In Gogol's poem Dead Souls there are many mysteries, the resolution of which leads to interesting discoveries. One of them is why Chichikov visits the landowners in the sequence that we see in the work.
Author's plan
It is known that the work was conceived as a three-volume, compositionally reminiscent of Dante's “Divine Comedy”. In the poem of the great Italian, the hero travels through three worlds: hell, purgatory and paradise. The plot of Dead Souls is also based on travel. Chichikov travels to landowners' estates with the goal of buying up dead peasants, who are considered alive until the next census. In the future, Gogol wanted to introduce the reader to the positive characters that exist in Russia and depict Chichikov’s spiritual revival. But in history there is only the first, widely known, part that we could perhaps correlate with the Dantevsky “hell”.
The underworld of life
Neither the county officials, nor the landowners visited by Chichikov, nor Pavel Ivanovich himself even please us with a hint of dignity and moral purity. Gogol, with his characteristic irony and deep emotional pain about a person’s spiritual mutilation, created a great “canvas” on which everyone could see firsthand how even the most refined and noble inclinations are distorted by stupidity, greed, deceit. The writer passionately believed in the magical power of literature, in its ability to lead to moral catharsis. Composition is subordinate to this task, which is why Chichikov visits the landlords in such a sequence.
Gallery of Dead Souls
It is opened by Manilov, who devoted his life to empty projects, utopian dreams and laziness. Following him before our eyes appears the “club-headed” Box, completely absorbed by fussy chores. Then we see the unceremonious Nozdrev, a cuticle, a liar and a drunkard, the hero of scandals. After Chichikov appears at the table Sobakevich - a man of the mundane, prudent and grasping. Completes this bizarre "collection" of Russian landlord types descended Plyushkin.
But why does Chichikov visit the landlords in such a sequence, and not in any other?
From bad to worse
It is traditionally believed that this order corresponds to the degree of spiritual degradation, moral necrosis. If Manilov, the first landowner to be visited by Chichikov, despite all worthlessness, takes care to look cultural and educated, then Korobochka's horizons are reduced to petty practical interests. Nozdryov despises respect, his "noble" impulses have turned into their opposite. To a lesser extent, he resembles the intellectual Sobakevich, who openly scoffs at enlightenment. Plyushkina, on the other hand, is what the author calls “a hole in humanity.”
From dead to living
Another point of view on why Chichikov visits the landlords in this sequence presents the opposite picture: from a hopeless spiritual impasse to the potential of rebirth. Manilov is unable to realize his moral squalor, because he imagines himself to be a highly intelligent person. His exceptionally positive reviews of the stealing city bosses are not due to complacency, but to the dangerous certainty that this is the norm. Less “dead” is seen Box, through the limitation of which you can see the features of former heartiness.
In the folly and excitement of Nozdrev, a broad nature is read that has gone astray. The solidity and mastery of Sobakevich and people like him could transform Russia if they were not tempted by meanness for the sake of profit. Sobakevich understands that “robbers and scammers” are sitting at high city posts, but he will not miss his. Plyushkin, the only one with whose biography the author considers it necessary to introduce the reader, went wild in solitude, but not alien to emotions in his memories. There is an opinion that it was his Gogol who wanted to “bring” in the second volume of the poem in order to resurrect a person in him.
Contrast theory
A third assumption regarding the procedure for visiting landowners does not preclude antithesis. A fussy Box confronts the idle Manilov. The first does not know how many peasants he has in the economy, the second remembers each by name. Her skopidomstvo, in turn, is the opposite of Nozdrev’s motivation. To him, an eccentric and crazy, a detailed Sobakevich was opposed. If one completely launched the estate, then the other it is respected to the smallest detail. In this way, he does not at all resemble Plyushkin, in whom everything turned to dust, and only the name remains of the estate. The image of Plyushkin closes the circle of viciousness, as it were, which Chichikov drives.
Dialectic of character
Concluding the review of which landlords Chichikov visited, we will express one more hypothesis that the great writer encrypted in a sequence of landowner portraits. A dialectic of a Russian character, if it is not penetrated by the light of humanity, goodness and truth, develops according to a similar scenario. From beautifully dreamy reverie, a person moves to a limited conservatism, flashing suddenly with extravagant undertakings, and stops at unscrupulousness and baseness. As a result, everything that seems meaningful and inspires hope collapses. But the Russian character has a completely different path, different opportunities and perspectives. Gogol was eager to tell about this in his failed three-volume.