One of the most bright characters Gogol, literary hero, whose name has long become a household name, a character who was remembered by everyone who read " Dead Souls"- the landowner Stepan Plyushkin. His memorable figure closes the gallery of images of the landlords presented by Gogol in the poem. Plyushkin, who gave his name even to an official disease (Plyushkin's syndrome, or pathological hoarding), is in fact a very rich man who has led the vast economy to complete decline, A great amount serfs - to poverty and a miserable existence.
This fifth and last companion of Chichikov is a vivid example of how dead the human soul can be. Therefore, the title of the poem is very symbolic: it not only directly indicates that we are talking about "dead souls" - as the dead serfs were called, but also about the miserable, devoid of human qualities, devastated souls of landowners and officials.
Characteristics of the hero
("Plyushkin", artist Alexander Agin, 1846-47)
The reader's acquaintance with the landowner Plyushkin Gogol begins with a description of the surroundings of the estate. Everything testifies to desolation, insufficient funding and the absence of a firm hand from the owner: dilapidated houses with leaky roofs and windows without glass. Revitalizes sad landscape the master's garden, although neglected, is described in much more positive colors: clean, tidy, filled with air, with a "correct marble sparkling column." However, Plyushkin's dwelling again inspires melancholy, around desolation, despondency and mountains of useless, but extremely necessary rubbish for the old man.
Being the richest landowner in the province (the number of serfs reached 1000), Plyushkin lived in extreme poverty, eating leftovers and dried breadcrumbs, which did not cause him the slightest discomfort. He was extremely suspicious, everyone around seemed to him insidious and unreliable, even his own children. Only the passion for hoarding was important for Plyushkin, he collected everything on the street that came to hand and dragged it into the house.
("Chichikov at Plushkin", artist Alexander Agin, 1846-47)
Unlike other characters, Plyushkin's life story is given in full. The author introduces the reader to a young landowner, talking about a good family, a beloved wife and three children. Neighbors even came to the zealous owner in order to learn from him. But the wife died, the eldest daughter ran away with the military, the son joined the army, which his father did not approve of, and the youngest daughter also died. And gradually the respected landowner turned into a man whose whole life is subject to hoarding for the sake of the very process of accumulation. All others human feelings, which did not differ even earlier in brightness, died out in it completely.
Interestingly, some professors of psychiatry have mentioned that Gogol very clearly and at the same time artistically described a typical case of senile dementia. Others, for example, psychiatrist Ya.F. Kaplan, deny this possibility, saying that Plyushkin's psychopathological features do not show through to a sufficient degree, and Gogol simply illuminated the state of old age that he met everywhere.
The image of the hero in the work
Stepan Plyushkin himself is described as a creature dressed in unkempt rags, resembling a woman from afar, but the stubble on his face nevertheless made it clear that the main character is a representative of the stronger sex. With the general amorphousness of this figure, the writer draws attention to individual features of the faces: a protruding chin, a hooked nose, no teeth, eyes expressing suspicion.
Gogol - Great master words - with bright strokes shows us a gradual but irreversible change human personality. A man in whose eyes in former years intelligence shone, gradually turns into a miserable miser who has lost everything. better feelings and emotions. The main goal of the writer is to show how terrible the coming old age can be, how small human weaknesses can turn into pathological features under certain life circumstances.
If the writer wanted to simply portray a pathological miser, he would not go into the details of his youth, a description of the circumstances that led to current state. The author himself tells us that Stepan Plyushkin is the future of a fiery youth in old age, that unsightly portrait, seeing which, a young man would jump back in horror.
("Peasants near Plushkin", artist Alexander Agin, 1846-47)
However, Gogol leaves small chance and this hero: when the writer conceived the third volume of the work, he planned to leave Plyushkin - the only one of all the landowners he met Chichikov - in an updated, morally revived form. Describing the appearance of the landowner, Nikolai Vasilyevich singles out the old man's eyes separately: "the little eyes have not yet gone out and ran from under high-growing eyebrows like mice ...". And the eyes, as you know, are the mirror of the human soul. In addition, Plyushkin, who seems to have lost all human feelings, suddenly decides to give Chichikov a gold watch. True, this impulse immediately goes out, and the old man decides to enter the clock in the donation, so that after death at least someone will remember him with a kind word.
Thus, if Stepan Plyushkin had not lost his wife, his life could have turned out quite well, and the onset of old age would not have turned into such a deplorable existence. The image of Plyushkin completes the gallery of portraits of degraded landlords and very accurately describes the lowest level that a person can slide into in his lonely old age.
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In Gogol's poem "Dead Souls" all the characters have the features of collectiveness and typicality. Each of the landowners whom Chichikov visits with his strange request for the sale and purchase of "dead souls" personifies one of characteristic images landlords 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, Ukrainian society was closer to him, so Gogol was able to notice specific features character and behavior of certain types of people.
Age and appearance of Plushkin
One of the landowners visited by Chichikov is Plyushkin. Until the moment of personal acquaintance, Chichikov already knew something about this landowner - basically it was information on the subject of his stinginess. Chichikov knew that thanks to this trait, Plyushkin's serfs "die like flies", and those who did not die run away from him.
We suggest that you familiarize yourself with which reveals the theme of patriotism and love for the motherland.
In the eyes of Chichikov, Plyushkin became an important candidate - he had the opportunity to buy up a lot of "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 also did not stand out from the general background.
To his horror, Chichikov realized that the person he took for the housekeeper was in fact not the housekeeper, but the landowner Plyushkin himself. Plyushkin could have been taken for anyone, but not for the richest landowner in the county: he was unreasonably thin, his face was slightly elongated and just as terribly thin as his body. His eyes were small size and unusually lively for an old man. The chin was very long. His appearance was complemented by a toothless mouth.
The work of N. V. Gogol reveals the theme little man. We invite you to read its summary.
Plyushkin's clothes were absolutely not like clothes, it could hardly even be called that. Plyushkin paid absolutely no attention to his costume - he was worn out to such an extent that his clothes looked like rags. Plyushkin could well have been mistaken for a tramp.
Natural senile processes were added to this appearance - at the time of the story, Plyushkin was about 60 years old.
The problem of the name and the meaning of the surname
Plyushkin's name is never found in the text, it is likely that this was done intentionally. In this way, Gogol emphasizes Plyushkin's detachment, the callousness of his character and the lack of a humanistic principle in the landowner.
In the text, however, there is a point that can help 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's name was Stepan.
It is unlikely that the name of this character is chosen as a specific character. Translated from Greek, Stepan means “crown, diadem” and indicates a constant attribute of the goddess Hera. It is unlikely that this information was decisive in choosing a name, which cannot be said about the hero's surname.
In Russian, the word "plyushkin" is used to nominate a person who is characterized by stinginess and a mania for accumulating raw materials and material base without any purpose.
Marital status of Plushkin
At the time of the story, Plyushkin is a lonely person leading an ascetic lifestyle. Already for a long time he is a widow. Once upon a time, Plyushkin's life was different - his wife brought the meaning of life into Plyushkin's being, she stimulated the appearance of positive qualities in him, contributed to the emergence of humanistic qualities. In their marriage, three children were born - 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 reasonable limits. His clothes were not new - he usually wore a frock coat, he was noticeably worn, but he looked very decent, he did not even have a single patch on him.
Reasons for changing character
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 and fascinated by the process of education, 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 marries without Plyushkin's blessing, and the son enters military service. Such liberty became the cause of Plyushkin's anger - he curses his children. The son was categorical towards his father - he completely cut off contact with him. The daughter still did not abandon her father, despite such an attitude towards her relatives, she visits the old man from time to time and brings her children to him. Plyushkin does not like to mess with his grandchildren and takes their meetings extremely cool.
Youngest daughter Plyushkina died as a child.
Thus, Plyushkin was left alone in his large estate.
Plushkin's estate
Plyushkin was considered the richest landowner in the county, but Chichikov, who came to 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 - Plyushkin lived alone in the whole house. Because of its desolation, the house resembled an old castle.
Inside the house was not much different from appearance. Since most of the windows in the house were boarded up, the house was incredibly dark and it was difficult to see anything. The only place that has penetrated sunlight These are 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 all over the place, which Plyushkin did not dare to throw away, because he thought that he might still need them.
Garbage also was not thrown anywhere, but was piled up right there in the room. Desk Plyushkina was no exception - important papers and documents were mixed with garbage here.
A huge garden grows behind Plyushkin's house. Like everything in the estate, it is in disrepair. No one has cared for the trees for a long time, the garden is overgrown with weeds and small bushes, which are covered with hops, but even in this form the garden is beautiful, it stands out sharply against the background of deserted houses and dilapidated buildings.
Features of Plyushkin's relationship with the serfs
Plyushkin is far from the ideal of a landowner; he behaves rudely and cruelly with his serfs. Sobakevich, talking about his attitude towards serfs, claims that Plyushkin starves his subjects, which significantly increases the death rate among serfs. The appearance of Plyushkin's serfs becomes a confirmation of these words - they are unnecessarily thin, immensely thin.
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 whether they are eating well. However, he does this for a reason - while the control over the quality of food passes, Plyushkin manages to eat heartily. Of course, this trick did not hide from the peasants and became an occasion for discussion.
Plyushkin constantly 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 it becomes unusable and 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 takes over - it is easier for him to throw away unusable things than to do a good deed.
Characteristics of personal qualities
In his old age, Plyushkin became an unpleasant type because of his quarrelsome nature. People began to avoid him, neighbors and friends began to visit less and less often, and then they completely stopped communicating with him.
After the death of his wife, Plyushkin preferred a solitary 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, such a position of Plyushkin did not bring desired results- his estate confidently fell into disrepair, until it finally acquired the appearance of an abandoned village.
There are only two joys in the life of the old Plyushkin - scandals and the accumulation of finances and raw materials. Sincerely speaking, he gives himself to one and the other with his soul.
Plyushkin surprisingly has the talent to notice any little things and even the most insignificant flaws. In other words, he is overly picky about people. He is unable to express his remarks calmly - basically he shouts and scolds his servants.
Plyushkin is incapable of doing something good. He is a callous and cruel person. He is indifferent to the fate of his children - he lost contact with his son, while his daughter periodically tries to reconcile, but the old man stops these attempts. He believes that they have a selfish goal - the daughter and son-in-law want to get rich at his expense.
Thus, Plyushkin is a most terrible landowner who lives for a definite purpose. In general, he is endowed with negative character traits. The landowner himself does not realize 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.
Plyushkin in the poem "Dead Souls": analysis of the hero, image and characteristics
4.6 (92.73%) 11 votesIn the poem "Dead Souls" N. Gogol depicted a gallery of Russian landowners. Each of them embodies negative moral qualities. And new hero turns out to be worse than the previous one, and we become witnesses to what extreme the impoverishment of human soul. The image of Plyushkin closes the series. In the poem "Dead Souls", according to the apt definition of the author, he acts as a "hole in humanity."
First impression
"Patched" - such a definition is given to the master by one of the peasants, from whom Chichikov asked the way to Plyushkin. And it is fully justified, one has only to look at this representative local nobility. Let's get to know him better.
Having passed through a large village, striking in wretchedness and poverty, Chichikov found himself at master's house. This one looked a little like a place where people live. The garden was just as neglected, although the number and nature of the buildings indicated that there had once been a strong, prosperous economy here. With such a description of the master's estate, Plyushkin's characterization begins in the poem "Dead Souls".
Acquaintance with the landlord
Having entered the yard, Chichikov noticed how someone - either a man or a woman - was arguing with the driver. The hero decided that it was the housekeeper and asked if the owner was at home. Surprised by the appearance of a stranger here, this “certain creature” escorted the guest into the house. Once in the bright room, Chichikov was amazed at the disorder that reigned in it. It looked like the rubbish from all over the area had been dumped here. Plyushkin really collected on the street everything that came to hand: a bucket forgotten by a peasant, and fragments of a broken crock, and a feather that no one needed. Looking closely at the housekeeper, the hero found a man in it and was completely stunned to find out that this was the owner. After that, the author of the work “Dead Souls” passes to the image of the landowner.
Gogol draws a portrait of Plyushkin like this: he was dressed in a worn, tattered and dirty dressing gown, which was decorated with some kind of rag around his neck. Her eyes were constantly moving, as if looking for something. This testified to the suspicion and constant alertness of the hero. In general, if Chichikov did not know that one of the richest landowners in the province was standing in front of him, he would have taken him for a beggar. In fact, the first feeling that this person evokes in the reader is pity, bordering on contempt.
Life story
The image of Plyushkin in the poem "Dead Souls" differs from others in that he is the only landowner with a biography. In the old days, he had a family, often received guests. He was considered a thrifty owner, who had plenty of everything. Then the wife died. Soon the eldest daughter ran away with an officer, and the son entered the regiment instead of service. Plyushkin deprived both of his children of his blessing and money, and every day he became more stingy. In the end, he focused on one of his wealth, and after the death of his youngest daughter, all his former feelings finally gave way to greed and suspicion. Bread rotted in his barns, and to his own grandchildren (over time, he forgave his daughter and took her in), he regretted even the usual gift. This is how Gogol portrays this hero in the poem "Dead Souls". The image of Plyushkin is complemented by a bargaining scene.
good deal
When Chichikov began the conversation, Plyushkin was annoyed at how difficult it was to receive guests these days: he had already had dinner himself, and it was costly to heat the stove. However, the guest immediately got down to business and found out that the landowner would have a hundred and twenty souls unaccounted for. He offered to sell them and said that he would bear all the costs. Hearing that it was possible to benefit from the no longer existing peasants, Plyushkin, who began to bargain, did not delve into the details and ask how legal it was. Having received the money, he carefully took it to the bureau and, pleased with the successful deal, even decided to treat Chichikov with breadcrumbs left over from the Easter cake brought by his daughter, and a glass of liquor. The image of Plyushkin in the poem "Dead Souls" is completed by the message that the owner wanted to give a gold watch to the guest who pleased him. However, he immediately changed his mind and decided to enter them in the donation, so that Chichikov would remember him with a kind word after his death.
conclusions
The image of Plyushkin in the poem "Dead Souls" was very significant for Gogol. His plans were to leave in the third volume of all the landowners one of them, but already morally reborn. Several details indicate that this is possible. First, the living eyes of the hero: remember that they are often called the mirror of the soul. Secondly, Plyushkin is the only one of all the landowners who thought about gratitude. Others also took money for dead peasants, but took it for granted. It is also important that at the mention of an old comrade, a ray suddenly ran across the face of the landowner. Hence the conclusion: if the hero's life had turned out differently, he would have remained a thrifty owner, a good friend and a family man. However, the death of his wife, the actions of the children gradually turned the hero into that “hole in humanity”, as he appeared in the 6th chapter of the book “Dead Souls”.
Plushkin's characterization is a reminder to readers of the consequences that life's mistakes can lead to.
Plan
1. The history of writing the poem "Dead Souls".
2. The main task that N.V. Gogol when writing a poem.
3. Stepan Plyushkin as one of the representatives of the landlord class.
4. Appearance, life and customs of Stepan Plyushkin.
5. The reasons for the moral decay of the hero.
6. Conclusion.
The famous poem by N.V. Gogol "" was written in 1835. It was during this period that such a direction as realism gained particular popularity in literature. main goal which was a truthful and reliable depiction of reality through generalization typical features individual, society and life in general.
Throughout creative way interested in the inner world of man, his development and formation. When writing the poem "Dead Souls", the writer set as his main task the opportunity to comprehensively show the negative features of the landlord class. A prime example such a generalization is the image of Stepan Plyushkin.
Plushkin does not appear in the poem immediately, it is the last landowner, to which Chichikov pays a visit during his journey. However, for the first time brief reviews Chichikov learns about his way of life and character in a passing while communicating with Nozdryov and Sobakevich. As it turned out, Stepan Plyushkin is a landowner who is already over sixty, the owner of a large estate and more than a thousand serfs. The hero is distinguished by particular stinginess, greed and a mania for accumulation, but even such an impartial characterization did not stop Chichikov and he decides to get to know him.
Meets the hero in his estate, which was in decline and desolation. Was no exception and main house: all the rooms in it were locked, except for two, the hero lived in one of them. It seemed that in this room Plyushkin folded everything that caught his eye, any little thing that he subsequently did not use anyway: these were broken things, broken dishes, small pieces of paper, in a word - unnecessary rubbish to anyone.
Plushkin's appearance was as untidy as his house. It was clear that the clothes had long since fallen into disrepair, and the hero himself looked clearly older than his years. But it wasn't always like this... More recently, Stepan Plyushkin lived a measured, calm life surrounded by his wife and children in his native estate. Everything changed overnight ... Suddenly, the wife dies, the daughter marries an officer and runs away from her home, the son leaves to serve in the regiment. Loneliness, longing and despair took possession of this man. All that, on which, it would seem, his world rested, collapsed. The hero lost heart, but the last straw was the death of his outlet - the youngest daughter. Life is divided into "before" and "after". If quite recently Plyushkin lived only for the well-being of his family, now he sees his main goal only in the senseless filling of warehouses, barns, rooms of the house, in the moral outliving of himself ... he goes crazy. Avarice and greed, developing every day, finally broke the thin and previously strained thread of relations with children, who, as a result, were deprived of his blessing and financial support. This shows the special cruelty of the hero in relation to loved ones. Plushkin loses human face. After all, it is no coincidence that Chichikov, in the first minutes of meeting the hero, sees a sexless creature in front of him, which he takes for an elderly woman - a housekeeper. And only after a few minutes of reflection, he realizes that in front of him is still a man.
But why is it exactly like this: moral exhaustion, a ruined estate, a mania for hoarding? Perhaps, by doing so, the hero was only trying to fill his inner world, his emotional devastation, but this initial passion eventually grew into a destructive addiction, which, in the bud, outlived the hero from the inside. But he just lacked love, friendship, compassion and simple human happiness ...
Now it is impossible to say with complete certainty what the hero would be like if he had a beloved family, the opportunity to communicate with children and loved ones, because Stepan Plyushkina N.V. Gogol portrayed exactly this: a hero who “lives aimless life, vegetates", being, in the words of the author of the poem, "a hole in humanity". However, in spite of everything, in the soul of the hero, those human feelings still remained that were unknown to other landowners who visited Chichikov. First, it is a feeling of gratitude. Plyushkin is the only one of the heroes who considered it right to express gratitude to Chichikov for buying "dead souls". Secondly, he is not alien to a reverent attitude to the past and to the life that he now lacked so much: what inner enthusiasm ran across his face at the mere mention of his old friend! All this suggests that the flame of life has not yet gone out in the soul of the hero, it exists and it is glimmering!
Stepan Plyushkin, of course, causes pity. It is this image that makes you think about how important it is to have close people in your life who will always be there: both in moments of joy and in moments of sadness, who will support, lend a hand and stay close. But at the same time, it is important to remember that in any situation it is necessary to remain human and not lose your moral character! It is necessary to live, because life is given to everyone in order to leave a memorable mark behind!
Plushkin Stepan
- the fifth, and last, of the "series" of landowners, to whom Chichikov addresses with a proposal to sell him dead souls. In a kind of negative hierarchy of landowner types, bred in the poem, this mean old man (he is in his seventies) occupies both the lowest and the highest step at the same time. His image personifies the complete mortification of the human soul, the almost complete death of a strong and bright personality, completely absorbed by the passion of stinginess - but that is why it is able to resurrect and be transformed. (Below P., of the characters in the poem, only Chichikov himself “fell”, but for him the possibility of an even more grandiose “correction” is preserved by the author’s intention.)
This dual, "negative-positive" nature of the image of P. is indicated in advance by the finale of the 5th chapter; having learned from Sobakevich that a stingy landowner lives in the neighborhood, whose peasants are "dying like flies", Chichikov tries to find out the way to him from a passing peasant; he does not know any P., but guesses about whom in question: "Ah, patched!" This nickname is humiliating - but the author (in accordance with the through reception of "Dead Souls") from satire instantly passes to lyrical pathos; admiring accuracy popular word, gives praise to the Russian mind and, as it were, moves from the space of a moralistic novel to the space of an epic poem “like the Iliad”.
But the closer Chichikov is to P.'s house, the more disturbing the author's intonation; suddenly - and as if for no reason at all - the author compares himself as a child with his current self, his then enthusiasm - with the current "coolness" of his gaze. "Oh my youth! O my freshness! It is clear that this passage equally applies to the author - and to the "dead" hero, whose meeting the reader will have to meet. And this involuntary rapprochement of the “unpleasant” character with the author in advance removes the image of P. from that series of “literary and theatrical” misers, with an eye on whom he is written, and distinguishes him from the stingy characters of picaresque novels, and from the greedy landowners of the moralistic epic, and from Harpagon from Molière's comedy "The Miser" (Harpagon has the same as P.'s, a tear lower his back), bringing him closer, on the contrary, to the Baron from " of the miserly knight» Pushkin and Balzac's Gobseck.
The description of the Plyushkin estate allegorically depicts the desolation - and at the same time the "littering" of his soul, which "does not grow rich in God." The entrance is dilapidated - the logs are pressed in like piano keys; everywhere special dilapidation, roofs like a sieve; the windows are covered with rags. At Sobakevich they were boarded up at least for the sake of economy, but here - solely because of the "devastation". From behind the huts one can see huge stacks of stale bread, similar color on the burnt brick. As in a dark, “mirror-like” world, everything here is lifeless - even two churches, which should form the semantic center of the landscape. One of them, wooden, was empty; the other, stone, all cracked. a little later image of the empty church will metaphorically echo in the words of P., who regrets that the priest will not say a “word” against the universal love of money: “You cannot stand against the word of God!” (Traditional for Gogol, the motif of a "dead" attitude to the Word of Life.) master's house, "this strange castle", is located in the middle of a cabbage garden. "Plyushkin" space cannot be captured with a single glance, it seems to fall apart into details and fragments - one part will open to Chichikov's gaze, then another; even the house - in some places on one floor, in some places on two. Symmetry, wholeness, balance began to disappear already in the description of Sobakevich's estate; here this "process" goes in breadth and depth. All this reflects the "segmentation" of the consciousness of the owner, who forgot about the main thing and focused on the third. For a long time he no longer knows how much, where and what is produced in his vast and ruined economy - but he keeps an eye on the level of the old liquor in the decanter: has anyone drunk.
The desolation "benefited" only Plyushkin's garden, which, starting near the master's house, disappears into the field. Everything else died, deadened, as in a Gothic novel, which is reminiscent of the comparison of Plyushkin's house with a castle. It’s like Noah’s ark, inside which the flood occurred (it’s no coincidence that almost all the details of the description, like in the ark, have their own “pair” - there are two churches, two gazebos, two windows, one of which, however, is sealed with a triangle of blue sugar paper ; P. had two blond daughters, etc.). The dilapidation of his world is akin to the dilapidation of the "antediluvian" world, which perished from passions. And P. himself is the failed “forefather” Noah, who degenerated from a zealous owner into a hoarder and lost any definiteness of appearance and position.
Having met P. on the way to the house, Chichikov cannot understand who is in front of him - a woman or a peasant, a housekeeper or a housekeeper, "rarely shaving her beard"? Having learned that this "housekeeper" is the rich landowner, the owner of 1,000 souls ("Ehva! And I'm the boss!"), Chichikov cannot get out of his stupor for twenty minutes. A portrait of P. (a long chin that has to be covered with a handkerchief so as not to spit; small, not yet extinct eyes run from under high eyebrows like mice; a greasy dressing gown has turned into yuft; "hero from the image of a wealthy landowner. But all this is not for the sake of "exposure", but only in order to recall the norm of "wise stinginess", from which P. tragically parted and to which he can still return.
Before, before the “fall”, P.’s gaze, like an industrious spider, “ran troublesomely, but quickly, along all ends of its economic web”; now the spider is entwining the pendulum of the stopped clock. Even the silver pocket watch that P. is going to give - and never gives - to Chichikov in gratitude for the "deliverance" of dead souls, and those are "spoiled." The toothpick, with which the owner, perhaps, picked his teeth even before the French invasion, also reminds of the past time (and not only of stinginess).
It seems that, having described the circle, the narrative returned to the point from which it began - the first of the "Chichikovsky" landowners, Manilov, lives out of time in the same way as the last of them, P. But there is no time in the world of Manilov and never was; he has lost nothing - he has nothing to return. P. had everything. This is the only hero of the poem, besides Chichikov himself, who has a biography, has a past; the present can do without the past, but without the past there is no way to the future. Before the death of his wife, P. was a diligent, experienced landowner; the daughters and son had a French teacher and a madam; however, after that, P. developed a "complex" of a widower, he became more suspicious and stingy. The next step away from God's destined for him life's road he did after the elopement eldest daughter, Alexandra Stepanovna, with the staff captain and unauthorized assignment of her son to military service. (Even before the "flight" he considered the military gamblers and spendthrifts, but now he is completely hostile to military service.) Youngest daughter died; the son lost at cards; P.'s soul hardened completely; the "wolf hunger of stinginess" took possession of him. Even the buyers refused to deal with him - for he is a "demon" and not a man.
The return of the “prodigal daughter”, whose life with the staff captain turned out to be not particularly satisfying (an obvious plot parody of the finale of Pushkin’s “ stationmaster”), reconciles P. with her, but does not relieve her of fatal greed. After playing with his grandson, P. did not give anything to Alexandra Stepanovna, and he dried up the Easter cake she gave him on his second visit and now he is trying to treat Chichikov with this cracker. (The detail is also not accidental; Easter cake is an Easter “meal”; Easter is the triumph of the Resurrection; having dried the cake, P., as it were, symbolically confirmed that his soul had become dead; but in itself, the fact that a piece of Easter cake, albeit moldy, is always kept by him , is associated with the theme of the possible "Easter" rebirth of his soul.)
Clever Chichikov, guessing the substitution that has taken place in P., appropriately "retools" his usual opening speech; just as in P. "virtue" is supplanted by "economy", and "rare properties of the soul" - by "order", so they are also replaced in Chichikov's "attack" to the theme of the dead shower. But the fact of the matter is that greed, not to the last limit, was able to take possession of the heart of P. Having made a bill of sale (Chichikov convinces the owner that he is ready to take on tax expenses on the dead "for your pleasure"; the list of the dead at the economic P. is already ready, it is unknown for what need), P. wonders who in the city could reassure her on his behalf, and remembers that the Chairman was his school friend. And this memory (here the course of the author's reflections at the beginning of the chapter is completely repeated) suddenly revives the hero: "... on this wooden face<...>expressed<...>pale reflection of feeling. Naturally, this is a random and instantaneous glimpse of life.
Therefore, when Chichikov, not only acquiring 120 dead souls, but also buying runaway ones for 27 kopecks. for the soul, leaves from P., the author describes a twilight landscape in which the shadow with the light "completely mixed" - as in the unfortunate soul of P.