Plyushkin biography of dead souls. Characteristics of Plyushkin in the poem “Dead Souls”: description of appearance and character

DEAD SOULS (Poem, 1835-1841 - vol. 1; publ. 1842) Plyushkin Stepan- the fifth, and last, of the “series” of landowners to whom Chichikov turns with an offer to sell him dead souls. In the peculiar negative hierarchy of landowner types derived in the poem, this stingy old man (he is in his seventh decade) occupies both the lowest and the highest level at the same time. His image represents complete mortification human soul, the almost complete death of a strong and bright personality, completely consumed by the passion of stinginess, but precisely for this reason capable of resurrecting and transforming.

(Below P., of the characters in the poem, only Chichikov himself “fell”, but for him the author’s plan preserved the possibility of an even more grandiose “correction.”)

This dual, “negative-positive” nature of P.’s image is indicated in advance by the ending of the 5th chapter; Having learned from Sobakevich that a stingy landowner lives next door, whose peasants are “dying like flies,” Chichikov tries to find out the way to him from a passing peasant; he doesn’t know any P., but he guesses about whom we're talking about: "Ah, patched!" This nickname is humiliating, but the author (in accordance with the through-line technique of “Dead Souls”) instantly moves from satire to lyrical pathos; admiring the accuracy folk word, gives praise to the Russian mind and, as it were, moves from the space of a morally descriptive novel into the space epic poem“like the Iliad.” But the closer Chichikov is to P.’s house, the more alarming the author’s intonation; suddenly - and as if out of the blue - the author compares his child self with his present self, his then enthusiasm with his current “coolness” gaze.

"Oh my youth! Oh my freshness!" It is clear that this passage applies equally to the author - and to the “dead” hero, whom the reader will 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 was written, distinguishes him from the stingy characters of picaresque novels, and from the greedy landowners of moral descriptive epics, and from Harpagon from Molière's comedy "The Miser" (Harpagon's is the same as P.

A hole below the back), bringing closer, on the contrary, to the Baron from Pushkin’s “The Miserly Knight” and Balzac’s Gobsek. The description of Plyushkin's estate allegorically depicts desolation - and at the same time the "cluttering" of his soul, which "is not growing rich in God." The entrance is dilapidated - the logs are pressed in like piano keys; Everywhere there is a special disrepair, the roofs are like a sieve; the windows are covered with rags. At Sobakevich's they were boarded up, at least for the sake of economy, but here they were boarded up solely because of “devastation.” From behind the huts one can see huge piles of stale bread, the color of which is similar to scorched brick. As in a dark, “looking-glass” world, everything here is lifeless - even the two churches that should form the semantic center of the landscape.

One of them, wooden, was empty; the other, stone, was all cracked. A little later, the image of an empty temple will be metaphorically echoed in the words of P., who regrets that the priest will not say a “word” against the universal love of money: “You cannot resist the word of God!” (Traditional for Gogol is the motif of a “dead” attitude towards the Word of Life.)

The master's house, “this strange castle,” is located in the middle of a cabbage garden. The “Plyushkinsky” space cannot be captured with a single glance, it seems to fall apart into details and fragments - first one part will be revealed to Chichikov’s gaze, then another; even the house is in some places one floor, in others two. Symmetry, integrity, balance began to disappear already in the description of Sobakevich’s estate; here this “process” goes in breadth and depth. All this reflects the “segmented” nature of the owner’s consciousness, who has forgotten about the main thing and focused on the tertiary. For a long time he no longer knows how much, where and what is produced on his vast and ruined farm, but he keeps an eye on the level of the old liqueur in the decanter to see if anyone has drunk. The desolation “benefited” only the Plyushkino garden, which, starting near manor house, disappears into the field. Everything else perished, became dead, 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 of which there was a flood (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 belvederes, two windows, one of which, however, is covered 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 from a zealous owner degenerated into a hoarder and lost any certainty 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 man, a housekeeper or a housekeeper who “rarely shaves her beard”? Having learned that this “housekeeper” is a rich landowner, the owner of 1000 souls (“Ehwa! And I’m the owner!”), Chichikov cannot get out of his stupor for twenty minutes.

Portrait of Plyushkin(a long chin, which has to be covered with a handkerchief so as not to spit; small, not yet extinguished eyes run from under high eyebrows like mice; a greasy robe has turned into yuft; a rag on the neck instead of a handkerchief) also indicates the hero’s complete “loss” from image of a rich landowner. But all this is not for the sake of “exposure,” but only for the sake of reminding of the norm of “wise stinginess” from which P. was tragically separated and to which he can still return.

Previously, before the “fall,” P.’s gaze, like a hardworking spider, “ran busily, but efficiently, along all ends of its economic web”; Now the spider entwines the pendulum of the stopped clock. Even silver ones pocket watch, which P. is going to give - but never gives - to Chichikov in gratitude for “getting rid” of dead souls, and they are “spoiled”. A toothpick, which the owner may have used to pick his teeth even before the French invasion, also reminds us of a bygone time (and not just stinginess). It seems that, having described the circle, the story returned to the point from which it began - the first of the “Chichikovsky” landowners, Manilov, lives just as outside of time as the last of them, P. But there is no time in Manilov’s world and never has 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 path to the future. Before the death of his wife P.

was a zealous, experienced landowner; my daughters and son had a French teacher and madame; however, after this, P. developed a widower “complex”, he became more suspicious and stingy. He took the next step away from the path of life determined for him by God after secretly escaping eldest daughter, Alexandra Stepanovna, with the headquarters captain and the unauthorized determination of his son in military service. (Even before the “flight” he considered the military to be gamblers and wasteful people, but now he is completely hostile to military service.) Youngest daughter died; son lost at cards; soul P.

became completely hardened; “The wolf hunger of stinginess” took possession of him. Even the buyers refused to deal with him - because he is a “demon”, not a person. The return of the "prodigal daughter", whose life with the captain's captain turned out to be not particularly satisfying (an obvious plot parody of the ending of Pushkin's " Stationmaster"), reconciles P. with her, but does not save her from destructive greed.

After playing with his grandson, P. didn’t give Alexandra Stepanovna anything, but he dried the Easter cake she gave her on his second visit and is now trying to treat Chichikov to this cracker. (The detail is also not accidental; Easter cake is an Easter “meal”; Easter is the celebration of the Resurrection; by drying the cake, P. symbolically confirmed that his soul was dead; but in itself the fact that a piece of cake, albeit moldy, is always kept by him , is associatively connected with the theme of the possible “Easter” revival of his soul.) Clever Chichikov, having guessed the substitution that occurred in P., “retools” his usual opening speech accordingly; just as in P. “virtue” is replaced by “economy”, and “rare qualities of the soul” by “order”, so they are replaced in Chichikov’s “attack” to the theme of dead souls. But the fact of the matter is that greed was not able to take possession of P.’s heart to the last limit. Having completed the deed of sale (Chichikov convinces the owner that he is ready to take on the tax costs of the dead “for your pleasure”; the economic P.’s list of the dead is already ready, unknown to what need),

P. ponders who could reassure her in the city on his behalf, and remembers that the Chairman was his school friend.

And this memory (the course of the author’s thoughts at the beginning of the chapter is completely repeated here) suddenly revives the hero: “... on this wooden face<...>expressed<...>a pale reflection of a feeling." Naturally, this is a random and momentary glimpse of life. Therefore, when Chichikov, not only having acquired 120 dead souls, but also having bought runaways for 27 kopecks per soul, leaves P., the author describes a twilight landscape in which the shadow “completely mixed up” with the light - as in the unfortunate soul of P.

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2 January 2015 Published in:

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In the person of the hero of “Dead Souls” Plyushkin, Gogol brought out a psychopathic miser. He pointed out in this pitiful old man the terrible consequences of the passion to “acquire” without a goal - when acquisition itself becomes the goal, when the meaning of life is lost. In “Dead Souls” it is shown how, from a reasonable, practical person needed for the state and family, Plyushkin turns into a “growth” on humanity, into some kind of negative value, into a “hole”... To do this, he only had to lose his meaning life. Before, he worked for the family. His ideal of life was the same as that of Chichikov - and Plyushkin was happy when a noisy, joyful family greeted him returning home to rest. Then life deceived him - he remained a lonely, angry old man, for whom all people seemed to be thieves, liars, robbers. A certain inclination towards callousness increased over the years, his heart became harder, his previously clear economic eye dimmed - and Plyushkin lost the ability to distinguish between large and small in the household, necessary from unnecessary - he directed all his attention, all his vigilance to the household, to the storerooms, glaciers... He stopped engaging in large-scale grain farming, and bread, the main basis of his wealth, rotted in barns for years. But Plyushkin collected all sorts of junk in his office, even stole buckets and other things from his own men... He lost hundreds, thousands, because he did not want to give up a penny or a ruble. Plyushkin had completely lost his mind, and his soul, which had never been distinguished by greatness, was completely crushed and vulgarized. Plyushkin became a slave to his passion, a pitiful miser, walking in rags, living from hand to mouth. Unsociable, gloomy, he lived out his unnecessary life, tearing even his parental feelings for his children out of his heart. (Cm. , .)

Plyushkin. Drawing by Kukryniksy

Plyushkin can be compared with “ stingy knight“, with the only difference that in Pushkin “avarice” is presented in a tragic light, in Gogol in a comic light. Pushkin showed what gold did to a valiant man, a great man, - Gogol in “Dead Souls” showed how a penny perverted an ordinary, “average man”...

Plan
1. The history of writing the poem “Dead Souls”.
2. The main task that N.V. set for himself. Gogol when writing a poem.
3. Stepan Plyushkin as one of the representatives of the landowner class.
4. Appearance, life and morals of Stepan Plyushkin.
5. The reasons for the moral decay of the hero.
6. Conclusion.

The famous poem by N.V. Gogol's "" was written in 1835. It was during this period that such a movement as realism gained particular popularity in literature. main goal which was a truthful and reliable depiction of reality through generalization typical features person, society and life in general.

Throughout creative path was interested in the inner world of man, his development and formation. The writer set his main task when writing the poem “Dead Souls” to be able to comprehensively show the negative features of the landowner class. A striking example A similar generalization is the image of Stepan Plyushkin.

Plyushkin does not appear in the poem right away; he is the last landowner to whom Chichikov pays a visit during his journey. However, for the first time short reviews Chichikov learns about his way of life and character in passing during his conversations 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 his particular stinginess, greed and mania for accumulation, but even such an unpleasant characteristic did not stop Chichikov and he decided to get to know him.

Meets the hero on his estate, which was in decline and devastation. Was no exception main house: all the rooms in it were locked, except for two, in one of them the hero lived. It seemed that in this room Plyushkin put away everything that caught his eye, any little thing that he later did not use anyway: these were broken things, broken dishes, small pieces of paper, in a word - junk that no one needed.

Plyushkin's appearance was as unkempt 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... Just recently, Stepan Plyushkin lived a measured, quiet life surrounded by his wife and children on his native estate. Everything changed overnight... His wife suddenly dies, his daughter marries an officer and runs away from home, son - leaves to serve in the regiment. Loneliness, melancholy and despair took possession of this man. Everything that seemed to support his world collapsed. The hero lost heart, but the last straw was the death of his outlet - his youngest daughter. Life was 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 annihilation of himself... he is going crazy. The stinginess and greed that developed every day finally broke the thin and previously strained thread of relations with the children, who were ultimately deprived of his blessing and financial support. This reveals the hero’s special cruelty towards loved ones. Plyushkin loses human face. It is no coincidence that in the first minutes of meeting the hero, Chichikov sees in front of him a sexless creature, which he mistakes for an elderly woman - the housekeeper. And only after several minutes of reflection, he realizes that in front of him is still a man.

But why exactly is this so: 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 over time grew into a destructive addiction, which at the root, from the inside, eliminated the hero. But he just lacked love, friendship, compassion and simple human happiness...

Now it is impossible to say with complete confidence what the hero would be like if he had a beloved family, the opportunity to communicate with children and loved ones, because Stepana Plyushkina N.V. Gogol portrayed exactly this: a hero who “lives an aimless life, vegetates,” being, in the words of the author of the poem, “a hole in humanity.” However, in spite of everything, in the hero’s soul there still remained those human feelings that were unknown to the other landowners whom Chichikov visited. Firstly, there is a feeling of gratitude. Plyushkin is the only one of the heroes who considered it correct to express gratitude to Chichikov for the purchase of “dead souls”. Secondly, he is no stranger to a reverent attitude towards the past and towards the life that he now so lacked: what inner inspiration ran across his face at the simple mention of his old friend! All this suggests that the flame of life has not yet gone out in the hero’s soul, it is there and it is glowing!

Stepan Plyushkin certainly evokes pity. It is this image that makes you think about how important it is to have loved ones 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 you must remain human and not lose your moral character! You need to live, since life is given to everyone, in order to leave behind a memorable mark!


The hero's surname has become a household name for centuries. Even someone who has not read the poem represents a stingy person.

The image and characterization of Plyushkin in the poem “Dead Souls” is a character deprived of human traits, who has lost the meaning of the appearance of his light.

Character appearance

The landowner is over 60 years old. He is old, but he cannot be called weak and sick. How does the author describe Plyushkina? Stingily, like himself:

  • An incomprehensible floor hidden under strange rags. Chichikov takes a long time to figure out who is in front of him: a man or a woman.
  • Hard White hair, sticking out like a brush.
  • An insensitive and vulgar face.
  • The hero’s clothing evokes disgust, one is ashamed to look at it, ashamed of a person dressed in something like a robe.

Relationships with people

Stepan Plyushkin reproaches his peasants for theft. There is no reason for this. They know their owner and understand that there is nothing left to take from the estate. Everything has been tidied up at Plyushkin's, rotting and deteriorating. Reserves are accumulating, but no one is going to use them. A lot of things: wood, dishes, rags. Gradually, the reserves turn into a pile of dirt and scrap. The heap can be compared to the trash heap collected by the owner of the manor's house. There is no truth in the landowner's words. People don't have time to steal and become a swindler. Due to unbearable living conditions, stinginess and hunger, men run away or die.

In relationships with people, Plyushkin is angry and grumpy:

Likes to argue. He quarrels with men, argues, and never immediately accepts the words spoken to him. He scolds for a long time, talks about the absurd behavior of his interlocutor, although he is silent in response.

Plyushkin believes in God. He blesses those who leave him on their journey, he is afraid of God’s judgment.

Hypocritical. Plyushkin tries to pretend to care. In fact, it all ends with hypocritical actions. The gentleman enters the kitchen, he wants to check if the courtiers are eating him, but instead he eats most cooked. Whether people have enough cabbage soup and porridge is of little interest to him, the main thing is that he is full.

Plyushkin does not like communication. He avoids guests. Having calculated how much his household loses when receiving them, he begins to stay away and abandons the custom of visiting guests and hosting them. He himself explains that his acquaintances fell out of touch or died, but most likely, what happened to this greedy man it’s just that no one wanted to come.

Character of the hero

Plyushkin is a character who is difficult to find positive features. He is completely riddled with lies, stinginess and sloppiness.

What traits can be identified in the character’s character:

Incorrect self-esteem. Behind the external good nature lies greed and a constant desire for profit.

The desire to hide your condition from others. Plyushkin becomes poor. He says he has no food when barns full of grain rot for years. He complains to the guest that he has little land and no patch of hay for the horses, but this is all a lie.

Cruelty and indifference. Nothing changes the mood of the stingy landowner. He does not experience joy, despair. Only cruelty and an empty, callous look are all that the character is capable of.

Suspicion and anxiety. These feelings develop in him at breakneck speed. He begins to suspect everyone of stealing and loses his sense of self-control. Stinginess occupies his entire essence.

Main distinguishing feature- this is stinginess. The curmudgeon Stepan Plyushkin is such that it is difficult to imagine unless you meet him in reality. Stinginess manifests itself in everything: clothes, food, feelings, emotions. Nothing in Plyushkin is fully manifested. Everything is hidden and hidden. The landowner saves money, but for what? Just to collect them. He does not spend either for himself, or for his relatives, or on the household. The author says that the money was buried in boxes. This attitude towards a means of enrichment is amazing. Only the miser from the poem can live from hand to mouth on sacks of grain, having thousands of serf souls and vast areas of land. The scary thing is that there are many such Plyushkins in Russia.

Attitude towards relatives

The landowner does not change in relation to his relatives. He has a son and a daughter. The author says that in the future his son-in-law and daughter will happily bury him. The hero's indifference is frightening. The son asks his father to give him money to buy uniforms, but, as the author says, he gives him “shish.” Even the poorest parents do not abandon their children.

The son lost at cards and again turned to him for help. Instead, he received a curse. The father never, even mentally, remembered his son. He is not interested in his life, fate. Plyushkin does not think whether his offspring are alive.

A rich landowner lives like a beggar. The daughter, who came to her father for help, takes pity on him and gives him a new robe. The 800 souls of the estate surprise the author. Existence is comparable to the life of a poor shepherd.

Stepan lacks deep human feelings. As the author says, feelings, even if they had the beginnings, “diminished every minute.”

A landowner living among garbage and rubbish is no exception, a fictional character. It reflects the reality of Russian reality. Greedy misers starved their peasants, turned into semi-animals, lost their human features, and aroused pity and fear for the future.

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In Gogol's poem "Dead Souls" all the characters have collective and typical traits. Each of the landowners whom Chichikov visits with his strange request for the purchase and sale of “dead souls” personifies one of the characteristic images of the landowners of Gogol’s modernity. Gogol’s poem, in terms of describing the characters of landowners, is interesting primarily because Nikolai Vasilyevich was a foreigner in relation to Russian people, Ukrainian society was closer to him, so Gogol was able to notice the specific character traits and behavior of certain types of people.


Plyushkin's age and appearance

One of the landowners whom Chichikov visits is Plyushkin. Before the moment of personal acquaintance, Chichikov already knew something about this landowner - mainly it was information about his stinginess. Chichikov knew that thanks to this trait, Plyushkin’s serfs were “dying like flies,” and those who did not die were running away from him.

We invite you to familiarize yourself with the summary of N.V. Gogol’s work “Taras Bulba,” 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 many “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 mistook for the housekeeper was in fact not the housekeeper, but the landowner Plyushkin himself. Plyushkin could have been mistaken for anyone, but not for the richest landowner in the district: he was extremely skinny, his face was slightly elongated and just as terribly skinny 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.

In the work of N.V. Gogol “The Overcoat” the theme is revealed little man. We invite you to familiarize yourself with it summary.

Plyushkin's clothes were absolutely not like clothes; they could hardly even be called that. Plyushkin paid absolutely no attention to his suit - he was worn out to such an extent that his clothes began to look like rags. It was quite possible for Plyushkin to be mistaken for a tramp.

Natural aging processes were also 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 never appears in the text; it is likely that this was done deliberately. In this way, Gogol emphasizes Plyushkin’s detachment, the callousness of his character and the lack of a humanistic principle in the landowner.

There is, however, a point in the text that can help reveal the name Plyushkin. The landowner from time to time calls his daughter by her patronymic - Stepanovna, this fact gives the right to say that Plyushkin was called Stepan.

It is unlikely that this character's name was chosen as a specific symbol. Translated from Greek, Stepan means “crown, diadem” and indicates a permanent attribute of the goddess Hera. It is unlikely that this information was decisive when choosing a name, which cannot be said about the hero’s surname.

In Russian, the word “plyushkin” is used to nominate a person characterized by stinginess and a mania for accumulating raw materials and material resources without any purpose.

Marital status of Plyushkin

At the time of the story, Plyushkin is a lonely person leading an ascetic lifestyle. Already for a long time he is widowed. Once upon a time, Plyushkin’s life was different - his wife brought the meaning of life into Plyushkin’s being, she stimulated the emergence of positive qualities in him, contributed to the emergence of humanistic qualities. They had three children in their marriage - two girls and a boy.

At that time, Plyushkin was not at all like a petty miser. He happily received guests and 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, it was noticeably worn, but looked very decent, there wasn’t even a single patch on it.

Reasons for character change

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 of little interest and fascination with the process of education, so the motivation to live and be reborn for the sake of children did not work for him.


Later, he begins to develop a conflict with his older children - as a result, they, tired of constant grumbling and deprivation, leave their father’s house without his permission. The daughter gets married without Plyushkin’s blessing, and the son begins military service. Such freedom became the reason for Plyushkin’s anger - he curses his children. The son was categorical towards his father - he completely broke off contact with him. The daughter still did not abandon her father, despite this attitude towards her family, she visits the old man from time to time and brings her children to him. Plyushkin does not like to bother with his grandchildren and perceives their meetings extremely coolly.

Plyushkin's youngest daughter died as a child.

Thus, Plyushkin remained alone in his big manor.

Plyushkin's estate

Plyushkin was considered the richest landowner in the district, but Chichikov, who came to his estate, thought it was a joke - Plyushkin’s estate was in a dilapidated state - repairs had not been made to the house 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 actually 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 ancient castle.

The inside of 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 where he penetrated sunlight– these are Plyushkin’s personal rooms.

An incredible mess reigned in Plyushkin's room. It seems that the place has never been cleaned - everything was covered in cobwebs and dust. Broken things were lying everywhere, which Plyushkin did not dare to throw away, because he thought that he might still need them.

The garbage was also not thrown away anywhere, but was piled right there in the room. Plyushkin's desk was no exception - important papers and documents lay mixed in with trash.

Behind Plyushkin's house there is a huge garden. Like everything else in the estate, it is in disrepair. No one has looked after the trees for a long time, the garden is overgrown with weeds and small bushes that are entwined 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 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 mortality rate among serfs. The appearance of Plyushkin’s serfs confirms these words - they are excessively thin, immeasurably skinny.

It is not surprising that 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 undergoing food quality control, Plyushkin manages to eat to his heart’s content. Of course, this trick was not hidden from the peasants and became a reason for discussion.


Plyushkin always 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 has 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 warehouses are overflowing with food, almost all of it becomes unusable and then thrown away. Of course, Plyushkin could give the surplus to his serfs, thereby improving their living conditions and raising his authority in their eyes, but greed takes over - it’s easier for him to throw away unsuitable things than to do a good deed.

Characteristics of personal qualities

In his old age, Plyushkin became an unpleasant type due to his quarrelsome character. People began to avoid him, neighbors and friends began to visit less and less, and then they stopped communicating with him altogether.

After the death of his wife, Plyushkin preferred a solitary way of life. He believed that guests always do harm - instead of doing something truly useful, you have to spend time in empty conversations.

By the way, this position of Plyushkin did not bring the desired results - his estate steadily fell into disrepair until it finally took on the appearance of an abandoned village.

There are only two joys in the life of the old man Plyushkin - scandals and the accumulation of finances and raw materials. Sincerely speaking, he gives himself wholeheartedly to both one and the other.

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 comments calmly - he mainly shouts and scolds his servants.

Plyushkin is not capable of doing anything good. He's callous and Cruel person. He is indifferent to the fate of his children - he has lost contact with his son, and his daughter periodically tries to reconcile, but the old man stops these attempts. He believes that they have a selfish goal - his daughter and son-in-law want to enrich themselves at his expense.

Thus, Plyushkin is a terrible landowner who lives for a specific 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, ruining and destroying the destinies of people.

Plyushkin in the poem “Dead Souls”: analysis of the hero, image and characteristics

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