The image of the road in the poem "" is quite diverse and ambiguous. This is a symbolic image that denotes the journey of the protagonist from one landowner to another, this is the movement of life that develops in the expanses of Russian land.

Very often in the text of the poem we are faced with a confusing image of the road, it leads the traveler into the wilderness and only circles him and circles. What does this description of this image say? I think this emphasizes the unrighteous goals and desires of Chichikov, who wanted to cash in on buying dead souls.

While the protagonist travels around the neighborhood, the author of the work does it together with him. We read and think about Gogol's remarks and expressions, we notice that he is very familiar with these places.

The image of the road is revealed in different ways in the perception of the heroes of the poem. The main character - Chichikov loves to drive on roads, loves fast driving, soft dirt road. The pictures of nature surrounding him are not pleasing to the eye and do not cause admiration. Everything around is scattered, poor and uncomfortable. But, with all this, it is the road that gives rise in the author's head to thoughts about the homeland, about something secretive and alluring. It is for the protagonist that the road can be compared with his life path. Traveling along the paths and back streets of the city of NN indicate a false and incorrectly chosen life path. At the same time, the author traveling nearby sees in the image of the road a difficult and thorny path to fame, the path of a writer.

If we analyze the real road, which is described in the text of the poem "Dead Souls", then it appears before us all in bumps and potholes, with mud, shaky bridges and barriers. It was with such roads that the entire territory of Russia at that time was lined.

"Dead Souls" - a brilliant work of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. It was on him that Gogol pinned his main hopes.

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

Gogol began work on the poem in the autumn of 1835, at that time he had not yet begun writing The Inspector General. Gogol wrote in a letter to Pushkin: “The plot stretched out into a long novel and, it seems, will be ridiculous ... I want to show all of Russia at least from one side in this novel.” When writing Dead Souls, Gogol pursued the goal of showing only the dark sides of life, putting them together in one pile. Later, Nikolai Vasilyevich brings the characters of the landowners to the fore. These characters were created with epic fullness, they absorbed the phenomena of all-Russian significance. For example, "Manilovshchina", "Chichikovshchina" and "Nozdrevshchina". Gogol also tried to show in his work not only bad, but also good qualities, making it clear that there is a path to spiritual rebirth.

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

The censorship changed the name of the poem to "The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls" and on May 21, 1842, the first volume of the poem came out of print.

The most natural way of narration is to show Russia through the eyes of one hero, from which the theme of the road follows, which has become the pivotal and connecting theme in Dead Souls. The poem "Dead Souls" begins with a description of a road cart; the main action of the protagonist is a journey.

The image of the road performs the function of characterizing the images of the landowners whom Chichikov visits one after another. Each of his meetings with the landowner is preceded by a description of the road, the estate. For example, this is how Gogol describes the way to Manilovka: “Having traveled two versts, we met a turn onto a country road, but already two, and three, and four versts, it seems, were done, but the stone house with two floors was still not visible. Here Chichikov remembered that if a friend invites you to a village fifteen miles away, it means that there are thirty miles to it. The road in the village of Plyushkin 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 noticed this remarkable jolt, produced by a log pavement, in front of which the city stone was nothing. These logs, like piano keys, rose up and down, and the careless rider acquired either a bump on the back of his head, or a blue spot on his forehead ... He noticed some special dilapidation on all village buildings ... ”

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

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

Gogol, in order to describe comprehensively, he also uses interiors. Manilov is "empty daydreaming", inaction. It would seem that his estate is arranged very well, even “two or three flower beds with bushes of lilacs and yellow acacias were scattered in English, “a gazebo was visible with a flat green dome, blue wooden columns and the inscription: “Temple of solitary reflection” ... ". But in the house, nevertheless, something was “always lacking: in the living room there was beautiful furniture, upholstered in smart silk fabric ... but it was not enough for two chairs, and the chairs were just upholstered with matting ...”, “in another room it was not at all there was no furniture”, “in the evening a very smart candlestick made of dark bronze with three antique graces, with a mother-of-pearl smart shield was served on the table, and next to it was placed some kind of simply copper invalid, lame, curled up on the side and covered in fat ... " . Instead of taking on and bringing the improvement of the house to the end, Manilov indulges in unrealizable and useless dreams about “how nice it would be if you suddenly made an underground passage from the house or built a stone bridge across the pond, on which there would be shops on both sides, and so that merchants would sit in them and sell various small goods needed by the peasants.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It can be seen that the cook was guided by some kind of inspiration and put the first thing that came to hand: if there was a pepper near him - poured pepper, if cabbage came across - he popped cabbage, stuffed milk, ham, peas, in a word, go ahead, it was it would be hot, but some taste, surely, will come out. This phrase alone contains a description of, let's say, a "talking" menu, but also the author's personal attitude to this. The decadence of landlords and officials is so rooted in their minds and habits that it is visible in everything. The tavern was no different from the hut, only with a slight advantage in area. The dishes were in less than satisfactory condition: “she brought a plate, a napkin, starched to the point that it was puffed up like dried bark, then a knife with a yellowed bone block, thin as a penknife, a two-pronged fork and a salt shaker, which could not be placed directly on the table. ".

From the foregoing, we understand that Gogol very subtly notices the process of necrosis of the living - a person becomes a likeness of a thing, a “dead soul”.

"Dead Souls" is rich in lyrical digressions. In one of them, located in Chapter 6, Chichikov compares his worldview to the objects around him on a journey.

“Before, a long time ago, in the summers of my youth, in the summers of my irretrievably flashed childhood, it was fun for me to drive up to an unfamiliar place for the first time: it doesn’t matter whether it was a village, a poor county town, a village, a suburb, - I discovered a lot of interesting things in him a childlike curious look. Any building, everything that bore only the imprint of some noticeable feature - everything stopped me and amazed me ... Pass by the county official - I was already wondering where he was going ... Approaching the village of some landowner, I looked curiously at a tall narrow wooden bell tower or a wide dark wooden old church…

Now I indifferently drive up to any unfamiliar village and look indifferently at its vulgar appearance; my chilled gaze is uncomfortable, it’s not funny to me, and what in previous years would have awakened a lively movement in the face, laughter and incessant speeches, now slips by, and my motionless lips keep an indifferent silence. O my youth! O my freshness!

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

Chichikov is a spokesman for new trends in the development of Russian society, he is an entrepreneur. Worthy business partners of the acquirer, Pavel Ivanovich, were all the landowners described in the poem "Dead Souls". These are Manilov, Korobochka, Nozdrev, Sobakevich, and Plyushkin. It was in this sequence that Chichikov visited them. This is not accidental, because in this way Gogol showed representatives of this class with an increase in vices, with a great fall, degradation of the soul. However, it is necessary to build a number of worthy partners on the contrary. After all, the lower, fallen, "dead" the landlords were, the more calmly they agreed to this scam. For them it was not immoral. Therefore, worthy partners of Chichikov look like this: Plyushkin, Sobakevich, Nozdrev, Korobochka, Manilov.

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

A journey through Russia is impossible without travel impressions. The image of the road in the poem "Dead Souls" is a separate character. Moreover, it is alive, changing, causing passions and suggestive.

The meaning of the image

The road is found in most of the works of N.V. Gogol. Heroes are striving somewhere, moving, rushing. All of Russia is on this. She is in perpetual motion. In the poem, the image of the road contrasts with the main theme - the death of the soul. How can one stop and lose human qualities with such perpetual motion? The philosophical question forces one to look inside a person. Questions start to come up:

• Does the person himself ride or move along the knurled?
• Is he driving or being driven?
• Does he choose a road, a path, or follow the paths that someone has indicated?
• Questions about one person go to the whole country:
• Where is Russia going?
• What awaits Russia at the end of the road and where is this end?

In the poem, the meaning of the image is multifaceted: it is the history of Russia, a symbol of the development of the human nation, the personification of different destinies, the difference between the Russian character, the epithet of off-road. The main load on the image is the fate of the Russian people, each of its classes: a peasant, an official, a landowner.

Main character's road

The writer's language, rich in images, helps to present the main character Chichikov. The road characterizes its movement. He rides on a britzka, about the wheel of which the peasants are discussing: will he get there? The wobbly device saves the character from Nozdryov. Compositionally, the wheel, like a circle, closes the poem. The doubts of the peasants about the strength of the wheel on the first pages of the book culminate in their breakdown. The author behind every action hides a deep meaning. The reader has to take a break and think. There are no direct answers. Why does the classic keep Chichikov in the city? Maybe he should stop? Chose a different path? Abandoned an absurd undertaking, seeing all the blasphemy, lack of spirituality that is hidden in it?

The roads of the enterprising swindler are chaotic. He himself does not follow the chaise, entrusting this work to the coachman. The road takes Pavel Ivanovich to such remote places that it is scary to be in them on a broken cart.

Is the landowner bold or reckless? Perhaps this and that. The road does not change the swindler, it absorbs him, making him callous and greedy. It turns out that all people have their own path, their own way of life, their own perception of Russia.

Lyrical digression

The author offers several lyrical digressions, which can be recognized as separate works of art. The digression from the text “On the Road” is one of the most lyrical, it helps to understand the image of the road in Dead Souls. Without it, the topic will be disclosed only superficially. Each word thrills the reader, everything is accurate and real:

• "a trembling gripped the limbs";
• "sap of horses";
• “dozing and forgetting and snoring”;
• "The sun is at the top of the sky.

Nature on the road is a friend who becomes an interlocutor. He is sweet, pleasant, knows how to listen, does not distract, does not interfere, but disposes to frankness. How many thoughts flies through the mind of travelers, do not count.

The writer likes silence, loneliness. The radiance of the moon is beautiful, linen scarves hung by hostesses flicker. The rooftops are shining. Behind every word is an image:

• verst with a number;
• cornered neighbor;
• white houses;
• log huts;
• open wasteland.

Even the cold does not scare on the road. It's nice, wonderful, fresh. The night is described in a special way with magic: “what a night is happening in the sky!”, “heavenly forces”. Darkness does not frighten the reader, but fascinates.

The road is the writer's assistant. She endured and saved him when he, "perishing and drowning," clutched at her like "a straw." The road is the writer's muse. On the way, many "wonderful ideas, poetic dreams" were born.

The marvelous impressions of the night distract from the heavy thoughts of the death of the soul of the Russian landowner. It will become much easier to write an essay “The image of the road in the poem“ Dead Souls ”, based on the proposed material.

Artwork test

THE IMAGE OF THE ROAD IN N.V. GOGOL'S POEM "DEAD SOULS"
Roads are difficult, but worse without roads...

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

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

This motif acquires a completely different meaning in the famous lyrical digression of the eleventh chapter: the road with a rushing chaise turns into the path along which Russia flies, “and, looking sideways, step aside and give it way to other peoples and states.”

This motif contains the unknown paths of Russian national development: “Rus, where are you going, give me an answer? Doesn’t give an answer”, representing an opposition to the ways of other peoples: “What twisted, deaf, narrow, impassable, drifting far to the side of the road mankind has chosen…”. Russian people, maybe in the backwoods, maybe into a hole where there are no moral principles, but still these roads make up Russia, Russia itself - and there is a big road leading a person into a vast space, absorbing a person, eating him all. Having turned off one road, you find yourself on another, you cannot follow all the paths of Russia, just as you cannot collect the caught crayfish back into the bag. It is symbolic that from the outback of Korobochka Chichikov is shown the way by an illiterate girl Pelageya, who does not know where the right is, where the left is. But, having got out of Korobochka, Chichikov gets to Nozdrev - the road does not lead Chichikov to where he wants, but he cannot resist it, although he is making some kind of his own plans for the future path.

The way of life of the hero is embodied in the image of the road (“but for all that, his road was difficult ...”), and the creative path of the author: “And for a long time it was determined by my wonderful power to go hand in hand 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 plot of the journey is given in the first chapter (Chichikov meets officials and some landowners, receives invitations from them), then five chapters follow, in which the landowners sit, and Chichikov travels from chapter to chapter in his britzka, 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 substantive detail, being, undoubtedly, one of the means of creating the image of Chichikov, plays an important role in the plot: there are many episodes and plot twists in the poem that are motivated precisely by the chaise. Not only does Chichikov travel in it, that is, thanks to her, the plot of the journey becomes possible; the britzka also motivates the appearance of the characters of Selifan and three horses; thanks to her, she manages to escape from Nozdrev (that is, the chaise rescues Chichikov); The chaise collides with the carriage of the governor's daughter and thus a lyrical motif is introduced, and at the end of the poem Chichikov even appears as the kidnapper of the governor's daughter. The cart is a living character: she is endowed with her own will and sometimes does not obey Chichikov and Selifan, goes her own way and finally dumps the rider into the impassable mud - so the hero, against his will, gets to Korobochka, who greets him with affectionate words: “Oh, father my, but you, like a boar, have mud all over your back and side! Where so deigned to be salted? » In addition, the chaise, as it were, determines the ring composition of the first volume: the poem opens with a conversation between two men about how strong the wheel of the chaise is, and ends with the breakdown 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 characters, things and events. The road is the main "outline" of the poem. Only all side plots are already sewn on top of it. As long as the road goes, life goes; while life goes on, there is a story about this life.

Gogol had long dreamed of writing a work "in which all of Russia would appear." It was supposed to be a grandiose description of the life and customs of Russia in the first third of the 19th century. The poem "Dead Souls", written in 1842, became such a work.
Gogol's idea was grandiose: like Dante, to portray the path of Chichikov, first in "hell" - Volume I, then "in purgatory" - Volume II and "in paradise" - Volume III. But this plan was not carried out to the end, only Volume I, in which Gogol shows the negative aspects of Russian life, reached the reader in full.
Most widely on the pages of the poem are the images of contemporary landowners. Gogol shows them in order of increasing moral degradation. Provincial officials adjoin the gallery of landowners, who are essentially "dead souls".
An image, a symbol, a road is carried through the whole poem. The road appears in its direct, real meaning, these are country roads along which Chichikov's britzka travels. In my opinion, the chaise is nothing but the whole of Russia, it gets potholes, dust, dirt. The vast expanses of Russia, it is not difficult to get lost here.
Chichikov's journey is "ruled" not only by his coachman, but also by chance (for example, a trip to Korobochka). If we adhere to the analogy of the britzka - Rus, then it turns out that the Russian path is impossible without random twists of fate.
Gogol loved Russia very much and believed in it. Behind the "dead souls" the writer saw living souls. But the path of Russia's development was not clear to Gogol. Russia does not give him an answer to the constantly repeated question: “Where are you rushing to?” Gogol was convinced that great historical achievements were ahead of Russia. The embodiment of a mighty upswing of vital energy, striving for the future is the image of Russia, like a bird - a troika rushing into the immense distance. “Isn’t it you, Rus, that brisk and unbeatable trio, are you rushing about? The road smokes under you, the bridges rumble, everything lags behind and is left behind. The contemplator, struck by God's miracle, will stop: is this not lightning thrown from the sky? What does this terrifying movement mean? and what is this unknown power contained in these ... horses? Eh, horses, horses, what kind of horses? Are whirlwinds sitting in your manes? ... A bell is filled with a wonderful ringing; the air torn to pieces rumbles and becomes the wind; everything that is on earth flies past, and other peoples and states give it way.
The lyrical digression is built on contrasts and juxtapositions: swiftly flying roads, miles, wagons, forest - and a troika flying like a whirlwind; a simple Yaroslavl peasant - and a great master; "beard and mittens" - and the extraordinary art of the coachman. And the composition of the entire lyrical digression is based on comparison: the winged troika - and Russia, flying forward into the future.
The road and the way is one of the main themes of the poem. “Pushkin found that the plot of Dead Souls is good because it gives complete freedom to travel all over Russia with the heroes and bring out a wide variety of characters,” said Gogol. Because this is both the life path and the creative path of the author.
The road is a symbol along which Russia flies among other cities and states. Her ways are inscrutable, the curved, deaf, narrow, impassable roads lead far from the main path, but all the same, she “rushes all inspired by God” to meet prosperity and perfection.
The paths in the poem are something other than a reflection of the everyday path of Chichikov, and the creative path of the author.
For Chichikov, this path can be represented as a castle

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