The poem in prose "Dead Souls" is the central work in the work of one of the most original and colorful Russian writers - Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol.
Gogol as a mirror of Russian landowners
In The Dead Souls, the main characters are representatives of one of the three main layers of Russian society in the first half of the nineteenth century — landowners. The other two classes - bureaucracy and the peasantry - are shown somewhat schematically, without the special colors inherent in the Gogol language, but the landowners ... In this work you can see their different stripes, characters and habits. Each of them represents some kind of human weakness, even a vice inherent in the people of this class (according to the observations of the author): low education, narrow-mindedness, greed, arbitrariness. Let's take a closer look at them.
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, “Dead Souls”. main characters
There is no need here to retell the plot of the poem in prose, since this will require a separate article. We will only say that a certain person by the name of Chichikov, a real fellow by now, is resourceful, inventive, with original thinking, extremely sociable and, most importantly, absolutely unprincipled - decides to buy up “dead souls” from the landowners in order to use them as mortgage, under which you can buy a real village with living peasants from flesh and blood.
To implement his plan, Chichikov goes around the landowners and redeems from them the "dead" peasants (names listed in tax returns). In the end, he finds himself exposed and escapes from the city of NN in a carriage carried away by the “three-bird”.
If we discuss who the main characters of the poem Dead Souls are, then college adviser Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov will certainly head their list.
Images of the landowners
The second number I would like to mention the landowner Manilov - a sentimental, arrogant, empty, but harmless man. He quietly dreams, sitting on his estate, looks at life through pink glasses and makes unrealizable plans for the future. And although Manilov does not cause much sympathy, yet he is not the most unpleasant character in the poem Dead Souls. The main characters appearing to the reader further are much less harmless.
Box - a woman elderly and not far. However, he knows his business well and keeps the income from his small estate tightly in his wrinkled hands. She sells Chichikov’s souls for fifteen rubles, and the only thing that bothers her in this strange deal is the price. The landowner is worried, as if not to cheapen.
Continuing the list under the code name "Dead Souls - the main characters", it is worth mentioning the gambler and reveler Nozdrev. He lives widely, fun and noisy. Such a life rarely fits into the generally accepted framework, because this landowner is under trial.
Following Nozdryov, we get acquainted with the rude and stubborn Sobakevich, “fist and beast”, according to Chichikov’s description. Now he would be called a "strong business executive."
And closes a number of sellers of "dead souls" painfully stingy Plyushkin. This landowner was so dominated by his passion for frugality that he practically lost his human appearance, in any case, at first glance it is impossible to determine his gender and social affiliation - it's just some kind of figure in rags.
In addition to them, Nikolai Vasilievich mentions representatives of other classes: officials and their wives, peasants, military men, but the landowners in the work Dead Souls are the main characters. Pretty soon it becomes clear that it is their souls that are dead, and not the first year, and it is precisely on them that the writer's narrowed eye and his sharp pen are aimed.