Plushkin's favorite activities for dead souls. Plyushkin is a characteristic of the hero of the poem “Dead Souls. Appearance and condition of the suit

"Dead Souls" had no idea what kind of bright personalities he would meet. In all the variety of characters in the work, the curmudgeon and miser Stepan Plyushkin stands apart. The rest of the rich in literary work are shown statically, and this landowner has his own life story.

History of creation

The idea behind the work belongs to. Once a great Russian writer told Nikolai Gogol a story of fraud, which he heard during his exile in Chisinau. In the Moldavian city of Bender in recent years, only people of military ranks have died, ordinary mortals were in no hurry to the next world. The strange phenomenon was simply explained - hundreds of fugitive peasants from the center of Russia were drawn to Bessarabia at the beginning of the 19th century, and during the investigation it turned out that the "passport data" of the deceased were appropriated by the fugitives.

Gogol considered the idea a genius and, on reflection, invented a plot in which an enterprising person became the protagonist, who enriched himself by selling "dead souls" to the board of trustees. The idea seemed interesting to him because it opened up the opportunity to create an epic work, to show through a scattering of characters all of Mother Russia, which the writer had long dreamed of.

Work on the poem started in 1835. At that time, Nikolai Vasilyevich spent most of the year abroad, trying to forget the scandal that erupted after the production of the play "The Inspector General". According to the plan, the plot was supposed to take three volumes, but in general the work was defined as comic, humorous.

However, neither one nor the other was destined to come true. The poem turned out to be gloomy, revealing all the vices of the country. The author burned the manuscript of the second book, but never proceeded to the third. Of course, Moscow flatly refused to publish a literary work, but the critic Vissarion Belinsky volunteered to help the writer, pleading with the St. Petersburg censors.

A miracle happened - the poem was allowed to be published, only on the condition that the title will acquire a small addition to divert one's eyes from the serious problems raised: "The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls." In this form, in 1842, the poem went to the reader. Gogol's new work again found itself in the epicenter of a scandal, because the landowners and officials clearly saw their images in it.

Gogol had a brilliant idea - first he showed the shortcomings of Russian life, then he planned to describe the ways of resurrecting “dead souls”. Some researchers associate the idea of ​​the poem with the “Divine Comedy”: the first volume is “hell”, the second is “purgatory”, and the third is “heaven”.

It is believed that Plyushkin was supposed to transform from a greedy old man into a wanderer-benefactor who tries in every possible way to help the poor. But Nikolai Gogol did not manage to convincingly describe the ways of human rebirth, which he himself admitted after burning the manuscript.

Image and character

The image of a half-crazy landowner in the work is the most vivid of all those who meet on the path of the protagonist Chichikov. It is Plyushkin that the writer gives the most complete description, looking even into the character's past. This is a lonely widower who cursed his daughter who left with her lover and his son who lost in cards.

Periodically, the daughter and her grandchildren visit the old man, but she does not receive any help from him - only indifference. Educated and intelligent in his youth, a man eventually turned into a "worn-out wreck", a grouch and a bummer with a bad character, becoming a laughing stock even for the servants.

The work contains a detailed description of Plyushkin's appearance. He walked around the house in a decrepit dressing gown ("... which was not only ashamed to look at, but even ashamed to look at"), and he appeared at the table in a shabby, but quite neat frock coat without a single patch. At the first meeting, Chichikov could not understand who was in front of him, a woman or a man: a creature of indeterminate gender was moving around the house, and the buyer of dead souls took him for a housekeeper.

The avarice of the character is on the verge of insanity. In his possession there are 800 serf souls, barns are full of rotting food. But Plyushkin does not allow his hungry peasants to touch the food, and he is uncompromising with dealers "like a devil", so the merchants stopped coming to buy goods. In his own bedroom, a man carefully folds the found feathers and pieces of paper, and in the corner of one of the rooms there is a pile of "good", picked up on the street.

Life goals are reduced to the accumulation of wealth - this problem often acts as an argument for writing essays on the exam. The meaning of the image lies in the fact that Nikolai Vasilyevich tried to show how painful avarice kills a bright and strong personality.

Increasing goodness is Plyushkin's favorite pastime, as evidenced by even a change in speech. At first the old curmudgeon meets Chichikov with caution, specifying that "there is no use at a party." But, having learned the purpose of the visit, displeased grumbling gives way to undisguised joy, and the main character of the poem turns into a "priest", a "benefactor."

The cheapskate's lexicon contains a whole dictionary of swear words and expressions, from "fool" and "robber" to "devils will bake you" and "canal". The landowner, who has lived all his life in the circle of peasants, has a speech replete with common folk words.

Plyushkin's house resembles a medieval castle, but battered by time: there are cracks in the walls, some of the windows are boarded up with boards so that no one can see the riches hiding in the dwelling. Gogol managed to combine the character traits and image of the hero with his house with the phrase:

"All this was dumped into the storerooms, and everything became rot and a hole, and he himself turned, at last, into some kind of hole in humanity."

Screen adaptations

Gogol's work has been staged in Russian cinema five times. Based on the story, they also created two cartoons: “The Adventures of Chichikov. Manilov "and" The Adventures of Chichikov. Nozdryov ".

Dead Souls (1909)

In the era of the formation of cinema, Pyotr Chardinin undertook to capture the adventures of Chichikov on film. A dumb short film with a truncated Gogol plot was filmed in a railway club. And since the experiments in the cinema were just beginning, the tape turned out to be unsuccessful due to improperly selected lighting. The stingy Plyushkin was played by the theatrical actor Adolf Georgievsky.

Dead Souls (1960)

The film-performance based on the production of the Moscow Art Theater was directed by Leonid Trauberg. A year after the premiere, the film won the Critics Prize at the Monte Carlo Festival.

The film stars Vladimir Belokurov (Chichikov), (Nozdrev), (Korobochka) and even (the modest role of a waiter, the actor did not even make the credits). And Plyushkin was brilliantly played by Boris Petker.

Dead Souls (1969)

Another television show conceived by the director Alexander Belinsky. According to moviegoers, this film adaptation is the best film performance of an imperishable work.

The film also involves bright actors of Soviet cinema: (Nozdrev), (Manilov), (Chichikov). The role of Plyushkin went to Alexander Sokolov.

Dead Souls (1984)

The five-episode series, directed by Mikhail Schweitzer, was shown on central television.

Leonid Yarmolnik was reincarnated as a greedy landowner - the actor is called Plyushkin in the film.

• The meaning of the character's name is based on the motive of self-denial. Gogol created a paradoxical metaphor: a ruddy bun - a symbol of wealth, satiety, joyful contentment - is contrasted with the “moldy rusks” for which the colors of life have long since faded.
• The surname Plyushkin has become a household name. This is what they call overly thrifty, manic greedy people. In addition, the passion for storing old, useless things is a typical behavior of people with a mental disorder, which is called Plyushkin's syndrome in medicine.

Quotes

"After all, the devil only knows, maybe he is just a braggart, like all these little girls: he will lie, he will lie to talk and get some tea, and then he will leave!"

"I live in my seventh decade!"

"Plyushkin muttered something through his lips, for there were no teeth."

“If Chichikov had met him, so dressed up, somewhere at the church doors, he would probably have given him a copper penny. But before him stood not a beggar, before him stood a landowner. "

“I don’t even advise you to know the way to this dog! - said Sobakevich. "It is more excuse to go to some obscene place than to him."

“But there was a time when he was only a thrifty owner! He was married and a family man, and a neighbor stopped by to dine with him, listen and learn from him about the economy and wise stinginess. "

The answer left the guest

Plyushkin is among the avaricious heroes in world literature: Shylock W. Shakespeare, Gobsek O. Balzac, The Covetous Knight A. Pushkin. The miser-waster is the essence of Plyushkin's character.

Plyushkin occupies a special place in the Dead Souls character system. "Hero ... with development."

Only Plyushkin has a life story; Gogol portrays all the other landowners statically. These heroes, as it were, do not have a past that would be at least somehow different from the present and would explain something in it. (Nozdryov "at thirty-five years old was exactly the same as he was at eighteen and twenty ...") If there is no past, there is no future either. Gogol intended to revive the two heroes of Dead Souls in subsequent volumes of Chichikov and Plyushkin. And it is they in the poem - the heroes "with development." Plyushkin's character is much more complex than the characters of other landowners presented in Dead Souls.

In Plyushkin, traits of manic avarice are combined with morbid suspicion and distrust of people. Preserving an old sole, a clay shard, a carnation or a horseshoe, he turns all his wealth into dust and dust: bread rotting in thousands of poods, many canvases, cloths, sheepskins, wood, dishes disappear. Taking care of an insignificant trifle, showing penny stinginess, he loses hundreds and thousands, blowing his fortune down the wind, ruining his family and home, family estate.

The image of Plyushkin is fully consistent with the picture of his estate, which appears before the reader. The same decay and decay, the absolute loss of human appearance: the owner of a noble estate looks like an old woman who is a housekeeper.

“But there was a time when he was just a thrifty owner!” During this period of his history, he seemed to combine the most characteristic features of other landowners: they learned from him to manage, like Sobakevich, he was an exemplary family man, like Manilov, busy, like a box. However, already at this stage of his life, Plyushkin is compared to a spider: "... everywhere, the keen gaze of the owner entered everything and, like a hardworking spider, ran ... at all ends of his economic web." Entangled in the nets of the "economic web", Plyushkin completely forgets about his own soul and someone else's. No wonder the observant Chichikov, in a conversation with him, hastens to replace the words "virtue" and "rare properties of the soul" with "economy" and "order."

The moral degradation of Plyushkin is not so much due to biographical reasons (the death of his wife, the flight of the eldest daughter with "the head-captain, God knows what cavalry regiment", the disobedience of his son, who went to the regiment against the will of his father, finally the death of his last daughter), but because " human feelings, which ... were not deep in him, were shallowing every minute, and every day something was lost in this worn-out ruin. "

Gogol sees the reason for Plyushkin's spiritual devastation in indifference to his own soul. The author's discourses about the gradual cooling, hardening of the human soul, with which he opens the chapter about Plyushkin, are woeful. For the first time in the poem, the author, after describing Plyushkin, directly addresses the reader with a warning: "Take with you on the road, leaving your mild youthful years into severe, hardening courage, take with you all human movements, do not leave them on the road, do not pick them up later!"

The image of Plyushkin completes the gallery of provincial landowners. It is, as it were, the last degree of moral decline. Why is it not Manilov, Sobakevich, or Korobochka called the terrible Gogolian word "a hole in humanity", namely Plyushkin? On the one hand, Gogol views Plyushkin as a unique, exceptional phenomenon in Russian life ("... such a phenomenon rarely comes across in Russia, where everything loves to turn around rather than shrink"). On the other hand, he is related to the heroes of the poem by lack of spirituality, pettiness of interests, lack of deep feelings and lofty thoughts. Among the "dead inhabitants, terrifying with the immobile coldness of their souls and the emptiness of their hearts," Plyushkin occupies a worthy place as the logical completion of the process of dehumanizing man.

Plyushkin is among the avaricious heroes in world literature: Shylock W. Shakespeare, Gobsek O. Balzac, The Covetous Knight A. Pushkin. The miser-waster is the essence of Plyushkin's character.

Plyushkin occupies a special place in the Dead Souls character system. "Hero ... with development".

Only Plyushkin has a life story; Gogol portrays all the other landowners statically. These heroes, as it were, do not have a past that would be at least somehow different from the present and would explain something in it. (Nozdryov “at thirty-five years old was exactly the same as he was at eighteen and twenty ...“) If there is no past, there is no future either. Gogol intended to resurrect two heroes of Dead Souls in subsequent volumes of Chichikov and Plyushkin. And they are the ones in the poem - the heroes "with development." Plyushkin's character is much more complex than the characters of other landowners presented in Dead Souls.

In Plyushkin, traits of manic avarice are combined with morbid suspicion and distrust of people. Preserving an old sole, a clay shard, a carnation or a horseshoe, he turns all his wealth into dust and dust: bread rotting in thousands of poods, many canvases, cloths, sheepskins, wood, dishes disappear. Taking care of an insignificant trifle, showing penny stinginess, he loses hundreds and thousands, blowing his fortune down the wind, ruining his family and home, family estate.

The image of Plyushkin is fully consistent with the picture of his estate, which appears before the reader. The same decay and decay, the absolute loss of human appearance: the owner of a noble estate looks like an old woman who is a housekeeper.

“But there was a time when he was only a thrifty owner! “During this period of his history he, as it were, combines the most characteristic features of other landowners: they learned from him to manage, like Sobakevich, he was an exemplary family man, like Manilov, and troublesome like Korobochka. However, already at this stage of his life, Plyushkin is compared to a spider: “… everywhere, the keen gaze of the owner entered everything and, like a hardworking spider, ran…. at all ends of their economic web. " Entangled in the nets of the "economic web", Plyushkin completely forgets about his soul and someone else's. No wonder the observant Chichikov in a conversation with him hastens to replace the words "virtue" and "rare properties of the soul" with "economy" and "order."

The moral degradation of Plyushkin occurs not so much due to biographical reasons (the death of his wife, the flight of the eldest daughter with "the head-captain, God knows what cavalry regiment", the disobedience of his son, against the will of his father, who went to the regiment, finally, the death of the last daughter), but because " human feelings that ... were not deep in it, were shallow every minute, and every day something was lost in this worn-out ruin. "

Gogol sees the reason for Plyushkin's spiritual devastation in indifference to his own soul. The author's discourses about the gradual cooling, hardening of the human soul, with which he opens the chapter about Plyushkin, are woeful. For the first time in the poem, the author, after describing Plyushkin, directly addresses the reader with a warning: “Take with you on the road, leaving your mild youthful years into severe hardening courage, take with you all human movements, do not leave them on the road, do not pick them up later! "

The image of Plyushkin completes the gallery of provincial landowners. It is, as it were, the last degree of moral decline. Why was it not Manilov, Sobakevich, or Korobochka called the terrible Gogolian word “a hole in humanity”, namely Plyushkin? On the one hand, Gogol views Plyushkin as a unique, exceptional phenomenon in Russian life ("... such a phenomenon rarely comes across in Russia, where everything loves to turn around rather than shrink"). On the other hand, he is related to the heroes of the poem by lack of spirituality, pettiness of interests, lack of deep feelings and lofty thoughts. Among the “dead inhabitants, fearful by the motionless coldness of their souls and the emptiness of their hearts,” Plyushkin occupies a worthy place as the logical completion of the process of dehumanizing a person.

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In Gogol's poem "Dead Souls" all the characters have the traits of a collective and typical character. Each of the landowners whom Chichikov visits with his strange request for the sale and purchase of "dead souls" personifies one of the characteristic images of the landowners of Gogol's modernity. Gogol's poem in terms of describing the characters of the landowners is interesting primarily because Nikolai Vasilyevich was a foreigner in relation to the Russian people, he was closer to Ukrainian society, so Gogol was able to notice the specific character traits and behavior of certain types of people.

Plyushkin's age and appearance

One of the landowners Chichikov visits is Plyushkin. Until the moment of personal acquaintance, Chichikov already knew something about this landowner - mainly information about his stinginess. Chichikov knew that thanks to this trait, Plyushkin's serfs "die like flies," and those who did not die flee from him.

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In the eyes of Chichikov, Plyushkin became an important candidate - he had the opportunity to buy up many “dead souls”.

However, Chichikov was not ready to see Plyushkin's estate and get to know him personally - the picture that opened before him plunged him into bewilderment, Plyushkin himself did not stand out from the general background either.

To his horror, Chichikov realized that the person he took for the housekeeper was not really the housekeeper, but the landowner Plyushkin himself. Plyushkin could be mistaken for anyone, but not for the richest landowner in the district: he was excessively skinny, his face was slightly elongated and just as terribly thin as his body. His eyes were small and unusually lively for an old man. The chin was very long. His appearance was complemented by a toothless mouth.

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Plyushkin's clothes were absolutely not like clothes, they could hardly even be called that. Plyushkin paid absolutely no attention to his costume - he wore off to such an extent that his clothes looked like rags. Plyushkin could have been mistaken for a vagabond.

Natural senile processes were added to this look - at the time of the story, Plyushkin was about 60 years old.

The problem of the first name and the meaning of the last name

Plyushkin's name never appears in the text, it is likely that this was done on purpose. In this way, Gogol emphasizes Plyushkin's aloofness, the callousness of his character and the absence of a humanistic principle in the landowner.

In the text, however, there is a moment that can help to reveal the name of Plyushkin. The landowner from time to time calls his daughter by her patronymic - Stepanovna, this fact gives the right to say that Plyushkin was called Stepan.

It is unlikely that the name of this character has been chosen as a specific symbol. Translated from the Greek, Stepan means "a crown, a diadem" and indicates a permanent attribute of the goddess Hera. It is unlikely that this information was decisive when choosing a name, which cannot be said about the hero's surname.

In the Russian language, the word "plushkin" is used to nominate a person distinguished by stinginess and mania to accumulate a raw material and material base without any purpose.

Plyushkin's marital status

At the time of the narration, Plyushkin is a lonely person leading an ascetic lifestyle. He has been a widow for a long time. Once upon a time, Plyushkin's life was different - his wife brought the meaning of life into Plyushkin's being, she stimulated the emergence of positive qualities in him, contributed to the emergence of humanistic qualities. They had three children in their marriage - two girls and a boy.

At that time, Plyushkin was not at all like a petty miser. He gladly received guests, was a sociable and open person.

Plyushkin was never a spender, but his stinginess had its own reasonable limits. His clothes were not new - he usually wore a frock coat, he was noticeably worn, but he looked very decent, he didn't even have a single patch on.

Reasons for character change

After the death of his wife, Plyushkin completely succumbed to his grief and apathy. Most likely, he did not have a predisposition to communicate with children, he was little interested in and carried away by the process of upbringing, so the motivation to live and be reborn for the sake of children did not work for him.

In the future, he begins to develop a conflict with older children - as a result, they, tired of constant grumbling and deprivation, leave their father's house without his permission. The daughter gets married without Plyushkin's blessing, and the son starts military service. Such liberty became the cause of Plyushkin's anger - he curses his children. The son was categorical towards his father - he completely broke off contact with him. The daughter still did not abandon her father, despite such an attitude towards her relatives, from time to time she visits the old man and brings her children to him. Plyushkin does not like to bother with his grandchildren and takes their meetings extremely cool.

Plyushkin's youngest daughter died as a child.

Thus, Plyushkin remained alone in his large estate.

Plyushkin's estate

Plyushkin was considered the richest landowner in the district, but Chichikov, who arrived at his estate, thought it was a joke - Plyushkin's estate was in a dilapidated state - the house had not been renovated for many years. Moss could be seen on the wooden elements of the house, the windows in the house were boarded up - it seemed that no one really lived here.

Plyushkin's house was huge, now it was empty - in the whole house Plyushkin lived alone. Due to its desolation, the house resembled an ancient castle.

Inside, the house was not much different from the exterior. Since most of the windows in the house were blocked, it was incredibly dark in the house and it was difficult to see anything. The only place where sunlight penetrated was Plyushkin's private rooms.

An incredible mess reigned in Plyushkin's room. It seems that it was never cleaned here - everything was covered in cobwebs and dust. Broken things were scattered everywhere, which Plyushkin did not dare to throw away, as he thought that he might still need them.

Garbage was also not thrown anywhere, but was piled up right there in the room. Plyushkin's desk was no exception - important papers and documents were mixed with rubbish here.

A huge garden grows behind Plyushkin's house. Like everything else in the estate, it is in disrepair. No one has looked after the trees for a long time, the garden is overgrown with weeds and small bushes that are entwined with hops, but even in this form the garden is beautiful, it stands out sharply against the background of desolate houses and dilapidated buildings.

Features of Plyushkin's relationship with serfs

Plyushkin is far from the ideal landowner; he behaves rudely and cruelly with his serfs. Sobakevich, talking about his attitude to the serfs, claims that Plyushkin starves his subjects, which significantly increases the mortality rate among the serfs. The appearance of Plyushkin's serfs confirms these words - they are too thin, immensely skinny.

Not surprisingly, many serfs run away from Plyushkin - life on the run is more attractive.

Sometimes Plyushkin pretends to take care of his serfs - he goes into the kitchen and checks if they are eating well. However, he does this for a reason - while he is undergoing control over the quality of food, Plyushkin manages to gorge himself from the heart. Of course, this trick did not hide from the peasants and became a subject for discussion.

Plyushkin all the time accuses his serfs of theft and fraud - he believes that the peasants are always trying to rob him. But the situation looks completely different - Plyushkin intimidated his peasants so much that they are afraid to take at least something for themselves without the knowledge of the landowner.

The tragedy of the situation is also created by the fact that Plyushkin's warehouse is bursting with food, almost all of this falls into disrepair and is then thrown away. Of course, Plyushkin could give the surplus to his serfs, thereby improving living conditions and raising his authority in their eyes, but greed prevails - it is easier for him to throw out unusable things than to do a good deed.

Characteristics of personal qualities

In old age, Plyushkin became an unpleasant type due to his quarrelsome nature. People began to shy away from him, neighbors and friends began to call in less and less, and then completely stopped communicating with him.

After the death of his wife, Plyushkin preferred a secluded way of life. He believed that guests are always harmful - instead of doing something really useful, you have to spend time in empty conversations.

By the way, this position of Plyushkin did not bring the desired results - his estate confidently fell into desolation until it finally took on the appearance of an abandoned village.

In the life of the old man, Plyushkin, there are only two joys - scandals and the accumulation of finances and raw materials. Sincerely speaking, he gives himself to one and the other with a soul.

Plyushkin surprisingly has a talent for noticing any little things and even the most insignificant flaws. In other words, he's overly picky about people. He is not able to express his remarks calmly - mostly he shouts and scolds his servants.

Plyushkin is incapable of doing something good. He is a callous and cruel man. He is indifferent to the fate of his children - he has lost touch with his son, while his daughter periodically tries to go to reconciliation, but the old man stops these attempts. He believes that they have a selfish goal - the daughter and son-in-law want to enrich themselves at his expense.

Thus, Plyushkin is a terrible landowner who lives for a certain purpose. In general, he is endowed with negative character traits. The landowner himself is not aware of the true results of his actions - he seriously thinks that he is a caring landowner. In fact, he is a tyrant, destroying and destroying the fate of people.

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

Plyushkin. Drawing by Kukryniksy

Plyushkin can be compared with a "stingy knight", the only difference being that in Pushkin's "stinginess" is presented in a tragic light, in Gogol in a comic one. Pushkin showed what made gold with a valiant man, a big man - Gogol in Dead Souls showed how he perverted a penny of an ordinary, "average man" ...