Poem of Nikolai Gogol "Dead Souls". The main characters of the work

Poem in the prose "Dead Souls" - the central work in the work of one of the most original and colorful Russian writers - Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol.

Gogol as a mirror of Russian landownership

In the work "Dead Souls" the main characters - representatives of one of the three main strata of Russian society of the first half of the nineteenth century - the landlords. Two other classes-the bureaucracy and the peasantry-are shown somewhat schematically, without the special colors inherent in Gogol's language, but the landlords ... In this work one can see their different suits, characters and habits. Each of them represents some kind of human weakness, even the vice inherent in people of this class (according to the author's observations): low education, narrow-mindedness, greed, arbitrariness. Let's take a closer look at them.

Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, "Dead Souls". main characters

There is no need here to recount the plot of the poem in prose, since this will require a separate article. Let's just say that a certain person named Chichikov, by the present days a real young man - is a reflexive, inventive, with original thinking, extremely sociable and, most importantly, completely unprincipled - decides to buy "dead souls" from landlords in order to use them as a Mortgage, under which you can buy a real village with living peasants of flesh and blood.

To implement his plan, Chichikov travels around the landlords and buys from them "dead" peasants (names that are recorded in tax returns). In the end, he finds himself exposed and escapes from the city of NN in a carriage carried away by a "three-bird".

If we discuss who are the main characters of the poem Dead Souls, then the collegiate adviser Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov will undoubtedly lead their list.

Images of the landlords

The second number would like to mention the landowner Manilov - a man of sentimental, arrogant, empty, but harmless. He quietly dreams, sitting on his estate, looking at life through rose-colored glasses and building unrealistic plans for the future. And although Manilov does not attract special sympathy, he is still not the most unpleasant character of the poem Dead Souls. The main characters, appearing before the reader further, are much less harmless.

Box - a woman elderly and narrow-minded. However, he knows his business well and keeps his income from his small estate tightly in his wrinkled hands. She sells Chichikov shower for fifteen rubles, and the only thing that embarrasses her in this strange transaction is the price. The landlord worries, no matter how cheap it is.

Continuing the list under the conditional title "Dead Souls" - the main characters ", it is worth mentioning the gambler and the reveler Nozdrev. He lives widely, cheerfully and noisily. Such a life rarely falls within the generally accepted framework, because this landlord is under trial.

Following Nozdrev we get acquainted with the harsh and stubborn Sobakevich, "the kulak and the beast", according to Chichikov's description. Now he would be called a "strong business executive."

And closes a number of sellers of "dead souls" painfully stingy Plyushkin. This landlord was so much in the power of his passion for thrift that he practically lost his human face, at any rate, at first glance it is impossible to determine his sexual and social identity - it's just some kind of figure in rags.

In addition to them, Nikolai Vasilievich mentions representatives of other classes: officials and their wives, peasants, soldiers, but landlords in the work Dead Souls are the main characters. Quite soon it becomes clear that these are their souls are dead, and not for the first year, and it is on them that the screwed-up eye of the writer and his sharp pen are aimed.