Do dead souls have living souls. Souls dead and alive in the poem by N.V.

Gogol's poem Dead Souls" - one of the best works world literature. The writer worked on the creation of this poem for 17 years, but never completed his plan. "Dead Souls" is the result of many years of Gogol's observations and reflections on human destinies, the fate of Russia.
The title of the work - "Dead Souls" - contains its main meaning. This poem describes both the dead revisionist souls of serfs and the dead souls of landlords, buried under the insignificant interests of life. But it is interesting that the first, formally dead, souls turn out to be more alive than the breathing and talking landlords.
Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, carrying out his brilliant scam, visits the estates of the provincial nobility. This gives us the opportunity "in all its glory" to see the "living dead".
The first person Chichikov pays a visit to is the landowner Manilov. Behind the outward pleasantness, even the sweetness of this gentleman, is hidden senseless daydreaming, inactivity, idle talk, false love for the family and peasants. Manilov considers himself educated, noble, educated. But what do we see when we look into his office? A dusty book that has been open on the same page for two years.
Something is always missing in Manilov's house. So, in the study, only part of the furniture is covered with silk, and two chairs are covered with matting. The economy is managed by a "dexterous" clerk who ruins both Manilov and his peasants. This landowner is distinguished by idle daydreaming, inactivity, limited mental abilities and vital interests. And this is despite the fact that Manilov seems to be an intelligent and cultured person.
The second estate that Chichikov visited was the estate of the landowner Korobochka. It is also "dead soul". The soullessness of this woman lies in the amazingly petty interests of life. Apart from the price of hemp and honey, Korobochka cares little. Even in the sale of dead souls, the landowner is only afraid to sell too cheap. Everything that goes beyond her meager interests simply does not exist. She tells Chichikov that she does not know any Sobakevich, and, consequently, he does not exist in the world.
In search of the landowner Sobakevich, Chichikov runs into Nozdryov. Gogol writes about this "merry fellow" that he was gifted with all possible "enthusiasm". At first glance, Nozdryov seems to be a lively and active person, but in fact he turns out to be completely empty. His amazing energy is directed only to revelry and senseless extravagance. Added to this is the passion for lies. But the lowest and most disgusting thing in this hero is "the passion to spoil one's neighbor." This is the type of people "who will start with a satin stitch and finish with a reptile." But Nozdryov, one of the few landowners, even evokes sympathy and pity. The only pity is that he directs his indomitable energy and love for life into an "empty" channel.
The next landowner on Chichikov's path is, finally, Sobakevich. He seemed to Pavel Ivanovich "very similar to a medium-sized bear." Sobakevich is a kind of "fist", which nature "simply chopped from the whole shoulder." Everything in the guise of the hero and his house is thorough, detailed and large-scale. The furniture in the landlord's house is as heavy as the owner. Each of Sobakevich's objects seems to say: "And I, too, Sobakevich!"
Sobakevich is a zealous owner, he is prudent, prosperous. But he does everything only for himself, only in the name of his interests. For their sake, Sobakevich will go to any fraud and other crime. All his talent went only into the material, completely forgetting about the soul.
The gallery of landowners' "dead souls" is completed by Plyushkin, whose soullessness has taken on completely inhuman forms. Gogol tells us the background of this hero. Once Plyushkin was an enterprising and hardworking owner. Neighbors came to him to learn "stingy wisdom." But after the death of his wife, the suspicion and stinginess of the hero intensified to the highest degree.
This landowner has accumulated huge stocks of "good". Such reserves would be enough for several lives. But he, not content with this, walks every day in his village and collects all the rubbish that he puts in his room. Senseless hoarding led Plyushkin to the fact that he himself feeds on leftovers, and his peasants "die like flies" or run away.
The gallery of "dead souls" in the poem is continued by the images of the officials of the city of N. Gogol draws them as a single faceless mass, mired in bribes and corruption. Sobakevich gives the officials an angry, but very accurate description: "A scammer sits on a scammer and drives a scammer." Officials mess around, cheat, steal, offend the weak and tremble before the strong.
At the news of the appointment of a new governor-general, the inspector of the medical board feverishly thinks of the patients who died in significant numbers from a fever, against which proper measures were not taken. The chairman of the chamber turns pale at the thought that he has made a bill of sale for dead peasant souls. And the prosecutor generally came home and suddenly died. What sins were behind his soul that he was so frightened?
Gogol shows us that the life of officials is empty and meaningless. They are just smokers of air, who have wasted their precious lives on slander and fraud.
Next to the "dead souls" in the poem there are bright images ordinary people who are the embodiment of the ideals of spirituality, courage, love of freedom, talent. These are the images of the dead and fugitive peasants, primarily the men of Sobakevich: the miracle worker Mikheev, the shoemaker Maxim Telyatnikov, the hero Stepan Cork, the stove-maker Milushkin. Also, this is the fugitive Abakum Fyrov, the peasants of the rebellious villages Vshivaya-arrogance, Borovka and Zadiraylova.
It was the people, according to Gogol, who retained in themselves a “living soul”, national and human identity. Therefore, it is with the people that he connects the future of Russia. The writer planned to write about this in the continuation of his work. but he couldn't, he couldn't. We can only guess about his thoughts.

The purpose of the trip to the provincial cities of the enterprising Chichikov is to buy census souls, who are still on the lists of the living, but already dead. Dead and living souls in Gogol's poem acquire new meaning. The classic by the very title of the work makes one think about the life of people, the value and materiality of human existence.

Audit soul

The irony of Gogol hides behind a huge problem. "Dead Souls" is a capacious phrase that expands with each page. Two words cannot stand together. They are opposite in meaning. How does a soul become dead? The boundary between the dead working people and the merchant full of health is lost, blurred. Why couldn't another name be found? For example, people (a person) without a soul, a revision soul, human trafficking? It was possible to hide the essence of the protagonist's deal with a title about the wandering of an official.

As soon as an official, a bureaucrat, was born, crimes based on documents began. "Paper" little souls are skillfully contrived in order to enrich themselves. Even from audit lists they manage to find a benefit. Chichikov - bright representative such people. He planned to give the dead men to another world for the living, to raise his social position with their help, to appear in the world as a rich landowner with a large number of souls. And what they are, dead or no longer, no one will know.

Dead masters of life

The figurative meaning of the title of the poem is difficult for the thoughtful reader. Physically, all landowners look alive and strong. Death and disease do not hover around them. Sobakevich never experienced ailments. Nozdryov drinks more than men, but his body is full of health, and his face is "blood with milk." Manilov enjoys the view of nature, flies away, dreaming, higher than Moscow. Korobochka - smartly sells everything that her serfs do. Plyushkin drags into the house what he can lift. None of them can be imagined as dead. But the author seeks to convey a different meaning. The landlords are dead at heart. The contradiction raises a lot of questions: a living person is a dead essence. What is left of man? Why can't he be considered ordinary lively, passionate and active?

From human image only the form remains, the shell. The landowners fulfill their physiological needs: they eat, sleep, roam. There is no thing that a living person should do. There is no development, movement, desire to benefit others.

Literary critics argued with the position of the author. Some tried to prove the vitality of the characters by the presence of a passion that only the living can have. Greed, greed, rudeness, cunning - negative qualities confirm the lack of spirituality, but not the deadness of the representatives of the landowners.

Most agreed with the classic. The landowners are lined up in ascending order of degradation: from the initial stage (Manilov) to the complete collapse of the personality (Plyushkin).

Living images

Russian peasants stand out with other features, they are living souls in the poem "Dead Souls". Even the landowners recognize them as alive. The serfs did so much good for them that the merchants feel sorry for the dead. Pity, of course, is built on greed: no income. Even the dead they want to sell at a higher price. Each peasant from Chichikov's list has his own craft, talent and favorite thing. Gogol believes in the future of Russia with such people. He hopes that the landowners will also begin to change, to be reborn. The troika bird takes Rus' away from slavery and poverty into another free world. beautiful nature, flight.

N. V. Gogol is a writer whose work has rightfully entered the golden fund of the classics of Russian literature. Gogol is a realist writer, but the connection between art and reality is complicated for him. In no case does he copy the phenomena of life, but he always interprets them in his own way. Gogol knows how to see and show the ordinary from a completely new angle, from an unexpected perspective. And then an ordinary event takes on a strange, sometimes even sinister, coloring. This is exactly what happens in the poem "Dead Souls".

The artistic space of the poem consists of two worlds, which can be conditionally designated as the “real” world and the “ideal” world. The “real” world is built by the author, recreating a contemporary picture Russian life. According to the laws of the epic, Gogol recreates reality in the poem, striving for the maximum breadth of coverage of its phenomena. This world is ugly. This world is terrible. This is a world of inverted values, spiritual guidelines in it are perverted, the laws by which it exists are immoral. But, living inside this world, having been born in it and having accepted its laws, it is almost impossible to assess the degree of its immorality, to see the abyss separating it from the world. true values. Moreover, it is impossible to understand the reason causing spiritual degradation, moral decay.

In this world live Plyushkin, Nozdrev Manilov, the prosecutor, the police chief and other heroes who are original caricatures of Gogol's contemporaries. A whole gallery of characters and types devoid of soul,

created by Gogol in a poem.

The first in the gallery of these characters is Manilov. Creating his image, Gogol uses various artistic means, including a landscape, a description of the Manilov estate, and the interior of his dwelling. Things characterize Manilov no less than the portrait and behavior: "Everyone has his own enthusiasm, but Manilov had nothing." Its main feature is uncertainty. Manilov's outward benevolence, his willingness to render a service seem to Gogol not at all attractive features, since all this is exaggerated in Manilov.

Manilov's eyes, "sweet as sugar," express nothing. And this sweetness of appearance brings a feeling of unnaturalness to every movement of the hero: here on his face appears "an expression not only sweet", but even cloying, "similar to the potion that the clever doctor sweetened mercilessly, imagining to please the patient with it." What kind of "potion" sweetened Manilov's cloying? Emptiness, its worthlessness, soullessness with endless discussions about happiness, friendship and other lofty matters. While this landowner is complacency and dreams, his estate falls into decay, the peasants have forgotten how to work.

Korobochka has a completely different attitude to the household. She has a “pretty village”, the yard is full of all kinds of birds. But Ko-robochka does not see anything further than her nose, everything “new and unprecedented” frightens her. Her behavior (which can also be noted in Sobakevich) is guided by a passion for profit, self-interest.

Sobakevich, in the words of Gogol, "damn fist." The passion for enrichment pushes him to cunning, makes him find various means of profit. Therefore, unlike other landlords, he uses an innovation - cash dues. He is not at all surprised by the sale and purchase of dead souls, but only cares about how much he will receive for them.

The representative of another type of landowners is Nozdrev. He is a fidget, a hero of fairs, card tables. He's also a bigot, a brawler, and a liar. His business is running. Only the kennel is in good condition. Among dogs, he is like a “father”. The income received from the peasants, he immediately squanders.

Plyushkin completes the portrait gallery of provincial landowners. It is shown differently than all previous types. Before us is the story of Plyushkin's life, then, like the previous heroes of Gogol, there is as if no past that would differ from the present and explain something in it. Plyushkin's deadness is absolute. Moreover, we see how gradually he lost all human qualities how he became a "dead soul".

In the estate of Plyushkin, decay and destruction, and the landowner himself even lost his human appearance: he, a man, a nobleman, can easily be mistaken for a housekeeper. In him and in his house one can feel the inevitable influence of corruption and decay. The author dubbed him "a hole in humanity."

The gallery of the landlords is crowned by Chichikov, a rogue who has everything calculated in advance, wholly seized by a thirst for enrichment, mercantile interests, who has ruined his soul.

But besides the landlords, there is also the city of N, and in it there is a governor, embroidering with silk on tulle, and ladies showing off fashionable fabrics, and Ivan Antonovich Pitcher snout, and whole line officials aimlessly eating and losing their lives at cards.

There is another hero in the poem - the people. This is the very living soul that preserves and reveals all the best human. Yes, Uncle Mityai and Uncle Minyay are funny, they are funny in their narrow-mindedness, but their talent and their life is in work. And the people are part of the "ideal" world, which is built in strict accordance with true spiritual values, with that lofty ideal to which the living soul of man aspires.

The two worlds presented in the poem mutually exclude each other. In fact, the "ideal" world is opposed by the "anti-world", in which virtue is ridiculous and absurd, and vice is considered normal. To achieve a sharp contrast between the dead and the living, Gogol resorts to a variety of different techniques. Firstly, the deadness of the "real" world is determined by the dominance of the material principle in it. That is why the descriptions widely use long enumerations of material objects, as if displacing the spiritual component. The poem is also replete with fragments written in a grotesque style: characters are often compared to animals or things.

The title of the poem contains the deepest philosophical meaning. The very concept of "dead souls" is nonsense, because the soul, according to Christian canons, is immortal. For the "ideal" world, the soul is immortal, since it embodies divine origin in a person. And in the “real” world, a “dead soul” is quite possible, because for him the soul is only what distinguishes the living from the dead. So, when the prosecutor dies, those around him guessed that he "had definitely a soul" only when he became "only a soulless body." This world is insane - it has forgotten about the soul, and lack of spirituality is the cause of decay. Only with an understanding of this reason can the revival of Rus' begin, the return of lost ideals, spirituality, the soul in its true, highest meaning.

Chichikov's britzka, ideally transformed in the last lyrical digression into a symbol of the ever-living soul of the Russian people - a wonderful "three-bird", completes the first volume of the poem. Recall that the poem begins with a seemingly meaningless conversation between two peasants about whether the wheel will reach Moscow, with a description of the dusty, gray, dreary streets of the provincial city. The immortality of the soul is the only thing that instills in the author faith in the obligatory revival of his heroes and all life, all of Rus'.

N.V. Gogol worked on the poem "Dead Souls" for 17 years, but he was not destined to finish what he started. The first volume of the poem, as it is, is the result of the writer's reflections on Russia and its future.

The essence of the name

The name "Dead Souls" refers to the souls of dead peasants that Chichikov buys. But to a greater extent, the landlords are dead souls, who presented in the work a whole gallery of images of local nobles typical of Russia at that time.

Representatives of "Dead Souls"

The first representative of the souls of the dead, and perhaps the most harmless, is the landowner Manilov. His deadness is expressed in fruitless daydreaming against a far from comforting reality. He is no longer interested in anything but his own fantasies.

The second image from this gallery is the image of Korobochka, the “club-headed” landowner. At its core, it is a store, but it is so limited in thinking that it becomes scary. Her attention is not given to things that cannot be sold, and what she does not know does not exist for her at all. In this limitation and pettiness, the author sees the death of her soul.

Fate confronts Chichikov with Nozdrev, a landowner-joker. He has fun, carelessly squandering his property. Although he has the makings of activity and purposefulness, perhaps even the mind, he still belongs to the category of "dead", as he directs his energy into the void. Yes, and he is empty inside.

Sobakevich is a good owner, also a hoarder, but all his actions are aimed at his own benefit, and he thinks those around him are the only scammers.

The last in the list is the landowner Plyushkin. His lack of spirituality reached its peak, he lost his human appearance, although he was once a zealous, thrifty owner. Neighboring landowners went to him to study economy. After the death of his wife, he seemed to have gone mad, and his thirst for hoarding took on perverted forms.

A whole undivided mass of dead souls is represented in the guise of officials provincial city mired in careerism and bribery.

living souls

Are there living souls in the poem? I think that the images of Russian peasants can be called alive, embodying the ideal of spirituality, skill, courage and love for freedom. For example, images of dead or runaway peasants: master Mikheev, shoemaker Telyatnikov, stove maker Milushkin, etc.

Gogol's opinion

Gogol believes that it is the people who are able to preserve their soul. Therefore, the future of Russia depends only on the peasantry.

- the main work of N.V. Gogol. He worked on it from 1836 to 1852 but was never able to finish it. More precisely, the writer's original intention was to show Rus' "from one side." He showed it - in the first volume. And then I realized that black paint alone was not enough. He remembered how to build The Divine Comedy” Dante, where “Hell” is followed by “Purgatory”, and then “Paradise”. So our classic wanted to "brighten" his poem in the second volume. But it failed to do so. Gogol was not satisfied with what he had written and burned the second volume. Drafts have been preserved from which it is difficult to judge the entire volume.

That is why only the first volume is studied at school, as a completely finished work. It's probably right. To talk about the intentions and plans of the writer that were not realized means to regret the missed opportunities. It is better to write and talk about what is written and implemented.

Gogol was a deeply religious person - this is well known from the memoirs of his contemporaries. And it was necessary to decide to give the work such a “blasphemous” name - “Dead Souls”. Not without reason, the censor, who read the book, was immediately indignant and protested - they say, souls are immortal - this is what he teaches christian religion under no circumstances should such a work be printed. Gogol had to make concessions and make a "double" title - "The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls." It turned out the name for some kind of adventure-adventure novel.

The content of the first volume is not difficult to retell - the "scoundrel" and "purchaser" Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov goes to visit the landowners and offers them to buy the souls of dead peasants. The reaction is different: someone is surprised (), someone even tries to bargain (Korobochka), someone offers to “play for souls” (Nozdrev), someone praises their dead peasants, as if they did not die at all (Sobakevich).

By the way, it is Sobakevich's praises that convince us readers that Gogol saw living souls behind the dead souls. Nobody ever dies if they leave behind good memory if the living use the products of his hands. Mikheev, a coach-builder, Stepan Cork, a shoemaker, and others rise from the pages of the poem as if they were alive. And although Chichikov imagines them alive, and we know his nature, all the same - the dead, at least for a short while, seem to change places with the living.

When Chichikov looks through the “revision tales” (as the lists of dead peasants are called), he accidentally discovers that he was deceived - along with the names of the dead peasants, the names of the runaway peasants were entered. It is clear that no one will run away from a good life. This means that the conditions in which the peasants were then were incredibly difficult. After all, our serfdom- this is the same slavery, only called differently. And the fugitives cannot be considered dead. They died to the old life in an attempt to find a new, free life.

It would seem that none of the landlords can be classified as living souls. The author himself admitted that he placed the heroes on the principle of degradation, an ever deeper moral and spiritual fall. And in fact, there is a huge gap between Manilov and Plyushkin. The first is refined, courteous, although he has no character, and Plyushkin even lost his human appearance. Recall that at first Chichikov even takes him for a housekeeper. Plyushkin's own peasants are not worth a penny. If his daughter, Alexandra Stepanovna, had not been mentioned in the poem, we would probably not have known his name.

And yet it cannot be said that Plyushkin is deader than all the other characters. Let us ask ourselves: what is known about the past of each of the landowners? Almost nothing, just a few expressive details. And Plyushkin's past is told in great detail. He did not change out of the blue, everything happened gradually. Plyushkin slipped from reasonable economic avarice to pettiness and greed. Thus, this landowner is shown in a change for the worse. But the main thing is change! After all, Manilov, for example, has not changed at all for many years, just like Nozdryov. And if no changes happen to a person, then you can give up on this person and give up - no benefit or harm from him.

Gogol probably reasoned as follows: if a person has changed for the worse, then why shouldn’t he be reborn again, for a new, honest and rich life? In the third volume of Dead Souls, the writer planned to lead Plyushkin to a spiritual rebirth. It's hard to believe this, to be honest. But we do not know the whole idea, therefore we have no right to judge Gogol.

Finally, in the last digression of the first volume, a grandiose image of Rus' appears, similar to a “troika bird”. And again, it does not matter that Chichikov's chaise is carried away into this unknown distance, and we know who he is. Lyrical pressure, mood distracts us from both Chichikov and his "dark" deeds. Alive soul Russia - that's what occupies Gogol's imagination.

What happens? Can the question in the title of this essay be answered in the affirmative? Can! After the first reading of the poem, such an affirmative answer is difficult to give. This is because the first reading is always rough, approximate, incomplete. As the writer Vladimir Nabokov, who wrote a long essay about Gogol, once put it, “ real book you can’t read it at all – you can only reread it.” And it is true!

Living souls among dead souls are a rarity in Gogol. But they are! And do not take the expression "dead souls" too literally. There are those who have become spiritually dead, but who are still alive in physical sense. There are many of them then and now. And there are those who left us and went to another world, but their light still comes to us. long years. It doesn't matter what a person did in life. He was useful, was necessary, gave others goodness and light. And that's why he deserves the grateful memory of his descendants.

From the collection of P.N. Malofeeva