Dead souls are the main meaning of the poem. The meaning of the title of the poem Gogol's dead souls essay

The name of this work by Gogol is primarily associated with the main character Chichikov, who bought up dead peasants. To start your own business. But in fact, he wanted to sell these dead souls and get rich.

But this is not the only meaning of the title of this work, the author wanted to show the true souls of society that they have long since hardened and died. This is evident from the fact that each character in this work has no spiritual development.

Chichikov travels all over Russia in order to buy more peasants for his new estate. But he sees that most rich people see almost nothing around them except their base desires. The landowner Manilov does not do anything and does not do any useful things. He spends all his time talking and talking, or indulging in daydreams.

The landowner Sobakevich is like an animal; he spends all his free time eating something. And the portion sizes are so huge that an ordinary person cannot afford them.

The box from which Chichikov bought the souls of dead peasants. She loves nothing in life except trading, and you can only talk to her on this topic or on the topic of food. Because she loves to eat and treats everyone to all kinds of dishes.

Plyushkin is generally a separate character who is not only dead in soul, but also does not fit into any framework of a normal person. Collect so much goodness and all sorts of things, but do not use them and do not sell them or give them to poor people.

This is blatant greed, in the work it is written in detail that Plyushkin has mountains of moldy bread, could it really not have been given to other people?

All landowners like Korobochka, Sobakevich, Nozdryov do not live a spiritual life, but are busy filling their pockets and bellies, eating all kinds of dishes.

Officials are also not at all interested in anything other than their work, in order to receive profit and bribes from all the visitors who come to them. The landowners overeat and rejoice at the new dishes. Plyushkin is not even interested in new and tasty dishes; he is busy accumulating his unprecedented wealth. He has reached the end of his rope in this matter, he collects all his wealth, but eats food worse than the beggars. This is the highest level of stinginess.

Initially, Gogol wanted to write the poem “Dead Souls” in three parts, raising the souls of the entire society, from the very bottom, from hell then to purgatory, and then when these sick souls are cured, they go to heaven.

Hence the meaning of the work: society is in a terrible dead-end development. There is no spiritual development. But the author still hopes that people will come to their senses and their souls will go to heaven. And peace, high spirituality will reign in the world and high moral principles will be valued.

What is the meaning of the name?

In 1842, the first volume of one of the most famous and sensational works of N.V. was released. Gogol’s prose poem “Dead Souls,” the title of which illustrates the dominant idea of ​​the work. As N. Berdyaev said about Gogol: “The most mysterious figure in Russian literature.” So what is the author hiding under such a mystical name for his brainchild?

The main motive of the prose poem “The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls” is multifaceted and multifaceted. The idea for the plot was taken on the friendly advice of Pushkin and on the basis of the plot suggested by him. This entire work is a medical history, an awareness of the horror and shame that a person experiences when he sees his real face in the mirror. Under the veil of the false, the author shows us the real truth. Gogol in his poem increasingly notes the callousness and cowardice of his heroes.

If we think straightforwardly, then a dead soul is a person’s lack of rational ideology, the passivity of his activities and the primitiveness of his activities and aspirations. In this case, it no longer matters which social circle the character belongs to, because the dead soul is society as a whole. On the one hand, this is the designation of a deceased serf, a “revision soul”, which according to documents is listed as alive. Many characters, starting with Chichikov, are already defined by the very act of buying and selling non-existent people. Completely perverted relationships are formed, turned upside down. At first it appears that city life is bustling, but in reality it is just a bustle.

A dead soul in the inner world of a poem is a common occurrence. Here, for people, the soul is only what distinguishes a dead person from a living one. This is what A.I. wrote about the poem. Herzen: ““Dead Souls” - this title itself carries something terrifying in itself.” Indeed, hidden behind all this is another, completely different, deeper meaning: to reveal the entire plan in three parts, like Dante’s three-part poem “The Divine Comedy”. It is assumed that Gogol intended to create three volumes corresponding to the chapters “Hell”, “Purgatory” and “Paradise”, where in the first part he wanted to reveal the terrifying Russian reality, the “hell” of the modern way of life, and in the second and third parts of the three-volume set - the spiritual the rise of Russia.

From this we can conclude that N.V. Gogol tried to reveal the real picture of the life of the local nobility, a hopeless dead end, decline and spiritual decay using the example of the heroes of the work. The author in the first part of “Dead Souls” tries to convey the negative features of Russian life; he hints to people that their souls have become dead, and, pointing out their vices, brings them back to life.

Option 3

The title of Gogol’s work “Dead Souls” is associated with one of the main characters, and to be precise, it is Chichikov. All he did was buy up people who died. Mostly they were peasants. Many thought that this was how he wanted to earn his living, but how wrong they were. He then resold the dead souls and became richer.

There is also another problem here that the author wanted to show his reader. And it is to show people the true face of people. They don't even have development in society.

And in order to purchase as many souls as possible, he had to travel all over the world. He also had to see that society sees practically nothing except its condition and society. He met with the landowner Manilov. He has no goal in life, and this is considered the most terrible thing, because you don’t even know what to live for. Other than that, he doesn't do anything. And all he does is just communicate with other people.

He also met with another person and he is Sobakevich. He is very much like a dog that constantly eats and does nothing else. He usually eats in the largest portions, but an ordinary person cannot eat such a large portion.

The box sells dead souls, and he is not interested in anything else. And she only talks about money and various purchases. Also, more than anything else, she enjoys preparing different dishes and then serving them to everyone.

But Plyushkin cannot be called an ordinary person at all, and his soul is practically empty. He constantly collects everything that other people throw in the trash and brings it home. As a result, he keeps things that he not only does not use, but also does not need at all.

Almost all landowners are engaged in only one thing, this is making money and eating different dishes. And in order to earn a lot of money and satisfy all their needs, they try to hold down a job. Sometimes, in order to help other people, they take bribes and do not feel any remorse. They always eat plenty and may not think about tomorrow. But at the same time, Plyushkin tries to drag as many things as possible into his home, and it doesn’t matter at all that they are old and unnecessary to anyone.

Why does Chichikov buy dead souls? This question often arises among readers, and not only because they may not have read the work very carefully, but due to the fact that the meaning of Chichikov’s scam is not entirely clear.

The fact is that, according to the laws of the Russian Empire of the 1830-1840s, deceased serfs were formally considered alive until the next revision, and therefore could be the subject of trade transactions of their owners. Having bought a large number of peasants of this kind, Chichikov could be considered a rich landowner, which would give him weight in society. However, this is not the main goal of the swindler Chichikov. He had the opportunity to realize his fictitious capital. Having learned about an oversight in the legislation concerning dead souls, Chichikov exclaimed to himself: “Oh, I’m Akim-simplicity - I’m looking for mittens, and both are in my belt! Yes, if I bought all these people who died out before they submitted new revision tales, buy them, let’s say, a thousand, and, let’s say, the guardianship council will give two hundred rubles per head, that’s two hundred thousand for capital.” Chichikov knows that for such an operation one must also be the owner of the land, a landowner, and intends to use another opportunity to enrich himself: “True, without land you can neither buy nor mortgage. Why, I’ll buy for withdrawal, for withdrawal; Now the lands in the Taurida and Kherson provinces are given away for free, just populate them.”

So, Chichikov is going to take advantage of the state’s oversight and benefit from it. It should be noted that similar cases occurred in reality. Pushkin told Gogol about one of them so that he could use it as the plot of a work of art. Gogol took Pushkin's advice and created a brilliant poem about Russia. What is the main idea of ​​the poem, what is criminal in Chichikov’s scam?

Chichikov causes economic damage to the state, intending to fraudulently obtain land and money. After all, in fact, Chichikov will not populate these lands, and the state will give them away not only for free, but also in vain. The moral damage from this scam is no less significant, since Chichikov, buying dead peasants from landowners, involves them in his crime. The poem depicts Chichikov's five visits to the landowners, and each of these visits shows how this criminal deal affects people. Manilov gives his peasants to Chichikov out of naivety, which stems from a lack of character and senseless “beautiful soul.” Through this image, Gogol warns about the dangers of carelessness and mental laziness. Korobochka sells dead souls, obeying pressure from Chichikov. In this case, he acted as a tempter, confusing the old landowner to such an extent that she, who had never left her estate, went to the city to find out how much dead souls cost these days. By talking about dead souls, Chichikov drove the sharper and spendthrift Nozdryov into a frenzy, and it almost came to assault. The offer to sell dead souls made to Sobakevich evoked an immediate response from him. At the same time, the landowner revealed his inherent cynicism and greed. The landowner Plyushkin sincerely rejoices at his “luck” to sell off many dead and runaway peasants for a penny profit.

The reader may not immediately think about it, but then he understands more and more clearly the hidden damage of Chichikov’s criminal enterprise - the moral one. Having taken possession of formally dead people, Chichikov, along with their names, takes with him the memory of them, that is, they no longer belong to the place where they lived and died. Chichikov seems to “wash away” the fertile layer of soil - the peasants; The “ground” of the nation disappears into nothingness. This is the deepest semantic metaphor behind this story. And finally, having made the dead an object of sale and purchase, Chichikov extends his greed to the afterlife. This moral and religious idea was especially close to Gogol; it permeates all of his work.

Lyric-epic poem by N.V. Gogol's "Dead Souls" is undoubtedly the main one in the writer's work. You can think for a long time about the genre of the work, about the image of the main character Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov. But the first question that arises even before reading the work: why is the poem called “Dead Souls”?

True "Dead Souls"

The simplest answer to this question is related to the plot of the work: Chichikov buys the “dead” souls of peasants in order to pawn them and get money for it. But the further you read, the more clearly you understand that the true dead souls are the heroes of the work - landowners, officials, and Chichikov himself.

The landowners described in the poem: Manilov, Korobochka, Nozdryov, Sobakevich and Plyushkin are soulless people. Someone lives by dreams, another thinks narrowly, the third wastes his fortune and spoils his loved ones, the fourth does everything only for himself, the fifth has generally become a “tear in the body of humanity”, has lost his human appearance.

City officials N

The officials of the city of N are even more “dead”. This is most clearly manifested in the scene at the ball, where there is not a single face, and only headdresses flash. They are unspiritual and have lost interest in anything other than hoarding money and bribes.

It is worth noting that, following the owners, the serfs begin to lose their souls: Chichikov’s coachman Selifan, the peasants Uncle Mityai and Uncle Minyai, the yard girl Korobochka.

The main thing according to Gogol

Gogol considered the most important thing in a person to be the soul, which reflects the divine beginning of each of us. The soul in literature was the subject of trading, card games, and losses. Left without a soul, a person can no longer be considered alive. He cannot be useful, the only thing to be expected from him is inhumane actions, because he does not feel anything.

The loss of the soul is not only terrible, but also dangerous, because the person who has lost the soul does evil, without experiencing embarrassment or remorse. Therefore N.V. Gogol warns the reader that each of us can become Manilov, Korobochka or Sobakevich if we allow ourselves to be carried away by some soulless trifle.

The meaning of the name and the originality of the genre of the poem by N.V. Gogol's "Dead Souls"

Plan

Introduction

1 Main part

1.1 The meaning of the title of the poem “Dead Souls”

1.2 Definition of N.V. Gogol of the Dead Souls genre

1.3 Genre originality of the poem “Dead Souls”

2 Conclusions on the genre uniqueness of “Dead Souls”

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

“Dead Souls” is a brilliant work by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. It was on him that Gogol placed his main hopes.

"Dead Souls" - poem. The history of its creation covers almost the entire creative life of the writer. The first volume was created in 1835 - 1841 and was published in 1842. The writer worked on the second volume from 1840 to 1852. In 1845, he burned the finished text for the first time. By 1851, he completed a new version of the volume - and burned it on February 11, 1852, shortly before his death.

“Dead Souls” are closely connected with the name of Pushkin and were created under his influence. Pushkin gave Gogol the plot of Dead Souls. Gogol spoke about this in “The Author's Confession”: “Pushkin gave me his own plot, from which he wanted to make something like a poem himself and which, according to him, he would not give to anyone else. This was the plot of Dead Souls.

Soon Gogol read the first chapters of the poem to Pushkin. He himself spoke about this: “When I began to read the first chapters from “Dead Souls” to Pushkin in the form as they were before, Pushkin, who always laughed when I read (he was a lover of laughter), began to gradually become more and more gloomy and darker, and finally became completely gloomy. When the reading ended, he said in a voice of melancholy: “God, how sad our Russia is.” It amazed me. Pushkin, who knew Russia so well, did not notice that all this was a caricature and my own invention! It was then that I saw what a matter taken from the soul means, and spiritual truth in general, and in what a terrifying form for a person darkness and the frightening absence of light can be presented. Since then, I began to think only about how to soften the painful impression that “Dead Souls” could make.

Let's remember this: Gogol in “Dead Souls” was looking for such a combination of darkness and light that the pictures he created would not terrify a person, but would give hope.

But where is the light in his paintings? It seems that if it exists, it is only in lyrical digressions - about the healing endless road, about fast driving, about Rus', which rushes like a “brisk, unovertaken troika.” That’s right, but it has long been noticed that none other than Chichikov travels along these roads, and almost in his head a reasoning imbued with lyrical pathos is born...

The world of the poem “Dead Souls” is a world where events, landscapes, interiors, people are as reliable as they are fantastic; to shift these images in your consciousness to one or the other pole means to impoverish them; the tension between the poles expresses Gogol’s attitude towards Russia, its past, present and future.

So what is the meaning of the title of the poem? Why did Gogol call “Dead Souls” a poem? How to understand this?

The purpose of this study is to find out the meaning of the title of the poem “Dead Souls” and explain the features of the genre of this work.

To do this, it is necessary to solve the following problems:

1. Creatively study the poem “Dead Souls.”

2. Trace N.V. Gogol’s opinion about the poem.

3. Consider critical materials about the poem “Dead Souls”.

1 Main part

1.1 The meaning of the title of the poem “Dead Souls”

The title “Dead Souls” is so ambiguous that it has given rise to a host of reader guesses, scientific disputes and special studies.

The phrase “dead souls” sounded strange in the 1840s and seemed incomprehensible. F. I. Buslaev said in his memoirs that when he “first heard the mysterious title of the book, he first imagined that it was some kind of science fiction novel or story like “Viy.” Indeed, the name was unusual: the human soul was considered immortal, and suddenly dead souls!

“Dead souls,” wrote A. I. Herzen, “this title carries something terrifying in itself.” The impression of the name was strengthened by the fact that this expression itself was not used in literature before Gogol and was generally little known. Even experts in the Russian language, for example, Moscow University professor M.P. Pogodin, did not know it. He wrote indignantly to Gogol: “There are no dead souls in the Russian language. There are revision souls, assigned souls, departed souls, and arrived souls.” Pogodin, a collector of ancient manuscripts, an expert in historical documents and the Russian language, wrote to Gogol with complete knowledge of the matter. Indeed, this expression was not found either in government acts, or in laws and other official documents, or in scientific, reference, memoirs, and fiction literature. M. I. Mikhelson, in a collection of catchphrases of the Russian language that was reprinted many times at the end of the 19th century, cites the phrase “dead souls” and makes reference only to Gogol’s poem! Mikhelson did not find any other examples in the enormous literary and dictionary material he reviewed.

Whatever the origins, the main meanings of the title can only be found in the poem itself; here, and in general, every well-known word acquires its own, purely Gogolian connotation.

There is a direct and obvious meaning of the name, arising from the history of the work itself. The plot of “Dead Souls,” like the plot of “The Inspector General,” was given to him, according to Gogol, by Pushkin: he told the story of how a cunning businessman bought dead souls, that is, dead peasants, from landowners. The fact is that since Peter’s time in Russia, every 12–18 years, audits (checks) of the number of serfs were carried out, since for a male peasant the landowner was obliged to pay the government a “poll tax”. Based on the results of the audit, “revision tales” (lists) were compiled. If during the period from revision to revision a peasant died, he was still listed on the lists and the landowner paid taxes for him - until new lists were compiled.

It was these dead people who were considered alive that the rogue businessman decided to buy up on the cheap. What was the benefit here? It turns out that the peasants could be pledged to the Guardian Council, that is, they could receive money for each “dead soul”.

The highest price that Chichikov had to pay for the “dead soul” of Sobakevich was two and a half. And in the Guardianship Council he could receive 200 rubles for each “soul”, i.e. 80 times more.

Chichikov's idea is ordinary and fantastic at the same time. It is common because the purchase of peasants was an everyday matter, and fantastic because those from whom, according to Chichikov, “only one sound, intangible by the senses, are sold and bought.”

No one is outraged by this deal; the most distrustful are only slightly surprised. In reality, a person becomes a commodity, where paper replaces people.

So, the first, most obvious meaning of the name: “dead soul” is a peasant who has died, but exists in a paper, bureaucratic “guise”, and who has become the subject of speculation. Some of these “souls” have their own names and characters in the poem, different stories are told about them, so that even if it is reported how death happened to them, they come to life before our eyes and look, perhaps, more alive than other “characters” .

« Milushkin, brickmaker! He could install a stove in any house.

Maxim Telyatnikov, shoemaker: whatever pricks with an awl, then the boots, whatever the boots, then thank you, and even if it’s a drunken mouth...

Carriage maker Mikheev! After all, I never made any other carriages other than spring ones...

And Cork Stepan, the carpenter? After all, what kind of power was that! If he had served in the guard, God knows what they would have given him, three arshins and an inch tall!”

Secondly, Gogol meant landowners by “dead souls”

serf-owners who oppressed the peasants and interfered with the economic and cultural development of the country.

But “dead souls” are not only landowners and officials: they are “unresponsive dead inhabitants”, terrible “with the motionless coldness of their souls and the barren desert of their hearts.” Any person can turn into Manilov and Sobakevich if “an insignificant passion for something small” grows in him, forcing him “to forget great and holy duties and see great and holy things in insignificant trinkets.”

It is no coincidence that the portrait of each landowner is accompanied by a psychological commentary that reveals its universal meaning. In the eleventh chapter, Gogol invites the reader not just to laugh at Chichikov and other characters, but to “deepen this difficult question inside one’s own soul: “Isn’t there some part of Chichikov in me too?” Thus, the title of the poem turns out to be very capacious and multifaceted.

The artistic fabric of the poem consists of two worlds, which can be conventionally designated as the “real” world and the “ideal” world. The author shows the real world by recreating contemporary reality. For the “ideal” world, the soul is immortal, for it is the embodiment of the divine principle in man. And in the “real” world there may well be a “dead soul”, because for ordinary people the soul is only what distinguishes a living person from a dead person.

The title given by Gogol to his poem was “Dead Souls,” but on the first page of the manuscript submitted to the censor, censor A.V. Nikitenko added: “The Adventures of Chichikov, or... Dead Souls.” That’s what Gogol’s poem was called for about a hundred years.

This cunning postscript muffled the social meaning of the poem, distracted readers from thinking about the terrible title “Dead Souls,” and emphasized the significance of Chichikov’s speculations. A.V. Nikitenko reduced the original, unprecedented name given by Gogol to the level of the names of numerous novels of sentimental, romantic, protective directions, which lured readers with amazing, ornate titles. The naive trick of the censor did not reduce the significance of Gogol’s brilliant creation. Currently, Gogol's poem is published under the title given by the author - “Dead Souls”.

The title of the work “Dead Souls” is ambiguous. , as you know, conceived a three-part work by analogy with Dante’s “Divine Comedy”. The first volume is Hell, that is, the abode of dead souls.

Secondly, the plot of the work is connected with this. In the 19th century, dead peasants were called “dead souls.” In the poem, Chichikov buys documents for deceased peasants, and then sells them to the guardianship council. Dead souls were listed as alive in the documents, and Chichikov received a considerable sum for this.

Third, The title emphasizes an acute social problem. The fact is that at that time there were a great many sellers and buyers of dead souls; this was not controlled or punished by the authorities. The treasury was emptying, and enterprising swindlers were making a fortune for themselves. The censorship strongly recommended that Gogol change the title of the poem to “The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls,” shifting the emphasis to Chichikov’s personality rather than to an acute social problem.

Perhaps Chichikov’s idea will seem strange to some, but it all comes down to the fact that there is no difference between the dead and the living. Both are for sale. Both dead peasants and landowners who agreed to sell documents for a certain reward. A person completely loses his human outline and becomes a commodity, and his entire essence is reduced to a piece of paper that indicates whether you are alive or not. It turns out that the soul turns out to be mortal, which contradicts the main postulate of Christianity. The world is becoming soulless, devoid of religion and any moral and ethical guidelines. Such a world is described epically. The lyrical component lies in the description of nature and the spiritual world.