Chichikov's attitude towards landowners (Dead Souls)
The main character of the poem “Dead Souls,” Pavel Chichikov, travels through estates in order to make deals.
Along his journey, he meets different people, whom he treats differently. The first landowner whom Chichikov visited was Manilov. The hero does not understand the landowner’s lifestyle. Manilov is very serene and relaxed. He is devoid of thrift and seriousness. This man does not know anything that is happening on his estate. He does not know how many dead souls he has. Chichikov managed to make a profitable deal, but Manilov’s lifestyle was unpleasant to him.
Next, the hero visits Korobochka. At first Chichikov likes her estate: a large vegetable garden, farming, cleanliness. The entrepreneur realized that everything is not so simple here. Indeed, Korobochka turned out to be not just economical, but stingy. He was a difficult man. She knew all her peasants by name. It was very difficult for Chichikov to negotiate with her, but he still made the purchase. His attitude towards Korobochka was primarily negative, since he did not like stupid and stingy people.
Then Chichikov visits Nozdryov. He is very active and energetic. These qualities attract Chichikov, but then the hero realizes that Nozdryov’s activity has no goal or completion. He doesn't know what he wants, so he simply wastes his activity in emptiness. The hero receives his dead souls, but it was not easy.
The next landowner is Sobakevich. This is a thorough person who looks after his estate. Chichikov is pleased with the strong huts. In a conversation with Sobakevich, the hero understands that the landowner is similar to him in his desire not to sell himself short. Sobakevich knows the value of his peasants. Chichikov finds a common language with him, but the hero left an unpleasant impression.
The last landowner is Plyushkin. He makes the strongest impression on the hero. Chichikov is somewhat shocked by the situation in which Plyushkin finds himself. His only interest in life was collecting things. He sells his souls to Chichikov. The hero was shocked by what happened to the landowner's personality.
Chichikov is the only character in the poem who is clearly different from the rest. The hero manages to find a common language with the landowners because of the insight and psychologism inherent in Chichikov. He has a great understanding of people and immediately sees what they are like and what they are capable of. Chichikov adapts to each of the landowners in order to please them, find a common language and make a deal.
Who is Chichikov
Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov is a former official who has now become an entrepreneur, a skilled swindler and a waster of life. This is a middle-aged man, whose portrait is drawn by Gogol in rather vague terms: he is “not particularly old and not particularly young,” “not fat, but not particularly thin,” “not handsome, but not bad-looking either,” etc. It is clear that Chichikov is a very “slippery” person, in addition, he is devoid of any “irregularities” or bright personal qualities.
The craft of Pavel Ivanovich is curious. He is engaged in buying up “dead souls” for next to nothing, that is, acquiring from landowners the rights to already deceased serfs. He is going to pawn them as if they were alive in a bank, take out a large loan there and gain authority in society. He spends them on whatever he pleases; mainly social entertainment, luxury goods, etc.
Obviously, it is quite difficult to evaluate Chichikov from a moral point of view. On the one hand, he is a petty swindler, a schemer. On the other hand, he does not commit any malicious crimes against people - he does not rob, kill, or maim anyone. In a sense, he even provides a small favor to the landowners he meets, giving them money virtually for nothing.
No matter who he meets (ordinary landowners, city officials, police chiefs), everywhere he knows how to make the most pleasant impression of himself. He says nice things about everyone, speaks well of them, and smiles at everyone. He is always clean and neatly dressed and knows how to carry on a pleasant conversation. Chichikov tells everyone a “sweet lie”, which the interlocutor is pleased to hear, and is silent about the bitter truth.
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Chichikov as "judge"
For many readers who are just beginning to get acquainted with the work, the title of the poem is misleading, which is what Gogol needed. And even after reading and reflecting on the work, few begin to guess who the author calls “dead souls.” In reality, these are not at all the dead peasants that Chichikov is buying up.
The uncertainty of the hero’s appearance, personality and moral qualities is explained by the fact that they do not play a special role in the poem. In reality, Chichikov acts as a kind of judge, who is called upon to expose the moral vices of those people with whom he meets. These are proud, corrupt officials, and Plyushkin, who collects unnecessary things in his house, and the dissolute dreamer Manilov, and the riotous Nozdryov, and the naive Korobochka. Chichikov's interlocutors, without suspecting it themselves, expose themselves to clean water. “Dead Souls” is exactly that.
And in this light, Chichikov acquires the features of a kind of energy vampire. The flaws of the characters he meets essentially help him get rich. Chichikov's external brilliance and well-being are based precisely on the depravity of his interlocutors. The very fact that the characters gladly agree to participate in his scam is characteristic.
A certain “mystical” essence of Chichikov is revealed in the text of the poem itself. It is said, for example, that even after a long and dusty journey, Chichikov looks as if he had “just come from the tailor and barber.”
Box
After Manilov, Chichikov visits a landowner named Korobochka. She offers Chichikov to buy hemp, rye flour or cereal from her, but the main character rejects all these offers. Pavel Ivanovich insists that he needs “dead souls”, and that’s all. The noblewoman gets scared and thinks that Chichikov is offering to dig them out of the ground, but then immediately begins to bargain.
The box is terribly afraid of selling out, and soon the reader realizes that all her time is occupied with petty trading and saving money. Why she needs them is unclear: the serfs provide the mistress with everything she needs, the old woman is not interested in luxury items, and there is no one to leave an inheritance (she had no children). However, Korobochka is so thrifty that she has provided different bags for coins of different denominations:
All the rubles are taken into one bag, fifty rubles into another, quarters into a third, although from the outside it seems as if there is nothing in the chest of drawers except linen, night blouses, skeins of thread, and a torn cloak, which can then turn into a dress if the old one will somehow burn out while baking holiday cakes with all sorts of yarn, or it will wear out on its own. But the dress will not burn or fray on its own; <...> the cloak is destined to lie for a long time in a ripped state, and then, according to a spiritual will, go to the grand-sister’s niece along with all other rubbish.
It is Korobochka who will subsequently, without wanting to, reveal Chichikov’s plan: she will go to the city and begin to find out the price of dead souls, wanting to make sure that she has not sold too cheap. The next landowner will also play a significant role in exposing Pavel Ivanovich.
Chichikov as a “new man”
At the same time, Chichikov serves as an example for Gogol of a “new man” who began to make himself known around the middle of the nineteenth century. The old world of the nobility was collapsing and was replaced by capitalism. Chichikov is an entrepreneur; he differs from the surrounding crowd in his energy, activity, and determination. He wants to succeed at all costs, and uses any means to achieve this.
It would seem that the listed qualities of Chichikov are completely positive characteristics, human virtues. However, for Gogol’s peculiar romantic-idealistic nature, these qualities were at least suspicious. Perhaps the whole point is that in Chichikov these characteristics have reached extremes opposite to those of the characters around him. Nozdryov’s wastefulness is contrasted with Chichikov’s tight-fistedness and hoarding, Manilov’s head in the clouds is opposed with Chichikov’s “vulgar naturalism” - and so on.
scientific article on the topic CHICHIKOV'S TRICKS IN DIALOGUES WITH LAND LORDS Linguistics
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Chichikov's tricks in dialogues with landowners
© V. V. FROLOVA
Poem by N.V. Gogol’s “Dead Souls” is extremely interesting from the point of view of the methods by which the cunning businessman Chichikov achieves his goal in dialogues with landowners about the purchase of dead souls.
The goal of business dialogue (we include Chichikov’s conversations) is to achieve a profitable solution to the issue. Of particular importance is knowledge of the characteristics of the interlocutor, the art of argumentation and mastery of speech means. In such a dialogue, special techniques are used to help achieve the goal. Rhetoric defines them as “eristic tricks” [1], “eristic argumentation” [2], since initially the scope of application of these techniques was limited to the situation of a dispute. In antiquity, “eristics (from the Greek epsIksh - arguing) was the name of art
the ability to argue, using all the techniques designed only to defeat the enemy” [3]. In logic, they include sophisms [4], in linguistic pragmatics - linguistic means of influence in indirect communication [2], speech manipulations.
Analysis of various classifications of such techniques allows us to draw a conclusion about their complex nature, directly related to the aspect of influence - logical, psychological or linguistic. Thus, sophistry, a logical error, is built on a violation of logical laws; in “eristic argumentation, all types of arguments are used: logical (to reality, to reason) and psychological (to authority, to personality)” [2], affecting the feelings of the interlocutor; Speech manipulation is based on the use of language capabilities for the purpose of hidden influence.
Thus, to the concept of “trick” we include sophisms, logical and psychological arguments, linguistic means, stylistic figures, features of intonation and voice. The speaker uses them deliberately to achieve his goals.
Chichikov's dialogues with the landowners are thoroughly permeated with such eristic intentions. We tried to consistently describe the types of tricks that the main character of Dead Souls uses to convince his interlocutor.
In a dialogue with Manilov, he carefully tries to identify the subject of his interest by imparting ambiguity to the concept of “living”: “not living in reality, but living in relation to the legal form.” Doubts are overcome by reference to the law (“We will write that they are alive, as it really stands in the revision tale”) and an argument for benefit (“The Treasury will even receive benefits, because it will receive legal duties”). The argumentation is supported by a hint of mysterious personal circumstances, which should arouse the interlocutor’s favor: “I am accustomed to not deviate from civil laws in anything, although I suffered for this in the service.” Manilov is convinced by Chichikov’s confident tone:
“I believe it will be good.
“But if it’s good, that’s a different matter: I have nothing against it,” said Manilov and completely calmed down.”
The dialogue with Plyushkin also turns out to be unpretentious, but emphatically polite. Caution and the use of vaguely personal sentences (“I was, however, told”) are aimed at concealing interest. Feigned sympathy and surprise, a series of polite questions help the hero obtain the necessary information from the interlocutor: “Tell me!” And did you starve a lot? - Chichikov exclaimed with participation"; “Let me ask: how many in number?”; “Let me ask you one more thing...”; “Chichikov noticed that it was indecent to be indifferent to someone else’s grief, he sighed immediately and said that he was sorry.” Touched by this, Plyushkin allows him to play on his own feelings of stinginess: “condolences in
You can’t put it in your pocket.” Chichikov “tried to explain that he was ready to prove it not in empty words, but in deeds, and immediately expressed his readiness to accept the obligation to pay taxes.”
In a dialogue with Nozdryov, neither confidence and ease at the beginning of the conversation (“Do you have, tea, a lot of dead peasants? Transfer them to me”), nor a lie to hide the true goal - gaining weight in society, getting married, nor an attempt to attract interest in money, help :
“-... If you don’t want to give it as a gift, then sell it.
- Sell! But I know you, you scoundrel, won’t give a lot for them?
- Eh, you’re good too! .. what do you have, diamonds, or what?”
The epithet in an ironic context is used with the intention of devaluing the subject of bargaining.
Nozdryov is not convinced by either an attempt to shame with greed (“Have mercy, brother, what kind of Jewish urge do you have!”), nor an appeal to duty (“You should just give them to me”) using the modality of obligation.
An appeal to a sense of common sense, calling dead souls “nonsense”, “all sorts of rubbish” turns out to be ineffective. The dialogue, another of Nozdryov's amusement, ends with a stream of insults.
Korobochka’s senseless questions (“What do you need them for?”, “But they’re dead”) force Chichikov to use an argument of benefit and a promise of assistance as a ruse: “I’ll give you money for them. <.> I will save you from hassle and payment. <.> and on top of that I’ll give you fifteen rubles.” The repetition of the verb “dam” and the conjunction “yes” enhance the impact.
In order to devalue the object, a pragmatic argument for benefit was used: “What can they be worth?”, “What good are they, there is no use at all”; evaluative definition: “after all, this is dust”; appeal to common sense using facts, specificity: “Just take into account that you no longer need to butter up the assessor”; “Just think carefully: you’re going bankrupt”; appeal to the feeling of shame: “Stram, stram, mother! Who will buy them? Well, what use can he make of them?”; “Dead in the household! Eh, where have you had enough! Is it possible to scare sparrows at night in your garden, or what?” The argumentation is strengthened by repetition (“after all, it’s dust,” “it’s just dust”) and figurative antithesis: “You take every worthless, last thing, for example, even a simple rag, and the rag has a price... but it’s not needed for anything.” ; “because now I pay for them; I, not you <.> I take upon myself all the responsibilities.”
Chichikov tries to overcome Korobochka’s doubts by illustrating the concept of “money”, using an analogy with the honey production process. “I give you money: fifteen rubles in banknotes. After all, it's money. You won't find them on the street. Well, admit it, how much did you sell the honey for? <.>
But (intensifying semantics - V.F.) this is honey. You collected it, maybe for about a year, with care, traveled, starved the bees, fed them in the cellar all winter; but dead souls are not of this world. There you received twelve rubles for your work, for your efforts, but here you take for nothing, for nothing, and not twelve, but fifteen, and not in silver, but all in blue banknotes.” The analogy is strengthened by the semantics of conjunctions, particles, and a number of homogeneous constructions. The hero manages to convince Korobochka only by accidentally coming to his head with a lie about government contracts.
Exceptional in its richness of tricks is the dialogue with Sobakevich, who embodies the type of businessman who is not inferior to Chichikov in cunning. The hero begins “very distantly” in order to divert attention, to win over his interlocutor with the help of flattery and praise: “he touched upon the Russian state in general and spoke with great praise about its space <.> souls who have completed their career in life are counted on an equal basis with the living, which is “In all fairness of this measure, it can be partly burdensome for many owners <...> and he, feeling personal respect for him, would be ready to even partially take on this really difficult responsibility.”
Chichikov defines the subject of the conversation carefully: “he did not call the souls dead, but only non-existent.” Sobakevich follows Chichikov’s thought, “realizing that the buyer must have some benefit here”: “Do you need dead souls? if you please, I’m ready to sell.”
Chichikov tries to get around the issue of price (“this is such an item that it’s even strange about the price”; “we probably forgot what the item consists of”) and offers a minimum payment. Sobakevich’s emotional objection is supported by an antithesis: “What a waste! After all, I’m not selling bast shoes!” Chichikov puzzles him with an argument about reality: “However, they are not people either.”
Sobakevich, in order to increase the price, “revives” dead souls by replacing the thesis, strengthening it with figurative comparisons and phraseological units: “So you think you can find such a fool who would sell you a revision soul for two kopecks each?” (reading minds, objecting in advance. -V.F); “Another swindler will deceive you, sell you rubbish, not souls, but I have a tough nut, everything is for selection: not a craftsman, then some other healthy guy.”
Chichikov tries to return to the essence of the subject: “after all, these are all dead people <.> after all, the souls have long since died, only one sound, intangible to the senses, remains. At least prop up a fence with a dead body, says the proverb.” To increase expressiveness, he uses a proverb, repeating particles of intensifying semantics.
Sobakevich’s new argument is based on an antithesis and contains rhetorical questions and exclamations: “Yes, of course, the dead. however, which of these people are now listed as living? What kind of people? Flies, not people!
Chichikov argues against reality and uses the concept of “dream”: “Yes, they all exist, but this is a dream.” In response, Sobakevich spreads the substituted thesis with examples and hyperbolization, puts the meaning he needs into the concept: “Well, no, not a dream! I’ll tell you what Mikheev was like, you won’t find such people... such a machine... strength that a horse does not have... I would like to know where else you would find such a dream! Evaluative suffixes and extended comparisons enhance the impact.
Chichikov uses “greasing the argument”, appealing to the presence of education: “You seem to be a pretty smart person, you have information about education,” he tries to devalue the subject through an evaluative nomination: “After all, the subject is just fufu. What is he worth? Who needs?"
Sobakevich is no stranger to the rules of logic, applying the argument ad hom-inem to a person: (“But you’re buying, so it’s necessary”). He blocks Chichikov’s attempt to refer to “family and family circumstances” with the statement: “I don’t need to know what your relationship is; I don’t interfere in family affairs. You needed souls, I’m selling them to you, and you will regret that you didn’t buy them. Right, loss to yourself, cheap
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