The role of the road in dead souls. Abstract: The image of the road in the poem

>Essays on the work Dead Souls

Image of the road

N.V. Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls” is considered one of the author’s best works and occupies a worthy place in Russian literature of the 19th century. This work has a deep meaning and reveals several pressing topics at once. The author managed to masterfully show Russia of that period and the last days of serfdom. The theme of the road occupies a special place in the work. The main character, Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, travels from city to city in search of “sellers” of dead souls. It is through the movement of the protagonist along the roads that a broad picture of life in Rus' is formed.

The poem begins with “dear” and ends with it. However, if at first Chichikov enters the city with hopes of quickly getting rich, then in the end he runs away from it in order to save his reputation. The theme of the road is extremely important in the work. For the author, the road is the personification of life, movement and internal development. The road along which the main character travels smoothly turns into the road of life. When he wanders along tangled roads in the wilderness, sometimes leading nowhere, this symbolizes the deceptive path that he chose to enrich himself.

There is a remarkable phrase in the work, which the landowner Korobochka drops and which reveals the essence of the road. When Chichikov asks her how to get to the main road, she replies that it’s not difficult to explain, but there are many turns. These phrases carry symbolic meaning. The reader, together with the author, is invited to think about how to get to the “high road” of life. And then the answer comes that it is possible to get there, but there will be many obstacles and difficulties along the way. Thus, throughout the following chapters, the author acts as a guide and leads his hero along intricate roads from one estate to another.

The final chapter is followed by a lyrical digression about the roads of Russia. This is a kind of hymn to the movement, in which Rus' is compared to a rushing troika. In this digression, the author interweaves his two favorite themes: the theme of the road and the theme of Russia. It reveals the meaning of the country's historical movement. For the author, it is in the road that the entire Russian soul, its scope and fullness of life lies. Thus, the road in the work is Rus' itself. It must lead the country to a better, brighter future. Moreover, it must revive a society entangled in the contradictions of life.

Literature lesson in 10th grade

The image of the road expressed in words

(based on Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls”).

Lesson type: lesson - research

Lesson objectives:

1. Help children find common ground between two arts: literature and painting.
2. Be able to determine your own position and defend your personal opinion.
3. Develop the ability to work independently, look for a solution to a problem, fully revealing your personal qualities.
4. To create favorable conditions for the realization of the capabilities of each student, for independent knowledge and creativity.

   Lesson objectives.

Educational:

1. Strengthening the ability to argue your point of view,competently construct a reasoning answer based on the literary text.

2. Consolidating knowledge about the expressive means of language,and their roles in the work;

3. Expanding students' vocabulary.

Educational:

- develop general educational skills (analysis, comparison, generalization);

Develop creative skills;

Develop the ability to work in a group.

Educational:

- development of cognitive interest in various types of art;

- cultivating the ability to listen to each other and respect other people’s opinions

Lesson methods:

1. reproductive;
2. search;
3. research.

Forms of work:

1. individual;
2. group;
3. frontal.

• Preparatory work: the class is divided into groups. The tasks are varied (individual, group).
• to the groupliterary scholars :

Find a description of the road in chapters 2 and 3 of the poem, write down the verbs of movement;

Review the concepts: rhetorical question, rhetorical appeal, inversion; determine their role in the poem(Chapter 11).

• to the grouplinguists find in dictionaries:

Verb "to wheel";

The meanings of the words “vital” and “everyday”;

Synonyms for the word "road".

• Individual tasks – prepare an expressive reading (preferably by heart) of excerpts (with abbreviations) from the poem:

1. “How strange, and alluring, and carrying, and wonderful is the word: road!”
2. "Rus! Rus! I see you"
3. “And what Russian doesn’t like driving fast?”

During the classes

How strange, and alluring, and carrying, and wonderful is the word: road!

N.V.Gogol

Teacher's opening speech

Slide number 1.Videoon the topic"Roads"

- Roads. Country roads.Blurred in autumn.Dusty in summer. Winter roads in a blinding snowy haze. Spring - like rivers,the sound of rain, wind, the creaking of a cart, the ringing of bells, the clatter of hooves. Do you hear -this is the music of the road. Roads of eternal wanderers, roads of eternal traveler v. On the road! IN way!.. At once andsuddenly we plunge into life with all its silent chatter and bells.There are moments in every person’s life when you want to go out into the open and go “to the beautiful far away,” when suddenly the road to unknown distances beckons you.

The road has no end

A road without beginning or end.

She once chose you

Your steps, your sadness and song.

Just walk along it

With every step it hurts more and more,

It's getting more and more difficult with every word!

A road without beginning or end.

Slide number 2.Lesson topic

I think you guessed it object our research will be road symbol. So , subjectthe final lesson on N.V. Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls” will be called"The image of the road expressed in words."

Questions:

• What's the keyword Topics? (road)
• In what sense will we use this word?

What is a synonym for the word roadyou can offer?

"The Path" is the movement of a literary character in this space"

Teamwork

– What, in your opinion, are the reasons for choosing the topic?

(1. Necessitystudying according to the program.
2. The need to understand your own life path.
3. Determining the trajectory of your own path through understanding the ups and downsliterary heroes.)

– What do you see as the relevance? proposed topic?

(1. The topic is important becausethat a person is alive only when he moves forward.
2. It is interesting to see which path of a person and country was preferredfor writers of the 19th century, etc.)

– As you suggestformulate the research problem?

Slide number 3.Research problems – different sides of the road

(Howdepicted in works of Russian literature of the 19th century and painting the path of an individual?

WhereAnd How is the hero moving?

Whatgives a person this movement?

WhatN.V. Gogol talks about the path of Russia?)

Slide№ 4. Epigraph

The epigraph will be the words of the great writer: (the student reads expressively )

Slide No.5. Video material

“How strange, and alluring, and carrying, and wonderful in the word: road! And how wonderful this road itself is: a clear day, autumn leaves, cold air...And the night! heavenly powers! What a night is taking place in the heights! And the air, and the sky, distant, high, there, in its inaccessible depths, so vastly, sonorously and clearly spread out!.. God! How beautiful is sometimes the long, distant road! How many times, like someone dying and drowning, have I grabbed onto you, and each time you generously carried me out and saved me! And how many wonderful ideas, poetic dreams were born in you, how many wondrous impressions were felt!..”

- Very heartfelt lines! It was Gogol himself who so deeply loved the road, so selflessly “grabbed” at it in the difficult days of his life. Image of the roadpermeates the entire poem, revealing various facets. Today we must see and understand different facets of Gogol’s road.

- In order to expand our understanding of the 19th century, let us pay attentionon the vehicles of our heroes.

Slide number 6 – 11.Means of transport in the 19th century.

Creative vocabulary work

1. Coach– a large covered four-wheeled carriage on springs

How long will I walk in the world?

Now in a carriage, now on horseback,

Now in a wagon, now in a carriage,

Either in a cart or on foot?

Pushkin

2 . Flyover- light four-wheeled carriage.

3 . Kibitka –covered road wagon.

Neighbors gathered in carts

In wagons, chaises and sleighs.

Pushkin. "Eugene Onegin"

4. Stroller– a spring carriage on four wheels with a lifting top.

“Go to the carriage maker to put the carriage on the runners,” said Chichikov.

Gogol. "Dead Souls"

5. Stagecoach- a multi-seat covered carriage drawn by horses for express communication, transportation of passengers and mail.

Kopeikin will pass by the Milyutinsky shops: there, in some way, looking out of the window is a salmon, a cherry for five rubles, a huge watermelon, a stagecoach...

Gogol. "Dead Souls"

6. Droshky– light open carriage.

The well-known regimental droshky followed the carriage.

Gogol. "Stroller"

7 . Britzka– light roada carriage with a convertible top.

Leaning out the window, he saw (Chichikov)a light chaise drawn by three good horses stopped in front of the tavern.

Gogol. "Dead Souls"

- What was the significance of the britzka for Chichikov? (direct and figurative)

The main character's chaise is very important. Chichikov is the hero of the journey, and the britzka is hishouse.This subject detail.Not only does Chichikov travel in it, that is,thanks to herthe plot of the journey turns out to be possible; the britzka also motivates the appearance of the characters of Selifan and the three horses; thanks to hermanages to escape from Nozdryov (that is, chaise helps outChichikov); chaisefaceswith the carriage of the governor's daughter and thuslyrical is introduced motive, and at the end of the poem Chichikov even appears as the kidnapper of the governor’s daughter. Britzka –living character:she is endowed with her own will and sometimes does not obey Chichikov and Selifan, goes her own way and in the enddumps outrider into impassable mud - so the hero, against his will, ends up with Korobochka, who greets him with affectionate words: “Oh, my father, you, like a hog, have your whole back and side covered in mud! Where did you deign to get so dirty? "In addition, the chaise, as it were, determines the ring composition of the first volume: the poem opens with a conversation between two men about howthe wheel of the chaise is strong, but ends with the breakdown of that very wheel, which is why Chichikov has to stay in the city.

Work with text.

Teacher's word:- Let's turn to the poem. Let's open the first page again... (read the first sentence). The poem begins with the image of a road. Chichikov’s entry was not accompanied by anything special, only...

Slide number 12.Roam around.

Chichikov’s entry was not accompanied by anything special, only...

What clarification does Gogol make? (talk about the wheel)

What is the role of talking about the wheel?

Why does Chichikov’s chaise “Won’t Get to Kazan”? What hint is hidden behind this phrase? (“the wheel” on which the smug Chichikov sat is “crooked”; he cannot master Russian space)

What is the cognate verb for the word “wheel”? What does it mean?

Let's check ourselves: let's turn to V.I.'s dictionary. Dahl

A word to linguists:

To travel around - to make a detour or detour; drive around, around; to wander, to wander; speak in hints, not directly.

How do these meanings relate to the image of Chichikov?

The road is one of the main spatial forms connecting the text of Dead Souls. All heroes, ideas, images are divided into those belonging to the road, aspiring, having a goal, moving - and static, aimless

Slide number 13.Picturefirsttitle page

The first title page depicted Chichikov’s stroller, symbolizing the path of Russia, and around there was a dead field... How sad our Rus' is!

What does it seem to usthe road along which Chichikov is driving?(first question of the problem)

Working with text - writing down keywords

Students-literary scholarsread out the found episodes:

« With thunderthe chaise drove out from under the hotel gates onto the street... Not without joy, he saw in the distance a striped barrier, letting him knowthat the pavement, like any other torment, will soon end; and hitting quite a few more timeshead stronginto the back, Chichikov finally rushed along the soft ground.”(Chapter 2)

“Meanwhile, Chichikov began to notice thatthe chaise was rocking in all directions and gave him very strong shocks; it made him feel that theyswervedout of the way and probablytrudged across a harrowed field " (Chapter 3)

“Although the day was very good, the earthso polluted that the wheels of the chaise, catching it, soon became covered with it like felt, which significantly made the crew heavier; Moreover, the soil was clayey and unusually tenacious. Both were the reasons that they could not get out of the country roads until noon. Without the girl it would be difficult to do this too, becausethe roads spread out in all directions like caught crayfish , when they are poured out of the bag, and Selifan would have to suffer through no fault of his own.”(Chapter 3)

- Which road did you see?

What comparison helps us imagine Chichikov’s road? (like caught crayfish). What is the symbolic meaning of this comparison?

- What kind of heroes does Chichikov belong to?Why does his road have no direction (it rolls around like a crayfish))?

Slide number 14. Road and path. Vocabulary work.

- Chichikov's path... What can you say about the hero's path? About the purpose of his journey?

The word "path" often combined with adjectivesvital and worldly. How do you understand them? What differences do you see?

Life –

1. Related to life.
2. Close to life, to reality, to reality.
3. Important for life, socially necessary.

Everyday- ordinary, typical of everyday life.

Which of them is more suitable for Chichikov’s “path”?

How are Chichikov’s road and life path interconnected?(Chichikov has a petty, selfish goal and, accordingly, his trajectory is short, the road leads him in a circle).

We see that the road not only has a direct, “material” meaning, but also acquiressymbolic and metaphorical meanings . Which? (A road is a journey in space with a specific purpose -Chichikov's life path)

Teacher's word.Life motiveways, roads have always worried Russian artists and found a bright, memorable sound in their workIt has been rising for many centuries question: which path to choose, who can go through it, how to go through it?

Slide№ 15 - 21. Illustrationsby painting with the image of the road

(On the board, the guys, having determined the symbolic meaning of the road in the artists’ paintings, pin it on the board)

A.K. Savrasov - loneliness, Alexey Butyrsky - hope (light), Adamov - harmony, renewal, Levitan - faith, traveler, road to the temple, Azovsky “Road to the temple”,alley (self-knowledge),Thomas Kinkade - search, self-knowledge,the path to the top is overcoming,the road home is joy, Shishkin is dirty and sad, Vasnetsov “The Knight at the Crossroads” is the problem of choice, Moonlit skies is creativity, faith in the best, Yu. Klever “Winter Landscape”, F. Roubaud "Troika"

Conclusion:

- Isn’t it so that you and I stop with bated breath in front of an artistic depiction and,Looking closely, we catch ourselves thinking that we are the same travelers wandering along roads where everyone chooses their own.

- Which of these roads is Chichikov? Give your reasons.20

Slide number 22.Road theme(12, 13) Pictures

The theme of the road and movement is one of the most important in N.V.’s poem. Gogol "Dead Souls". The plot of the work itself is based on the adventures of the main character, the swindler Chichikov: he travels from landowner to landowner, moves around the provincial city in order to buy “dead souls.”

"Dead Souls" begin and end with the theme of the road . At the beginning of the poem, Chichikov enters the provincial town,he is full of hopes and plans and in the end the hero flees from it, fearing final exposure.

Let us remember that, leaving Korobochka, Chichikov asks her to tell her “how to get to the main road”: “How can I do this? - said the hostess. “It’s hard to tell, there are a lot of turns...”

- How to get to the main road? - this is the author’s question addressed to readers. Together with the writer, he must think about how to take the “high road” of life.

- A contrast arises between the end and the beginning, “before” and “now”. On the road of life, something very important and significant is lost: freshness of sensations, spontaneity of perception. This episode brings to the fore the change of a person on the path of life, which is directly related to the internal theme of the chapter

Which landowners had to endure amazing changes? Which?Why?

Slide number 23.Plyushkin(Scene from Chapter 6)

Teacher's word.

The road is the main “outline” of the poem. While the road goes on, life goes on, while life goes on, the story about this life goes on.

The poem ends with the image of the road.In the eleventh chapter, which concludes the first volume of Dead Souls, a kind of hymn to the road sounds. This is a hymn to the movement - the source of “wonderful ideas, poetic dreams”, “wonderful impressions”.

Slide number 24.“Meanwhile the britzka turned...”

What do we see when traveling with Chichikov? What kind of Russia appears in front of us?

Comparative analysis of chapter 11 episodes:

1) “Meanwhile, the britzka turned into more deserted streets; Soon there were only long wooden fences, foreshadowing the end of the city. Now the pavement is over, and the barrier, and the city is behind, and there is nothing, and again on the road. And again, on both sides of the main path, they began to write miles again, station keepers, wells, carts, gray villages with samovars, women and a lively bearded owner running from an inn with oats in his hand, a pedestrian in worn-out bast shoes... towns built with stubble..., bridges being repaired, endless fields..., a song drawn out in the distance, pine tops in the fog, bell ringing disappearing in the distance, crows like flies and an endless horizon..."

- Compare this episode with the next one.

2) Reading a passage by heart(slide 11):

"Rus! Rus! I see you from my wonderful, beautiful distance, I see you: poor,scattered and uncomfortable in you... Everything in you is open - deserted and even; like dots, like icons, your low cities stick out inconspicuously among the plains; nothing will seduce or enchant the eye. But what incomprehensible secret force attracts you? ... Why is your melancholy song heard and heard incessantly in your ears, rushing along the entire length and width of yours? What's in it, in this song? Rus! What do you want from me? What an incomprehensible connection lies between us... Wow! what a sparkling, wonderful distance unknown to the earth! Rus!"

- Compare two pictures: what similarities can you note? What does the road symbolize for the main character of the poem, the author who accompanied us throughout the entire narrative and for countries?

Slide number 25.Draw conclusions on the topic of our research.

But these are completely different roads.The road of one person, a specific character - Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov. In the end, this is the road of the whole state, Russia, and even more, the road of all humanity.

• Chichikov rushes across Russian expanses, across Russianroads with the thought of buying dead souls and getting rich, forthe author is a creative path.

• And for Rus'?

• The road is both the ability to create, and the ability to understand the true path of man and all humanity, and the hope that contemporaries will be able to find such a path.

Slide number 26.Final stills from the film.

Hold it, hold it, you fool!” Chichikov shouted to Selifan.

Here I am with a broadsword! - shouted a courier with a mustache as long as he was galloping towards the meeting. - Don’t you see, damn your soul: it’s a government carriage! - and, like a ghost, the troika disappeared with thunder and dust.

Slide number 27. Final stills from the film.

Student by heart:

« And what kind of Russian doesn’t like driving fast?... It seems like an unknown force has taken you on its wing, and you are flying, and everything is flying... the whole road is flying to God knows where into the disappearing distance... Eh, three! Bird three, who invented you? To know you could only have been born among a lively people, in that land that does not like to joke, but has scattered smoothly across half the world, and go count the miles until it shines in your eyes... Aren’t you, too, Rus', that lively, unstoppable Are you rushing three? The road beneath you smokes, the bridges rattle, everything falls behind and is left behind. The contemplator, amazed by God's miracle, stopped: wasn't this lightning thrown from the sky?... Eh, horses, horses, what kind of horses!... They heard a familiar song from above, ... they turned into just elongated lines flying through the air...”

- What is the direction of movement? (Road up) What is the symbolic meaning of such a road?

Slide 28.Bird troika Plastinina

Road-salvation, road-hope, road-faith in the best

Love for the Russian people, for the homeland was expressed in the image of a bird - a troika, rushing forward, personifying the mighty and inexhaustible forces of Russia.

Here the author thinks about the future of the country, he looks into the future and does not see it, but as a true patriot he believes that in the future there will be no Manilovs, Sobakeviches, Nozdryovs, Plyushkins, that Russia will rise to greatness and glory.

So, it is necessary to clearly distinguish between the concepts of road and path in this poem. The road is something sublime, permeated with Gogolian patriotism, admiration for the salt of Rus' - the people. Roads are also a question about the future.

The path is reality, this is what Chichikov went through, and what he has to go through. It seems to me that any path resembles a curve with many turns, and it is from the paths that one main wide road emerges.

What will happen to Russia, where will we go? T the road along which she rushesҭ so that it can no longer be stopped: Rus', where are you rushingҭ s?... This is the question that bothered the writer, because in his soul there lived a boundless love for Russia. And, most importantly, Gogol, unlike many of his contemporaries, believed in Russia, believed in its future. Therefore, we can say with confidence that the road toҭ in Gogol's work, this is Russia's road to the better, the new To a broken future.
Gogol's path is the path of the revival of Russia, the path of improving society, entangled in the contradictions of life.

Slide29. Advice from N.V. Gogol

AND Gogol, concluding the poem, wished us: “Take with you on the journey, emerging from youth into stern, embittering courage, take away all human movements, do not leave them on the road: do not pick them up later!

Slide30. Picture"The girl is walking along the road"

All the best things in life are connected precisely with youth and one should not forget about it, as the heroes described in the poem did. They have lost their humanityand couldn’t find it later.

Slide number 31.Homework.

Write a short discussion on the topic:

“Are there Chichikovs today? What position do such people occupy in modern society?

With the publication of Gogol's satirical works, the critical direction in Russian realistic literature is strengthened. Gogol's realism is more saturated with accusatory, flagellating force - this distinguishes him from his predecessors and contemporaries. Gogol's artistic method was called critical realism. What is new in Gogol is the sharpening of the main character traits of the hero; hyperbole becomes the writer’s favorite technique - an exorbitant exaggeration that enhances the impression. Gogol found that the plot of “Dead Souls,” suggested by Pushkin, was good because it gave complete freedom to travel all over Russia with the hero and create a wide variety of characters.

In the composition of the poem, one should especially emphasize the image of the road running through the entire poem, with the help of which the writer expresses hatred of stagnation and striving forward. This image helps to enhance the emotionality and dynamism of the entire poem.

The landscape helps the writer talk about the place and time of the events depicted. The role of the road in the work is different: the landscape has a compositional meaning, is the background against which events take place, helps to understand and feel the experiences, state of mind and thoughts of the characters. Through the theme of the road, the author expresses his point of view on events, as well as his attitude towards nature and heroes.

Gogol captured the world of Russian nature in his work. His landscapes are distinguished by their unartificial beauty, vitality, and amaze with their amazing poetic vigilance and observation.

“Dead Souls” begins with a depiction of city life, with pictures of the city and bureaucratic society. Then there are five chapters describing Chichikov’s trips to the landowners, and the action again moves to the city. Thus, five chapters of the poem are devoted to officials, five to landowners, and one almost entirely to the biography of Chichikov. Everything together presents a general picture of all of Rus' with a huge number of characters of different positions and states, which Gogol snatches from the general mass and, having shown some new side of life, disappear again.

The road in Dead Souls becomes important. The author paints peasant fields, poor forests, wretched pastures, neglected reservoirs, and collapsed huts. Drawing a rural landscape, the writer speaks of peasant ruin more clearly and vividly than long descriptions and reasoning could do.

The novel also contains landscape sketches that have independent meaning, but are compositionally subordinate to the main idea of ​​the novel. In some cases, the landscape helps the writer emphasize the moods and experiences of his characters. In all these paintings, distinguished by realistic concreteness and poetry, one can feel the writer’s love for his native Russian nature and his ability to find the most suitable and accurate words to depict it.

“As soon as the city had gone back, they began to write, according to our custom, nonsense and game on both sides of the road: hummocks, spruce trees, low thin bushes of young pines, charred trunks of old ones, wild heather and similar nonsense...” Gogol N . V. Collected works: In 9 volumes / Comp. text and comments by V. A. Voropaev and V. V. Vinogradov. - M.: Russian book, 1994.

Pictures of Russian nature are often found in Dead Souls. Gogol, like Pushkin, loved Russian fields, forests, and steppes. Belinsky wrote about Pushkin’s landscapes: “Beautiful nature was at his fingertips here in Rus', on its flat and monotonous steppes, under its eternally gray sky, in its sad villages and its rich and poor cities. What was low for former poets was noble for Pushkin: what prose was for them, poetry was for him." Belinsky's View of Russian Literature in 1847. / History of Russian literature. - M.: Education, 1984..

Gogol describes sad villages, bare, dull, and the landowner’s forest along the road, which “darkened with some dull bluish color,” and the manor’s park on the Manilov estate, where “five or six birches in small clumps, here and there raised their small-leaved thin peaks." But Gogol’s main landscape is the views on the sides of the road, flashing before the traveler.

Nature is shown in the same tone as the depiction of folk life, evokes melancholy and sadness, surprises with its immeasurable space; she lives with the people, as if sharing their difficult fate.

“...the day was either clear or gloomy, but of some light gray color, which only happens on the old uniforms of garrison soldiers, this, however, is a peaceful army, but partly drunk on Sundays Gogol N.V. Collected works: In 9 volumes / Comp. text and comments by V. A. Voropaev and V. V. Vinogradov. - M.: Russian book, 1994.

“Gogol develops Pushkin’s principle of a connecting combination of words and phrases that are distant in meaning, but when unexpectedly brought together form a contradictory and - at the same time - a single, complex, generalized and at the same time quite specific image of a person, an event, a “piece of reality” , writes V.V. Vinogradov about the language of “Dead Souls”. This connecting concatenation of words is achieved by an unmotivated and, as it were, ironically overturned, or illogical, use of connective particles and conjunctions. Such is the addition of the words “partly drunken and peaceful army” to the main phrase about the weather; or in the description of officials: “their faces were full and round, some even had warts” Aksakov S. T. The story of my acquaintance with Gogol. // Gogol in the memoirs of his contemporaries. M.: Education, 1962. - p. 87 - 209.

“What crooked, deaf, narrow, impassable roads that lead far to the side have been chosen by humanity, striving to achieve eternal truth...”

This lyrical digression about the “world record of mankind,” about errors and the search for the road to truth belongs to the few manifestations of conservative Christian thinking that had mastered Gogol by the time the last edition of “Dead Souls” was created. It first appeared in a manuscript begun in 1840 and completed at the beginning of 1841, and was stylistically revised several times, and Gogol did not change the main idea, seeking only its better expression and poetic language.

But the high pathos of tone, the solemn vocabulary of biblicalisms and Slavicisms (“temple”, “chambers”, “meaning descending from heaven”, “piercing finger”, etc.) together with the artistic imagery of the picture “illuminated by the sun and illuminated by lights all night” the wide and luxurious path and the “crooked, deaf, narrow... roads” along which erring humanity wandered, provided the opportunity for the broadest generalization in understanding the entire world history, the “chronicle of humanity” Lotman Yu.M., In the school of poetic speech: Pushkin, Lermontov , Gogol. - M.: Education, 1988..

"Rus! Rus! I see you, from my wonderful, beautiful distance I see you..."

Gogol wrote almost the entire first volume of Dead Souls abroad, among the beautiful nature of Switzerland and Italy, among the noisy life of Paris. From there he saw Russia even more clearly with its difficult and sad life.

Thoughts about Russia aroused Gogol’s emotional excitement and resulted in lyrical digressions.

Gogol highly valued the writer's ability for lyricism, seeing in it a necessary quality of poetic talent. Gogol saw the source of lyricism not in “tender”, but in “thick and strong strings... of Russian nature” and defined the “highest state of lyricism” as “a firm rise in the light of reason, the supreme triumph of spiritual sobriety.” Thus, for Gogol, in a lyrical digression, what was important, first of all, was thought, an idea, and not a feeling, as was accepted by the poetics of past movements, which defined lyricism as the expression of feelings reaching the point of delight.

Written at the beginning of 1841, the lyrical appeal to Russia reveals the idea of ​​the writer’s civic duty to his homeland. To create a special language for the final pages of the first volume, Gogol struggled for a long time and carried out complex work, which shows that changes in vocabulary and grammatical structure were associated with changes in the ideological content of the digression.

The first edition of the appeal to Russia: “Rus! Rus! I see you..." - was this:

“Oh, you, my Rus'... my riotous, riotous, reckless, wonderful, God kiss you, holy land! How can a limitless thought not be born in you when you yourself are endless? Isn’t it possible to turn around in your wide open space? Is it really possible for a hero not to be here when there is a place for him to walk? Where did so much of God's light unfold? My bottomless one, you are my depth and breadth! What moves me, what speaks in me with unheard words, when I pierce my eyes into these motionless, unshakable seas, into these steppes that have lost their end?

Wow!... how menacingly and powerfully the majestic space embraces me! what broad strength and ambition lies within me! How powerful thoughts carry me! Holy powers! to what distance, to what sparkling distance, unfamiliar to the earth? What am I? - Oh, Rus'! Smirnova-Chikina E.S. N.V. Gogol's poem “Dead Souls”. - L: Enlightenment, 1974. - p.-174-175.

This uncoordinated language did not satisfy Gogol. He removed vernacular language, some of the song proverbs, and added a description of the song as an expression of the strength and poetry of the people, as the voice of Russia. The number of Slavicisms and ancient words increased, “crowned with daring divas of art” appeared, “...overshadowed by a formidable cloud, heavy with the coming rains,” “nothing will seduce or enchant the eye” and, finally, church-biblicalism “what this vast expanse prophesies " Gogol associated space not only with the enormous size of the territory of Russia, but also with the endless roads that “dotted” this space.

“How strange, and alluring, and carrying, and wonderful is the word: road!”

Gogol loved the road, long trips, fast driving, and a change of impressions. Gogol dedicated one of his charming lyrical digressions to the road. Gogol traveled a lot on steamships, trains, horses, “transport”, Yamsk troikas and stagecoaches. He saw Western Europe, Asia Minor, passed through Greece and Turkey, and traveled a lot around Russia.

The road had a calming effect on Gogol, awakened his creative powers, was the artist’s need, giving “him the necessary impressions, setting him in a highly poetic mood. “My head and thoughts are better off on the road... My heart hears that God will help me accomplish on the road everything for which the tools and strengths in me have hitherto matured,” Gogol wrote about the significance of the road for his work. Quote. by: Smirnova-Chikina E.S. N.V. Gogol's poem “Dead Souls”. - L: Enlightenment, 1974. - p.-178.

The image of the “road,” including the autobiographical features reflected in this digression, was closely connected with the general idea of ​​the poem and served as a symbol of movement, a symbol of human life, moral improvement, a symbol of the life of a person who is “for now on the road and at the station, and not at home.” "

In Chapter X of “Dead Souls,” Gogol showed the “world chronicle of humanity,” constant deviations from the “straight path,” the search for it, “illuminated by the sun and illuminated by lights all night,” accompanied by the constant question: “where is the way out? where is the road?

The digression about the road is also connected with the image of Chichikov on the road, wandering through the remote corners of life in pursuit of the base goal of enrichment. According to Gogol's plan, Chichikov, without realizing it, is already moving along the path to the straight path of life. Therefore, the image of the road, movement (“horses are racing”) is preceded by the biography of Chichikov, the hero of the poem, the awakening of each individual person and all of great Russia to a new wonderful life, which Gogol constantly dreamed of.

The text of the digression represents a complex linguistic fusion. In it, along with Church Slavonicisms (“heavenly powers”, “god”, “perishing”, “cross of a rural church”, etc.) there are words of foreign origin: “appetite”, “digit”, “poetic dreams”, and next to There are also everyday, colloquial expressions: “you’ll snuggle closer and more comfortably,” “suppression,” “snoring,” “all alone,” “the light is dawning,” etc.

Concreteness, realism and accuracy in the description of the road continue Pushkin's traditions of purity and artlessness. These are poetically simple expressions: “clear day”, “autumn leaves”, “cold air”... “Horses are rushing”... “Five stations ran back, the moon; unknown city”... This simple speech is complicated by enthusiastic lyrical exclamations that convey the author’s personal feelings: after all, it is he who tells the reader about his love for the road:

“What a glorious cold! What a wonderful dream that embraces you again!”

The inclusion of these exclamations gives a character of originality and novelty to the speech pattern of the digression about the road.

A peculiar feature is the introduction of measured speech, representing a contamination of poetic meters. For example, “how strange and alluring and carrying in the word the road” is a combination of iambs and dactyls; or the lines “God! How good you are, sometimes a long, long road! How many times, like someone dying and drowning, have I grabbed onto you, and every time you generously carried me out and saved me” - they represent almost correct trochaic prose. This harmonization of the text enhances the artistic and emotional impact of the digression.

“Oh, three! bird-three, who invented you?

The symphony of lyrical digressions, “appeals”, “angry dithyrambs” of Chapter XI ends with a solemn chord-appeal to the soul of the Russian people, who love rapid movement forward, riding on a flying bird-troika.

The symbol of the road and movement forward, familiar to Gogol, now addressed to all the people, to all of Rus', aroused in the writer’s soul a lyrical delight of love for the homeland, a sense of pride in it and confidence in the greatness of its future destinies.

The lyrical ending of “Dead Souls” with the likening of Russia to a bird-troika, written for the second edition (1841), was revised very slightly. Corrections concerned clarification of the meaning of sentences, grammatical and intonation structure. The question is introduced - “shouldn’t I love her”, emphasizing a new meaning: “shouldn’t my soul... not love (fast driving)” - an emphasis on the special character of the Russian person; “Is it possible not to love her” - the emphasis is on the word “her”, which defines fast driving, enthusiastic and wonderful movement forward. The three at the end of the poem is the logical conclusion of its entire content.

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

The plot of the poem was suggested to Gogol by Pushkin. Alexander Sergeevich witnessed fraudulent transactions with “dead souls” during his exile in Chisinau. It was about how a clever rogue found a dizzyingly bold way of enriching himself in Russian conditions.

Gogol began work on the poem in the fall of 1835, at that time he had not yet started writing “The Inspector General.” Gogol, in a letter to Pushkin, wrote: “The plot has stretched out into a very long novel and, it seems, will be funny... In this novel I want to show at least from one side all of Rus'.” When writing “Dead Souls,” Gogol pursued the goal of showing only the dark sides of life, collecting them “in one pile.” Later, Nikolai Vasilyevich brings the characters of the landowners to the fore. These characters were created with epic completeness and absorbed phenomena of all-Russian significance. For example, “Manilovschina”, “Chichikovschina” and “Nozdrevschina”. Gogol also tried in his work to show not only bad, but also good qualities, making it clear that there is a path to spiritual rebirth.

As he writes “Dead Souls,” Nikolai Vasilyevich calls his creation not a novel, but a poem. He had an idea. Gogol wanted to create a poem similar to the Divine Comedy written by Dante. The first volume of Dead Souls is thought of as “hell”, the second volume is “purgatory”, and the third is “paradise”.

Censorship changed the title of the poem to “The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls” and on May 21, 1842, the first volume of the poem was published.

The most natural way of storytelling is to show Russia through the eyes of one character, which is where the theme of the road emerges, which became the core and connecting theme in “Dead Souls.” The poem “Dead Souls” begins with a description of a road carriage; The main action of the main character is travel.

The image of the road serves as a characterization of the images of the landowners whom Chichikov visits one after another. Each of his meetings with the landowner is preceded by a description of the road and estate. For example, this is how Gogol describes the way to Manilovka: “Having traveled two miles, we came across a turn onto a country road, but already two, three, and four miles, it seems, were done, and the two-story stone house was still not visible. Then Chichikov remembered that if a friend invites you to his village fifteen miles away, it means that it is thirty miles away.” The road in the village of Plyushkina directly characterizes the landowner: “He (Chichikov) did not notice how he drove into the middle of a vast village with many huts and streets. Soon, however, he was made aware of this by a considerable jolt produced by the log pavement, in front of which the city stone pavement was nothing. These logs, like piano keys, rose up and down, and the careless traveler acquired either a bump on the back of his head, or a blue spot on his forehead... He noticed some special disrepair on all the village buildings...”

“The city was in no way inferior to other provincial cities: the yellow paint on the stone houses was very striking and the gray paint on the wooden ones was modestly dark... There were signs almost washed away by the rain with pretzels and boots, where there was a store with caps and the inscription: “Foreigner Vasily Fedorov”, where there was billiards... with the inscription: “And here is the establishment.” Most often the inscription came across: “Drinking house”

The main attraction of the city of NN is the officials, and the main attraction of its surroundings is the landowners. Both of them live off the labor of other people. These are drones. The faces of their estates are their faces, and their villages are an exact reflection of the economic aspirations of the owners.

Gogol also uses interiors to describe comprehensively. Manilov is “empty daydreaming”, inaction. It would seem that his estate was arranged quite well, even “two or three flower beds with lilac and yellow acacia bushes were scattered in English, “a gazebo with a flat green dome, wooden blue columns and the inscription: “Temple of Solitary Reflection” was visible...”. But there was still something “always missing in the house: in the living room there was beautiful furniture, covered in smart silk fabric... but there wasn’t enough for two armchairs, and the armchairs were simply upholstered in matting...”, “in another room there was no there was furniture,” “in the evening a very dandy candlestick made of dark bronze with three antique graces, with a dandy mother-of-pearl shield, was served on the table, and next to it was placed some simple copper invalid, lame, curled to one side and covered in fat...” . Instead of taking up and completing the improvement of the house, Manilov indulges in unrealistic and useless dreams about “how nice it would be if suddenly an underground passage was built from the house or a stone bridge was built across the pond, on which there would be shops on both sides, and so that merchants could sit in them and sell various small goods needed by the peasants.”

The box represents “unnecessary” hoarding. In addition to the “talking” surname, this heroine is also clearly characterized by the interior decoration of the room: “...behind every mirror there was either a letter, or an old deck of cards, or a stocking...”.

There is no order in the house of the slob Nozdryov: “In the middle of the dining room there were wooden trestles, and two men, standing on them, whitewashed the walls... the floor was all splashed with whitewash.”

And Sobakevich? Everything in his house complements the “bearish” image of Mikhail Semenovich: “...Everything was solid, clumsy to the highest degree and had some strange resemblance to the owner of the house himself; in the corner of the living room stood a pot-bellied walnut bureau on the most absurd four legs, a perfect bear. The table, armchairs, chairs - everything was of the heaviest and most restless quality - in a word, every object, every chair seemed to say: “And I, too, Sobakevich!” or: “And I also look very much like Sobakevich!” "

The extreme degree of poverty and hoarding of the owner is revealed by the description of the “situation” in the house of Plyushkin, whom the men called “patched.” The author devotes a whole page to this in order to show that Plyushkin has turned into a “hole in humanity”: “On one table there was even a broken chair and next to it a clock with a stopped pendulum, to which the spider had already attached a web... On the bureau. .. there was a lot of all sorts of things: a bunch of finely written pieces of paper, covered with a green marble press... a lemon, all dried up, no bigger than a hazelnut, a broken arm of a chair, a glass with some kind of liquid and three flies... a piece somewhere a raised rag, two feathers, stained with ink, dried up, as if in consumption...”, etc. - this is what was more valuable in the owner’s understanding. “In the corner of the room there was a heap of things piled up on the floor that were rougher and unworthy to lie on the tables... A broken piece of a wooden shovel and an old boot sole were sticking out.” Plyushkin's thriftiness and thriftiness turned into greed and unnecessary hoarding, bordering on theft and beggaring.

The interior can tell a lot about the owner, his habits and character.

Trying to show “all of Rus' from one side,” Gogol covers many areas of activity, the inner world, interiors, and the surrounding world of the inhabitants of the province. He also touches on the topic of nutrition. It is shown quite voluminously and deeply in chapter 4 of the poem.

“It’s clear that the cook was guided more by some kind of inspiration and put in the first thing that came to hand: if there was pepper standing next to him, he threw in pepper; It would be hot, but some kind of taste would probably come out.” This one phrase contains both a description of, so to speak, a “talking” menu, but also the author’s personal attitude to this. The decadence of landowners and officials is so ingrained in their minds and habits that it is visible in everything. The tavern was no different from the hut, with only the slight advantage of space. The dishes were in less than satisfactory condition: “she brought a plate, a napkin so starched that it stood on end like dried bark, then a knife with a yellowed bone block, thin as a penknife, a two-pronged fork and a salt shaker, which could not possibly be placed directly on the table "

From all of the above, we understand that Gogol very subtly notices the process of death of the living - a person becomes like a thing, a “dead soul.”

“Dead Souls” is rich in lyrical digressions. In one of them, located in Chapter 6, Chichikov compares his worldview with the objects around him while traveling.

“Before, long ago, in the years of my youth, in the years of my irrevocably flashed childhood, it was fun for me to drive up for the first time to an unfamiliar place: it didn’t matter whether it was a village, a poor provincial town, a village, a settlement - I discovered a lot of curious things in there is a childish curious look. Every building, everything that bore the imprint of some noticeable feature - everything stopped me and amazed me... If a district official walked past, I was already wondering where he was going... Approaching the village of some landowner, I looked curiously at a tall narrow wooden bell tower or a wide dark wooden old church...

Now I indifferently drive up to any unfamiliar village and indifferently look at its vulgar appearance; It’s unpleasant to my chilled gaze, it’s not funny to me, and what would have awakened in previous years a lively movement in the face, laughter and silent speech, now slides past, and my motionless lips keep an indifferent silence. O my youth! oh my freshness!

All this suggests that he has lost interest in life, he is of little interest, his goal is profit. The surrounding nature and objects no longer arouse his special interest or curiosity. And at that time it was not just Chichikov who was like this, but many representatives of that time. This was the dominant example of the bulk of the population, with the exception of serfs.

Chichikov is an exponent of new trends in the development of Russian society; he is an entrepreneur. All the landowners described in the poem “Dead Souls” became worthy business partners of the acquirer, Pavel Ivanovich. These are Manilov, Korobochka, Nozdryov, Sobakevich, and Plyushkin. It was in this sequence that Chichikov visited them. This is not accidental, because by doing so Gogol showed representatives of this class with an increase in vices, with a great fall, degradation of the soul. However, it is necessary to build a number of worthy partners the other way around. After all, the more base, fallen, and “dead” the landowners were, the more calmly they agreed to this scam. For them it was not immoral. Therefore, Chichikov’s worthy partners look like this: Plyushkin, Sobakevich, Nozdrev, Korobochka, Manilov.

Traveling with Chichikov around Russia is a wonderful way to understand the life of Nikolaev Russia. This hero's journey helped the writer make the poem "Dead Souls", a poem - a monitor of the life of Russia for centuries and broadly depict the life of all social strata in accordance with his plan. A journey presupposes a road, and it is this that we observe throughout the entire duration of the work. The road is the theme. With its help, readers understand much more voluminously, more colorfully, and more deeply the entire situation at this stage of history. It is with her help that Gogol manages to grasp everything that is required in order to “describe all of Rus'.” Reading the poem, we imagine ourselves either as an invisible participant in this plot, or as Chichikov himself, we are immersed in this world, the social foundations of that time. Through captivity, we become aware of all the holes in society and people. A huge mistake of that time catches our eye; instead of the gradation of society and politics, we see a different picture: the degradation of the free population, the death of souls, greed, selfishness and many other shortcomings that people can have. Thus, traveling with Chichikov, we get to know not only that time with its merits, but also observe the huge flaws of the social system, which so badly crippled many human souls.

The symbolic meaning of the image of the road in Gogol’s poem and its relevance in modern Russia.

An attempt to find an answer to the question: what is the path of modern Russia? Has anything changed since Gogol's time?

Content

Introduction. Relevance of the topic……………………………… ………… 3

The meaning of symbol and symbolic in Gogol………………..4

The image of the road is the most important image

“Dead Souls”…………………………………………………………… ……………….. 8

1. Plot and composition - means of disclosure

image of the road……………………………………………………………… ………….. 8

2. The contrast between the real and the symbolic in the poem………………….11

3. Metaphorical meaning of the road………………………… ………….. 13

The image of the road in modern literature…………………15

The image of Gogol's road as a path

modern Russia…………………………………... .............. 17

Conclusion. Conclusion…………………………………………… ……………. 18

Literature……………………………………………………… …………… 19

Introduction. Relevance of the topic

Having studied the program work, we became interested in the problems posed by the author. We assumed that Gogol saw a different path for the state, hoping for the revival of Russia, rising to such heights where it would overtake other peoples and states. We found out what Gogol meant by the image of the road, whether anything has changed in Rus' since Gogol’s time, in what semantic meanings the road appears in Gogol’s poem and what functions it performs in the work.

As evidence of their hypothesis, we examined the presence of works with a similar motif in modern literature.

Our work is based oncompilationand comparative analysis of articles and monographs by famous literary scholars. (Aksakov K.S., Belinsky V.G., Voropaev V.A., Mann Yu.V., etc.)

When writing the work, descriptive and analytical-synthetic methods were used.

Goal of the work – to identify the symbolic meaning of the image of the road in Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls” and its relevance in modern Russia.

To achieve this goal, we set the followingtasks:

find out the semantic meanings in which the road appears in Gogol’s work;

get acquainted with scientific, critical and methodological literature on the topic;

analyze the result of the main character’s path and trace its development;

understand the meaning of this path;

find analogies of the image of the road in modern literature;

conduct a sociological study.

The results of the work can be used when studying the work at school, to expand your knowledge about Gogol’s era, and when preparing reports and abstracts.

The meaning of symbol and symbolic in Gogol

According to the dictionary of S.I. Ozhegov,symbol - this is what serves as a symbol for a concept or idea; an artistic image that conventionally conveys a thought, idea, or experience.

In literary criticismsymbol – an artistic image that is revealed through comparison with other concepts. The symbol suggests that there is some other meaning that does not coincide with the image itself. Like metaphor and allegory, it forms figurative meanings based on the connection between objects and phenomena.

We noticed thatthe structure of the symbol allows you to see through one semantic level another - deeper one, to see the essence of a phenomenon or thing. A symbol is a transition from one layer of meaning to another.

Gogol’s idea for “Dead Souls” matured gradually and, as a result, underwent significant evolution. Initially, the author thought of the “essay” in a comic spirit. In one of his letters, he informs Pushkin that “the plot stretched out into a very long novel, and it seems that it will be very funny.” The writer wanted to “show all of Rus' at least from one side.” Gogol intended to look at reality from a funny, morally descriptive and satirical side.

However, a year after the start of work, the plan takes on a different scale, as evidenced by his letter to V.A. Zhukovsky: “My creation is enormously great, and its end will not come soon. New classes and many different masters will also rise up against me... It is already my destiny to be at enmity with my fellow countrymen.” The writer is no longer talking about laughter, but about a general moral shock.

The satirical depiction of modern Russia is now considered by Gogol as a task entrusted to him from above: by exposing the ulcers and vices of society to everyone, he must open the path of salvation for both the individual lost human soul and for society as a whole.

Thus, in the course of working on the poem, the concept becomes more and more universal, satirical images are woven into a generalized symbolic narrative about the spiritual dead ends into which a person of the “current generation” finds himself.

Everything is double in the poem. Extreme naturalism is combined with symbolism. Gogol does not disdain any everyday details, any everyday life: the figures are outlined with sculptural expressiveness. Yes, this is nature. But this nature is symbolic in all its details.

Lifeless, petrified souls. But there is still something human in everyone. “A stunning mud of little things,” fragmented characters, despicable, animal life, but even this seems ready to be illuminated by the lofty, spiritual, desecrated, pushed to the margins.

Gogol singles out one basic psychological trait, a “passion,” and enhances it, obscuring other properties of the “hero,” who turns into the personification of this “passion.” People are masks, behind the masks there is nothing but self-interest. But they are double, like everything in Gogol’s poem.

They are dead, as far as the inner, spiritual life is concerned, they are enslaved by their passions.

Double Rus', double city. It is worth remembering Gogol’s famous appeal to his homeland: small towns, wooden shops, decrepit bridges, weeds, crows like flies, a deserted horizon: motionless, ancient, dim.

“Nothing will seduce or enchant the eye!” But where does this song come from with all this: “What is in it, in this song? What calls, and sobs, and grabs the heart?” And now the towns and wooden shops are no longer visible: “Wow! what a sparkling, wonderful, unfamiliar distance to the earth! Rus'!..”

And now everything is flying: “miles are flying, merchants are flying towards them on the beams of their wagons, a forest is flying on both sides with dark formations of spruces and pines, with a clumsy knock and the cry of a crow - and there is something terrible contained in this rapid flashing... Isn’t this lightning thrown from the sky?.. Eh, horses, horses, what kind of horses are those whirlwinds sitting in your manes?.. We heard a familiar song from above, together and at once strained our copper chests and, almost without touching the ground with our hooves, turned into just elongated lines flying through the air..."

And it is not visible that the respected purchaser Pavel Ivanovich is sitting in the chaise with his box, with Petrushka and Selifan. And for a moment the human monsters and monsters disappeared. Everyone is in a mad flight... No one knows where!..

The entire unfolding of action is dual. According to S. T. Aksakov, Pogodin, after listening to “Dead Souls,” noticed that the content of the poem was not moving forward: Gogol leads readers along a long corridor, opens the doors to separate rooms, showing freaks in them. The remark is correct, but it is also true that at the same time this stillness is combined with the image of Chichikov traveling in a troika, with the flashing of villages, villages, estates. Each estate looks different. Before you have time to look back, Pavel Ivanovich is already in a hurry to another place; he has just won everyone’s sympathy, respect, admiration, and suddenly he is already a rogue, a swindler, a shady person, everyone shuns him. Something else is much more significant. S.P. Shevyrev also noted that the arrangement of Gogol’s heroes is not accidental or mechanical. And, indeed, the opinion that they can be easily rearranged is wrong; the heroes become more and more dead souls, so that later they become almost completely petrified in Plyushkin.

Gogol’s laughter is also dual: it is “contemplation of a given sphere of life through laughter visible to the world and invisible, unknown tears.” “They will laugh at my bitter word,” said Gogol.

The very concept of dead souls is dual and very ambiguous. Dead souls are revision souls, but Chichikov, Sobakevich, Korobochka, and Plyushkin are also dead souls. “Dead souls” – everything sensual, “material”.

Dual language. Let us compare, for example, the beginning and end of the first volume of the poem: “A rather beautiful small spring chaise, in which bachelors travel: retired lieutenant colonels, staff captains, landowners with about a hundred peasant souls, drove into the gates of the hotel in the provincial town N, in a word, all those who are called middle-class gentlemen."

Everyday, prosaic language. “A waxy tongue,” notes Rozanov, “in which nothing moves, not a single word comes forward and does not want to say more than is said in all the others.”

And here is the end of the first volume: “Aren’t you, Rus', like a brisk, unstoppable troika, rushing! The road beneath you is smoking like smoke, the bridges are rattling, everything lags behind and remains behind. The contemplator, amazed by God’s miracle, stopped: is this not lightning thrown from sky? What does this terrifying movement mean? And what kind of unknown power is contained in these horses unknown to the light?.. Rus', where are you rushing, give me the answer? The bell thunders with a wonderful ringing and becomes torn into pieces by the wind. the air flies past everything that is on earth, and, looking askance, other peoples and states step aside and give way to it.”

Gogol is the two-faced Janus of Russian literature. One of his faces is quite earthly. The other face is ascetic, “not of this world.” One face is turned to social life, to its everyday life, to human joys and sorrows; the other face is raised to the “heavenly father.” Starting with Gogol, Russian literature also had two channels. One direction led to social struggle, to a change in social forms of existence. Another direction led to extremedualism, to an isolated human personality, to “non-resistance to evil through violence.” It was a line of reaction, of stagnation.

The image of the road is the most important image of “Dead Souls”

1. Plot and composition - means of revealing the image of the road

In Russian literature, the theme of travel, the theme of the road, appears very often. You can name such works as “Dead Souls” by Gogol or “Hero of Our Time” by Lermontov. This motif is often usedused as a plot device.However, sometimes it itself is one of the central themes, the purpose of which is to describe the life of Russia in a certain period of time.

The plot and composition of “Dead Souls” were guessed by Pushkin, who, according to Gogol, “found that the plot of “Dead Souls” is good... because it gives complete freedom to travel all over Russia with the hero and bring out many different characters.” .

This is how “Dead Souls” was built. There was a danger of descriptiveness: the episodes of Chichikov’s journey could be connected externally - what was encountered along the way was reproduced. The anecdotal nature of the episodes as a sign of the general fantastic nature of the social order - this idea acquires true globality in Dead Souls. No longer individual episodes, but the main plot motif sounds anecdotal: the purchase of dead souls.Phantasmagoriaabsurdities received a concentrated form. The incredible is firmly connected with the real: the reader most often does not even think that buying dead souls is impossible.

Thus, the poem begins with a description of a road carriage; The main action of the main character is travel. After all, only through the traveling hero, through his wanderings, could the global task be accomplished: “to embrace all of Rus'.” The theme of the road, the journey of the protagonist, has several functions in the poem.

First of all, this is a compositional technique that links together the chapters of the work. Secondly, the image of the road performs the function of characterizing the images of the landowners whom Chichikov visits one after another. Each of his meetings with the landowner is preceded by a description of the road and estate. For example, this is how Gogol describes the way to Manilovka: “Having traveled two miles, we came across a turn onto a country road, but already two, three, and four miles, it seems, were done, and the two-story stone house was still not visible. Then Chichikov remembered that if a friend invites you to his village fifteen miles away, it means that it is thirty miles away.” The road in the village of Plyushkina directly characterizes the landowner: “He (Chichikov) did not notice how he drove into the middle of a vast village with many huts and streets. Soon, however, he was made aware of this by a considerable jolt produced by the log pavement, in front of which the city stone pavement was nothing. These logs, like piano keys, rose up and down, and the careless traveler acquired either a bump on the back of his head, or a blue spot on his forehead... He noticed some special dilapidation on all the village buildings...”

In the seventh chapter of the poem, the author again turns to the image of the road, and here this image opens the lyrical digression of the poem: “Happy is the traveler who, after a long, boring road with its cold, slush, dirt, sleep-deprived station guards, jangling bells, repairs, squabbles, coachmen , blacksmiths and all sorts of scoundrels on the road, he finally sees a familiar roof with lights rushing towards him...”

Next, Gogol compares the two paths chosen by the writers. One chooses the beaten path, on which glory, honors, and applause await him. “They call him the great world poet, soaring high above all the geniuses of the world...” But “fate has no mercy” for those writers who chose a completely different path: they dared to call out everything “that is every minute before the eyes and that the indifferent do not see.” eyes, - all the terrible, stunning mud of little things that entangle our lives, all the depth of the cold, fragmented, everyday characters with which our earthly, sometimes bitter and boring path is teeming...” The field of such a writer is harsh, since the indifferent crowd does not understand him, he is doomed to loneliness. Gogol believes that the work of just such a writer is noble, honest, and lofty. And he himself is ready to go hand in hand with such writers, “to look around at the whole enormous rushing life, to look at it through the laughter visible to the world and the invisible tears unknown to him.” In this lyrical digression, the theme of the road grows to a deep philosophical generalization: the choice of a field, path, vocation. The work ends with a poetic generalization - the image of a flying bird-three, which is a symbol of the entire country.

Y. Mann rejects the idea of ​​a single principle of composition, which many researchers of Gogol’s poem adhere to. After all, at first the arrangement of the chapters seems to coincide with the plan of Chichikov’s visits. Chichikov decides to start with Manilov - and here comes the chapter about Manilov. But after visiting Manilov, unexpected complications arise. Chichikov intended to visit Sobakevich, but lost his way, the chaise overturned, etc. A very important point here is A. Bely’s remark that in the development of the action of “Dead Souls” “side passages” always make themselves felt: “... the three horses racing Chichikov across Russia represent Chichikov’s entrepreneurial abilities; one of them is unlucky where it needs to be, which is why the troika’s move is a lateral move, raising the tires (“everything went like a crooked wheel”); the unnecessary turns on the way to Nozdryov, to Korobochka are carefully listed...”

In form, “Dead Souls” is comparable to educational novels, which are based on a clearly visible image of the road, which is both a way of organizing the plot and a tool for uniting numerous characters.

The composition of “Dead Souls” reveals the author’s desire to create a harmonious model that compensates with its orderliness for the chaos of the characters’ passions, desires and motivations.

2. The contrast between the real and the symbolic in the image of the road

In “Dead Souls”, from an event that was not entirely ordinary, painted in fantastic tones (the acquisition of “dead souls”), results followed that were quite tangible in their real tragedy.

Averting the possible reproach of the improbability of the events depicted (“... it is impossible that officials could frighten themselves like that... so move away from the truth...”), Gogol appeals to non-fictional facts, to the historical experience of mankind. “What crooked, deaf, narrow, impassable roads that lead far to the side have been chosen by humanity, striving to achieve eternal truth, while the straight path was completely open to them... And how many times, already guided by the meaning descending from heaven, they were able to to recoil and stray to the side... they knew how to again cast a blind fog into each other’s eyes, and, trailing after the swamp lights, they knew how to get to the abyss, and then ask each other in horror: “Where is the exit, where is the road?” Everything is significant in this lyrical “digression”: both the fact that Gogol adheres to educational categories (“road”, “eternal truth”), and the fact that, adhering to them, he sees the monstrous deviation of humanity from the straight path.

The image of the road - the most important image of “Dead Souls” - constantly collides with images of a different, opposite meaning: “impassable outback”, swamp (“swamp lights”), “abyss”, “grave”, “pool”... In turn, and the image of the road is stratified into contrasting images: these are (as in the passage just cited) both “straight path” and “carrying far to the side of the road.” In the plot of the poem, this is both Chichikov’s life path (“but despite all that, his road was difficult ...”), and the road that runs through the vast Russian expanses; the latter turns out to be either the road along which Chichikov’s troika is rushing, or the road of history along which the Rus-troika is rushing.

Real and symbolicgrotesque- two poles of the poem, between which it is difficult to find the line. “Shouldn’t a hero be here when there is a place for him to turn around and walk?” Nevertheless, “heroes” do not turn on just from space. The transition from possibility to reality is deliberately implicit, like the transition from the heroism of Mokiy Kifovich to true heroism, from Chichikov’s road to the true straight road, and finally, from the troika with Selifan, Petrushka and Chichikov to the Rus'-troika.

Thanks to this, we are not always clearly aware of whom exactly the inspired Gogolian troika is rushing. And these characters, as D. Merezhkovsky noted, are three, and all of them are quite characteristic. “Crazy Poprishchin, witty Khlestakov and prudent Chichikov - that’s who this symbolic Russian troika is rushing along in its terrible flight into the vast expanse or immense emptiness.”

According to the “rule” of contrasts, the passage in Chapter VI is constructed about a dreamer who came “to Schiller... to visit” and suddenly found himself “on earth” again; in Chapter XI - the “author’s” reflections on space and Chichikov’s road adventures: “... My eyes were illuminated with unnatural power: oh! what a sparkling, wonderful, unknown distance to the earth! Rus!..

“Hold it, hold it, you fool! - Chichikov shouted to Selifan.”

A.A. Potebnya found this place “brilliant” because “how unexpectedly the runaway thought is interrupted by cold reality, by the sharpness with which the contrast between an inspired dream and a sobering reality is exposed.”

The change of perspective and points of view occurs smoothly, almost imperceptibly. An example of the latter is the passage about the troika that concludes the poem: at first, the entire description is strictly tied to Chichikov’s troika and to his experiences; then a step is taken to the experiences of the Russian in general (“And what Russian doesn’t like driving fast?”), then the troika itself becomes the addressee of the author’s speech and description (“Eh, troika! bird troika, who invented you?..”), for this to lead to a new author’s appeal, this time to Rus' (“Aren’t you, Rus', like a brisk, unstoppable troika, rushing?..”). As a result, the border where Chichikov’s troika turns into Rus'-troika is masked, although the poem does not provide a direct identification.

3. Metaphorical meaning of the road in Gogol’s poem

The image of the road appears from the first lines of the poem; one might say he stands at its beginning. “A rather beautiful small spring britzka drove into the gates of the hotel in the provincial town of NN...”, etc. The poem ends with the image of the road; the road is literally one of the last words of the text: “Rus, where are you rushing, give me the answer?.. Everything that is on the earth flies past, and, looking askance, they turn aside and give itthe road other peoples and states."

But what a huge difference between the first and last images of the road! At the beginning of the poem, this is the road of one person, a certain character - Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov. In the end, this is the road of the state, of Russia, and even more, the road of all humanity, on which Russia overtakes other nations.”

At the beginning of the poem, this is a very specific road along which a very specific britzka is dragging, with the owner and his two serfs: the coachman Selifan and the footman Petrushka, drawn by horses, which we also imagine quite specifically: both the root bay, and both harness horses, the forelock and Kaurogo, nicknamed the Assessor. At the end of the poem, it is quite difficult to imagine the road specifically: this is a metaphorical, allegorical image, personifying the gradual course of all human history.

These two values ​​are like two extreme milestones. Between them are located

many other meanings - both direct and metaphorical, forming a complex and unified Gogol image of the road.

The transition from one meaning to another - concrete to metaphorical - most often occurs unnoticed.

The gradual transition of a concrete image into a metaphorical one reminds us that very specific pictures and characters of the poem carry a general meaning: Chichikov’s path turns out to be the life path of not one, but many people; Ordinary Russian highways, villages, towns form a colossal and wonderful image of the homeland.

Gogol in “Dead Souls” develops a metaphorical image of the road as “human life.”The image of the road endlessly expands the range of the poem - to a work about the fate of the entire people, all of humanity.

In the description of the road in “Dead Souls” there are the following lines: “God! How beautiful you are sometimes, long, long way! How many times, like someone dying and drowning, have I grabbed onto you, and each time you generously carried me out and saved me. And how many wonderful ideas, poetic dreams were born in you,

How many wonderful impressions were felt!..”

return from reality to the world of fiction.

Road - This is an artistic image and part of Gogol’s biography.

Road is a source of change, life and help in difficult times.

Road - this is both the ability to create, and the ability to understand the true (“straight”) path of man and all humanity, and the hope that such a path will be discovered by contemporaries. A hope that Gogol passionately sought to hold on to until the end of his life.

All this speaks about the same thing - about strengthening the ethical moment. After all, “straight” or “oblique road” are also metaphorical images. In one case, an honest life is implied - according to conscience, according to duty; in the other - a dishonest life, subordinated to selfish interests. Gogol introduces into his artistic world the most important moral coordinates, with the help of which he will correlate the actual and ideal, desired path of the character. While working on Dead Souls, the image of a straight road acquired such significance that the writer often resorted to it in his letters and conversations with friends.

The problems raised by Gogol in the poem are not a specifically posed question, and only in the final lines of the first volume of Dead Souls does it sound clearly and distinctly: “...Rus, where are you rushing to? “And we understand that for the author, Rus' is a troika rushing along the road of life. And life is the same road, endless, unknown, with peaks and valleys, dead ends, sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes just pure dirt, without beginning or end.

Gogol ends the poem with a generalization: he moves from the life path of an individual to the historical path of the state, revealing their amazing similarities.

The image of the road in modern literature

The theme of roads and travel often appears in Russian literature. The theme of the road can be seen in Gogol's poem and compared with other works. For example, in “New Adventures of Chichikov” by M. Bulgakov (September 1922), in the poem “Moscow - Cockerels” by V. Erofeev, created in 1969, but for twenty years did not exist in official Soviet literature.

The works we are considering have thematic overlap. You can consider the poem “Moscow - Petushki” as a parody of certain parts of the poem “Dead Souls”. A lot in both of these poems depends on the road; with the help of it, the author very fully shows the country and life in this country. In “Dead Souls,” Russia and the very life of a Russian person are a “three-bird,” always in a hurry somewhere, flying into the bright future of that time, but, unfortunately, it rushes past and never stops:“Isn’t it so for you, Rus', that you are rushing along like a brisk, unstoppable troika? The road beneath you is smoking, the bridges are rattling, everything falls behind and is left behind.”

This image of the “three bird” echoes the image of a simple, ordinary

Soviet-era electric trains. The train is the exact opposite of the “bird”; it does not strive for a bright future, but flies “downhill”:

“... tearing the doors off their hinges, I knew that the Moscow-Petushki train was going downhill.”

This is how the main character sees life; for him it is nothing, it is over. From this we can conclude that such images and comparisons are determined precisely by the period of residence of the authors of these poems.

When comparing the heroes of the works, similarities were revealed in the gradual decline of both the main and secondary characters (in “Dead Souls”). Venichka begins his journey with a seemingly “lofty” goal, but gradually along the way the truth of life in which he exists is revealed to him. He realizes that life flies by in many ways, and at some point disappears completely:

“I pressed my head against the window - oh, what blackness! and what is there in this blackness - rain or snow? or am I just looking through tears into this darkness? God!…"

“...and where is the happiness that they write about in the newspapers? I ran and ran, through the whirlwind and darkness, tearing doors off their hinges, I knew that the Moscow-Petushki train was flying downhill. The carriages rose up and sank again, as if possessed by insanity...”

In V. Erofeev’s poem “Moscow - Petushki” the road is the result of the path, an attempt to get to a better world,the actual meaning of the path: rethinking the entire life of the main character and searching for the meaning of life.In “Dead Souls,” the theme of the road is the main philosophical theme, and the rest of the story is just an illustration of the thesis “the road is life.” For Gogol, the road that connects everything in life is important. In “Dead Souls” the road is the purpose of writing, the main theme, the essence of the work.

The image of Gogol's road as the path of modern Russia

During the conducted sociological mini-research using the interview method amongrepresentativesdifferent social status (managerial staff, entrepreneurs, employees, workers, students), we found that the majority of respondents (90%) believe that Gogol’s dreams of a wonderful future for Russia did not come true, the themes and problems raised by the writer are still relevant today , and the author of the immortal work himself would probably be even more unhappy if he found himself in modern reality. It is noteworthy that the rest of the respondents found it difficult to give a definite answer.

- If Gogol really suffered so much from injustice, then even today it would be painful for him to watch what was happening. Maybe Gogol would have been happier without exaggerating. But perhaps then there wouldn’t have been “Dead Souls. ...And the topics and the problems raised by Gogol still exist. But this does not mean that it is useless to designate them. Simply, knowing them, everyone makes a choice for themselves which path to follow.” (entrepreneur.)

- Gogol is the most modern of all classics! The topics and problems raised by him are extremely relevant! At one time, he punished immorality with a pen, suffered, suffered. I even burned it II that, convicting himself of embellishing reality... And what is the result, after a century and a half?! Gogol could have had the idea of ​​​​creating a work similar to “Dead Souls”: there is as much material as you want! Gogol’s talent would have had a lot of scope!” (employee)

Conclusion

So, we found out that by the image of a road the author means immeasurably more than just a “road” as a “route”, a path to follow.

The versatility of the image of the road in Gogol acquires a philosophical understanding: this is the path of life, the fate of a person, of the Motherland. This image is reflected in real life and reveals its various facets. This is an image-symbol that gives us, Gogol’s distant descendants, the opportunity, centuries later, to think about our purpose and path in life, and in general - the path of the entire state.

We came to the conclusion that if works with similar problems and images appear, it means that there are reasons for this in the structure of society. This is confirmed by the results of a sociological study.

We hope that Russia will choose the right, “straight” path, especially since N.V. Gogol cherished this hope until the end of his days.

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