Description of Plyushkin in the work Dead Souls. Plyushkin

a brief description of Plyushkina in the work “Dead Souls” is a realistic description of the old landowner, his character and way of life. The fact is that this character is presented by the author in an unusual manner for him - without humor.

Stepan Plyushkin is one of the landowners in the poem by N.V. Gogol "Dead Souls". This is one of the most significant and deep characters not only of the mentioned work, but of the entire Russian literature generally.

The hero first appears in the sixth chapter, when he comes to the landowner to buy from him “ dead Souls».

The image and characteristics of Plyushkin in the poem “Dead Souls”

The landowner is incredibly stingy and unkind.

The hero symbolizes spiritual collapse strong man, drowned in the vice of boundless stinginess, bordering on cruelty: a huge amount of food is stored in the landowner’s barns, which no one is allowed to take, as a result of which the peasants go hungry, and the supplies are lost as unnecessary.

Plyushkin is quite rich, he has a whole thousand serfs on his account. However, despite this, the old man lives like a beggar, eating crackers and dressing in rags.

Symbolism of the surname

Like most characters in Gogol's works, Plyushkin's surname is symbolic. With the help of contrast or synonymy of the surname in relation to the character of the corresponding character, the author reveals certain features of a given personality.

The meaning of the surname Plyushkina symbolizes an unusually stingy and greedy person whose goal is to accumulate material goods without a specific purpose for their use.

As a result, the collected wealth is not spent anywhere or is used in minimal quantities.

It is noteworthy that Plyushkin’s name practically does not appear in the text of the work. In this way, the author shows the callousness, detachment of the hero, the absence in him of even a hint of humanity.

The fact that the landowner's name is Stepan can be learned from his words about his daughter, whom he calls by her patronymic. By the way, ordinary men from other estates did not know such a surname at all, calling the landowner by the nickname “patched.”

Plyushkin family This character is the only one of all the landowners who has enough. The hero's life story is very sad.

In the plot narration, Plyushkin appears before us as a completely lonely person leading a hermit’s lifestyle. The wife who inspired him to show the best human qualities and made his life meaningful has long since left this world.

In their marriage they had three children, whom their father raised with great care and compassion. great love. During the years of family happiness, Plyushkin was completely different from his current self. At that time, he often invited guests to his house, knew how to enjoy life, and had a reputation as an open and friendly person.

Of course, Plyushkin was always very economical, but his stinginess always had reasonable limits and was not so reckless. His clothes, although not sparkling with newness, still looked neat, without a single patch.

After the death of his wife, the hero changed a lot: he became extremely distrustful and very stingy. The last straw, which hardened Plyushkin’s temper, new problems began in the family: the son lost a large amount into cards, eldest daughter ran away from home, and the youngest died.

Surprisingly, glimmers of light sometimes illuminate the dark recesses of the dead soul of the landowner. Having sold his “souls” to Chichikov and reflecting on the issue of drawing up a deed of sale, Plyushkin remembers his school friend. At this moment, a faint reflection of feeling appeared on the old man’s wooden face.

This fleeting manifestation of life, according to the author, speaks of the possibility of the revival of the hero’s soul, in which, as if in twilight, the dark and light sides mixed with each other.

Description of the portrait and first impression of Plyushkin

When meeting Plyushkin, Chichikov first mistakes him for the housekeeper.

After talking with the landowner, main character realizes with horror that he was mistaken.

In his opinion, the old man looks more like a beggar than a rich owner of the estate.

All of him appearance, like this: a long chin covered with a scarf; small, colorless, mobile eyes; a dirty, patched robe indicates that the hero has completely lost touch with life.

Appearance and condition of the suit

Plyushkin's face is very elongated and at the same time is distinguished by excessive thinness. The landowner never shave, and his beard began to look like a horse comb. Plyushkin has no teeth left at all.

The hero’s clothes can hardly be called such; they look more like old rags - the clothes look so worn and unkempt. At the time of the story, the landowner is about 60 years old.

The character, demeanor and speech of the landowner

Plyushkin is a man with difficult character. Probably, the negative traits that manifested themselves so clearly in him in his old age also existed in previous years, but their such pronounced appearance was smoothed out by family well-being.

But after the death of his wife and daughter, Plyushkin finally broke away from life, became spiritually impoverished, and began to treat everyone with suspicion and hostility. The landowner experienced such an attitude not only towards strangers, but also towards relatives.

By the age of 60, Plyushkin had become very unpleasant due to his difficult character. Those around him began to avoid him, his friends visited him less and less, and then completely stopped all communication with him.

Plyushkin’s speech is abrupt, laconic, caustic, loaded with colloquial expressions, for example: “poditka, they beat, ehva!, actor, already, podtibrila.”

The landowner is able to notice any little things and even the most insignificant errors and shortcomings. In this regard, he often finds fault with people, expressing his comments by shouting and cursing.

Plyushkin is not capable of good deeds; he has become insensitive, distrustful and cruel. He doesn’t even care about the fate of his own children, and the old man suppresses his daughter’s attempts to establish a relationship with him in every possible way. In his opinion, his daughter and son-in-law are trying to get closer to him in order to get material benefits from him.

It is noteworthy that Plyushkin absolutely does not understand the true consequences of his actions. He actually fancies himself a caring landowner, although, in fact, he is a tyrant, an incredible miser and a stingy man, a rude and grumpy old man who destroys the destinies of the people around him.

Favorite activities

The joy in Plyushkin's life consists of only two things - constant scandals and the accumulation of material wealth.

The landowner likes to spend time in all alone. He sees no point in receiving guests or acting as such. For him, this is just a waste of time that can be spent on more useful activities.

Despite large financial savings, the landowner leads an ascetic lifestyle, denying literally everything not only to relatives, servants and peasants, but also to himself.

Another favorite pastime of Plyushkin is to grumble and become poor. He believes that the supplies stored in his barns are not enough, there is not enough land and there is not even enough hay. In fact, the situation is completely opposite - there is plenty of land, and the amount of reserves is so huge that they spoil right in the storage facilities.

Plyushkin loves to create scandals for any reason, even if it is an insignificant trifle. The landowner is always dissatisfied with something and demonstrates it in the most rude and unsightly form. A picky old man is very difficult to please.

Attitude to the economy

Plyushkin is a rich but very stingy landowner. However, despite the huge reserves, it seems to him that they are not enough. As a result, a huge number of unused products become unusable without leaving the storage facility.

Having a large fortune at his disposal, including 1000 serfs, Plyushkin eats crackers and wears rags - in a word, he lives like a beggar. The landowner has not been monitoring what is going on on his farm for many years, but at the same time he does not forget to control the amount of liquor in the decanter.

Plyushkin's life goals

In short, the landowner has no specific goal in life. Plyushkin is completely absorbed in the process of accumulation material resources without a specific purpose for their use.

House and interior of rooms

Plyushkin's estate reflects the spiritual desolation of the character himself. The buildings in the villages are very old, dilapidated, the roofs have long since become leaky, the windows are clogged with rags. There is devastation and emptiness all around. Even the churches look lifeless.

The estate seems to be falling apart, which indicates that the hero has fallen out of real life: instead of the main things, the focus of his attention is on empty and meaningless tasks. It’s not for nothing that this character is practically devoid of a name and patronymic - it’s as if he doesn’t exist.

The Plyushkin estate is striking in its appearance - the building is in a terrible, dilapidated condition. From the street, the house looks like an abandoned building in which no one has lived for a long time. It’s very uncomfortable inside the building – it’s cold and dark all around. Natural light enters only one room – the owner’s room.

The whole house is littered with junk, which is becoming more and more every year - Plyushkin never throws away broken or unnecessary things, because he thinks that they can still be useful.

The landowner's office is also in complete disarray. The appearance of the room embodies real chaos. There is a chair that cannot be repaired, as well as a clock that has stopped long ago. In the corner of the room there is a dump - in the shapeless heap you can see an old shoe and a broken shovel.

Attitude towards others

Plyushkin - picky, scandalous man. Even the most insignificant reason is enough for him to start a quarrel. The hero shows his dissatisfaction in the most unsightly way, stooping to rudeness and insults.

The landowner himself is completely confident that he is behaving caringly and kindly, but people simply do not notice or appreciate this, because they are biased towards him.

Probably due to the fact that his son once lost at cards and did not return home, Plyushkin is prejudiced towards officers, considering them all to be spendthrifts and gamblers.

Plyushkin's attitude towards the peasants

Plyushkin treats the peasants cruelly and irresponsibly. The appearance, clothing and dwellings of the serfs look almost the same as those of the owner. They themselves walk around half-starved, skinny, exhausted. From time to time, escapes occur among the peasants - Plyushkin's existence as a serf looks less attractive than life on the run.

The landowner speaks negatively about his serfs - in his opinion, they are all quitters and slackers. In fact, the peasants work honestly and diligently. It seems to Plyushkin that the serfs are robbing him and doing their work very poorly.

But in reality, things are different: the landowner intimidated his peasants so much that, despite the cold and hunger, they under no circumstances dare to take anything from the master’s storehouse.

Did Plyushkin sell Dead Souls to Chichikov?

The landowner sells about two hundred “souls” to the main character. This number exceeds the number of “peasants” that Chichikov purchased from other sellers. This traces Plyushkin’s desire for profit and accumulation. When entering into a deal, the hero understands perfectly well what it is and what profit he can get for it.

Quoted description of Plyushkin

Conclusion

The image of Plyushkin and the characteristics of his essence serve as an indicative example of how much a person can sink morally and physically.

It is no coincidence that the author calls this hero “a hole in humanity.” Plyushkin is not interested in spiritual development

his personality, he is indifferent to his own inner world. The landowner is characterized by pettiness, stinginess and a complete lack of deep feelings. There is no shame, no conscience, no sympathy in him. The name Plyushkina became a household name. It denotes pathological greed, pettiness and stinginess. IN modern world

the so-called “Plyushkin syndrome” occurs quite often and characterizes those people who strive for the aimless accumulation of material resources.

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Biography of Plyushkin:

In his youth he was married and was the father of two daughters and a son. He was the owner of a rich estate. He was known as a thrifty owner: a neighbor stopped by to have lunch with him, listen and learn from him about housekeeping and wise stinginess. Everything flowed briskly and happened at a measured pace: mills, fulling mills moved, cloth factories, carpentry machines, spinning mills worked; everywhere the keen eye of the owner entered into everything and, like a hardworking spider, ran busily, but efficiently, along all ends of his economic web. Too much were not reflected in his facial features, but his mind was visible in his eyes; His speech was imbued with experience and knowledge of the world, and the guest was pleased to listen to him; the friendly and talkative hostess was famous for her hospitality; two pretty daughters came out to meet them, both blond and fresh as roses; the son, a broken boy, ran out and kissed everyone, paying little attention to whether the guest was happy or not happy about it. All the windows in the house were open, the mezzanine was occupied by the apartment of a French teacher, who shaved well and was a great shot: he always brought grouse or ducks for dinner, and sometimes just sparrow eggs, from which he ordered himself scrambled eggs, because there were more in the whole house no one ate it. His compatriot, the mentor of two girls, also lived on the mezzanine. The owner himself came to the table in a frock coat, although somewhat worn, but neat, the elbows were in order: there was no patch anywhere. But the good housewife died; Some of the keys, and with them minor worries, went to him. Plyushkin became more restless and, like all widowers, more suspicious and stingy. He could not rely on his eldest daughter Alexandra Stepanovna for everything, and he was right, because Alexandra Stepanovna soon ran away with the captain of God knows what cavalry regiment, and married him somewhere hastily in a village church, knowing that her father does not like officers due to a strange prejudice, as if all military gamblers and money-makers. Her father sent a curse on her way, but did not bother to pursue her. The house became even emptier. The owner's stinginess began to become more noticeable; the glint of gray hair in his coarse hair, her faithful friend, helped her develop even more; the French teacher was released because it was time for his son to go to work; Madame was driven away because she turned out to be not innocent in the kidnapping of Alexandra Stepanovna; son, having been sent to provincial town, in order to find out in the ward, in the opinion of his father, a significant service, he decided instead to join the regiment and wrote to his father, already according to his determination, asking for money for uniforms; It is quite natural that he received for this what is popularly called a shish. Finally, the last daughter who remained with him in the house died, and the old man found himself alone as a watchman, guardian and owner of his wealth. Lonely life has provided satisfying food for stinginess, which, as you know, has a ravenous hunger and the more it devours, the more insatiable it becomes; human feelings, which were not deep in him anyway, became shallow every minute, and every day something was lost in this worn-out ruin. If it happened at such a moment, as if on purpose to confirm his opinion about the military, that his son lost at cards; he sent him his father’s curse from the bottom of his heart and was never interested in knowing whether he existed in the world or not. Every year the windows in his house were closed, until only two remained.<…>Every year more and more important parts of the household disappeared from sight, and his shallow glance turned to the pieces of paper and feathers that he collected in his room; He became more unyielding to the buyers who came to take away his economic products; the buyers haggled and haggled and finally abandoned him altogether, saying that he was a demon, not a man; hay and bread rotted, luggage and stacks turned into pure manure, even if you planted cabbage on them, flour in the cellars turned into stone, and it was necessary to chop it, it was scary to touch cloth, linens and household materials: they turned to dust. He had already forgotten how much of anything he had, and only remembered where in his closet there was a decanter with the remainder of some tincture, on which he himself made a mark so that no one would drink it by stealing, and where the feather lay or sealing wax. Meanwhile, on the farm, income was collected as before: the peasant had to bring the same amount of rent, every woman had to pay the same amount of nuts, the weaver had to weave the same amount of linen - all this was dumped in the storerooms, and everything became rotten and torn , and he himself finally turned into some kind of hole in humanity. Alexandra Stepanovna once came twice with her little son, trying to see if she could get something; Apparently, camp life with a captain-captain was not as attractive as it seemed before the wedding. Plyushkin, however, forgave her and even gave his little grandson a button lying on the table to play with, but he did not give any money. Another time, Alexandra Stepanovna arrived with two little ones and brought him a cake for tea and a new robe, because the priest had such a robe that he was not only ashamed to look at, but even ashamed. Plyushkin caressed both grandchildren and, sitting them one on his right knee and the other on his left, rocked them in exactly the same way as if they were riding horses, took a cake and a robe, but gave absolutely nothing to his daughter; And with that, Alexandra Stepanovna left.

Describing the manic greed of his hero, Gogol reports: ...he walked every day along the streets of his village, looked under the bridges, under the crossbeams and everything that he came across: an old sole, a woman’s rag, an iron nail, a clay shard - he dragged everything to himself and put it in the pile that Chichikov noticed in the corner of the room... after him there was no need to sweep the street: a passing officer happened to lose a spur, this spur instantly went into the well-known pile: if a woman... forgot the bucket, he dragged away the bucket too.

The writer gives the following description of his appearance unusual hero: his face was nothing special and looked like that of other thin old men. Only his chin protruded very far forward, and his small eyes, darting like mice from under his highly raised eyebrows, attracted attention. His outfit was much more remarkable: no amount of effort or effort could have been used to find out what his robe was made of: the sleeves and upper flaps were so greasy and shiny that they looked like the kind of yuft that goes into boots; Behind, instead of two, there were four floors dangling, from which cotton paper came out in flakes. There was also something tied around his neck that could not be made out: a stocking, a garter, or a belly, but not a tie.

The meeting of the hero Chichikov with Plyushkin is preceded by a description of the devastated village and the dilapidated family estate of Plyushkin: he noticed some special disrepair(that is, Chichikov) on all wooden buildings: the logs on the huts were dark and old; many roofs were visible like a sieve: on others there was only a ridge at the top and poles on the sides in the form of ribs... The windows in the huts were without glass, others were covered with a rag or a zipun... The manor's house began to appear in parts... This strange castle looked like some kind of decrepit invalid, long, exorbitantly long... The walls of the house were cracked in places by the bare plaster lattice... Only two of the windows were open, the others were covered with shutters or even boarded up... Green mold had already covered the fence and gate. The “cheerful garden” - old, overgrown and decayed, leading somewhere behind the estate into a field - brought some animation into this sad picture.

When the owner of this entire estate, which had fallen into complete disrepair, appears, Chichikov initially mistakes him for the old housekeeper - he was so outlandishly, dirty and poorly dressed: “Listen, mother,” he said, getting out of the chaise, “What’s the master?...

Perception:

According to some researchers of N.V. Gogol’s work, the image of this half-crazed hoarding landowner is the most vivid and successful in the description of Chichikov’s “business partners” in the poem “Dead Souls” and was of the greatest interest to the writer himself. IN literary criticism there was a perception of this unusual character N.V. Gogol as a certain standard of hoarding, greed and penny-pinching. The writer himself is undoubtedly interested in the history of the transformation of this educated and intelligent man in his youth into a walking laughingstock even for his own peasants and into a sick, malicious person who refused support and participation in the fate of his own daughters, son and grandchildren.

In Russian spoken language and in the literary tradition, the name “Plyushkin” became a common noun for petty, stingy people, seized by a passion for accumulating things they do not need, and sometimes completely useless. His behavior, described in the poem by N.V. Gogol, is the most typical manifestation of such a mental illness ( mental disorder), as pathological accumulation. In foreign medical literature, a special term has even been introduced - “

In the face of the hero " Dead souls“Plyushkina was brought out by Gogol as a psychopathic miser. He pointed out in this pitiful old man the terrible consequences of the passion to “acquire” without a goal - when acquisition itself becomes the goal, when the meaning of life is lost. In “Dead Souls” it is shown how, from a reasonable, practical person needed for the state and family, Plyushkin turns into a “growth” on humanity, into some kind of negative value, into a “hole”... To do this, he only had to lose his meaning life. Before, he worked for the family. His ideal of life was the same as that of Chichikov - and Plyushkin was happy when noisy, joyful family I met him returning home to rest. Then life deceived him - he remained a lonely, angry old man, for whom all people seemed to be thieves, liars, robbers. A certain inclination towards callousness increased over the years, his heart became harder, his previously clear economic eye dimmed - and Plyushkin lost the ability to distinguish between large and small in the household, necessary from unnecessary - he directed all his attention, all his vigilance to the household, to the storerooms, glaciers... He stopped engaging in large-scale grain farming, and bread, the main basis of his wealth, rotted in barns for years. But Plyushkin collected all sorts of junk in his office, even stole buckets and other things from his own men... He lost hundreds, thousands, because he did not want to give up a penny or a ruble. Plyushkin had completely lost his mind, and his soul, which had never been distinguished by greatness, was completely crushed and vulgarized. Plyushkin became a slave to his passion, a pitiful miser, walking in rags, living from hand to mouth. Unsociable, gloomy, he lived out his unnecessary life, tearing even his parental feelings for his children out of his heart. (Cm. , .)

Plyushkin. Drawing by Kukryniksy

Plyushkin can be compared with the “miserly knight,” with the only difference being that in Pushkin “stinginess” is presented in a tragic light, while in Gogol it is presented in a comic light. Pushkin showed what gold did to a valiant man, a great man, - Gogol in “Dead Souls” showed how a penny perverted an ordinary, “average man”...

DEAD SOULS (Poem, 1835-1841 - vol. 1; publ. 1842) Plyushkin Stepan- the fifth, and last, of the “series” of landowners to whom Chichikov turns with an offer to sell him dead souls. In a kind of negative hierarchy landowner types depicted in the poem, this stingy old man (he is in his seventh decade) occupies both the lowest and the highest level at the same time. His image personifies the complete death of the human soul, the almost complete death of a strong and bright personality, completely consumed by the passion of stinginess - but precisely for this reason, capable of resurrection and transformation.

(Below P., of the characters in the poem, only Chichikov himself “fell”, but for him the author’s plan preserved the possibility of an even more grandiose “correction.”)

This dual, “negative-positive” nature of P.’s image is indicated in advance by the ending of the 5th chapter; Having learned from Sobakevich that a stingy landowner lives next door, whose peasants are “dying like flies,” Chichikov tries to find out the way to him from a passing peasant; he doesn’t know any P., but guesses who he’s talking about: “Ah, the patched one!” This nickname is humiliating, but the author (in accordance with the through-line technique of “Dead Souls”) instantly moves from satire to lyrical pathos; admiring the accuracy folk word, gives praise to the Russian mind and seems to move from the space of a morally descriptive novel into the space of an epic poem “like the Iliad.” But the closer Chichikov is to P.’s house, the more alarming the author’s intonation; suddenly - and as if for no reason at all - the author compares himself as a child with his present self, his then enthusiasm with the current “coolness” of his gaze.

"Oh my youth! Oh my freshness!" It is clear that this passage applies equally to the author - and to the “dead” hero, whom the reader will meet.

And this involuntary rapprochement of the “unpleasant” character with the author in advance removes the image of P. from that series of “literary and theatrical” misers, with an eye on whom he was written, distinguishes him from the stingy characters of picaresque novels, and from the greedy landowners of moral descriptive epics, and from Harpagon from Molière's comedy "The Miser" (Harpagon's is the same as P.

A hole below the back), bringing, on the contrary, closer to the Baron from " The Stingy Knight"Pushkin and Balzac's Gobsek. The description of Plyushkin's estate allegorically depicts desolation - and at the same time the "cluttering" of his soul, which "does not grow rich in God." The entrance is dilapidated - logs are pressed in like piano keys; everywhere there is a special disrepair, roofs like a sieve; windows covered with rags At Sobakevich they were boarded up at least for the sake of economy, but here - solely because of “ruin”. - even two churches, which should form the semantic center of the landscape.

One of them, wooden, was empty; the other, stone, was all cracked. A little later, the image of an empty temple will be metaphorically echoed in the words of P., who regrets that the priest will not say “a word” against the universal love of money: “You cannot resist the word of God!” (Traditional for Gogol is the motif of a “dead” attitude towards the Word of Life.)

The master's house, “this strange castle,” is located in the middle of a cabbage garden. The “Plyushkinsky” space cannot be captured with a single glance, it seems to fall apart into details and fragments - first one part will be revealed to Chichikov’s gaze, then another; even the house is in some places one floor, in others two. Symmetry, integrity, balance began to disappear already in the description of Sobakevich’s estate; here this “process” goes in breadth and depth. All this reflects the “segmented” nature of the owner’s consciousness, who has forgotten about the main thing and focused on the tertiary. For a long time he no longer knows how much, where and what is produced on his vast and ruined farm, but he keeps an eye on the level of the old liqueur in the decanter to see if anyone has drunk. The desolation “benefited” only the Plyushkino garden, which, starting near the manor’s house, disappears into the field. Everything else perished, became dead, as in a Gothic novel, which is reminiscent of the comparison of Plyushkin’s house with a castle.

It’s like Noah’s Ark, inside of which there was a flood (it’s no coincidence that almost all the details of the description, like in the Ark, have their own “pair” - there are two churches, two belvederes, two windows, one of which, however, is covered with a triangle of blue sugar paper ; P. had two blond daughters, etc.). The dilapidation of his world is akin to the dilapidation of the “antediluvian” world, which perished from passions. And P. himself is the failed “forefather” Noah, who from a zealous owner degenerated into a hoarder and lost any certainty of appearance and position.

Having met P. on the way to the house, Chichikov cannot understand who is in front of him - a woman or a man, a housekeeper or a housekeeper who “rarely shaves her beard”? Having learned that this “housekeeper” is a rich landowner, the owner of 1000 souls (“Ehwa! And I’m the owner!”), Chichikov cannot get out of his stupor for twenty minutes.

Portrait of Plyushkin(a long chin, which has to be covered with a handkerchief so as not to spit; small, not yet extinguished eyes run from under high eyebrows like mice; a greasy robe has turned into yuft; a rag on the neck instead of a handkerchief) also indicates the complete “loss” of the hero from image of a rich landowner. But all this is not for the sake of “exposure,” but only for the sake of reminding of the norm of “wise stinginess,” from which P. was tragically separated and to which he can still return.

Previously, before the “fall,” P.’s gaze, like a hardworking spider, “ran busily, but efficiently, along all ends of its economic web”; Now the spider entwines the pendulum of the stopped clock. Even the silver pocket watch that P. is going to give - but never gives - to Chichikov in gratitude for “getting rid of” dead souls, and they are “spoiled.” A toothpick, which the owner may have used to pick his teeth even before the French invasion, also reminds us of a bygone time (and not just stinginess). It seems that, having described the circle, the narrative returned to the point from which it began - the first of the “Chichikovsky” landowners, Manilov, lives just as outside of time as the last of them, P. But there is no time in Manilov’s world and never has was; he has lost nothing - he has nothing to return.

P. had everything. This is the only hero of the poem, besides Chichikov himself, who has a biography, has a past; The present can do without the past, but without the past there is no path to the future. Before the death of his wife P.

was a zealous, experienced landowner; my daughters and son had a French teacher and madame; however, after this, P. developed a widower “complex”, he became more suspicious and stingy. The next step away from what God has determined for him life path he did this after the secret flight of the eldest daughter, Alexandra Stepanovna, with the captain and the unauthorized assignment of his son to military service. (Even before the “flight” he considered the military to be gamblers and wasteful people, but now he is completely hostile to military service.) The youngest daughter died; son lost at cards; soul P.

became completely hardened; “The wolf hunger of stinginess” took possession of him. Even the buyers refused to deal with him - because he is a “demon”, not a person. The return of the "prodigal daughter", whose life with the captain's captain turned out to be not particularly satisfying (an obvious plot parody of the ending of Pushkin's " Stationmaster"), reconciles P. with her, but does not save her from destructive greed.

After playing with his grandson, P. didn’t give Alexandra Stepanovna anything, but he dried the Easter cake she gave her on his second visit and is now trying to treat Chichikov to this cracker. (The detail is also not accidental; Easter cake is an Easter “meal”; Easter is the celebration of the Resurrection; by drying the cake, P. symbolically confirmed that his soul was dead; but in itself the fact that a piece of cake, albeit moldy, is always kept by him , is associatively connected with the theme of the possible “Easter” revival of his soul.) Clever Chichikov, having guessed the substitution that occurred in P., “retools” his usual opening speech accordingly; just as in P. “virtue” is replaced by “economy”, and “rare qualities of the soul” by “order”, so they are replaced in Chichikov’s “attack” to the theme of dead souls. But the fact of the matter is that greed was not able to take possession of P.’s heart to the last limit. Having completed the deed of sale (Chichikov convinces the owner that he is ready to take on the tax costs of the dead “for your pleasure”; the economic P.’s list of the dead is already ready, unknown to what need),

P. ponders who could reassure her in the city on his behalf, and remembers that the Chairman was his school friend.

And this memory (the course of the author’s thoughts at the beginning of the chapter is completely repeated here) suddenly revives the hero: “... on this wooden face<...>expressed<...>a pale reflection of a feeling." Naturally, this is a random and momentary glimpse of life. Therefore, when Chichikov, not only having acquired 120 dead souls, but also having bought runaways for 27 kopecks per soul, leaves P., the author describes a twilight landscape in which the shadow “completely mixed up” with the light - as in the unfortunate soul of P.

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  Quite a lot has been written about the need to create savings. With the fact that the family's savings must Life does not stand still, our earnings are constantly growing, but, strangely enough, there is no money 1. Planning expenses. Make a monthly spending plan. Do not make purchases if they are not available. The Universe has little stars that are so far away from us that we have no way of reaching them or installing them. How far is the closest star from the Earth? Go from the Earth to the Sun 150,000,000 kilometers. Because all the growths are crumbling lightly, leaving us on dry land under the water, forming the flora of the Earth. These trees are vegetal, and there are small frail trees, and there are microscopic sea algae. Botany - the most popular science of Adje Von - is engaged in the classification of the endlessly diverse plant world. Small plants can be dried and rolled from them. Navigating near the open sea, far above the land, a sailor can determine the location of his ship. For whom do you need a sextant, a date book and a map? Astronomers have accurately determined the position of the sun's star for the skin and for all parts of the earth. Behind the help of the sextant, the sailors (or pilots) and the woman, appearing in the right position, begin to wonder, What can they do? While some say that almost anything is possible, others talk about the past. And what should we do to enhance a woman’s beauty, since it’s not clear what you can do and what you can’t do? In this case, the well-chewed meat from the urchin goes down the drain into the hatch. There it is mixed with herbal chemicals and turns into a thick soup. The meat is inserted into the small intestine, brown bits of hedgehogs, called life-giving streams , they appear to be near the roof to grub The well-known sheep is a toy that, when wrapped, does not change its position for a long time. It spins and spins until the force of rubbing the axle on the base or other surface prevents and pins the wrapper. Naukova's name is Vovchka gyroscope. It also wraps up quickly, and everything is the same

One of Gogol's most striking characters, literary hero, whose name has long become a household name, a character who is remembered by everyone who read “Dead Souls” - landowner Stepan Plyushkin. His memorable figure closes the gallery of images of landowners presented by Gogol in the poem. Plyushkin, who even gave his name to the official disease (Plyushkin syndrome, or pathological hoarding), is essentially a very rich man who led a vast economy to complete decline, and a huge number of serfs to poverty and a miserable existence.

This fifth and final companion of Chichikov is a shining example how dead it can become human soul. Therefore, the title of the poem is very symbolic: it not only directly indicates that we're talking about about “dead souls” - as the dead serfs were called, but also about the pitiful, devastated souls of landowners and officials, devoid of human qualities.

Characteristics of the hero

("Plyushkin", artist Alexander Agin, 1846-47)

Gogol begins the reader’s acquaintance with the landowner Plyushkin with a description of the surroundings of the estate. Everything indicates desolation, insufficient funding and the absence of a strong hand of the owner: dilapidated houses with leaky roofs and windows without glass. The sad landscape is enlivened by the owner's garden, although neglected, but described in much more positive colors: clean, tidy, filled with air, with a “regular sparkling marble column.” However, Plyushkin’s home again evokes melancholy, around there is desolation, despondency and mountains of useless, but extremely necessary for the old man, rubbish.

Being the richest landowner in the province (the number of serfs reached 1000), Plyushkin lived in extreme poverty, eating scraps and dried crackers, which did not cause him the slightest discomfort. He was extremely suspicious; everyone around him seemed treacherous and unreliable, even his own children. Only the passion for hoarding was important for Plyushkin; he collected everything he could get his hands on on the street and dragged it into the house.

("Chichikov at Plyushkin's", artist Alexander Agin, 1846-47)

Unlike other characters, Plyushkin's life story is given in full. The author introduces the reader to the young landowner, talking about a good family, his beloved wife and three children. Neighbors even came to the zealous owner to learn from him. But the wife died, the eldest daughter ran away with the military man, the son joined the army, which the father did not approve of, and the youngest daughter also died. And gradually the respected landowner turned into a man whose whole life was subordinated to accumulation for the sake of the accumulation process itself. All other human feelings, which had not previously been bright, faded away in him completely.

It is interesting that some professors of psychiatry mentioned that Gogol very clearly and at the same time artistically described a typical case of senile dementia. Others, for example, psychiatrist Ya.F. Kaplan, deny this possibility, saying that psychopathological traits do not appear sufficiently in Plyushkin, and Gogol simply illuminated the state of old age, which he encountered everywhere.

The image of the hero in the work

Stepan Plyushkin himself is described as a creature dressed in unkempt rags, looking like a woman from afar, but the stubble on his face still made it clear that the main character was a representative of the stronger sex. Given the general amorphousness of this figure, the writer focuses attention on individual facial features: a protruding chin, a hooked nose, lack of teeth, eyes expressing suspicion.

Gogol, a great master of words, shows us with bright strokes a gradual but irreversible change in human personality. A person, in whose eyes intelligence shone in previous years, gradually turns into a pitiful miser who has lost all his best feelings and emotions. the main objective the writer - to show how terrible the coming old age can be, how small human weaknesses can turn into pathological traits under certain life circumstances.

If the writer simply wanted to portray a pathological miser, he would not go into details of his youth, a description of the circumstances that led to his current state. The author himself tells us that Stepan Plyushkin is the future of the fiery young man in old age, that unsightly portrait, upon seeing which the young man would recoil in horror.

("Peasants at Plyushkin", artist Alexander Agin, 1846-47)

However, Gogol leaves a small chance for this hero: when the writer conceived the third volume of the work, he planned to leave Plyushkin - the only landowner Chichikov met - in an updated, morally revived form. Describing the landowner’s appearance, Nikolai Vasilyevich separately highlights the old man’s eyes: “the little eyes had not yet gone out and ran from under his high eyebrows, like mice...”. And the eyes, as we know, are the mirror of the human soul. In addition, Plyushkin, seemingly having lost all human feelings, suddenly decides to give Chichikov a gold watch. True, this impulse immediately fades away, and the old man decides to include the watch in the deed of gift, so that after death at least someone will remember him with a kind word.

Thus, if Stepan Plyushkin had not lost his wife, his life could have turned out quite well, and his old age would not have turned into such a deplorable existence. The image of Plyushkin completes the gallery of portraits of degraded landowners and very accurately describes the lowest level to which a person can slide in his lonely old age.