Gogol's poem "Dead Souls" is an encyclopedic work in terms of the breadth of coverage of life situations, the main idea of which is to show the true appearance of the landlords in the years of serfdom, in the years of pre-revolutionary Russia. The main objects of the poem are: Chichikov, traveling through provincial cities in order to buy dead souls; and the landowners whom he visits, buying dead serfs from them, are: Manilov, Korobochka, Nozdryov, Sobakevich and Plyushkin. The essence of the title of this work lies in the hidden comparison of landowners with dead souls.
That is, we are not talking about the dead people whom Chichikov so immorally buys up, but about the landowners themselves who sell them. In the course of the poem, N.V. Gogol provides each landowner with a separate chapter, where he reveals their whole essence: vices, stinginess, stupidity, lack of education. Each of the landowners has their own differences, but there are also features that bring them together, and the most important common feature of all these people, and the main reason why they can be valued as "dead souls" is the lack of desire for development, the absence of any clearance in their minds, lack of thinking, good thoughts and deeds.
Thus, all the landowners of the city of NN are completely empty people, lagging behind in moral development, inanimate, from the point of view of good intentions, which gives the right to call them "dead souls".
Updated: 2017-02-23
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Landowners in Gogol's Dead Souls
The five landlords are the first in a series of "dead souls." They are incapable of any lofty movement of the soul. They are limited and primitive in aspirations. They are vulgar people, because their interests are just as vulgar in their materiality. The spiritual world of the landlords is petty and insignificant. Things express their inner essence. Why are people so down to earth? Not only personal life is the reason for this, but also social conditions led to this.
Landlords are not specific people, they are also types that characterize entire groups of people like themselves. Gogol bitterly talks about man, about his fate in the modern world, about the absurdity of the state, where the owners are "Sobakevichi" and "Plyushkins".
One of the representatives of this layer is Manilov. Manilov's characteristic is negative. Detailing and irony of the author helps to understand this. He "was a prominent person, his features were not devoid of pleasantness, but this pleasantness, it seemed, was too sugary ... he smiled enticingly, was blond, with blue eyes." “At home, he spoke very little and for the most part thought and thought ...” Considering himself the most educated person, he wants to “follow a kind of science so that it stirs the soul, it would give, so to speak, a kind of guy ...” Gogol makes it clear that Manilov’s thoughts do not have no reason: "In his office there was always some kind of book, bookmarked on the fourteenth page, which he had been constantly reading for two years." The surrounding things, the whole way of life, the thoughts, feelings and actions of this hero clearly indicate that Manilov is a “so-so” person, neither in the city of Bogdan, nor in the village of Selifan.
The box is also a representative of the landlords. Gogol does not like Korobochka. He is also annoyed by the "old dress", tidied up just in case; and a clock hissing like snakes, old wallpaper and an abundance of flies. Time in Korobochka's house stopped forever. It pulls you to sleep and the windows overlook the barnyard. The hostess has grown together with her household and turned into a part of it. "Korobochka" is not just a surname, it is a way of life and thoughts. It is not for nothing that the word “clubhead” sounds from the lips of Chichikov, an active and active person. The box does not know how to think differently than it is used to. She is afraid of it. Her "club head" - fear of the unusual and stupidity.
In the story, the author speaks ironically about all the landowners. Among them is Nozdrev - a lively and restless person. So why is he a dead soul? In the character of Nozdrev, Gogol singles out his aimless activity, his constant readiness to do something: “... he suggested that you go anywhere, even to the ends of the world, enter whatever enterprise you want, change everything for whatever you want.” But Nozdryov does not complete a single business he has begun, since all his undertakings are aimless. This scorcher simply, without any shame, boasts and deceives everyone who meets him. According to him, in his stable there is a bay stallion, "for which Nozdryov is afraid that he paid ten thousand." But the field of "Russians is such a death that the earth is not visible," he even caught one himself "by the hind legs." Nozdrev is a man without principles. His appearance always speaks of a coming scandal: “Not a single meeting where he was was without a story. Some kind of story was bound to happen: either he would be led out of the gendarme hall by the arms, or his own friends would be forced. If this does not happen, then nevertheless something will happen that will not happen with others. The author ironically calls Nozdryov a "historical man".
Speaking of dead souls, Gogol leads readers to the idea that the real "dead souls" are the souls of landowners who have long ceased to dream of something lofty, who only care about their own existence and enrichment in any way. Such is Sobakevich. He is rude and clumsy. His appearance is frightening: when Chichikov glanced askance at Sobakevich, this time he seemed to him very similar to a medium-sized bear ... his tailcoat was completely bear-colored ... he stepped at random and stepped on other people's feet incessantly. Approaching the village of Sobakevich, Chichikov drew attention to the solid buildings. The owner does not care about beauty, but not everything in the house is stable. Each thing is clumsy and, as it were, says: “And I, too, Sobakevich!” In a conversation with Chichikov, he expresses anger towards others. All, in his opinion, are scammers: "They will kill you for a penny." The author hates both characters. Each of them wants to fool the other and is afraid that they will fool him. Sobakevich, unlike previous heroes, is associated with economic activity. He is cunning, but Gogol constantly exposes him, paying particular attention to his values. Sobakevich's interests are limited. The purpose of his life is material enrichment and a hearty meal. With all this, Sobakevich is a good owner, his peasants live well. Whether he was born a bear or his life “beared” is more of a misfortune than a hero’s fault.
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Answer from GALINA[guru]
“Dead souls” are landowners and officials, these are “unrequitedly dead inhabitants”, terrible “by the motionless cold of their soul and the barren desert of the heart”. Chichikov visited five landowners' estates, but this is not a cycle of disparate short stories, but a single narrative, the essence of which is defined by the author: "My heroes follow one after another, one more vulgar than the other." At first glance, Manilov and Sobakevich, Nozdryov and Korobochka do not look alike. However, they are united by emptiness and worthlessness, which becomes a feature not only of each of them, but an attribute of the whole way of landlord life in Russia. That is why Gogol builds the narrative on the principle of strengthening vulgarity.
But the heroes of "Dead Souls" are not just spiritually poor people. Gogol writes not only about human vices, he connects them in the poem with the social position of the heroes: it is no coincidence that their human ugliness is fully revealed when they, "the owners of the goods", decide what to do with the "dead souls"; donate, exchange or sell profitably. Thus, in the chapters on landlords, the disgrace of serfdom and the moral inconsistency of landowners-gentry are shown as phenomena of the same plane.
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 him the soul is only what distinguishes a living person from a dead person. In the episode of the prosecutor’s death, 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 reason for the collapse. Only with an understanding of this reason can the revival of Russia begin, the return of lost ideals, spirituality, and soul. The "ideal" world is the world of spirituality. It cannot contain Plyushkin, Sobakevich, Nozdrev, Korobochka. It has souls - immortal human souls.
Answer from Krosh[guru]
1917 transferred them all.
Answer from J/C Kostin[guru]
Because the landowners were selling dead serfs (the main problem of the work is reflected in the title). This is if you are talking about Gogol's work.
Answer from Konstantin[guru]
The landowners in "Dead Souls" are united by common features: idleness, vulgarity, spiritual emptiness. However, Gogol would not have been a great writer if he had limited himself to a “social” explanation of the reasons for the spiritual failure of the characters. He really creates "typical characters in typical circumstances," but "circumstances" can also be found in the conditions of a person's inner, mental life. I repeat that Plyushkin's downfall is not directly connected with his position as a landowner. Isn't the loss of a family able to break even the strongest person, a representative of any class or estate? ! In a word, Gogol's realism also includes the deepest psychologism. This is what makes the poem interesting to the modern reader.
The world of dead souls is opposed in the work by an ineradicable faith in the “mysterious” Russian people, in its inexhaustible moral potential. At the end of the poem, an image of an endless road and a troika bird rushing forward appears. In her indomitable movement, the writer sees the great destiny of Russia, the spiritual resurrection of mankind.
Answer from 3 answers[guru]
The so-called gallery of landowners Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol begins with the landowner Manilov. It is to him that the main character goes in the first place. The reader immediately notes the pretentiousness of manners and sugary speech of this man, although outwardly he is quite attractive. The meaning of Manilov's whole life is fantastic dreams. He likes to lie on the sofa or sit in a rickety gazebo, dreaming of an underground passage. He does not care at all about the peasants, who suffer from the carelessness of this landowner. Manilov is a flatterer, in his words everyone in the city is "most amiable." As it turned out, the image of Manilov is so typical of that time that the concept of Manilovism arose.
Korobochka appears next in the gallery before the reader. Her life is an eternal accumulation. She is stingy and even stupid, since Chichikov has to spend both time and nerves to get her to sell the dead peasants. This image also turned out to be typical for Russian landowners of those times.
Nozdryov - an avid gambler and drunkard, brawler and reveler - calls himself a friend of Chichikov. Hot-tempered, boastful, this landowner is disorderly in character, which even reflects his dwelling. Some kind of chaos is going on in the house, the owner himself keeps a real wolf cub, and a goat in the stable. Nozdryov at first refuses to sell peasants to Chichikov, and then plays checkers with him for dead souls. Of course, it is not complete without fraud on the part of the owner. Chichikov, who is indignant at this, is saved from reprisal by Nozdryov only by the visit of the police captain.
Sobakevich appears to readers as a huge, clumsy landowner, rude and uncouth. The drive is also visible in it, as in the Box. He speaks extremely unflatteringly about the townspeople, but praises his peasants. He is surprisingly calm about Chichikov's request to buy peasants from him. Sobakevich himself is shown as a kind of ruler over the peasants.
The last landowner is Plyushkin. If in the person of Manilov the reader sees the process of an idle life, then Plyushkin is its result. This landowner is extremely rich, he has more than a thousand souls, but he lives in a dilapidated dwelling, dressed like a beggar. In his soul, he is also a hoarder, and this trait led him to the loss of a real perception of things. He is ready to save (and thereby spoil) the products, just not to waste them. And the reader, studying the description of his dirty room, sees the spiritual death of a person in front of him - something that the rest of the landowners are slowly but surely moving towards.
Images of landlords in the poem Dead Souls
Gogol, this excellent writer, very well described and showed the whole real essence of all rich people, mostly landowners. This is especially pronounced in his poem Dead Souls. It is in this work of Gogol that it is clearly seen what people are just not capable of, for the sake of easy wealth. The landlords at that time of the nineteenth century in Russia played a very important role in the life of the peasants and society in general. How many people have suffered because of the unimportant whims of these, oddly enough, illiterate people.
The landlords in Gogol's poem are shown with all the nakedness of their morals - real, not hypocritical. Landlords are people who profited from ordinary and poor people for their own benefit. For the peasants, it was like slavery, because they received neither money nor land, only kicks and reproaches, if not worse. The landlords were the head of the fortress, so they become even worse from this.
Gogol's poem "Dead Souls" shows how one landowner decided to make his wealth even greater, and therefore began to use even dead people, or rather, their name and age, supposedly they actually exist, and are in his fortress, then is in the service of his estate. None of the auditors, and in general, could have known whether those people were alive or not - but on the other hand, the landowner received incredible benefits for this.
Gogol shows how insignificant people can be, and it does not matter whether they are landowners or not. In this work, the landowners decided to cash in even on the dead souls of people who had already left this world. But even they were not left alone, even here they decided to draw some benefit for themselves.
That is why Gogol could not sleep peacefully until he showed the real essence of all landowners, who are not real rich people, but those who profit from everything they can.
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