Classics and the Western Canon discussion
Gogol, Dead Souls
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Part 1: Chapters 10-11 and Part One as a Whole
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Chapter 11Unfortunately, Chichikov has trouble getting out of town. As predicted on page one of the novel, that wheel is giving him problems. But once the wheel is fixed, Chichikov travels away from the town of N. and the author travels back in time to give us a better understanding of who Chichikov is.
There are some funny lines. The author refers to the britzka as the type "such as bachelors drive around in, and which the reader is so sick of..."
After they are stopped by the funeral procession for the prosecutor, for whose death he might be sort of distantly the cause, he thinks to himself, "It's a good thing, however, that I met the funeral; they say it's a lucky sign when you meet a dead man."
The author apologizes for his choice of character and says it is highly doubtful that readers will like him. He acknowledges that Chichikov is a scoundrel, but he thinks the virtuous man as a concept is so washed out that no one even recognizes a genuinely virtuous man anymore. "No, it is time finally to hitch up a scoundrel." And he finally tells us the genesis of Chichikov's scheme. Is the author's personal history of Chichikov an adequate explanation of who he is as a person?
And so, there you have the whole of our hero, just as he is! But perhaps there will be a demand for a conclusive definition, in one stroke: what is he as regards moral qualities? That he is no hero filled with perfections and virtues is clear. What is he -- a scoundrel, then? Why a scoundrel, why be so hard on others?
The author suggests it may not be Chichikov's fault that he is the way he is; maybe he is an instrument of history or divinity, or maybe it's the author's fault for looking too deeply into Chichikov's soul. But why should this be a bad thing, to awaken readers to the contemptible? (And is that perhaps the purpose of Part One?)
The final image of the Part One is the britzka, which was also featured on page one of the book. Why the britzka (which the reader is so sick of)?
Having the protagonist Chichikov involved in scheming to obtain wealth in order to live the “good life” does for me make the character more relatable. Invoking the last book we read, The Human Condition, I felt that the “good life” is the ultimate goal of the animal laborans.
I’m thinking the novel is not about Chichikov or his scheme to collect dead souls even though it begins with him and concludes by giving us his backstory. I see Chichikov’s antics as tangential to the main purpose of the novel, which is satirical social commentary. Gogol’s satire isn’t bitter but is threaded with a gentle humor unlike the satire of Jonathon Swift, for example. Gogol critiques Russian society and exposes its warts for the purpose of rousing a willfully ignorant reader: You’re all afraid of a probing eye, afraid of looking thoughtfully into anything; all of you prefer to let your blank stare skim the surface of things.
Perhaps the dead souls have nothing to do with the souls purchased by Chichikov. Perhaps Gogol is accusing his readers of being “dead souls” and this is his attempt to revive them, to wake them up so they do something about the rampant hypocrisy, corruption, unethical behaviors, and bureaucratic quagmire.
Like all good satire, Dead Souls does more than just provide social commentary. It seems to be a call to action.
Mike wrote: "Having the protagonist Chichikov involved in scheming to obtain wealth in order to live the “good life” does for me make the character more relatable. Invoking the last book we read, The Human Cond..."The interesting thing about Chichikov is that he's not a villain. He's a hustler, a low level grifter. He has a get rich quick scheme that is highly suspicious, but it doesn't threaten any real damage to anyone. He's not an admirable character, he has bad taste (like everyone in this society) and he lives slightly outside the law. Our last sight is of him running away. If he were around today he'd probably be a spam farmer or working a cryptocurrency racket.
If he is nothing more than an everyday, seedy, scam artist, can you please explain to me the prestige of the novel, inclusion in the Western Canon, and the attention it maintains for almost 200 years?
That's a great question, though it sounds more like a challenge than a question. I think Gogol anticipates the question and answers it himself: Happy the writer who, passing by characters that are boring, disgusting, shocking in their mournful reality, approaches characters that manifest the lofty dignity of man...With entrancing smoke he has clouded people's eyes; he has flattered them wondrously...
But such is not the lot, and other is the destiny of the writer who has called forth all that is before our eyes every moment and which our indifferent eyes do not see -- all the terrible, stupendous mire of trivia in which our life is entangled... It is not for him to win people's applause...or contemporary judgment, for contemporary judgment does not recognize that lofty ecstatic laughter is worthy to stand beside the lofty lyrical impulse... (Ch. 7)
He reiterates this in the last chapter of Part One when he says that he doesn't believe that his readers will like the hero he has chosen, because his hero is unattractive, an everyday seedy scam artist. He says he can't take a virtuous man as his subject because the phrase "virtuous man" idly circulates on all lips. Virtue has lost its meaning. It has become a cliche. Gogol, I think, is satirizing this phenomenon.
But is Dead Souls a great book? I think that "Great Books" speak for themselves, and the fact that they can do this across decades and centuries and sometimes millenia is what qualifies them for inclusion in the Canon. They have various other qualities as well -- some are delicate and some are brutal, some are beautiful and some are repugnant -- but there is something universal about them that speaks to us today, regardless of when or the context in which they were written. Chichikov is still with us because there are still Chichikovs among us, and Gogol's weird little poem helps us to recognize them.
Kudos. You have very well answered my question/challenge. I am happy with that. And it was a good question, ahem.
I'm going to push back a bit on the idea that Chichikov is a plain old scammer. I found it really interesting that Gogol waited until the end of Part One to tell us Chichikov's back story. For me, at least, that had the effect of making me feel more sympathetic toward his character and a little bit ashamed of being so hard on him before, which I took to be the author's point in holding back the information. We readers leap to conclusions about these characters (and about real people we meet) without really understanding who they are or where they came from. It seemed the narrator wanted us to have some measure of admiration alongside our disdain for the way Chichikov kept dusting himself off and starting over again after every downfall. That sense that I was meant to cut him some slack came from the fact that the most virtuous characters--like the general who comes in to clean up the commission and only ends up forcing the officials under him to become "still greater crooks" in order to work their way around him--aren't really accomplishing anything better. The society itself seems more to blame than the men who are just trying to make it work. They're not moral, but morality doesn't seem possible in this situation. I'm not sure I totally buy this, but it seems to be the point of the narrator. And Chichikov seems like a guy who's just trying to make the best of the system.
Also in a different light called "gaming the system".But I want to bring up a subject we had at the very earliest, the fact that "soul" meant "serf." In the late chapters 9-10, the word "soul" is used in English several times to refer to the spiritual meaning that we have contemporarily.
Is the same word used for both in the Russian?
In this first part of the novel what we encounter are people who never achieve their full potential as human beings. The main characters we get know are all burdened with shortcomings that keep them trapped in empty, desolate existences. None of them even attempt to pursue a life that would give them genuine happiness, love, and joy, because none work towards a higher good.Plyushkin is a very good example. Here is a man who has completely turned in on himself. He is a hoarder and miser and it eats away at him. These failings are all part of greed, and greed is the opposite of love. Love in the sense of willing the good of the other. So it is no wonder everything surrounding Plyushkin is in a state of decay, his relationships with others and his estate. He no longer participates in life. Yet he has the blessing of a daughter who needs him and a legacy to pass on to his grandchild, but he is so trapped in himself that he chooses the lesser bleak existence over the joyful and rewarding one.
To illustrate another example, the two rumor-mongering busybodies. Gogol says the two are friends, but are they really? Between the two one covets the sewing pattern of the other and they bicker who is more “worthy” to receive it next, or they bicker over fashion details. They use each other to gain importance, and they certainly don’t care what damage they potentially do and who suffers when spreading rumor. There is a complete lack of care for others. It is a parasitic relationship. They are not together to delight in each other, to enjoy each other’s company, to savor in the goodness of friendship.
At the end, when Chichikov rides through the wide, empty expanse of Russia, it is an echo to the empty lives of the characters. They are dead souls. None of them engage in pursuits that give life meaning and ultimately joy.
Kathy wrote: "I'm going to push back a bit on the idea that Chichikov is a plain old scammer. I found it really interesting that Gogol waited until the end of Part One to tell us Chichikov's back story. For me, ..."For me, the ambiguity of Chichikov runs alongside the ambiguity of the word "soul". (To answer Sam's question: yes, "serf" and "soul" are the same word: душа, dusha.) Not knowing Chichikov's background, we have a hard time interpreting or judging him. He's neither good nor evil, just as he is neither thin nor fat, young nor old, good nor bad. He's a ghostly figure (maybe he's Napoleon!) At the same time, we don't know what a "soul" is, and Gogol doesn't tell us, which is probably for the best. When we find out more about Chichikov's history, the effect, I think, is that he becomes more of a real person, a soul. And we get a better idea what Gogol means by "soul" as a result.
Sam wrote: "But I want to bring up a subject we had at the very earliest, the fact that "soul" meant "serf." The word "soul" in Russian does not refer to either of the two words for serf. The word "soul" is rendered as "dusha." There are two words used for peasant or serf, "krestyanin" and "muzhik." Pevear says that the latter term is broader, more common and may be used scornfully. The first is a more neutral term. Pevear uses "peasant" for the first and "Muzhik" when "muzhik" is used.
On the issue of the meaning of "dead souls" I have suggested that while these dead peasants which Chichikov purchase are obviously dead souls, I think that what Gogol is asking us to understand is that the true dead souls are the people he describes at length in this book, including, of course, Chichikov. As Gogol says, " Everything resembles the truth. How can this be true?
The clever opening of the book describes two muzhiks talking about the infamous britzka and they make meaningless conversation about how far it would be able to go, but they do so without any knowledge other than they have admired how it appears. Are they alive or dead? The shopkeeper appears in his window as almost indistinguishable from the samovar he is using to sell his wares. We are not sure if he is a bearded samovar or not. Gogol is playing with us.
We have had several comments concerning the caricatures which are described somewhat as people. but one isn't quite sure that they are real or not. Throughout the book, there is an appearing and disappearing element of many persons mentioned. The peasants are dead...and therefore not real? Sobakevich resurrects all his dead peasants quite alarmingly...and I think that Gogol has this kind of transformation as his primary intention.
The reader looks carefully and, as with the britzka's horses and Sobakevich's dead serfs, they seem far more alive than most of the characters we meet. A careful reading bears out, I think, the fact that this is a great source of Gogol's genius and fun in writing this book. Later, Sobakevich makes an entire (5-foot) sturgeon disappear. It is absurd...and yet another technique of the appearing and disappearing.
I find it most interesting that Gogol is responsible for writing this book about the great Russian spirit for the first time, something which was developed further by such writers as Dostoevsky. While this is difficult to understand for the Western reader, one can sense the narrator's enthusiasm for his subject matter, the very soul of the Russian, from peasant to the tsar. Gogol doesn't write as if approving of a certain class, but pretty much describes the entire Russian character which, if I understand it, is both funny and yet very serious.
I was thoroughly amused concerning the story in Chapter 11 concerning repairing the britzka by the blacksmiths. I doubt there is a soul alive who hasn't been in a similar situation, but the entire exchange made me laugh aloud. "He got all fired up, called them crooks, thieves, highway robbers, even hinted at the Last Judgment."
I also started to wonder what kind of tire was attached to such a vehicle, but it was probably a thin piece of rubber attached with rivets of such.
I believe that all this preparation and repair serves to delay Chichikov until the prosecutor's funeral. Here one might have expected to see some heartfelt sadness for the man which whom the entire town had dealings. But that wasn't the case:
"All their thoughts at that time were concentrated on their own selves., they thought about what sort of man the new governor-general would be, how he would get down to business, and how he would receive them."
While this is bad enough to envision in a town's important officials, it becomes significantly worse, and I think that Gogol is at his best in letting us know what is wrong with these people. Chichikov opens the curtains slightly and says, " So, the prosecutor! He lived and lived, and then he died." This is the summation of the depth of his feelings. Gogol has some fun with the final sentence of the paragraph:
"It's a good thing, however, that I met the funeral; they say it's a lucky sign when you meet a dead man."
I suspect that Gogol set up the entire scene just so he could be able to have Chichikov utter these words through our Virgilian non-hero. (Gogol says later that, "It is highly doubtful that readers will like the hero we have chosen." Indeed, he is unlikeable, but a great source of our fun.)
One can almost feel Chichikov falling asleep with the monotonous countryside, but it gives Gogol a chance to be able to say,
Rus! Rus! I see you, from my wondrous, beautiful distance I see you; it is poor, scattered and comfortless in you; not gladdened, not frightened will one's gaze be at bold wonders of nature, crowned by bold wonders of art, cities with high, many-windowed palaces grown into cliffs, picturesque trees and ivy grown into the houses, with the noise and eternal mist of the waterfalls;
It goes on, but two things are remarkable about the passage, The first is how Gogol extols the Russian landscape. The second is the issue that Gogol wrote Dead Souls when he was in Rome, so here he appears as someone longing for home. It is quite a lovely soliloquy.
I hope my fellow readers will forgive me for writing this much, but my area is expecting a hurricane and although we are well prepared, it is unlikely that I will be able to access much online for the next several days.I think that Gogol is introducing the image of Dante's Beatrice when he says, ...perhaps in this same story, some other, as yet untouched strings will be felt, the inestimable wealth of the Russian spirit will step forth, a man endowed with divine valor will pass by, or by some wondrous Russian maiden, such as can be found nowhere in the world, with all the marvelous beauty of a woman's soul, all magnanimous aspiration and self-denial. And all virtuous people of other tribes will seem dead next to them, as a book is dead next to the living word!
In this, of course, Gogol here gives us a hint by what he means by dead, or perhaps another version of it.
But more than this, I think that Gogol is preparing the way of his hero to be guided in Gogol's planned third part of the epic poem, most likely following on the ideas of Dante's Paradiso where the pure Beatrice leads Dante's hero to salvation. It is difficult to imagine, however, how Chichikov could be included in such a thing.
Perhaps it will be the department head's grown daughter, whose face also looked as if the threshing of peas took place on it nightly. Perhaps, to stretch a bit, she will be the one whose ashes are remarked upon in the poem he received earlier.
I appreciated all your comments and insights Rhonda. I hope you weathered the hurricane without damage to self or property. I had minor flooding in the neighborhood and lots of debris off the trees.
I had come to a stop after chapter 9, setting the book aside for at least a week. I felt like chapter 10 was SO tedious, the rumors nonsensical, I suppose that was the point that the characters are shallow, gossips and/or gullible. I have just started chapter 11.
After I had written my comment above (msg 11) slowly more came into focus. It is funny how that happens. Chichikov for the longest time is an enigma. Chapter 11 sheds a little more light. We only get to know of Chichikov's background in this last chapter. What emerges is that he is conformist like Manilov, calculating like Kobochka, a gambler like Nozdryov, materialist like Sobakevich, and a hoarder like Plyushkin. In short, he expresses all of these traits as long as they serve his purposes. He is quite the chameleon. It would take a re-reading to explore how Chichikov acts each time when face-to-face with one of the types. It is no surprise then that when the jig is up it is Nozdryov (fortunes gained and fortunes lost) that shows up and warns him to get out of Dodge. It is the end of this chapter in his life, a death, which is illustrated by the funeral procession that halts his carriage. Then he is off into no-man's-land illustrated by the wide expanses of Russia, the interim between what was and what will be. Now he has to re-invent himself, start over somewhere else.
There is a longing within Chichikov that he would like to marry and comfortably settle down somewhere, have a legacy. From what we've seen so far this may remain an unrealized longing. We've been given five types, an uneven number, and only two are married, Manilov and Sobakevich. Relationships by definition are reciprocal, and being conformist or materialist isn't really a hindrance to marriage. The other traits however, are obstacles in one way or another to any lasting relationship.
The town officials convene at the house of the police chief to discuss their theories about the true identity of Chichikov. One theory is that he is none other than Captain Kopeikin. The postmaster tells the whole story of Kopeikin, who is a disabled combat veteran who goes to Petersburg in search of assistance from the sovereign. It's a fairly long story told in a rough way with the unconvincing conclusion that Chichikov might be Captain Kopeikin himself. This possibility is quickly dismissed by the fact that Chichikov still has the use of his arms and legs, while Kopeikin does not. This is followed by the suggestion that Chichikov might be Napoleon in disguise. They decide finally that they should ask Nozdryov, the well known liar, for the truth of the matter. This all seems to be geared for laughs, but in the middle of it Gogol makes an interesting comment:
What are you going to do with man? He does not believe in God, yet he believes that if the bridge of his nose itches he is sure to die. He will pass by a poet's work, clear as day, all pervaded with harmony and the lofty wisdom of simplicity, and throw himself precisely on one in which some brave fellow bemuddles, befuddles, distorts, and perverts nature, and he likes it and he starts shouting: "Here is the true knowedge of the heart's secrets!
Nozdryov only succeeds in stretching the rumors to their breaking point, greatly upsetting the prosecutor, who subsequently dies. "Only then did they learn with commiseration that the deceased indeed had a soul, though in his modesty he had never shown it." Is it only by dying that people in this society reveal their souls? Or is it a joke, an opportunity for Gogol to play on the meaning of the word soul?
The narrator takes a moment then to chide the judgmental reader: "It is easy for the reader to judge..." The gist of this criticism seems to be that no generation is perfect. "...the current generation laughs and proudly begins a series of new errors, at which their descendants will also laugh afterwards."
Are we wrong to find amusement at the tale of Chichikov and the foolishness of the town of N., or is this an invitation for us to find what is ridiculous and laughable in our own contemporary society?
Meanwhile, Nozdryov has gone to visit Chichikov and informs him of the vicious rumors circulating about him. Chichikov decides it's time to hightail it out of the town of N.