’s scam is not carried out for the sake of money, as it might seem at first glance. This is a kind of test that ultimately shows whether the souls of the landowners are “dead” or whether there is hope for their resurrection.

In the person of one hero, Nikolai Vasilyevich represents the Russia of the future, and the Russia of the present is shown in the faces of many landowners and officials. This suggests that one single Chichikov is much more “alive” than all the Manilovs, Nozdrevs and Sobakeviches combined.

Chichikov had a very difficult life. He was left without parents early and was forced to enter an independent adult life. He had to make his way through with the help of his manners and courtesy, since the main character did not have any special talents. Since childhood, he was very attentive and diligent, so he remembered his father’s order for the rest of his life:

...and most of all, take care of your penny, a penny will ruin everything.

Pavel Ivanovich obediently fulfills his father’s will and the meaning of his life becomes “folding a penny.” Gogol portrays him as a very mysterious person, because secrecy is the main quality of a swindler:

The newcomer, it seemed, avoided talking much about himself, and if he did speak, it was in some commonplaces and with noticeable modesty.

But, like any living person, Chichikov is characterized by various emotional manifestations, for example, a feeling of fear. Probably only Nozdryov sees the true essence of his guest, since he himself is not sinless. “You are a big swindler, let me tell you this out of friendship. If I were your boss, I would hang you from the first tree,” Nozdryov reports with great enthusiasm. Chichikov ruined his career due to excessive greed, but mistakes and omissions do not frighten the hero. The loss of a lucrative position only gives him strength to commit new scams. He was always an outstanding and never cheerful person. He had enormous professional experience accumulated over a long period of service, and in particular, excellent knowledge human souls. A brilliant idea about buying dead peasants came to the hero precisely in a moment of despondency, because the deal promised to be very profitable.

Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov has an excellent understanding of human characters, and it is not difficult for him to find an individual approach to everyone. For example, with Manilov he is cultured and courteous, but with Nozdryov he is rude and unceremonious. He combines the traits of each interlocutor and skillfully uses them at the right moment. The only obstacle in Chichikov’s plan was the “club-headed” Korobochka, who came to the city to find out how much dead souls “walk” now. It is she who casts a shadow on our adventurer, and after her the whole city finds out that the visiting gentleman has deceived everyone. Meanness will always be punished by retaliatory meanness. It is completely natural that Chichikov is defeated. Because of his greed, he could not predict such a sad ending, because he was smart, and meeting stupidity was not part of his plans. As it turned out, the hero’s good manners, iron grip and prudence cannot always predict his possible consequences, because in a huge country it is often impossible to understand who is who. The beginning of the bourgeois era helped Chichikov acquire qualities different from the landowners.

Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov is a man of new times, possessing both professional and adventurous qualities. Although Chichikov is called a nice fellow, the word “businessman” in his case still carries negative character. This is why the main character evokes mixed feelings in us: on the one hand, he is a good person, smart and optimistic, but on the other hand, his passion is money, which forces the hero to live dishonestly.