The image of the road in "Dead Souls" by Nikolai Gogol. The image of the road in Gogol's poem "Dead Souls The image of the road in Gogol's poem dead souls

When the great Russian writer was overcome by life's hardships and painful experiences, he wanted only one thing - to leave, hide, change the situation. Which he did every time when the next collapse of creative plans was planned. Travel adventures and impressions that Nikolai Gogol received during his trips helped him dissipate, find inner harmony and get rid of the blues. Perhaps these moods were reflected in the image of the road in the poem "Dead Souls".

How good you are, distant road!

This enthusiastic exclamation includes a famous philosophical and lyrical digression in the novel about the adventures of an adventurer, a buyer of dead souls. The author refers to the road as to a living being: "How many times have I, perishing, grabbed at you, and each time you generously saved me!"

The writer used to think about his future creations on the road. It was on the way, to the sound of hooves and the ringing of bells, that his characters took shape. While driving, he suddenly began to hear their speeches, peer into the expressions of their faces. He became a witness to the actions of his heroes and comprehended their inner world. Depicting the image of the road in the poem "Dead Souls", the author pays tribute to his inspirer, uttering the following words: "How many wonderful designs and poetic dreams were born in you!"

Chapter written on the road

But so that the road pictures and the corresponding moods did not leave him and did not disappear from his memory, the writer could interrupt his journey and sit down to write a whole fragment of the work. This is how the first chapter of the poem "Dead Souls" was born. In a correspondence with one of his friends, the writer told how one day, while traveling through Italian cities, he accidentally wandered into a noisy tavern. And such an irresistible desire to write seized him that he sat down at the table and wrote an entire chapter of the novel. It is no coincidence that the image of the road in the poem "Dead Souls" is key.

Compositional technique

It so happened that the road became a favorite in the work of Gogol. The heroes of his works certainly go somewhere, and something happens to them on the way. The image of the road in the poem "Dead Souls" is a compositional technique that is characteristic of the entire work of the Russian writer.

In the novel, travel and travel became the main motives. They are the composite core. The image of the road in "Dead Souls" has declared itself in full force. It is multifaceted and carries an important semantic load. The road is both the main character and a difficult path in the history of Russia. This image serves as a symbol of development and of all humanity. And the image of the road in the work we are considering is the fate of the Russian people. What awaits Russia? What road is for her? Gogol's contemporaries asked similar questions. The author of "Dead Souls" tried to give answers to them with the help of his rich figurative language.

Chichikov road

Looking in the dictionary, you will find that the word "road" is almost an absolute synonym for the word "path". The only difference is in subtle, subtle shades. The path has a general abstract meaning. The road is more specific. In the description of Chichikov's Travels, the author uses subject meaning. The road in Dead Souls is a polysemantic word. But in relation to an active character, it has a specific meaning, used to indicate the distance that he overcomes and thereby comes closer and closer to his goal. It should be said that Chichikov experienced pleasant moments before each trip. Such sensations are familiar to those whose normal activities are not connected with roads and crossings. The author emphasizes that the upcoming trip inspires the hero-adventurer. He sees that the road is hard and bumpy, but he is ready to overcome it, like other obstacles in his life.

Life roads

The work contains many lyrical and philosophical discourses. This is the peculiarity of Gogol's artistic method. The theme of the road in "Dead Souls" is used by the author to convey his thoughts about man as an individual and about humanity as a whole. Reasoning on philosophical topics, he uses various adjectives: narrow, deaf, curved, impassable, drifting far to the side. All this is about the road that humanity once chose in search of eternal truth.

Roads of Russia

The roads in the poem "Dead Souls" are associated with the image of the bird-three. The chaise is an object detail that complements It also performs plot functions. The poem contains many episodes in which the action is motivated precisely by a chaise rushing along Russian roads. Thanks to her, for example, Chichikov manages to escape from Nozdryov. The chaise also creates the ring structure of the first volume. At the beginning, the men argue about the strength of its wheel, at the end this part breaks down, as a result of which the hero has to linger.

The roads along which Chichikov drives are chaotic. They can unexpectedly lead to the backwoods, into a hole where people who are devoid of any moral principles live. But nevertheless, these are the roads of Russia, which in itself is a long way, absorbing a person, leading him to no one knows where.

The road in the plot composition of the poem is the core, the main canvas. And in creating her image, characters, things and events play a role. Life goes on as long as the road goes on. And the author will tell his story all the way.

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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 the symbol and the 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 of the real and the symbolic in the poem ………………… .11

3. The 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 of the state, hoped for the revival of Russia, ascent to such heights where it overtakes other peoples and states. We found out what Gogol meant by the image of the road, whether something has changed in Russia since the time of Gogol, in what semantic meanings does the road appear in Gogol's poem and what functions it performs in the work.

As evidence of their hypothesis, they investigated the presence of works with a similar motive in modern literature.

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

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

Objective - to reveal 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:

    to find out the semantic meanings in which the road appears in the work of Gogol;

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

    analyze the result of the path of the protagonist and trace its development;

    understand the meaning of this path;

    find analogies for 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 their knowledge of the Gogol era, when preparing messages, abstracts.

    The meaning of the symbol and the symbolic in Gogol

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

In literary studiessymbol - an artistic image, revealed through comparison with other concepts. The symbol indicates 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, to see the essence of a phenomenon or thing. A symbol is a transition from one layer of meanings to another.

The idea of \u200b\u200b"Dead Souls" matured in Gogol gradually and as a result underwent significant evolution. Initially, the "composition" was thought by the author in a comic spirit. In one of his letters he tells Pushkin that "the plot stretched out into a pre-long novel, and it seems that it will be very funny." The writer wanted to "show at least from one side all of Russia." Gogol intended to consider reality from a funny, moral-descriptive and satirical side.

However, a year after the beginning of the work, the idea acquires a different scale, as evidenced by his letter to VA Zhukovsky: “My creation is enormous, and it will not end soon. New estates and many different gentlemen will still rise up against me ... It is already my fate to be at enmity with my fellow countrymen. " The writer is no longer talking about laughter, but about a general moral shock.

The satirical image of modern Russia is now viewed by Gogol as a task entrusted to him from above: exposing the ulcers and vices of society to the public, he must open the ways of salvation both for a separate lost human soul and for society as a whole.

Thus, in the course of work on the poem, the concept becomes more and more universal, satirical images are woven into a generalized symbolic narration about spiritual dead ends in which a person of the "current generation" falls.

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 in everyone there is still something human. "Awesome mud of little things", fragmented characters, despicable, animal life, but it seems to be ready to illuminate the lofty, spiritual, reviled, pushed into the background.

Gogol singles out one basic psychological trait, "passion", increases 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 else in Gogol's poem.

They are dead, as long as the matter concerns the inner, spiritual life, they are enslaved by their passions.

Double Russia, double city. It is worth remembering Gogol's famous address to his homeland: small towns, wooden shops, decrepit bridges, sobs, crows like flies, a desert horizon: motionless, ancient, dull.

"Nothing will seduce and enchant the eye!" But where does this song come from: "What's in it, in this song? What is calling, and crying, and grabbing at the heart?" And now the townships and wooden benches are no longer visible: "Wow! What a sparkling, wonderful, unfamiliar distance to the earth!

And now everything is flying: "miles are flying, merchants are flying towards the beams of their wagons, a forest with dark lines of firs and pines is flying on both sides, with a clumsy clatter and a crow's cry - and something terrible is enclosed in this rapid flashing ... Isn't it lightning thrown from the sky? .. Eh, horses, horses, what kind of horses! Are there whirlwinds sitting in your manes? .. Heard a familiar song from above, together and at once strained copper breasts and, almost without touching the ground with hooves, turned into one elongated lines flying through the air ... "

And you can't see that the respected purchaser Pavel Ivanovich is sitting in the chaise with his casket, with Petrushka and Selifan. And for a moment the human monsters and monsters disappeared. Everyone is in a frantic flight ... Who knows where! ..

The whole deployment of action is dual. According to S. T. Aksakov, after listening to "Dead Souls", Pogodin noticed that the content of the poem does not move 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 immobility is combined with the image of Chichikov traveling on the troika, with the flickering of villages, villages, estates. Each estate looks different. Before you have time to look around, Pavel Ivanovich is already in a hurry to another place; he has just won universal sympathy, respect, admiration, and suddenly already - a rogue, a swindler, a dark man, everyone shuns him. Another thing is much more important. Even S.P. Shevyrev noted that the location of the heroes in Gogol is not accidental and not mechanical. And, indeed, the opinion is incorrect that they can be easily rearranged; heroes are becoming more and more dead souls, so that later they almost completely turn to stone in Plyushkin.

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

The very concept of dead souls is duality and very ambiguous. Dead souls are revision souls, but dead souls are Chichikov, Sobakevich, Korobochka, and Plyushkin. "Dead souls" - everything sensual, "material".

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

An ordinary, prosaic language. "The wax language," remarks 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: "Isn't it so you, Russia, that a brisk, unstoppable troika, are rushing! The road is smoking under you, bridges are thundering, everything lags behind and remains behind. The beholder, struck by a miracle of God, stopped: is it not lightning thrown from 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 an answer? Doesn't give an answer. The bell is filled with a wonderful ringing; it thunders and becomes the wind torn to pieces air; everything that is on the earth flies by, and, looking sideways, sideways and give her way to other peoples and states. "

Gogol is the two-faced Janus of Russian literature. One face is quite earthly. Another 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 channel led to social struggle, to a change in social forms of life. Another channel led to the extremedualism, to the isolated human personality, to "non-resistance to evil by violence." It was a line of reaction, stagnation.

    The image of the road is the most important image of "Dead Souls"

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

In Russian literature, the theme of travel, the theme of the road occurs very often. You can name such works as "Dead Souls" by Gogol or "Hero of Our Time" by Lermontov. This motive is often usedused as plot-forming.However, sometimes it itself is one of the central themes, the purpose of which is to describe the life of Russia at 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 with the hero all over Russia and bring out a multitude of very diverse characters" ...

This is how Dead Souls are built. There was a danger of descriptiveness: episodes of Chichikov's journey could be connected externally - what was encountered along the way is reproduced. The anecdotal nature of the episodes as a sign of the general fantastic nature of the social order - this idea in Dead Souls acquires a genuine global character. No longer individual episodes, but the main plot motive sounds anecdotal: the purchase of dead souls.Phantasmagoria absurdities have received a concentrated form. The incredible is firmly connected with the real: the reader 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 protagonist is a journey. Indeed, only through the traveling hero, through his wanderings, it was possible to fulfill the set global task: "to embrace the whole of Russia." The theme of the road, the journey of the protagonist has several functions in the poem.

First of all, it is a compositional technique that connects together the chapters of the work. Secondly, the image of the road serves as a characteristic of the images of landowners, which Chichikov visits one after another. Each of his meetings with the landowner is preceded by a description of the road, the estate. For example, here is how Gogol describes the way to Manilovka: “Having traveled two versts, we met a turn onto a country road, but already two, three, and four versts, it seems, we did, and the stone house with two floors was still not visible. Then Chichikov remembered that if a friend invites him to his village fifteen miles away, it means that there are thirty miles to it. " 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 gave him notice of this orderly impulse, produced by the log pavement, in front of which the city stone was nothing. These logs, like piano keys, rose up and down, and the unprotected rider acquired either a bump on the back of his head, or a blue spot on his forehead ... He noticed some particular 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, mud, sleepy station keepers, rattling of bells, repairs, squabbles, coachmen , blacksmiths and all kinds of road scoundrels finally sees the familiar roof with lights rushing towards them ... "

Further, Gogol compares the two paths chosen by the writers. One chooses the beaten path, on which glory, honor, applause awaits him. "The great world poet is called him, soaring high above all the geniuses of the world ..." But "fate has no mercy" for those writers who have chosen a completely different path: they dared to call out everything "that is every minute in front of the eyes and that indifferent eyes, - all the terrible, amazing mud of little things that enmeshed our life, all the depth of the cold, fragmented, everyday characters with which our earthly, sometimes bitter and boring road teems ... "The harsh field of such a writer, since the indifferent crowd does not understand him, he is doomed to be alone. Gogol believes that the work of such a writer is noble, honest, and high. And he himself is ready to go hand in hand with such writers, "to look around the whole immensely rushing life, to look at it through the laughter visible to the world and invisible, unknown to him tears." In this lyrical digression, the theme of the road rises to a deep philosophical generalization: the choice of a field, a path, a vocation. The work ends with a poetic generalization - the image of a flying bird-three, which is a symbol of the whole country.

J. Mann rejects the idea of \u200b\u200ba single principle of composition, which is adhered to by many researchers of Gogol's poem. After all, at first the location of the chapters seemed to coincide with the plan of Chichikov's visits. Chichikov decides to start with Manilov - and now the chapter on Manilov follows. But after visiting Manilov, unexpected complications arise. Chichikov intended to visit Sobakevich, but lost his way, the chaise overturned, etc. Here, very important is A. Bely's remark that in the development of the action of "Dead Souls" "side passages" always make themselves felt: "... three horses racing Chichikov across Russia - Chichikov's entrepreneurial abilities; one of them is unlucky where it is necessary, which is why the move of the troika is a side move that raises a nonsense ("everything went like a crooked wheel"); the improper turns on the way to Nozdryov, to Korobochka are carefully listed ... "

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

The composition of "Dead Souls" traces the author's desire to create a harmonious model that compensates for the chaos of passions, desires and impulses of the heroes with its orderliness.

2. Contrast of the real and the symbolic in the image of the road

In "Dead Souls" from an unusual event, painted in fantastic tones (the acquisition of "dead souls"), results were quite tangible in their real tragedy.

Rejecting a possible reproach for the improbability of the events depicted ("... it is impossible that officials could scare themselves like that ... so far away from the truth ..."), Gogol appeals to non-fictional facts, to the historical experience of mankind. “What twisted, deaf, narrow, impassable, leading far to the side of the road, mankind chose, striving to achieve eternal truth, while the whole straight path was open before him ... 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 put a blind fog into each other's eyes again, and, rushing after the swamp lights, they still knew how to get to the abyss, so that then with horror to ask each other: "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, holding on to them, he sees a 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 backwoods", swamp ("swamp fires"), "abyss", "grave", "whirlpool" ... In turn, and the image of the road is stratified into contrasting images: it is (as in the just cited excerpt) both the "straight path" and "the roads leading far to the side." In the plot of the poem, it is both the life path of Chichikov ("but for all that, his road was difficult ..."), and the road that runs through the boundless Russian expanses; the latter turns into the road along which the Chichikov troika is hurrying, or the road of history along which the Troika Rus is racing.

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

Thanks to this, we are not always clearly aware of whom exactly the inspired Gogol troika is racing. And these characters, as D. Merezhkovsky noted, are three, and all of them are quite characteristic. "The mad Poprishchin, the witty Khlestakov and the prudent Chichikov - that's who this symbolic Russian troika rushes in its terrible flight into the vast expanse or the immense emptiness."

According to the “rule” of contrasts, in Chapter VI, the passage about a dreamer who stopped by “to see Schiller ... to visit” and suddenly found himself “on earth” again is constructed in Chapter VI; in the XI chapter - the reflections of the "author" about space and the road adventures of Chichikov: "... An unnatural power lit up my eyes: y! what a sparkling, wonderful, unfamiliar distance! Russia! ..

“Hold on, hold on, you fool! - shouted Chichikov to Selifan. "

AA Potebnya found this place "brilliant" because "how suddenly cold reality cuts off a thought that has arisen, according to the sharpness with which this exposes the opposite of an inspired dream and a sobering reality."

The change of perspective, points of view occurs smoothly, almost imperceptibly. An example of the latter is the passage about the troika concluding the poem: at first the whole description is strictly tied to Chichikov's troika and to his experiences; then a step was made to the feelings of the Russian in general ("And what Russian does not like to drive fast?"), then the addressee of the author's speech and description becomes the troika itself ("Oh, troika! bird troika, who invented you? .." to lead to a new author's appeal, this time - to Russia (“Aren't you, Russia, rushing like a brisk, unattainable troika? ..”). As a result, the border, where the Chichikov troika turns into Rus-Troika, is masked, although the poem does not give a direct identification.

3. The metaphorical meaning of the road in Gogol's poem

The image of the road appears from the first lines of the poem; we can say that he stands at its beginning. "A rather beautiful spring small chaise has entered the gates of the hotel in the provincial town of NN ..." and so on. 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 an answer? .. Everything that is on the earth flies past, and, looking sideways, they sideline 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 path 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 mankind, on which Russia overtakes other peoples. "

At the beginning of the poem, this is a very specific road along which a very specific chaise drags along, with the owner and his two serfs: the coachman Selifan and the lackey Petrushka, harnessed by horses, which we also imagine quite concretely: both the indigenous chestnut, and both pulling horses, the forelock and kaurogo, nicknamed the Assessor. At the end of the poem, it is rather difficult to imagine the road concretely: this is a metaphorical, allegorical image, personifying the gradual course of all human history.

These two meanings are like two extreme milestones. Between them are

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 imperceptibly.

The gradual transition of a specific image into a metaphorical one reminds us that quite definite pictures and characters of the poem carry a generalizing meaning: Chichikov's path turns out to be the life path of not one, but many people; Ordinary Russian highways, villages, cities are forming a colossal and wonderful appearance of the homeland.

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

There is in the description of the road in "Dead Souls" and the following lines: "God! How good you are sometimes, distant, distant road! How many times, like a perishing and drowning man, have I grabbed you, and each time you generously endured and saved me. And how many wonderful designs, poetic dreams were born in you,

how many wonderful impressions were felt! .. "

return from reality to the world of fiction.

Road 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 the ability to create, and the ability to cognize the true ("direct") path of man and all of humanity, and the hope that such a path will be able to open to contemporaries. The hope that Gogol passionately strove to keep until the end of his life.

All this says about the same thing - about strengthening the ethical moment. After all, a "straight" or "slanting road" are also metaphorical images. In one case, an honest life is meant - according to conscience, according to duty; in the other, life is dishonest, subordinate 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. During the work on Dead Souls, the image of the 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 concretely posed question, and only in the concluding lines of the first volume of Dead Souls does it sound clear and distinct: “... Rus, where are you rushing? “And we understand that for the author, Russia is a troika rushing along the road of life. And life is the same road, endless, unknown, with peaks and falls, dead ends, now good, now bad, now solid mud, without beginning and end.

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

    The image of the road in modern literature

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

The works we are considering have thematically overlap. You can consider the poem "Moscow - Petushki" as a parody of separate parts of the poem "Dead Souls". Much in both of these poems depends on the road, with the help of which the author very fully shows the country and life in this country. In Dead Souls, Russia and the very life of a Russian person is a “bird-three”, always hurrying somewhere, flying into the bright future of that time, but, unfortunately, it sweeps past and never stops:“Isn't it so you, Russia, that a brisk, unattainable troika rushing? The road smokes under you, bridges thunder, everything lags behind and remains behind. "

This image of the "bird-three" echoes the image of a simple, ordinary

electric trains of the Soviet era. The electric train is the complete 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 already nothing, it is over. From this we can conclude that such images and comparisons are due precisely to the time of residence of the authors of these poems.

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

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

“… And where is that happiness that is written about in the newspapers? I ran and ran, through the whirlwind and darkness, tearing the doors off their hinges, I knew that the Moscow-Petushki train was going downhill. The carriages rose - and again fell through, as if possessed by foolishness ... "

In V. Erofeev's poem "Moscow - Petushki" the road is the result of the path, an attempt to get into a better world, the actual meaning of the path: rethinking the entire life of the protagonist and the search 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 to the thesis "the road is life." For Gogol, the road that connects everything in life is important. In Dead Souls, the road is the goal of writing, the main theme, the essence of the work.

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

In the course of the sociological mini-research conducted by the interview method amongrepresentativesof different social status (management staff, entrepreneurs, employees, workers, students), we found out that most of the respondents (90%) believe that Gogol's dreams of a wonderful future for Russia have not come true, the topics and problems raised by the writer are still relevant today , and the author of an 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 an unambiguous answer.

- If indeed Gogol suffered so much from injustice, then even today it would be painful for him to watch what is happening. Maybe Gogol would have been happier without exaggerating the color. But perhaps then there would not 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 himself which way to go. " (entrepreneur.)

- Gogol is the most modern of all the classics! The topics and issues raised by him are highly relevant! At one time he punished immorality with a pen, suffered, suffered. Even burned II that, having caught himself in embellishing reality ... And what is the result, after a century and a half ?! The idea of \u200b\u200bcreating a work similar to Dead Souls could have occurred to Gogol: as much material as you like! Gogol's talent would have had a lot of space! " (employee)

Conclusion

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

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

We came to the conclusion that if there are works with similar problems and images, then there are reasons for this in the structure of society. This is confirmed by the results of the conducted sociological research.

We hope that Russia will choose the right, "straight" path, especially since Nikolai Gogol cherished this hope until the end of his days.

Literature

    Aksakov K.S. A few words about Gogol's poem "The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls". // Russian criticism from Karamzin to Belinsky. - M., 1981.

    Belinsky V.G. A few words about Gogol's poem "The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls". // Russian criticism from Karamzin to Belinsky. - M., 1981.

    Bulgakov M.A. Adventures of Chichikov. - M .: Fiction, 1991.

    Voronsky A. Gogol. "Dead Souls" -http:// gogol. lit- info. ru/ gogol/ bio/ voronskij/ mertvye- dushi. htm

    Voropaev V.A. N.V. Gogol: life and work. - M .: Publishing house of Moscow. University, 2002.

    Gogol N.V. Dead Souls. - M .: Hood. literature, 1985.

    V.V. Erofeev Moscow - Petushki. - M., 1989.

    Zolotussky I.P. Gogol. - M .: "Young Guard", 1979. -http:// az. lib. ru/ g/ gogolx_ n_ w/ text_0230. shtml

    Mann Yu.V. Poetics of Gogol. - M., 2005.

    Marantzman V.G. Fiction. - M .: Education, 1991. -www. Alib. ru

    Mashinsky S.I. The artistic world of Gogol. - M .: Education, 1971.

    Y. Nechiporenko Cosmogony of Gogol // Literature. - 2002.

    Nikolaev P.A. Gogol's artistic discoveries // N.V. Gogol. Selected works in 2 volumes. Vol. 1. - M .: Fiction, 1978.

    V.V. Rozanov About Gogol. (Appendix of two etudes). -www. nefedor. com. cgi- bin/ hph

    Petelin V.V. M. Bulgakov. - M .: Moscow worker, 1989.

    Shvedova S.O. The satirical and symbolic in Gogol's Dead Souls. // Russian literatureXIX century. From Krylov to Chekhov. - M .: Education, 2000.

    Shevyrev S.P.« Chichikov's Adventures, or Dead Souls ”, a poem by Gogol. Russian criticism of the 18th - 19th centuries. Reader. - M., Education, 1978.

IMAGE OF THE ROAD IN THE POEM BY N.V. GOGOL "DEAD SOULS"

The roads are difficult, but worse without roads ...

The motive of the road in the poem is very multifaceted.

The image of the road is embodied in a direct, non-transferable meaning - this is a flat road along which Chichikov's spring chaise is gently riding ("The horses stirred and carried a light chaise like fluff"), then bumpy country roads, or even impassable mud in which Chichikov falls , getting to Korobochka ("The dust lying on the road quickly mixed into mud, and every minute it became harder for the horses to drag the chaise"). The road promises the traveler a variety of surprises: heading to Sobakevich, Chichikov finds himself at Korobochka, and in front of the coachman Selifan “the roads spread in all directions, like caught crayfish…”.

This motive gets a completely different meaning in the famous lyrical digression of the eleventh chapter: the road with the rushing chaise turns into the path along which Russia flies, "and, looking sideways, other peoples and states look back and give it a path."

In this motive - and the unknown paths of Russian national development: “Russia, where are you rushing, give an answer? Does not give an answer ", representing the opposition to the paths of other peoples:" What curved, deaf, narrow, impassable, leading far to the side of the road mankind chose ... "But it cannot be said that these are the very roads on which Chichikov got lost: those roads lead to to the Russian people, maybe in the backwoods, maybe into a hole where there are no moral principles, but nevertheless these roads make up Russia, Russia itself - and there is a great road leading a person into a huge space, absorbing a person, eating him all. Turning off one road, you find yourself on another, you cannot keep track of all the paths of Russia, just as you cannot collect the caught crayfish back into a bag. It is symbolic that the illiterate girl Pelageya, who does not know where is right or left, points the way to Chichikov from the backwaters of Korobochka. But, getting out of the Korobochka, Chichikov gets to Nozdrev - the road leads Chichikov not to where he wants, but he cannot resist her, although he makes some plans of his own about the future path.

The image of the road embodies both the everyday path of the hero ("but for all that, his road was difficult ..."), and the creative path of the author: "And for a long time it was determined for me by the wonderful power to go arm in arm with my strange heroes ..."

The road is also an assistant to Gogol in creating the composition of the poem, which then looks very rational: the exposition of the travel plot is given in the first chapter (Chichikov gets acquainted with officials and some landowners, receives invitations from them), then five chapters in which the landowners sit, and Chichikov goes from chapter to chapter in his chaise, buying up dead souls.

The main character's chaise is very important. Chichikov is the hero of the journey, and the chaise is his home. This subject detail, being undoubtedly one of the means of creating the image of Chichikov, plays a large plot role: there are many episodes and plot twists of the poem, which are motivated precisely by the chaise. Not only does Chichikov travels in it, that is, thanks to her, the plot of the journey becomes possible; the chaise also motivates the appearance of the characters of Selifan and the three horses; thanks to her, he manages to escape from Nozdryov (that is, the chaise helps Chichikov out); the chaise collides with the carriage of the governor's daughter and thus a lyrical motive is introduced, and at the end of the poem Chichikov even appears as the kidnapper of the governor's daughter. The chaise is a living character: she is endowed with her own will and sometimes disobeys Chichikov and Selifan, goes her own way and, at the end, dumps the rider into impassable mud - so the hero, against his will, gets to Korobochka, who meets him with affectionate words: “Oh, father my, yes you have something like a hog, all back and side in the mud! Where did you get so greasy? In addition, the chaise seems to define the ring composition of the first volume: the poem opens with a conversation between two men about how strong the wheel of the chaise is, and ends with the breakage of that very wheel, which is why Chichikov has to stay in the city.

In creating the image of the road, not only the road itself plays a role, but also the characters, things and events. The road is the main canvas of the poem. Only on it all side plots are already sewn on top. As long as the road goes, life goes on; while life goes on, there is a story about this life.

M.A. Weakus

FESGU, Faculty of Philology, 3 course

SYMBOLIC SPACE "ROAD"

IN THE POEM "DEAD SOULS"

Many studies are devoted to the poem "Dead Souls". The work of the classic was considered in a wide variety of aspects. In the poem, the historical and philosophical plan of the narrative is distinguished, its symbolic polysemy is noted; attention was focused on the special meaning of lyrical digressions. Of course, it cannot be said that the theme of the road in Dead Souls remained outside the field of research attention. On the contrary, it is difficult to find works where this topic is not specified. For the poem, the plot of which is based on the journey, the "wandering" of the character, the image of the road is, of course, key. In this article, the task is to study the symbolic plan of the road image in the poem "Dead Souls".

Understanding the image of the road in Dead Souls has its own tradition. Even Andrei Bely (1880-1934) in his book "The Mastery of Gogol" included the image of the road in the context of his consideration, linked the motives of Chichikov's "leaving", "turning" off the main road with unexpected turns in the logic of events.

In this respect, interesting is the work of M. Gus (1900-1984) "Living Russia and" Dead Souls ", where the author traces the history of Chichikov's travel; proves that in Gogol's poem the reader sees not only a real traveler, but also an invisible one, a kind of lyrical hero who gives his own assessment of Chichikov's deeds.

The most consistently to this image was addressed by I.P. Zolotussky (1930). He devoted two voluminous works to the study of the personality of NV Gogol and his work: "In the footsteps of Gogol" and "Poetry of prose". In the first book devoted to the biography of the writer, the scientist notes that the theme of the road is close to the author of "Dead Souls" also because he himself traveled a lot. In another study, I. Zolotussky draws attention to the ambiguity and multi-meaning of the image of the bird-three, subtly analyzes the solar images of a wheel and a penny.

The work of Yu.M. Lotman (1922-1993) "On the" realism "of Gogol." YM Lotman approached the study of the meaning of the image of the road in the poem from the theoretical point of view. He, following M.M. Bakhtin, calls the road a universal form of organizing space and draws a thin line between the synonyms "way" and "road", delimiting them.

Before proceeding to the direct analysis of the symbolic image of the road used by Nikolai Gogol in Dead Souls, let us recall a small dialogue that opens the narrative: “See you,” one said to the other, “what a wheel! What do you think, if it happened, that wheel will reach Moscow or not? " - "It will get there," answered another. "And in Kazan, I think, will not reach?" "It won't get to Kazan," answered another. "

The dialogue is a dispute between two simple men about a wheel. Chichikov's journey begins with such a conversation. It may seem that this episode presents a very everyday picture and has nothing to do with the further narration, except that the wheel belongs to Chichikov's chaise. However, the dispute that precedes the further narrative carries an important semantic load. In mythology, various representations are associated with the image of the wheel, the common basis of which is the consideration of the image of the wheel as an image of a cyclic rhythm, the continuity of the universe. In the process of reading, the reader repeatedly encounters the motive of a cyclically closed space: the action of the poem begins in the city of N and ends here, while visiting the landowners, Chichikov has to constantly move off the road and return again.

In addition to N.V. Gogol, some other Russian writers also resorted to the image of the wheel, among them A.N. Ostrovsky (1904-1936) can be distinguished. In the play "A Profitable Place", he portrayed fortune in the form of a wheel: "Fate is the same as fortune ... as depicted in the picture ... a wheel, and people on it ... rises up and again falls down, rises and then resigns, exalted by himself and again nothing ... so everything is circular. Arrange your well-being, work, acquire property ... ascend in dreams ... and suddenly you are naked! " ... Chichikov's life path from his arrival in the city of N to his exposure at the governor's ball appears to the reader like a fortune.

Despite the importance of the image of the wheel in the construction of the plot of the poem, the image of the road plays a central role. The chronotope of the road is the main way of organizing the artistic space in a work. MM Bakhtin (1895-1975) in his work "Epos and Novel", along with the chronotope of the road, highlights the associated chronotope of the meeting and says that the "road" is a preferential place of chance encounters. On the road, the paths of the most diverse people intersect - representatives of all classes, conditions and ages. Here, the ranks of human destinies and lives are uniquely combined. The “road” is the tie-in point and the place where things happen. On the road, the socio-historical diversity of the country is revealed and shown.

And if we turn to Slavic mythology close to Gogol, it turns out that here the “road” is a ritually and sacred significant locus. This definition reflects the multifaceted metaphorization of the path-road: "life path", "embark on a new road", "historical path". The connection of the road with the semantics of the path makes it a place where fate is recognized, good luck or failure manifests itself, which are realized during random encounters with people and animals. The mythological semantics and ritual functions of the road are most pronounced at the intersection of two or more roads, at the forks. The motive of the road is very close to N.V. Gogol. The action of many of his works takes place on the road. From the road leading to Sorochintsy, his first story opens, and the last one ends on the road ("Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka"); "Dead Souls" is Chichikov's road.

The road in the poem is given in several semantic plans. First of all, the chronotope of the road helps the author to most fully reveal to the reader the nature of Chichikov's adventure with dead souls. In addition, the lyrical aspect of considering the image of the road cannot be ignored. The author skillfully introduces lyrical digressions into the structure of the narrative, thanks to which the road comes to life and becomes a full-fledged hero of the poem.

Let us consider the image of the road as the life path of Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov. It would be expedient to compare the fate of Chichikov, revealed to the reader on the pages of the poem, with the "wheel of fortune" of NA Ostrovsky. Indeed, the story of Chichikov is the story of his gradual ascent and loud fall.

From the first pages of the poem, Chichikov's arrival does not make any noise in the provincial town of N. Quietly and imperceptibly, the chaise on soft springs rolled up to the hotel gates. Here, in the city, the plot begins. Here, the semi-mysterious Chichikov makes acquaintances, and, as in the prologue, almost all the characters pass.

The movement starts from the second chapter. Chichikov, warming his insidious plans in his heart, decides to go out of town. The first landowner he visited was Manilov. Chichikov's departure made much more noise in the city than his recent arrival. Brichka with thunder left the hotel. On the way, the carriage attracted the attention of the passing townspeople: “The passing priest took off his hat, several boys in soiled shirts stretched out their hands, saying:“ Master, give it to the lilac. ” Special attention should be paid to the orphan's appeal to our hero: "Master". Here one can see a hint of ambition, the cherished dream of Chichikov, striving to make his way from a simple gentleman, as Gogol describes him in the first chapter, from "neither one thing nor another, to a" gentleman, "before whom they even take off their hats. The action develops according to the "law of the wheel".

At the same time, Gogol describes urban and suburban roads. As soon as the chaise drove onto the pavement, she jumped over the stones. The pavement is compared here with flour, from which the coachman Selifan, like many others, sees in the striped barrier. Having driven off the pavement, the heroes rushed along the soft ground. A sharp dissonance is caused by the description of a suburban road: “As soon as the city went back, as they already went to write, according to our custom, nonsense and game on both sides of the road: bumps, spruce forest, low liquid bushes of young pines, burnt trunks of old ones, wild heather and the like. nonsense. "

Thus, Chichikov from the environment of the upper world, balls, plunges into a lower environment, the environment of the village, where all the time he will have to see dust and dirt. The words with which the author characterizes the suburban road are significant - "nonsense and game". The fact is that Chichikov's adventures are not an easy journey along a light pole road, on the contrary, he has to wander, turning off the main road into lanes.

Despite the impending success of the deal with Manilov, the path to it turned out to be quite difficult for the character. As soon as he left the city road onto the pole, Chichikov got lost. He drives fifteen versts, then sixteenth, but still does not see the village. The narrator explains this phenomenon as a typical trait of a Russian person: "if a friend invites him to his village fifteen miles away, it means that there are thirty faithful to it." The further route to Manilovka was suggested by the peasants met by Chichikov. The description of the road leading to the village is noteworthy: “If you drive a mile, so straight to the right. There is a master's house on the mountain. " A very important detail is presented here. Chichikov, driving off the road, turns right... Twists and turns, twists and turns from now on become an effective beginning of Chichikov's dubious wanderings. If you graphically depict Chichikov's turn from the high road and his return to it, then you get a circle, that is, a symbolic image of a wheel, a cyclic rhythm. Repeated repetition of a certain action evokes associations with the performance of a certain ritual. It has already been noted that it is at the intersection of the road that its mythological and sacred meaning is manifested to a greater extent. It can be assumed that the turn of Chichikov's carriage to the right before visiting the landlords and making a deed of purchase with them is a kind of ritual, a kind of spell for good luck.

So, having made a turn to the right, Chichikov goes to the village of Manilova. According to the "law of the wheel" this deal, the first for the hero, ended more than successfully. He hastens to return to the high road to go to Sobakevich. Being in a contented mood, Chichikov does not pay any attention to the road that rushes past the window. The coachman Selifan is also busy with his reflections. Only a strong thunderclap made both of them wake up. Sunny moods are instantly replaced by gloomy ones.

Heavenly colors are thickened by clouds, and the dusty road is sprayed with raindrops, which makes it muddy, clayey and viscous. The result is a very believable plunge into darkness. Soon the rain intensifies so that the road becomes invisible. Thus, fate, or the author's imperious hand, makes Chichikov's chaise turn from the main path to the side one. The coachman Selifan, unable to remember how many turns he drove, turns right again.

The author draws a clear line between the wide and light pole road and the lane into which the heroes moved. It is not for nothing that the soil around the bend is compared to a furrowed field. The collisions of Chichikov's travel were convincingly explained by DS Merezhkovsky (1865-1941) in his work "Gogol and the Devil": the high road for Chichikov is a bright, kind and true path in his life. But, obsessed with the idea of \u200b\u200bgetting rich, he is forced to fold and move along a different path, a dark one. But even at bends Chichikov encounters trouble: "He [Selifan] began to slightly turn the chaise, turn and turn, and finally turned it completely on its side." Chichikov's chaise will be smeared with mud more than once. Let us recall the girl whom Korobochka sends along with the crew to show the guests the high road. She, standing with one foot on the lord's step, "first soiled it with mud, and then climbed to the top." Secondly, the rain that passed the day before also makes itself felt. The author describes how the wheels of the chaise, gripping the dirty soil, "soon became covered with it like felt." Do not these details play the role of a prediction, a warning of Chichikov's adventure? Focusing on such details, Gogol points out that Chichikov is pursuing his very noble goal - to get rich - with completely ignoble means. This is expressed in the fact that, striving for the heights, he steps into the mud, and this path seems to him the easiest. However, having committed such an offense once, he is no longer able to give up an easy "profit", as a result of which he has to plunge there repeatedly, as evidenced by the image of a wheel covered with mud, like felt. In the short term, Chichikov will face an almost heroic "fight" with the local landowner Korobochka; and a little further he will fall into the mud, but already in a figurative sense, at the governor's ball. This once again confirms that the action of the poem develops according to the “law of the wheel”.

In the poem "Dead Souls", along with the "living" heroes who appear before the reader in human form, there are heroes "inanimate" - the wheel and the road - which, nevertheless, carry a very important semantic load. The wheel acts as an identifier, or litmus test, which very soon indicates changes in the personality of the protagonist, be they external or internal. Yesterday, cheerful and dreamy, today the coachman Selifan, leaving Korobochka, "is stern all the way and at the same time very attentive." Once at Nozdryov, Chichikov and some other characters immediately went to inspect his possessions. NV Gogol describes them in the following ways: “Nozdryov led his guests over a field, which in many places consisted of hummocks. The guests had to make their way between fallows and furrowed fields. In many places, their feet squeezed water under them. " The author also awards this road with the epithet “disgusting”. It is noteworthy that the character of Nozdryov himself was similar to this hilly and "nasty" road.

Soon Chichikov, realizing the mistake of visiting Nozdryov, and most importantly, his initiation into his plans, at all times rushes away from the village. The entire crew, including the horses harnessed to it, turns out to be out of sorts, so few people pay attention to the road. And again, describing the circle, we return to the case when Chichikov, being in a dreamy state of mind, was driving from Manilov. The road does not forgive an inattentive attitude towards itself - a well-known wisdom. This is also conceived according to the plot of N.V. Gogol. This time our heroes "came to their senses and woke up only when a carriage with six horses galloped on them, and almost over their heads there was heard the cry of the ladies sitting in it, the abuse and threats of another coachman." Let us remind that the motive of the meeting is an important detail of the chronotope of the road. M.M. Bakhtin, as noted above, said that the preferred place for random meetings is precisely the road.

The meeting with the ladies plays an important role in the further development of the plot. She prepares Chichikov for the governor's ball, at which he will rotate among many representatives of high society. Some researchers, in particular D.S. Merezhkovsky, see the main positive idea of \u200b\u200bthe hero in relation to Chichikov to a beautiful girl - the idea of \u200b\u200b"chicks and Chichonoks", which, however, is aimed only at the complete assertion of his own existence. However, Chichikov's admiration reveals his next desire for a “penny”. After all, our hero, having barely uttered “Glorious babushka!”, Begins to think about her position in society: “And it would be curious to know whose she is? What, how is her father? Is it a rich landowner of a venerable disposition or just a good-minded person with capital acquired in the service? After all, if, let's say, this girl was given a dowry of two hundred and twenty, a very, very tasty morsel could come out of her. ”

The trip to Sobakevich was supposed to be Chichikov's last visit for "dead souls", but here he learns about Plyushkin, a local landowner whose peasants "die like flies." Gogol does not go into the description of the road from Sobakevich to Plyushkin. The fact is that at this stage of the trip, the reader is distracted by Chichikov's lyrical digression and meditations over the nickname the men gave to Plyushkin. As a result, the author, in an effort to catch up with the loss of pace, takes a number of measures to draw the reader's attention to the new cycle. Thus, the description of the road appears before us only at the entrance to the village. Here the heroes were greeted with a "respectable push" by the pavement: "its logs, like piano keys, rose up and down, and the unprotected rider acquired either a bump on the back of his head, or a blue spot on his forehead, or it happened to bite off the tip of his own tongue with his own teeth." ... The log pavement is a reminder of the city pavement, which became a real torment for the coachman Selifan. Note that Gogol strengthens the description of the village pavement in order to indicate the degree of devastation that reigned in Plyushkin's estate. However, just like the first time, Chichikov's torment promises him good luck. We see the successful completion of the transaction and the departure of the chaise to the city.

The plot of N.V. Gogol's poem is built according to the law of a ring composition. Chichikov returns to the provincial town of N, from which his journey began, but returns in a different status: he is famous and “rich”. This fact is another reminder that the action of the poem is based on the “law of the wheel”, which we discussed at the very beginning.

So, returning to the city, Chichikov makes the deed of sale. Like a talisman, Manilov accompanies him everywhere. Sobakevich is present at the signing of the papers. It is noteworthy that none of them mentions that the souls are dead, and the papers are just fiction. Thus, the author in every possible way postpones the time of exposure, thereby giving Chichikov, as well as himself, the opportunity to carefully prepare for the meeting. The deal, meanwhile, has been successfully completed, and the main scene is transferred to the governor's ball. Both governor's balls (the first - acquaintance with Chichikov, general sympathy for him, the beginning of his success; the second - in fact, farewell to him, scandal, growing suspicion) form a symmetrical structure in the form of a frame structure. A visit to the chamber, a conversation with its chairman and the execution of a deed form a connecting link, strictly speaking, which does not have an independent compositional meaning within the fragment under consideration, but is actualized in connection with the theme of the later scandal associated with the exposure of Chichikov.

Nozdryov was called upon to dispel the aura of lies around the figure of Chichikov. He planted a seed of doubt in the minds of those present, which changed the attitude towards Chichikov to the diametrically opposite. Korobochka was called to complete the business, and she appeared in the city, worried if she had made a bad deal with the sale of "dead souls". The unmasked Chichikov soon leaves the ill-fated city of N: "Our hero, sitting better on the Georgian rug, put a leather pillow behind his back, squeezed two hot rolls, and the crew went to dance and sway." It is noteworthy that NV Gogol ends the story of Chichikov with the very gallery of images of nature with which he opens it: “Meanwhile, the chaise turned into deserted streets; only long wooden fences were soon drawn, heralding the end of the city. Now the pavement has ended, and the barrier, and the city back, and there is nothing, and again on the road. " This description, along with other events, forms the ring (or frame) composition of the poem.

Summing up the results of the study of the symbolic meaning of the road image in Nikolai Gogol's poem "Dead Souls", it is necessary to speak about the multifunctionality of this image. First of all, as noted by M.M. Bakhtin, the chronotope of the road serves as the main way of organizing the artistic space and, thereby, contributes to the movement of the plot. Along with this, we note that the image of the road within the framework of this poem is closely related to the image of the wheel, which, in turn, contributes to the formation of certain circles, cycles in the work.

Notes

    Bely, A. The Mastery of Gogol: A Study. - M .: MALP, 1996 .-- 351 p.

    Gus, M.S. Living Russia and "Dead Souls". - M .: Soviet writer, 1981 .-- 336 p.

    Zolotussky, I.P. In the footsteps of Gogol. - M .: Children's literature, 1984 .-- 191 p.

    Zolotussky, I.P. Poetry of prose: articles about Gogol. - M .: Soviet writer, 1987 .-- 240 p.

    Lotman, Yu.M. About Gogol's "realism". // Gogol in Russian Criticism: Anthology / Compiled by S.G. Bocharov. - M .: Fortuna EL, 2008 .-- p. 630-652

    Gogol, N.V. Dead Souls. // Collected works in 7 volumes. / under the general editorship of S.I. Mashinsky and M.B. Khrapchenko. - M .: Fiction, 1978.vol. 5.

    Ostrovsky, A.N. Plum. // Collected works in 3 volumes. - M .: Fiction, 1987.volume 1.

    Bakhtin, M.M. Epic and novel. - SPb .: Azbuka, 2000 .-- 304 p.

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  1. Answers to exam questions on literature 11th grade 2005.

    Cheat sheet \u003e\u003e Literature and Russian language

    ... Souls « dead " and "live" in poem N.V. Gogol " The dead souls "... (Ticket 10) 20. Lyrical digressions in poem N. V. Gogol " The dead souls " ... narratives introduced huge geographic space: Polovtsian steppe. ... longing ("Winter road"), torments the soul ...

  2. Answers to exam questions on literature 11th grade 2006

    Cheat sheet \u003e\u003e Literature and Russian language

    My decent creation. "Why poem? "The dead souls " thought by analogy with ... Russia. Not only in the airless space fantasy, but also in a certain, ... iron road "... Iron road here is the image symbolic... Before us is an iron road life ...

  3. A word about Igor's regiment. Basic images. The idea of \u200b\u200bpatriotism

    Abstract \u003e\u003e Literature and Russian language

    ... "On the railway road " - not difficult to conduct ... develops into symbolicreceiving ... the scale of the space and time ... The dead souls " poem. « The dead souls " N.V. Gogol. The meaning of the name and the originality of the genre. The concept " dead