Cheat sheet: Laughter is a noble face in N.V. Gogol’s comedy The Inspector General. “Laughter is a noble face” in Gogol’s comedy “The Inspector General”

Explaining the meaning of “The Inspector General,” N. V. Gogol pointed out the role of laughter: “I’m sorry that no one noticed honest person, who was in my play. Yes, there was one honest, noble person who acted in her throughout her entire life. This honest, noble face was full of laughter.”
A close friend of N.V. Gogol wrote that modern Russian life does not provide material for comedy. To which Gogol replied: “Comedy is hidden everywhere... Living among it, we don’t see it... but if an artist transfers it into art, onto the stage, then we will laugh at ourselves.”
The object of satire in N.V. Gogol itself becomes modern life in its comically ugly manifestations. Already at the heart of the plot itself is a comedic incongruity: a person is mistaken for someone other than who he really is. But the author solves this situation in a new way: Khlestakov does not pretend to be anyone. The unintentionality of Khlestakov’s actions confused everyone, and his sincerity deceived the officials and the mayor, who himself “deceived the swindlers of the swindlers.” What was happening revealed the truly ugly and funny face of people and caused them to laugh. It was laughter through tears - angry laughter through tears of bitterness and indignation. The author laughs not at specific individuals, but at the vices of Russian reality; it is not for nothing that at the end he throws into the laughing audience: “You are laughing at yourself.”
It becomes both funny and bitter when we read about the order in the county town: “geese and goslings” are scurrying around in public places, and the assessor always smells of vodka; What crazy teachers teach at the school; healer Christian Ivanovich does not know a single word of Russian; At the post office, letters are opened to satisfy the postmaster’s curiosity, and the police “for the sake of order” give everyone a check, and so on.
It was precisely this satirical image that allowed N.V. Gogol to clearly express his indignation at administrative arbitrariness and predation, and at the petty self-interested characters of people in power.
But there are also a lot of simply funny comic situations in the play. For example, the mayor’s hasty orders: “Let everyone pick up the street...”, or the remark “Put on a paper case instead of a hat,” etc. Khlestakov is absurd and ridiculous, screaming in fear and banging his fist on the table: “What right do you have?” ?...I’ll go straight to the minister!” And how “magnificent” he is in the scene of lying, having made a dizzying career in a few minutes from a copyist of papers to a field marshal.
All this makes the play lively, authentic and helps the reader and viewer to cleanse their souls with the help of laughter, because, exposing everything bad, the writer believes in the triumph of justice, which will win.

Explaining the meaning of The Inspector General, N.V. Gogol pointed to the role of laughter: “I am sorry that no one noticed the honest face that was in my play. Yes, there was one honest, noble person who acted in her throughout her entire life. This honest, noble face was full of laughter.”

A close friend of N.V. Gogol wrote that modern Russian life does not provide material for comedy. To which Gogol replied: “Comedy is hidden everywhere... Living among it, we don’t see it... but if an artist transfers it into art, onto the stage, then we will laugh at ourselves.”

The object of N.V. Gogol’s satire is modern life itself in its comically ugly manifestations. Already at the heart of the plot itself is a comedic incongruity: a person is mistaken for someone other than who he really is. But the author solves this situation in a new way: Khlestakov does not pretend to be anyone. The unintentionality of Khlestakov’s actions confused everyone, and his sincerity deceived the officials and the mayor, who himself “deceived the swindlers of the swindlers.” What was happening revealed the truly ugly and funny face of people and caused them to laugh. It was laughter through tears - angry laughter through tears of bitterness and indignation. The author laughs not at specific individuals, but at the vices of Russian reality; it is not for nothing that at the end he throws into the laughing audience: “You are laughing at yourself.”

It becomes both funny and bitter when we read about the order in the county town: “geese and caterpillars” are scurrying around in public places, and the assessor always smells of vodka; What crazy teachers teach at the school; healer Christian Ivanovich doesn’t know a single word of Russian; At the post office, letters are opened to satisfy the postmaster’s curiosity, and the police “for the sake of order” give everyone a check, and so on.

It was precisely this satirical image that allowed N.V. Gogol to clearly express his indignation at administrative arbitrariness and predation, and at the petty self-interested characters of people in power.

But there are also a lot of simply funny comic situations in the play. For example, the mayor’s hasty orders: “Let everyone pick up the street...”, or the remark “Put on a paper case instead of a hat,” etc. Khlestakov is absurd and ridiculous, screaming in fear and banging his fist on the table: “What right do you have?” ?...I’ll go straight to the minister!” And how “magnificent” he is in the scene of lying, having made a dizzying career in a few minutes from a copyist of papers to a field marshal.

All this makes the play lively, authentic and helps the reader and viewer to cleanse their souls with the help of laughter, because, exposing everything bad, the writer believes in the triumph of justice, which will win.

But there are also a lot of simply funny comic situations in the play. For example, the mayor’s hasty orders: “Let everyone pick up the street...”, or the remark “Put on a paper case instead of a hat,” etc. Khlestakov is absurd and ridiculous, screaming in fear and pounding his fist on the table: “What right do you have?” ?.. I’ll go straight to the minister!” And how “magnificent” he is in the scene of lying, having made a dizzying career in a few minutes from a copyist of papers to a field marshal.

Introduction

Understanding the laughter of comedy in a secular version

The Christian essence of laughter in The Inspector General

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

The Inspector General is one of the best Russian comedies. She is always interesting both in reading and in theatrical production. Anyone who reads this comedy asks one of the most important questions: What did N.V. Gogol laugh at? This is what we will try to figure out.
N.V. Gogol began working on the comedy in 1835. It is believed that this plot was suggested to him by A.S. Pushkin. The Russian writer Vladimir Sollogub said in his memoirs: “Pushkin met Gogol and told him about an incident in the city of Serdobsk (Penza region, and in the 19th century Saratov province) - about some visiting gentleman who posed as a ministry official and robbed everyone city residents."
While working on the play, Gogol wanted to quit writing this comedy several times, but Pushkin told him not to stop working on The Inspector General.
In January 1836, Pushkin read a comedy from V.A. Zhukovsky in the presence of large group writers, where there were, including A.S. Pushkin, P.A. Vyazemsky and many others. Pushkin and Zhukovsky were in complete admiration, but many did not see behind the classical screen of the typical plot of the “comedy of errors” a public farce in which the whole of Russia was designated behind the district town.
N.V. Gogol himself spoke about his work: “In The Inspector General, I decided to collect in one pile everything bad in Russia, which I then knew, all the injustices that are done in those places and in those cases where justice is most required from a person, and laugh at everything at once.
Stage fate The play did not come together right away. It was possible to obtain permission for the production only after V.A. Zhukovsky personally convinced the emperor “that there is nothing unreliable in the comedy, it is only a cheerful mockery of bad provincial officials.” And on April 19, 1836, the first production of the comedy took place at the St. Petersburg Alexandrinsky Theater. The Emperor himself personally watched this performance, he applauded and after the performance he laughed: “Well, a play!” Everyone got it, but most of all I got it!”
Comedy had a significant influence on Russian literature in general and drama in particular. Contemporaries noted her innovative style, depth of generalization and prominence of images.
First classic critique“The Inspector General” belongs to V.G. Belinsky and was published in 1840. Belinsky noted the continuity of Gogol’s satire, which takes its toll creativity in the works of Fonvizin and Moliere. The mayor and Khlestakov are just a living embodiment moral decay Russian society generally.
Phrases in comedy have become catchphrases, and the names of the characters have become common nouns in the Russian language.
The comedy "The Inspector General" remains key work Russian literature of the 19th century and is required to study in school.

Understanding the laughter of comedy in a secular version
In “The Inspector General,” the author depicted a district town typical of Russia at that time, the orders and laws that were established there by officials. These “sovereign servants” were supposed to equip the city, improve life, and make life easier for its citizens. But we see that officials strive to improve life only for themselves, completely forgetting about their official responsibilities.
At the head county town stands Anton Antonovich Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky. He considers himself entitled to do whatever he wants - take bribes, steal money from the treasury, and so on. As a result, the city turns out to be dirty and poor, there is chaos here. It is not for nothing that the mayor is afraid that when the auditor arrives, they will denounce him: “O wicked people! And so, scammers, I think they are preparing requests under the counter.”
Gogol notes that the mayor is not a stupid person in his own way. He started his career from the very bottom and achieved his position on our own. In this regard, we understand that Anton Antonovich is a child of the “corruption system” that has developed in the Russian Empire.
So, in the mayor we see an imperious hypocrite who firmly knows what his benefit is. Lyapkin-Tyapkin is a grumpy philosopher who loves to demonstrate his learning, but only shows off his lazy, clumsy mind. Strawberry is a “earphone” and a flatterer, covering up his “sins” with other people’s “sins”. Postmaster Shpekin is a fan of peeping through the keyhole.
Thus, in N.V. Gogol’s comedy “The Inspector General” we see a portrait of Russian bureaucracy. We see that these are people called to be a support for the Fatherland, but in fact they are destroyers and exterminators. They think only about themselves, about their own good, while forgetting about all moral and ethical laws.
The writer shows that officials are victims of the terrible corruption system that has developed in Russia. They do not notice that they are losing not only their professional qualifications, but also their human appearance. They turn into monsters, into slaves of the corrupt system.
How did it happen that all these officials, all these thieves in uniform, mistook a visiting rogue for an “important person” from St. Petersburg? Both the narrow-minded officials and the smart, experienced mayor easily believed that a man who had been living in a hotel for a long time and did not pay anything was an auditor. Indeed, who else could be the one who is allowed to receive and not pay?
Gogol laughs and sometimes even mocks his heroes. He does this with brief characteristics characters of the comedy in the author's remarks “for gentlemen artists.” Their “speaking” surnames also play a role: Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky, Lyapkin-Tyapkin, Derzhimorda, Khlestakov, Khlopov. There is no main character in the play. Or maybe this one main character- laughter?
Still pronounced differently in theaters famous words mayor: “Why are you laughing? You’re laughing at yourself!” Since the time of Gogol, they have sounded like a slap in the face to everyone.
The silent scene at the end of the play looks like Gogol's verdict on the entire bureaucratic kingdom of bribery and lies.

The Christian essence of laughter in The Inspector General
As you know, after staging the comedy, Gogol was annoyed and shocked. He did not expect the result from staging a comedy. He hoped that, just as in the words of the prophet Jonah, the city of Nineveh would turn away from unrighteousness, so Russian vulgarity would dissipate if a truthful mirror of its prophetic denunciation was placed before it. Not a single Russian writer had claims so disproportionate to his capabilities - not a single one was so cruelly disappointed. What before all this is some kind of extraordinary artistic success?
Anything incomprehensible, incomprehensible, the sober mind in its limitations hastens to declare madness. Maybe Gogol’s claims themselves are abnormal? They are outside the norm of the vulgarized world, they are unreal in the apostasy of existence. But the writer strove for “unreal reality.”
During the one and a half century of “The Inspector General”’s presence in Russian literature, what critics and researchers have not discovered in it: and outstanding artistic merit, down to the finest details, and social criticism political revelations and moral denunciations - and everything is fair. They just didn’t want to hear a prophetic word against man’s apostasy from God; they didn’t even believe the author when he wanted to explain himself.
Gogol's laughter is the contrast between what the hero says and how he says it. For example, in the first act, Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky argue about who should tell the news first. This scene is not just supposed to make you laugh. It is very important for them who exactly tells. Their whole life consists of spreading gossip and rumors. And suddenly they got one piece of news. This is a tragedy. They argue over a case. Bobchinsky must be told everything, nothing should be left out, otherwise Dobchinsky will add to it.
Why is N.V. Gogol still dissatisfied with the premiere? main reason The goal was not to make the audience laugh, but in the fact that, given the caricatured manner of acting of the actors, those sitting in the audience perceived it without applying it to themselves, since the characters were funny. Gogol's plan was designed for the opposite perception: To make the viewer feel that the city indicated in the comedy exists in one place or another in Russia, and the passions and vices of officials are in the soul of each of us. In “The Inspector's Denouement” and in the comments to the play “Theater Travel,” where actors and spectators discuss the comedy, the author seeks to destroy the invisible wall separating the stage and the auditorium.
About the epigraph, which appeared at the end of 1842, we can say that it strengthens the internal meaning of “The Inspector General”, that this folk proverb By the mirror he means the Gospel itself, which the author’s contemporaries, committed to Orthodoxy, knew very well and could support in the epigraph, for example, Krylov’s fable “The Monkey and the Mirror”
The presentation of the Gospel as a mirror has long existed in the Orthodox consciousness. One of N.V. Gogol’s favorite writers, Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk, says: “Christians! As a mirror is to the sons of this age, so may the Gospel be to us the immaculate life of Christ. They look in the mirror and correct their body and cleanse the blemishes on their face. Let us then hold up this pure mirror before our spiritual eyes and look into it: is our life consistent with the life of Christ?”
Saint righteous John Kronstadtsky in his diary “My Life in Christ” wrote about those who did not read the Gospel: “Are you pure, holy and perfect, without reading the Gospel, and you do not need to look into this mirror? Or are you very ugly mentally and are afraid of your ugliness?
In Gogol’s extracts from the holy fathers one can find the following entry: “Those who want to cleanse and whiten their faces usually look in the mirror. Christian! Your mirror is the Lord’s commandments; if you put them before you and look closely at them, they will reveal to you all the spots, all the darkness, all the ugliness of your soul.”
Gogol also refers to this image in his letters. This can be seen in letters to M.P. Pogodin and to A.O Smirnova.
As we know, a Christian will answer Last Judgment according to the Gospel law. In “The Denouement,” Gogol puts into the mouth of the Chief Comic Actor the idea that on the Day of Judgment we will have “crooked faces.”
Gogol himself was a deeply religious man, Orthodox person, he never parted with the Gospel.
It is impossible, of course, to create some kind of “mirror” similar to the Gospel image. But just as every Christian is obliged to live according to the Commandments and imitate Christ, so Gogol the playwright, to the best of his talent, arranges his mirror on the stage. Any of the spectators could turn out to be the monkey from Krylov's fable. But it turned out that the viewer saw not himself, but five or six “gossips”. The writer spoke about the same thing in “ Dead souls”, that you will laugh at Chichikov, but some of you, full of Christian humility, will ask the question: “Isn’t there some part of this Chichikov in me too?”
In his comedy, Gogol made his contemporaries laugh at what they were used to and what they stopped noticing. The most important thing is that they are accustomed to carelessness in spiritual life. The audience laughs at the heroes who are spiritually dying. Let's look at these examples.
The mayor believed that there is no person who does not have some sins behind him. This is how everything is arranged by God. Lyapkin-Tyapkin objected: “There are different sins. I tell you openly that I take bribes, but with what bribes? Greyhound puppies. This is a completely different matter."
The judge is sure that bribes with greyhound puppies can’t be considered bribes, “but if a fur coat costs five hundred rubles.” Here the Mayor, understanding the hint, says: “That’s why you don’t believe in God, don’t go to church, but I am firm in my faith and go to church every Sunday”...
The mayor believes that he is firm in his faith, the more sincerely he says this, the funnier it turns out. When he goes to Khlestakov, he tells his subordinates that if they ask why the church was not built at charitable institution, then say that it burned down.
We can say that although the Mayor believes in God, goes to Sunday services, says that he is a sinner, he cannot even be called a deeply religious believer, since he does not act in a Christian manner. He can be compared with the Pharisees, who only outwardly believe in God, and the Mayor only pretends that he is a believer, but in fact is a hypocrite.
With the appearance of Khlestakov, the entire bureaucracy moved from innocence, free-thinking, habitual doing of all kinds of untruths into an attack of fear inherent in criminals expecting severe retribution. Even that same Lyapkin-Tyapkin says to himself: “Lord God! I don’t know where I’m sitting, like hot coals under you.” And the Mayor, in fear, asks for mercy, pretending to be poor.
Gogol was dissatisfied with the way Khlestakov was played. Khlestakov is a visionary. He knows what he is saying and what he will say in the next moment. It’s as if someone is speaking for him, someone sitting in him, tempting all the characters in the play. Isn't he the very king of lies? It seems that Gogol meant exactly this. He wanted to portray Khlestakov in the image of the devil-tempter. The heroes of the play, in response to temptation, themselves reveal their sinfulness.
Khlestakov, tempted by the devil, himself acquires the features of a demon. Gogol in one of his letters said: “The devil boasted of taking over the whole world, but God did not give him power over a pig.” And this is where Ivan Aleksandrovich Khlestakov is described.
The characters in the play increasingly feel a sense of fear, as evidenced by the author’s remarks. This fear spread to the hall. After all, even those who were afraid of real auditors - the sovereign's servants - were sitting in the hall. Gogol, knowing all this, called them to the Fear of God, to the cleansing of their conscience, which no auditor would be afraid of. Officials, blinded by fear, cannot see Khlestakov’s real face. They look at their feet, not at the sky.
The main idea of the Inspector is the thought of spiritual retribution, which every person should expect. The writer, dissatisfied with the way “The Inspector General” was staged, decided to explore this idea in “The Inspector General’s Denouement.”
Here we are already talking about the Last Judgment. And now the final scene of “The Inspector General” becomes clear. It is a symbolic picture of the Last Judgment. The appearance of the gendarme, announcing the arrival of the real auditor, has a stunning effect on the heroes of the play.
Gogol gave great importance He defines the duration of this “silent scene” as one and a half to two minutes of “petrification of the heroes.” Each of the characters shows that he can no longer change anything, so he is in front of the Judge. According to Gogol's plan, there should be a general silence of universal reflection.
“The Denouement” did not give new meaning to the “silent scene”, but only clarified its meaning. In Gogol’s St. Petersburg Notes there are the following lines preceding “The Denouement”: “Lent is calm and formidable. It seems that a voice is heard: “Stop, Christian, look back at your life.”
Meanwhile, Gogol’s intention did not involve making some kind of “living people” artistic allegory. The author just exposed main idea comedy, without which it looks like an indictment of morals.
In the second edition of the ending of The Inspector General's Denouement, Gogol explains his thought. Here the first comic actor responds to the author’s intention: “Even if the author had this thought, he would have acted badly if he had revealed it clearly... We, thank God, are not children. I thought about what kind of moral lesson I could draw for myself, and I attacked the one that I have now told you.”
To the questions of those around him why he alone brought out the moral teaching, this hero replies: “Why do you think that I alone brought out the moral teaching? And why do you consider it distant? I think on the contrary, our own soul is closest to us. I had my soul in my mind then, I thought about myself, and so I came up with such a moral teaching.
It is impossible not to notice that these reflections of the main character of “Dénouement” not only do not contradict the content of “The Inspector General,” but correspond exactly to it. Moreover, the thoughts expressed are limited for the entire work of Gogol.
The idea of the Last Judgment should have been developed in “Dead Souls” since it follows from the content of the poem. One of the sketches directly paints a picture of the Last Judgment. There the author also shows the sinfulness of the landowners.
And he also tries to bring them to clean water.

Conclusion
In general, the Christian understanding of laughter in the comedy “The Inspector General” is explained in that it ridicules the sinfulness of officials, their hypocrisy, and selfishness.
The main theme is the Last Judgment, where it is shown at the end of the comedy in a “silent scene”. In general, Gogol encourages readers not only in The Inspector General, but also in other works to think about the Last Judgment. As the Gospel of Matthew says in chapter 3: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Also, God himself wants people to be saved.
I would like to say that this theme permeates all of N.V. Gogol’s work, corresponding to his spiritual life, his desire for monasticism. The monk is that very person who has retired from the world and is ready to give an answer at the Last Judgment. Gogol can even be called a kind of secular monk, since he lived imitating monasticism, he had no family, and no permanent place of residence. In his works he shows that it is not man who is bad, but the sin that sits in him that is bad. Orthodox monasticism also affirmed this. Gogol believed in strength artistic word, which can point the way to moral revival. With this faith, he created “The Inspector General”.

1 V.V. Gippius, “Literary communication between Gogol and Pushkin.” Scientific notes of Perm state university, Department social sciences, vol. 2, 1931, pp. 63-77
2 N.V. Gogol “The Author’s Confession”
3 N.V. Gogol “The Inspector General”
4Book of Jonah 3:1-10
5 V.A. Voropaev “What Gogol laughed at”
6 Ibid.
7 Gogol “The Inspector’s Denouement”
8 Ibid.
9 1 Timothy the letter of the Apostle Paul

Bibliography
1.Book of Jonah 3, 1-10
2. Gospel of Matthew 3, 1-12
3. 1 Timothy the messenger of the Apostle Paul
4. V.V. Gippius “Literary communication between Gogol and Pushkin”
5. N.V. Gogol “The Author’s Confession”
6.N.V Gogol “The Inspector General”
7. N.V. Gogol “The Inspector’s Denouement”
8. V.A. Voropaev “What Gogol laughed at”

Laughter is one of the most powerful weapons
against everything that has become obsolete.
A. Herzen

One of the features of Gogol's dramaturgy is determined by its attitude to laughter, to the comic. Gogol is a comic writer in general - both as a short story writer and as the author of the poem " Dead Souls", and as a playwright. Nevertheless, it is dramaturgy (the comedies “The Inspector General”, “Marriage”, and then a number of plays united under the heading “ Dramatic passages and individual scenes”) showed the comic nature of Gogol’s genius most fully.

The comic constituted the predominant aspect of Gogol's dramatic world. From now on (since 1836), Gogol’s constant and freest theme will be the idea of deep spiritual conditioning and the security of laughter. High laughter has nothing in common with the laughter that is generated by a quick wit, a pun, or a deliberate exaggeration. He has his own ethical and pedagogical functions: ridicule of “hidden vice”, maintaining elevated feelings.

It is in the comedy “The Inspector General” that the understanding of depth of laughter takes place, its thorough and, so to speak, multi-tiered echeloning: humor, irony, sarcasm, grotesque.

It should be noted that comical are those life phenomena that contain inconsistency with the generally accepted norm, alogism. A constant source of comedy in life is unfounded pretension. Likewise, in the comedy “The Inspector General,” the device of error and inconsistency is the basis of the comic, the basis of the conflict.

Let us remember the time when the comedy “The Inspector General” (1836) was written: the dark era of Nicholas I, a system of denunciation and investigation was in effect, and frequent “incognito” inspector visits were common. Gogol himself defined the idea of “The Inspector General” as follows: “In “The Inspector General” I decided to collect in one pile everything bad in Russia that I knew then, all the injustices... and at one time I laughed at everything.”

Gogol refused to introduce positive heroes into the comedy. And this was a completely deliberate decision. Satirical image life in comedy did not at all mean oblivion by the writer positive ideals. Quite the contrary, based on these positive ideals, which consist in the emancipation of the people, the development of their strength and prosperity, Gogol characterized social phenomena. It is no coincidence that the writer noted that “the brightness of the collected crimes and vices already draws the opposite in everyone’s head.” Genuine positive hero In comedy, according to the writer, laughter appeared.

That is why Gogol’s comedic world is emphatically homogeneous. Not among characters, not among the off-stage characters did we encounter those who would be “taken as a model” and would signal the existence of a different moral and ethical order. All Gogol's heroes are painted the same color, sculpted from the same dough, they all line up as if in a single and undisturbed perspective. This is the perspective of consistent comedy.

Another innovative feature of the comedy should be noted. In The Inspector General, the writer boldly took the action beyond the boundaries of family, everyday, love and lyrical relationships.

The comedy is based on poignant social conflicts, which determine its entire internal development. The social practice of the characters appears in comedy as a decisive criterion for evaluation. human qualities. The heroes of The Inspector General suffer defeat not simply due to their moral inferiority, but due to their social failure. The main idea of the comedy is also subordinated to the depiction of the mayor's family, which takes such an active part in the magnificent meeting of a visitor from the capital - the auditor.

By the way, it was not Gogol who first introduced the “auditor’s situation” into literature. It was developed before him. But the depth and consistency of Gogol’s artistic solution cannot be compared with the solutions of his predecessors.

“The Inspector General” is a deeper work. The point of this comedy is not at all to expose a group of officials of abuses. This topic was already sufficiently covered in satire and comedy of the 18th century. Gogol extremely expanded the boundaries of his comedy, in various situations which reflected the most diverse aspects of the entire structure of life in Russia. Avoiding direct accusations, the writer cheerfully and naturally introduced us to the life of his heroes and showed how grandiose destructive force has laughter.

Gogol, according to Dobrolyubov, possessed “the secret of laughter.” He knew how to see the funny in social and everyday troubles, in a person’s character and behavior, in his manners, in his language. Humor penetrates every pore Gogol's text- its content, style and language.

Preparations for the meeting with the “auditor” begin. There is no hint of any establishment of “wonderful orderliness in affairs,” even if it is short-term. All orders of the mayor relate to appearance: tidy up the public places, put clean caps on the sick, sweep the street to the tavern, that is, the one along which the “auditor” will pass. In short, you just need to keep the form. The position of the person being audited did not require any substantive improvements or corrections to be made. The mayor is well aware of this: “As for the internal regulations and what Andrei Ivanovich calls sins in his letter, I cannot say anything. Yes, and it’s strange to say. There is no person who does not have some sins behind him.”

But the other side also plays a certain game in the “auditor situation”. This game involuntarily - due to the peculiarities of his character - is played by Khlestakov. Or rather, the mayor and the company are leading her along with themselves - with the help of Khlestakov. Awareness of the “auditor” (“I found out everything, the damned merchants told everything!”), threat of punishment, hint of a bribe (“What the hell!”), reluctance to speak directly about his mission (“... wants to be considered incognito” ) - all these observations serve as proof for the mayor that his interlocutor is playing his role correctly, that, therefore, he is facing a real auditor. Deception, or rather self-deception, of the mayor turned out to be possible because he was preparing to play his role with the auditor, and with the auditor, who, in turn, was leading the game. This was required by the logic of the situation, well learned by the mayor over the years. long years services (“... deceived three governors”). And he had to play with the sincere Khlestakov.

The entire episode is permeated with Gogolian irony. The dramaturgy of this very complex scene is developed with pinpoint precision. Here, the direct meaning of the conversation that the characters conduct among themselves, and the hidden one, which, as always, turns out to be the most important, are constantly intertwined. External alogism turns into a very definite logic, completely understandable to the characters participating in the conversation.

The mayor and Khlestakov are exponents of the same reality. Both are swindlers and cheats, although they reveal themselves in different ways. They have a common logic of behavior and language. The incongruities and oddities in the behavior of the capital's guest do not puzzle the mayor in any way, for they are fully consistent with his ideas about how an important official from St. Petersburg should behave. Gogol's characters have their own logic, which does not always coincide with the generally accepted one.

IN " Theater crossing“With the words of a “very modestly dressed man,” Gogol aptly defined the peculiar features of the comedy of the characters in “The Inspector General”: “... I confess, I felt joy, seeing how funny well-intentioned words were in the mouth of the rogue and how hilariously funny everything became, from armchairs to heaven , the mask he is wearing.” These words apply not only to the mayor, but also to other official rulers.

Just as the mask of hypocrisy and hypocrisy is funny, immense pretensions make an irresistible comic impression. worthless people to the significance, wisdom and greatness that we encounter not only in Khlestakov, but also in Lyapkin-Tyapkin, convinced of the extraordinary subtlety and depth of his mind, and in Zemlyanika, confident that if anyone is worthy of high honors, it is he . And the mayor is ridiculous not only when he pours out in well-intentioned speeches, but also when he smugly boasts of what an important bird he has become, united by ties of kinship with Khlestakov.

Trying to show social “vices and crimes” in their entirety, Gogol painted his heroes “ close-up”, boldly resorted to hyperbole, to the grotesque. From here arise “couriers, couriers, couriers... you can imagine: thirty-five thousand couriers alone!” Or such characteristics: “Look, look, the whole world, all of Christianity, everyone, look how the mayor has been fooled! Fool him, fool the old scoundrel! (Threatens himself with his fist.) ... Now he’s singing bells all over the road! Will spread the story all over the world.” Grotesque, in which real life relationships are deformed, verisimilitude gives way to caricature, fantasy, allows not only to expressively, large-scale outline the characters, but also to include them in broad social dimensions.

Gogol dreamed of a comedy that would be a “great school” for society and would mercilessly punish with laughter the “tares” of Russian reality. Explaining the meaning of “The Inspector General,” the writer pointed to the role of laughter and satire: “... I’m sorry that no one noticed the honest face that was in my play. Yes, there was one honest, noble person who acted in her throughout her entire life. This honest, noble face - there was laughter..."

Gogol emphasizes that he decided to ridicule the despicable and insignificant, knowing that this would arouse the enmity of many towards him. The writer saw in laughter, in bringing evil into the public eye, as a powerful means of influencing society. By this he emphasized the main thing in his aesthetic views, in his attitude towards society. It consisted in substantiating the positions of a passionate defender of the truth, a formidable denouncer of social evil. High realism closely merged in The Inspector General with satire, satire with the embodiment of important social ideas. Stupid violence and greed, oblivion of public duty and pretentious ignorance, imperious conceit and resourceful sycophancy found vivid and deep expression in Gogol’s comedy. Her images have had and are having an effective influence on society and continue to live intensely, coming into close contact with many modern social phenomena.