What is the meaning of the title of the poem Dead Souls. The meaning of the title of the poem Gogol's dead souls essay. The deep meaning of the name

Introduction

Back in 1835, Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol began work on one of his most famous and significant works - the poem “Dead Souls”. Almost 200 years have passed since the publication of the poem, but the work remains relevant to this day. Few people know that if the author had not made some concessions, the reader might not have seen the work at all. Gogol had to edit the text many times just so that the censor would approve the decision to publish it. The version of the title of the poem proposed by the author did not suit the censorship. Many chapters of “Dead Souls” were changed almost completely, lyrical digressions were added, and the story about Captain Kopeikin lost its harsh satire and some characters. The author, if you believe the stories of his contemporaries, even wanted to place on the title page of the publication an illustration of a chaise surrounded by human skulls. There are several meanings for the title of the poem “Dead Souls”.

Name ambiguity

The title of the work “Dead Souls” is ambiguous. Gogol, 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.

Thirdly, 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.

Metaphorical

The meaning of the title “Dead Souls” by Gogol is metaphorical. It becomes interesting to look at the problem of the disappearance of boundaries between the dead and the living in the description of the purchased peasants. Korobochka and Sobakevich describe the dead as if they were alive: one was kind, the other was a good plowman, the third had golden hands, but those two did not take a drop into their mouths. Of course, there is a comic element in this situation, but on the other hand, all these people who once worked for the benefit of the landowners are presented in the readers’ imagination as alive and still living.

The meaning of Gogol's work, of course, is not limited to this list. One of the most important interpretations lies in the characters described. After all, if you look, then all the characters, except the dead souls themselves, turn out to be inanimate. Officials and landowners have been mired in routine, uselessness and aimlessness of existence for so long that the desire to live does not appear in them in principle. Plyushkin, Korobochka, Manilov, the mayor and the postmaster - they all represent a society of empty and meaningless people. The landowners appear before the reader as a series of heroes, arranged according to the degree of moral degradation. Manilov, whose existence is devoid of everything worldly, Korobochka, whose stinginess and pickiness knows no bounds, the lost Plyushkin, ignoring obvious problems. The soul in these people died.

Officials

The meaning of the poem “Dead Souls” lies not only in the lifelessness of the landowners. Officials present a much more frightening picture. Corruption, bribery, nepotism. An ordinary person finds himself hostage to a bureaucratic machine. A piece of paper becomes the determining factor in human life. This can be seen especially clearly in “The Tale of Captain Kopeikin.” A war disabled person is forced to go to the capital only to confirm his disability and apply for a pension. However, Kopeikin is unable to understand and break the management mechanisms, unable to come to terms with the constant postponement of meetings, Kopeikin commits a rather eccentric and risky act: he sneaks into the official’s office, threatening that he will not leave until his demands are heard. The official quickly agrees, and Kopeikin loses his vigilance from the abundance of flattering words. The story ends with Kopeikin being taken away by the civil servant's assistant. No one heard anything more about Captain Kopeikin.

Vices exposed

It is no coincidence that the poem is called “Dead Souls.” Spiritual poverty, inertia, lies, gluttony and greed kill a person’s desire to live. After all, anyone can turn into Sobakevich or Manilov, Nozdryov or the mayor - you just need to stop striving for something other than your own enrichment, come to terms with the current state of affairs and implement some of the seven deadly sins, continuing to pretend that nothing is happening.

The text of the poem contains wonderful words: “but centuries pass after centuries; Half a million Sidneys, bumpkins and boibaks sleep soundly, and rarely is a husband born in Rus' who knows how to pronounce it, this almighty word “forward.”

Work test

“Dead Souls” can safely be called Gogol’s most important and final work. The writer worked on his creation for many years, from 1835 to 1842. Initially, the writer wanted to build his work following the example of Dante's Divine Comedy. In the first volume, Gogol wanted to describe hell, in the second - purgatory, in the third - paradise for Russia and the heroes of the poem. Over time, the concept of “Dead Souls” changed, and the title of the poem also changed. But the combination “dead souls” was always present in it. I think that Gogol put a lot of meaning into these words, they are very important for understanding the work.
So, why Dead Souls? The first answer that comes to mind is because it relates to the plot of the book. A business man and a big swindler, Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, travels around Russia and buys dead audit souls. He does this, allegedly, in order to take the peasants to the Kherson province and start farming there. But in fact, Chichikov wants to receive money for souls, pawning them in the guardianship council, and live happily.
With all his energy, the hero gets down to business: “having crossed himself according to Russian custom, he began to execute.” In search of dead peasant souls, Chichikov traveled through the villages of Russian landowners. Reading the description of these landowners, we gradually understand that these people are the real “dead souls”. What is the most kind, very educated and liberal Manilov worth! This landowner spends all his time in empty reasoning and dreams. In real life, he turns out to be completely helpless and worthless. Manilov is not interested in real life; deeds take the place of words for him. This is a completely empty person, vegetating in fruitless dreams.
The landowner Korobochka, whom Chichikov accidentally stopped by, is just as empty and dead. For this landowner, any person is, first of all, a potential buyer. She can only talk about buying and selling, and even about her late husband. Korobochka's inner world has long stopped and frozen. This is evidenced by the hissing clock, the “outdated” portraits on the walls, as well as the flies that simply filled Korobochka’s entire house.
Nozdrev, Sobakevich, Plyushkin... All these landowners have long ceased to live a spiritual life, their soul has died or is on the way to complete death. It is not for nothing that the author compares the landowners to animals: Sobakevich looks like a medium-sized bear, Korobochka is depicted surrounded by birds. And Plyushkin doesn’t look like anyone or anything at all: he appears before Chichikov as a sexless creature, without age or social status.
Spiritual life is replaced by gluttony among landowners. Korobochka is a hospitable housewife who loves to eat herself. She treats Chichikov to “mushrooms, pies, quick-witted cakes, shanishkas, spinning bars, pancakes, flatbreads...” Dashing Nozdryov likes to drink more than eat. This, in my opinion, is quite consistent with his broad and daring nature.
The biggest glutton in the poem is, of course, Sobakevich. His strong, “wooden” nature requires cheesecakes the size of a plate, a side of lamb with porridge, a nine-pound sturgeon, and so on.
Plyushkin has reached such a stage of mortification that he almost no longer needs food. Keeping enormous wealth, he eats scraps and treats Chichikov to the same.
Following the movements of Pavel Ivanovich, we discover more and more “dead souls”. Chichikov appears in the houses of prominent officials of the city of N; after purchasing peasants, he begins to go to various authorities, formalizing his acquisitions. So what? We understand that among officials almost all are “dead souls.” Their deadness is especially clearly visible in the ball scene. There is not a single human face here. Hats, tailcoats, uniforms, ribbons, and muslins are swirling everywhere.
Indeed, officials are even more dead than landowners. This is a “corporation of corporate thieves and robbers”, taking bribes, messing around and profiting from the needs of petitioners. Officials do not show any intellectual interests. Gogol ironically remarks about the interests of these people: “some have read Karamzin, some have read Moskovskie Vedomosti, some have not even read anything at all...”
It is interesting that, serving soulless masters, serfs begin to lose themselves, their souls. An example is the black-footed girl Korobochka, and Chichikov’s servant - coachman Selifan, and the peasants Uncle Mityai and Uncle Minyai.
It is important to note that Gogol considered the soul to be the most important thing in a person. It is the soul that is the divine principle in each of us. The soul can be lost, it can be sold, it can be lost...Then the person becomes dead, regardless of the life of his body. A person with a “dead” soul does not bring any benefit either to the people around him or to his fatherland. Moreover, he can harm, destroy, destroy, because he does not feel anything. But, according to Gogol, the soul can be reborn.
Thus, calling his work “Dead Souls,” the author, in my opinion, meant primarily living people who had lost their souls and died while still alive. Such people are useless and even dangerous. The soul is the divine part of human nature. Therefore, according to Gogol, we need to fight for it.

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.” Smirnova-Chikina E.S. Poem by N.V. Gogol “Dead Souls” - literary commentary - M., “Enlightenment”, 1964. - With. 21. Indeed, the name was unusual: the human soul was considered immortal, and suddenly there were dead souls!

“Dead souls,” wrote A. I. Herzen, “this title carries something terrifying in itself.” Herzen A.I., vol. II, p. 220. 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.” The letter is kept in the Manuscripts Department of the Library. V.I. Lenin in Moscow. 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 the landowner was obliged to pay the government a “poll tax” for a male peasant. 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 Guardian 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 intangible sound remains” 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!” Gogol N.V. Dead souls - M., "Eksmo", 2010 - vol. 1, chapter 5, p. 29.

Secondly, Gogol meant by “dead souls” the feudal landowners 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, causing 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, Herzen wrote in his diary in 1842: “...not the revisionist dead souls, but all these Nozdrevs, Manilovs and all the others - these are the dead souls, and we meet them at every step.” Herzen A.I., vol. II, p. 220. 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 significance of the poem, distracted readers from thoughts 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”.

So, why Dead Souls? The first answer that comes to mind is because it relates to the plot of the book. A business man and a big swindler, Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, travels around Russia and buys dead audit souls. He does this, allegedly, in order to take the peasants to the Kherson province and start farming there. But in fact, Chichikov wants to receive money for souls, pawning them in the guardianship council, and live happily.

With all his energy, the hero gets down to business: “having crossed himself according to Russian custom, he began to execute.” In search of dead peasant souls, Chichikov traveled through the villages of Russian landowners. Reading the description of these landowners, we gradually understand that these people are the real “dead souls”. What is the most kind, very educated and liberal Manilov worth! This landowner spends all his time in empty reasoning and dreams. In real life, he turns out to be completely helpless and worthless. Manilov is not interested in real life; deeds take the place of words for him. This is a completely empty person, vegetating in fruitless dreams.

The landowner Korobochka, whom Chichikov accidentally stopped by, is just as empty and dead. For this landowner, any person is, first of all, a potential buyer. She can only talk about buying and selling, and even about her late husband. Korobochka's inner world has long stopped and frozen. This is evidenced by the hissing clock, the “outdated” portraits on the walls, as well as the flies that simply filled Korobochka’s entire house.

Nozdrev, Sobakevich, Plyushkin... All these landowners have long ceased to live a spiritual life, their soul has died or is on the way to complete death. It is not for nothing that the author compares the landowners to animals: Sobakevich looks like a medium-sized bear, Korobochka is depicted surrounded by birds. And Plyushkin doesn’t look like anyone or anything at all: he appears before Chichikov as a sexless creature, without age or social status.

Spiritual life is replaced by gluttony among landowners. Korobochka is a hospitable housewife who loves to eat herself. She treats Chichikov to “mushrooms, pies, quick-witted cakes, shanishkas, spinning bars, pancakes, flatbreads...” Dashing Nozdryov likes to drink more than eat. This, in my opinion, is quite consistent with his broad and daring nature.

The biggest glutton in the poem is, of course, Sobakevich. His strong, “wooden” nature requires cheesecakes the size of a plate, a side of lamb with porridge, a nine-pound sturgeon, and so on.

Plyushkin has reached such a stage of mortification that he almost no longer needs food. Keeping enormous wealth, he eats scraps and treats Chichikov to the same.

Following the movements of Pavel Ivanovich, we discover more and more “dead souls”. Chichikov appears in the houses of prominent officials of the city of N; after purchasing peasants, he begins to go to various authorities, formalizing his acquisitions. So what? We understand that among officials almost all are “dead souls.” Their deadness is especially clearly visible in the ball scene. There is not a single human face here. Hats, tailcoats, uniforms, ribbons, and muslins are swirling everywhere.

Indeed, officials are even more dead than landowners. This is a “corporation of corporate thieves and robbers”, taking bribes, messing around and profiting from the needs of petitioners. Officials do not show any intellectual interests. Gogol ironically remarks about the interests of these people: “some have read Karamzin, some have read Moskovskie Vedomosti, some have not even read anything at all...”

It is interesting that, serving soulless masters, serfs begin to lose themselves, their souls. An example is the black-footed girl Korobochka, and Chichikov’s servant - coachman Selifan, and the peasants Uncle Mityai and Uncle Minyai.

It is important to note that Gogol considered the soul to be the most important thing in a person. It is the soul that is the divine principle in each of us. The soul can be lost, it can be sold, it can be lost...Then the person becomes dead, regardless of the life of his body. A person with a “dead” soul does not bring any benefit either to the people around him or to his fatherland. Moreover, he can harm, destroy, destroy, because he does not feel anything. But, according to Gogol, the soul can be reborn.

Thus, calling his work “Dead Souls,” the author, in my opinion, meant primarily living people who had lost their souls and died while still alive. Such people are useless and even dangerous. The soul is the divine part of human nature. Therefore, according to Gogol, we need to fight for it.

In May 1842, the first volume of Gogol's Dead Souls was published. The work was conceived by the author while he was working on The Inspector General. In Dead Souls, Gogol addresses the main theme of his work: the ruling classes of Russian society. The writer himself said: “My creation is huge and great, and its end will not come soon.” Indeed, “Dead Souls” is an outstanding phenomenon in the history of Russian and world satire.

"Dead Souls" - a satire on serfdom

“Dead Souls” is a work. In this, Gogol is the successor of Pushkin’s prose. He himself speaks about this on the pages of the poem in a lyrical digression about two types of writers (Chapter VII).

Here the peculiarity of Gogol's realism is revealed: the ability to expose and show in close-up all the flaws of human nature that are not always evident. “Dead Souls” reflected the basic principles of realism:

Historicism. The work was written about the writer’s contemporary time - the turn of the 20-30s of the 19th century - then serfdom was experiencing a serious crisis.
Typical character and circumstances. Landowners and officials are depicted satirically with a pronounced critical focus, the main social types are shown. Gogol pays special attention to detail.
Satirical typification. It is achieved by the author’s characterization of characters, comic situations, reference to the heroes’ past, hyperbolization, and the use of proverbs in speech.

Meaning of the name: literal and metaphorical

Gogol planned to write a work in three volumes. He took Dante Alighieri’s “The Divine Comedy” as a basis. Likewise, Dead Souls was supposed to consist of three parts. Even the title of the poem refers the reader to Christian principles.

Why "Dead Souls"? The name itself is an oxymoron, a juxtaposition of the incomparable. The soul is a substance that is inherent in the living, but not in the dead. Using this technique, Gogol gives hope that not all is lost, that the positive principle in the crippled souls of landowners and officials can be reborn. This is what the second volume should have been about.

The meaning of the title of the poem “Dead Souls” lies on several levels. On the very surface there is a literal meaning, because dead peasants were called dead souls in bureaucratic documents. Actually, this is the essence of Chichikov’s machinations: to buy up dead serfs and take money as collateral. The main characters are shown in the circumstances of the sale of peasants. “Dead souls” are the landowners and officials themselves that Chichikov encounters, because there is nothing human or living left in them. They are ruled by the thirst for profit (officials), feeble-mindedness (Korobochka), cruelty (Nozdryov) and rudeness (Sobakevich).

The deep meaning of the name

All new aspects are revealed as you read the poem “Dead Souls”. The meaning of the title, hidden in the depths of the work, makes us think about the fact that any person, a simple layman, can eventually turn into Manilov or Nozdryov. It is enough for one small passion to settle in his heart. And he will not notice how vice will grow there. To this end, in Chapter XI, Gogol calls on the reader to look deep into his soul and check: “Is there some part of Chichikov in me too?”

Gogol laid down in the poem “Dead Souls” a multifaceted meaning of the title, which is revealed to the reader not immediately, but in the process of comprehending the work.

Genre originality

When analyzing “Dead Souls,” another question arises: “Why does Gogol position the work as a poem?” Indeed, the genre originality of the creation is unique. In the process of working on the work, Gogol shared his creative discoveries with friends in letters, calling “Dead Souls” both a poem and a novel.

About the second volume of "Dead Souls"

In a state of deep creative crisis, Gogol wrote the second volume of Dead Souls for ten years. In correspondence, he often complains to friends that things are going very slowly and are not particularly satisfying.

Gogol turns to the harmonious, positive image of the landowner Kostanzhoglo: judicious, responsible, using scientific knowledge in organizing the estate. Under its influence, Chichikov reconsiders his attitude to reality and changes for the better.

Seeing “life’s lies” in the poem, Gogol burned the second volume of “Dead Souls.”