Arguments in the work of the auditor. Comedy "Inspector". Issues. Features of the plot and composition. Anna Andreevna and Maria Antonovna

Comedy NV Gogol's The Inspector General is one of the best plays in the world. Gogol, having the gift of generalizing his observations and creating artistic types in which everyone can find the features of people they know, ridiculed the negative aspects of Russian reality in the best possible way. The plot of The Inspector General is taken from life, the characters, who almost remind everyone of someone, otherwise allow you to recognize yourself in them, make the comedy modern. The whole play is filled with hints that allow the reader to feel the relevance of the comedy.

Laughter is a great weapon. People, according to Belinsky, agree to be known as evil and greedy, cruel and stupid, but not funny. Laughing at the negative phenomena of life, Gogol makes the reader think about their causes, understand all their harmfulness and try to get rid of them.

But maybe the play is really out of date? Maybe the images of her heroes have become incomprehensible to us, maybe we don’t know what “Khlestakovism” is, what a “bribe” is, what sycophancy is? It is difficult to agree with this, although such an assumption sounds tempting. This comedy remains relevant today, none of the ridiculed vices has disappeared.

The meaning of the comedy "The Inspector General".

Written in 1836, the comedy The Inspector General dealt a crushing blow to the entire administrative and bureaucratic system of tsarist Russia in the 30s of the 19th century. The author exposed to general ridicule not individual isolated cases, but typical manifestations of the state apparatus. It would seem, what does the sleepy patriarchal life of a provincial county town, which the mayor sincerely considers his home and disposes of it like a master, have to do with the centralized bureaucratic system? From his hasty remarks to his subordinates about putting things in order in their subordinate institutions, we can easily draw a conclusion about how things are in the hospital, court, schools, and post offices. Lawlessness and arbitrariness reign everywhere.

But this obscure provincial town appears in the comedy as a state in miniature, in which, like a drop of water, all the abuses and vices of bureaucratic Russia are reflected. There is a social stratification of people here, some of whom hold important government posts and use their power to improve their own well-being. At the top of this social pyramid is bureaucracy. Theft, bribery, embezzlement - these typical vices of bureaucracy are scourged by Gogol with his merciless laughter. The urban elite is disgusting. But the people under their control do not cause sympathy.

The vices of bureaucracy are not invented by the author. They are taken by Gogol from life itself. It is known that Emperor Nicholas I himself acted as Gogol's postmaster, who read Pushkin's letters to his wife. The scandalous story of the stealing commission for the construction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior is very reminiscent of the act of the mayor, who embezzled government money allocated for the construction of the church. These facts, taken from real life, emphasize the typical nature of the negative phenomena that the satirist denounces in his comedy. Gogol's play highlighted all the typical vices of Russian bureaucracy, which were embodied in the individual images of the mayor and his entourage.

Speaking about the idea of "The Inspector General", Gogol noted that in this work he decided "... to collect in one heap everything bad in Russia, which he then knew ... and at one time laugh at everything ...". This is how the city of the "Inspector General" arose, which the author called "the prefabricated city of the entire dark side." N.V. Gogol does not know a way out of the contradictions that he reveals in his works, and therefore his laughter is laughter through tears. But he has a huge moral and aesthetic superiority over the world he depicts of wickedness and gibberish. That is why bright laughter emanates from the soul of the artist and his readers.

Thus, the writer in his comedy denounces all the main vices of the ruling bureaucracy in Russia: dishonesty, dishonest attitude to service, bribery, embezzlement, arbitrariness, lawlessness, sycophancy, lack of culture. But the satirist also condemned such negative traits of the oppressed classes as greed, lack of self-esteem, vulgarity, ignorance. Gogol's comedy retains its relevance today, forcing us to think about the causes of many negative phenomena of modern life.

Artistic features of comedy.

The public character was highly inherent in Gogol's dramaturgy. His comedy The Inspector General was of great political importance. Gogol brought to the stage and hit the bureaucracy, which was the main support of the estate-monarchical state, with an instrument of satire. The typical images drawn by Gogol expressed the historical essence of bureaucracy as a social force. In the comedy "The Government Inspector" there are actually no positive characters. They are not even outside the scene and outside the plot.

The relief image of the image of city officials and, above all, the mayor, complements the satirical meaning of the comedy. The tradition of bribing and deceiving an official is completely natural and inevitable. Both the lower classes and the top officials of the city do not think of any other outcome than how to bribe the auditor with a bribe. The district nameless town becomes a generalization of the whole of Russia, which, under the threat of revision, reveals the true side of the character of the main characters.

The role of off-stage characters in the play is great. So Andrei Ivanovich Chmykhov is mentioned in the play only once, but his role is very important. From Chmykhov's letter, the mayor learns about the arrival of the auditor, and the actions of city officials begin to prevent the danger that threatens them. From his letter we learn that for the mayor, "like for everyone, there are sins." The fear of exposing these sins is what pushes officials to "cover up their tracks" and "splurge". Pangs of conscience are unfamiliar to these people. Not the expectation of a just retribution, but the fear of exposure is the driving force of the plot. Tryapichkin, Khlestakov's friend, as well as Chmykhov, never appears before the audience, but Khlestakov's letter to him is the beginning of the comedy's denouement. The truth is revealed in this letter, and everyone understands that they were deceived. Now it becomes clear that Khlestakov is not an auditor, and his characteristics of officials amuse everyone, except those to whom they are addressed.

Critics also noted the features of the image of Khlestakov. An upstart and a dummy, the young man easily deceives the highly experienced mayor. The well-known writer Merezhkovsky traced the mystical beginning in comedy. The inspector, as an otherworldly figure, comes for the soul of the mayor, repaying for sins. “The main power of the devil is the ability to seem not what he is,” this is how Khlestakov’s ability to mislead about his true origin is explained.

Remarks play a special role in the comedy The Inspector General. In "Remarks for the gentlemen of the actors" the author characterizes the characters with irony - openly expressing his attitude ("He is smarter than his master ... and silently a rogue") or hiding him in portrait descriptions ("... a very fat, clumsy and clumsy man ").

Gogol, creating a portrait of society and showing the imperfection of a person, finds a new type of dramatic conflict. It would be natural to expect that the playwright would take the path of introducing into the conflict a hero-ideologist, a true auditor, who serves "the cause, not the persons", capable of exposing the officials of the county town. However, he abandons the tall hero comedy genre. In comedy there is neither a hero-ideologist, nor a conscious deceiver who leads everyone by the nose. Anyone who is mistaken for an auditor does not even suspect this and does not make any deliberate attempts to fool the officials. The peculiarity of the comedy is that officials are fighting against a ghost created by their bad conscience and fear of retribution.

The portrait of each character helps us to compose their speaking names. Having opened the very first page of the comedy and found out that, for example, the surname of a private bailiff is Ukhovertov, and the district doctor is Gibner, we get, in general, already a fairly complete picture of these characters and the author's attitude towards them. These portraits are revealed even deeper in the speech characteristics of the characters. The respectable Mayor and the conversation is sedate and measured: “So this is the circumstance”, “Enough, enough for you!” The provincial coquette Anna Andreevna is fussy and unrestrained; her speech is abrupt and expressive: “Who is this? This, however, is annoying! Who would that be?” Khlestakov, by the way, is somewhat similar in his manner of speaking to Anna Andreevna. The same abundance of exclamations, chaotic, abrupt speech: “I, brother, am not of that kind! I don't recommend...”

The main literary device used by Gogol in the comic depiction of officials is the grotesque. In The Inspector General, much is built on exaggeration: the stupidity of Khlestakov is fantastically exaggerated, brought to the “ideal” level, the situation of delusion is comically exaggerated, but the main thing is a mirage intrigue that highlights the absurdity of human life.

The role of the silent scene in the play is great. She is the last, final chord of the work. The shocked officials froze with horror in anticipation of the inevitable reprisal.

Gogol gave a silent scene as an allusion to the triumph of justice, the establishment of harmony. As a result, the feeling of anxiety and fear only intensified. Indeed, the fear that arose at the beginning of the scene, and then safely melted away when the officials paid off the "auditor" and calmed down, returned. But now the feeling of anxiety increases many times over - the officials find themselves in an even worse situation than at the beginning of the play. After all, having thrown all their strength to please Khlestakov, they never bothered to restore at least external order in their affairs.

The skill of Gogol as a playwright is new and original, and it is no coincidence that The Inspector General is one of the treasures of the Russian theater.

The struggle of the authorities with the satirical orientation of the play.

The play was not officially banned. But Nicholas I decided to fight comedy in his own way. Immediately after the premiere of Gogol's The Inspector General, on the imperial initiative, a play was ordered to be written on the same plot but with a different ending: all embezzling officials should be punished, which, of course, would have weakened the satirical sound of The Inspector General. Who was chosen to author the new “real” “Inspector General” was not advertised for a long time. Already on July 14, 1836 in St. Petersburg and August 27 in Moscow (already at the opening of the 1836/1837 season!) The premiere performances of the comedy The Real Inspector took place. The name of the author did not appear either on the posters or in the printed edition, which was published in the same 1836. After some time, there were references that the author was “a certain Prince Tsitsianov”. Only in 1985 was the book of R. S. Akhverdyan published, in which, on the basis of archival documents, the authorship of D. I. Tsitsianov is proved. Other than those mentioned, no further mention of the production of Tsitsianov's play is known.

The appearance of the comedy "The Inspector General" in 1836 caused an uplifted, exciting feeling in society. This spring gave the audience a meeting with a real masterpiece. It can probably be said that for county officials such a terrible event as the arrival of an auditor from the capital looked like a kind of holiday: creepy, but interesting. Khlestakov is terrible to them and arouses their admiration by the fact that he does not at all look like a person capable of cruelly punishing the guilty.

The comedy presents all aspects of Russian reality. N.V. Gogol depicts the most diverse strata of the urban population. As you know, the world of bureaucracy is a strictly hierarchical structure, living according to the principles "Every cricket know your hearth" and "You are the boss - I'm a fool, I'm the boss - you're a fool." The official is by no means an egocentrist. He understands that the world is quite complicated, and in order to move from its lower point to the upper one, you need a lot of effort and a lot of patience. He is ready to stock up on this patience and make this effort. But for each step of the hierarchical ladder reached, the official demands a reward, which consists in access to the benefits and privileges assigned to this step. Unlike a lumpen, an official has a sense of social responsibility. In his picture of the world, the degree of this responsibility increases as it approaches the highest point. However, in practice this is not entirely true, and very often not at all. Often, as an official approaches the highest point, only the scope of his powers and the entitlement to benefits and privileges increases, while responsibility is skillfully distributed among subordinates. So in the comedy, the main representative of the bureaucracy is the mayor, Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky. City landlords are represented by Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky, the merchants - by Abdulin, the bourgeoisie - by Poshlepkina. The choice of characters is due to the desire to cover as widely as possible all aspects of social life and management of society. Each sphere of life is represented by one person, and the author is primarily interested not in the social function of the character, but in the scale of his spiritual or moral values.

Strawberry is the head of charitable institutions. His people are dying "like flies", but this does not bother him at all, because "a simple man: if he dies, then he will die anyway; if he recovers, then he will recover anyway." The court is headed by Lyapkin-Tyapkin, a man who "has read five or six books." Drunkenness and rudeness flourish in the police. People are starved in prisons. The policeman of Derzhimorda, without any embarrassment, enters the shops of merchants as if in his pantry. The postmaster Shpekin, out of curiosity, opens other people's letters... All officials in the city have one thing in common: each of them considers his state position as an excellent means of living without worries, without spending any effort. The concept of public good does not exist in the city, outrages are happening everywhere and injustice flourishes. Surprisingly, no one even seeks to hide their criminal attitude to their duties, their own idleness and idleness. Bribery is generally considered a normal thing, even, rather, all officials would consider it abnormal if a person suddenly appeared who considers taking bribes a very shameful occupation. It is no coincidence that all officials are deep in their hearts sure that they will not offend the auditor when they go to him with offerings. "Yes, and it's strange to say. There is no person who would not have some sins behind him," the Governor says with knowledge of the matter.

In his play, N.V. Gogol creates a truly innovative situation: torn apart by internal contradictions, the city becomes a single organism due to the general crisis. The only sad thing is that the common misfortune is the arrival of the auditor. The city is united by a feeling of fear, it is fear that makes city officials almost brothers.

Some researchers of N.V. Gogol's work believe that the city in The Inspector General is an allegorical image of St. Petersburg and that Gogol, only for censorship reasons, could not say that the action takes place in the northern capital. Rather, we can say that the city in the play is any Russian city, so to speak, a collective image of Russian cities. Gogol writes that from this city to the capital "at least three years of galloping" - you will not get there. But this does not make us begin to perceive the city in the play as a separate island of vice. No, N.V. Gogol does everything to make the reader understand that nowhere is there a place where life would proceed according to other laws. Of course, it could also happen that the auditor would not take bribes. But there is no doubt that if this happened to any of the characters in the play, he would regard this case as his own personal bad luck, and not at all as a victory for the law. All the officials in the play know, they are simply sure that their norms and customs will be close and understandable to others, like the language they speak. N.V. Gogol himself wrote in "Theatrical Journey" that if he depicted the city differently, readers would think that there is another, bright world, and this one is just an exception. No, it is not, unfortunately. The city in the "Inspector General" is striking in its enormity. Before us is a picture of the disunity of people, their remoteness from the true meaning of life, their blindness, ignorance of the true path. People have lost the natural ability to think, see, hear. Their behavior is predetermined by one single passion to acquire: position in society, rank in the service, wealth. Man gradually loses his human appearance. And such a fate awaits everyone who is far from morality, spiritual values. And yet there is a positive hero in comedy. This hero is laughter, "that laughter that all emanates from the bright nature of man ... without the penetrating power of which the trifle and emptiness of life would not frighten a person like that."

The psychological mechanism of comedic laughter, oddly enough, is akin to the mechanism of fright, amazement. These different manifestations of spiritual activity are related by the fact that these are experiences not prepared by previous events. A person tuned in to the perception of a significant, essential, and suddenly an insignificant, empty thing appeared before him; he expected to see the beautiful, the human, and in front of him - the ugly, a soulless mannequin, a living doll. Laughter is always a joyful "fright", a joyful "disappointment - amazement", which is directly opposite to delight and admiration. Perceiving N.V. Gogol's comedy "The Inspector General", we, it turns out, are deceived, thinking that the mayor correctly takes Khlestakov for the auditor, and we are mistaken, assuming that the person who is mistaken for the auditor should be, if not in the least, solid and positive , then at least a person who is really worth fearing. It turns out that we have a wick in front of us ... ... There is a huge, screaming discrepancy between who Khlestakov really is and who they take him for, between what a government official should be and what he really is. The most important thing is to grasp this contradiction: to see the internal behind the external, the general behind the particular, and the essence behind the phenomenon. It is joyful to realize that everything dangerous for society is not only menacing, but also internally untenable, comical. The world of wicks and dead souls is terrible, but it is also comical: it is below perfection, it does not correspond to high ideals. Realizing this, we rise above the danger. Even the most formidable danger will not defeat us. It can bring us death, but the tragedy can be experienced, however, our ideals must be higher and therefore stronger, and therefore invincible, and therefore we laugh at dead souls, at city dwellers, at the reality that gave birth to them.

The relevance of the problems of the comedy "The Government Inspector" in our time.

In the comedy The Inspector General, N.V. Gogol, with great accusatory power, exposes the vices of society during the times of Tsarist Russia. Officials are in the center of his attention. The ability not to miss what floats into their hands is, in their opinion, a manifestation of the mind and enterprise.

After reading this work, you will involuntarily try it on by now and, unfortunately, no cardinal changes have occurred over such a large number of years. In comedy there is not a single honest hero, from any class. Each of the characters is dominated by several vices, but some of them are more pronounced. Everything that Gogol ridiculed in his immortal comedy has been present for many years to the present day ...

Ivan Alexandrovich Khlestakov.

Gogol's contemporary Apollon Grigoriev characterized this character: "Khlestakov, like a soap bubble, inflates under the influence of favorable circumstances, grows in his own eyes and in the eyes of officials, becomes bolder and bolder in boasting ..." He lies so much that he himself begins to believe in its significance. Gogol noted that Khlestakov is the most difficult character in the play. In each of the created situations, he behaves like a brilliant actor. Khlestakov should not be regarded as an evil or cruel person. By itself, he is completely harmless, and those around him can make anything out of him: even incognito from St. Petersburg, and even with a secret order, even an insignificant metropolitan official. The originality of the character, more precisely, the lack of Khlestakov's character lies in the fact that he has practically no memory of the past and reflection on the future. Khlestakov is focused on the present minute, and within this minute he is able to achieve the highest artistry.

Huge role lies in modern life. The world is full of lies. Not only people who are deceitful by nature lie, but also people who are truthful. They lie not only consciously, but also unconsciously. People live in fear, and lies are a weapon of defense. The structure of consciousness changes with the function of lies generated by fear. Of greatest importance is the lie, affirmed as a duty. It is she who fills the life of states and societies, supports civilization, she is proud of her as a protection from decay and anarchy. The lie of the modern world is not a lie in the sense of sin, but a lie as an expression of a deep regeneration of consciousness. The personal conscience is disappearing from the world more and more, and its voice is heard less and less. But this does not mean that conscience disappears in general, it changes its character. Simply, a person, having lied, shifts this responsibility to society, forced circumstances, life's difficulties.

Anton Antonovich Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky.

The main person in the city is the mayor Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky, a middle-aged man with rough and hard features. “He speaks neither loudly nor softly, neither more nor less.” He "although a bribe taker, but behaves very respectably." Kuptsov "stay froze, even climb into the noose." However, Anton Antonovich allows such behavior only in relation to the philistines, in front of superiors he acts as a zealous servant, benefactor, sycophant and sycophant: “Do I dare to ask you ... but no, I am not worthy ...”

His image is still relevant today. Quite often we hear calls for combating bribery, and at least we encounter it directly. Taking a bribe is one of the most dangerous and widespread types of malfeasance. Meanwhile, in the modern world, bribery is becoming more and more sophisticated, acquiring unprecedented proportions, causing enormous damage to society and the state.

The assessment of the concept of "bribery" is very curious. According to sociological surveys, it is assessed slightly negatively, which indicates a very condescending attitude towards the named figure in modern society. A person who lines his pockets with bribes is not a public scarecrow. This is partly negative, but absolutely normal element of modern life.

Characteristically, students are the worst to take bribes, and state officials are the most calm.

Toadying, characteristic of the mayor, is no less common in our time. A toady is a low flatterer, a servile person, ready for meanness in order to achieve his goals, personal benefits. The one who pleases, fawns, fawns over someone, trying to win over, to achieve something.

A real sycophant can be recognized by the way he looks at his boss. And he does it reverently, with trepidation, attention, while breathing every other time. A sycophant will never miss an opportunity to compliment a leader. He praises absolutely everything: the method of leadership, appearance, talented and beautiful children, the car he bought ... At the same time, the toady is very attentive and, unlike most employees (who are busy with business or themselves), notices the slightest changes in the appearance of the boss. Flattery and flattery is perhaps the most intractable disease that creates many problems in corporate culture. Because of toadies, the psychological situation in the team deteriorates, the system in which the most capable and hardworking grow begins to rapidly collapse, and happy leaders completely lose the ability to self-criticize.

Moreover, some of those fascinated by sycophant subordinates often do not even suspect that they are simply being manipulated, and in the meantime, flattering characters successfully and without unnecessary delay move up the career ladder.

Policeman Derzhimorda.

The Derzhimorda policeman is a rude, despotic person. Without any embarrassment, he enters the shops of merchants as if in his pantry. Drunkenness and rudeness flourish in the police. People are starved in prisons.

His name has become a household name for a stupid, executive-zealous and shameless administrator who does not disdain police methods. An outrageous level of corruption, arbitrariness, unmotivated aggression, disregard for the law, incompetence - all these are characteristic features of the modern law enforcement system of our country.

Crimes committed by police officers have become the norm. Literally every week, the media report on new murders, robberies, beatings, in which people in uniform become defendants.

It's no secret that the citizens of Russia are often more afraid of policemen than bandits. Employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs have become a privileged class, in fact, living by their own laws. The certificate of a police officer actually allows you not to comply with the laws, which gives rise to impunity, corruption and arbitrariness.

Artemy Filippovich Strawberry.

No less colorful is the trustee of charitable establishments Strawberry. Artemy Filippovich - "slicker and rogue", embezzler and scammer. Artemy Zemlyanika serves in a small county town and leads a life “according to his rank and position”, does not care about the state interest at all, while his own well-being is above all for him, mercy is in the hands of a swindler. Charitable institutions for Strawberries - a feeder. In the treatment of patients, his credo: "The closer to nature, the better." He quite calmly says that expensive medicines are not used in the hospital: “A simple man: if he dies, he will die anyway; If he recovers, then he will recover.” It is no coincidence that Artemy Filippovich would later make a reservation that “the sick, like flies, are recovering” with him. Of course, the reader understands that it would be more appropriate to say "they are dying like flies", it would be closer to the truth. Having learned about the arrival of the auditor, Strawberry is ready to “take cosmetic measures”: put clean caps on the sick, inscribe the name of the disease on a tablet over the beds, and even reduce the number of sick people so that their excess is not attributed to bad looking or to the lack of skill of the doctor. Gogol gives him the following characterization: “Slick and rogue. Very helpful and fussy.”

Unfortunately, the embezzlement and indifference of Strawberry takes place in the modern world. No one has yet estimated the losses of the state from embezzlement. One can only say that they cannot exceed the size of the state and local budgets taken together.

As reported in the press, instead of expensive freon, a cheaper poisonous intermediate product of its production, tetrachlorethylene, was pumped into the fire extinguishing system. Who benefited from this substitution, the press is silent. The Ministry of Defense, of course, is also silent. This example, alas, is not the only one and not the most egregious, just very characteristic: nothing sacred exists when it comes to the personal gain of those involved, accomplices in embezzlement and corruption.

But this is only in terms of volume, and if we consider direct damage. The indirect damage from embezzlement is much higher: there are malfunctioning or even non-working government mechanisms, and destroyed morality, and in the end this damage is measured in human lives. A simple example: the Nerpa nuclear submarine (NPS), on which an accident occurred with the death of people during sea trials in the Sea of Japan. The fire extinguishing system of the Project 971 K-152 "Nerpa" nuclear submarine worked abnormally, as a result of which 20 people died, more than forty people were poisoned.

Pyotr Ivanovich Dobchinsky and Pyotr Ivanovich Bobchinsky.

The similarity of Dobchinsky and Bobchinsky is manifested even in the consonance of their surnames. They not only have the same names - they think and speak almost the same way. Their stories, with a huge amount of unnecessary details, each time claim that they are just gossips and townsfolk.

From the point of view of psychology, the position of the layman is freedom from responsibility, and, above all, from the internal one, which would appear if he undertook to really resolve certain significant issues. Instead, the layman finds satisfaction in the fact that he arbitrarily and momentarily chooses what is most profitable and simple for him.

The main feature of the townsfolk, which unites them all, is the approach chosen in principle for themselves in life, expressed in the unwillingness to bother with anything, to take any position for themselves, to decide the correctness or incorrectness of some things that fall out of the circle of its extremely narrow and immediate personal interests. However, with all this, the inhabitants reserve the right to judge and speak out for themselves about everything. Moreover, they even see their right to this as a priority, in relation to those who are really trying to understand these things. The very word "gossip" has the meaning of interweaving false events with their participants for someone's plans, slander and slanderers, perhaps to hide their deeds, actions and immorality.

Gossips are usually someone's tool and are used for some negative purpose. In modern society, rumors do not give up their positions and remain the most powerful tool for influencing people.

The likelihood of rumors increases in a situation of eventlessness, monotony and boredom. No wonder: gossip is entertainment. Once upon a time, before the advent of the media, rumors were the only way to inform people. And in modern society, gossip occurs, as a rule, where there is a lack of information.

Ammos Fedorovich Lyapkin-Tyapkin.

Gogol awards a beautiful "speaking" surname to a local judge - "Lyapkin-Tyapkin". It becomes immediately clear how he conducts business. Ammos Fedorovich is only interested in hunting and, taking bribes with greyhound puppies, considers himself a highly moral person. His indifference to official affairs and duties is so great that the county court is gradually turning into a kind of farm - domestic geese are kept right in the front of the watchman.

In the daily life of society, indifference is manifested: in enterprises, in schools, in business, and so on. Indifference in relationships occurs quite often, and there are reasons for it in the modern world. Indifference is a state of complete indifference, disinterest. “For fifteen years now I have been sitting on the judicial chair, and when I look at the memorandum - ah! I’ll just wave my hand, ”says Ammos Fedorovich. Most of our modern day people are so preoccupied with their everyday difficulties, personal and business problems, that they often do not have enough time to pay due attention to, establish and maintain good human relationships with others outside the narrow family or business circle.

Indifference and indifference is manifested in everything and penetrates everywhere. They are the cause of low self-esteem, distrust of people, inability and unwillingness to properly arrange their future. Selfishness, cynicism, arrogance, superficiality - qualities generated by indifference.

At the same time, the spiritual culture of people remains at a low level, the line between noble, truly valuable and vulgar is gradually blurred. No wonder they say that indifference is poison for the heart. Having only allowed this darkness into himself a little, a person does not notice how it absorbs him completely.

Ivan Kuzmich Shpekin.

Postmaster Shpekin is not only a fool, but also a scoundrel. He openly opens and reads other people's letters, and leaves the most interesting for his collection. Whether he does it out of curiosity or just out of boredom - it doesn’t matter, but he doesn’t hide it and, moreover, has the mayor’s permission for this: “... can’t you, for our common good, any letter that comes to you in post office, incoming and outgoing, you know, print it out a little and read...”

It's no secret that Shpekin's actions are an encroachment on the secrecy of correspondence, a criminally punishable act. In the modern world, this is considered a crime, but there are more and more Shpekins. There are new means of communication, there are also people who are ready to read someone else's correspondence. Perhaps due to the lack of personal communication, perhaps simply out of idle curiosity, but the fact remains. E-mail boxes are hacked, telephone conversations are tapped. As a result, the deeply personal, secret becomes public property.

The lower class.

Such traits of people of the lower class as greed, vulgarity, ignorance, did not go unnoticed by N.V. Gogol. In oppressed offended people without rights, such as a locksmith, a serf servant Osip, a tavern floor, a non-commissioned officer's widow who "whipped herself", there is a complete lack of self-esteem, the ability to resent their slavish position. These characters are brought out in the play in order to emphasize the consequences of the unseemly actions of the ruling officials, to show how those who are lower in position suffer from their arbitrariness.

In a modern, rather aggressive world, it is quite difficult to maintain self-esteem. Self-esteem is a person's personal inner judge. This value is so often inconstant: either it will ascend to heaven, in the event of some kind of victory, success, or it will rush into the pool of self-flagellation, corroding from the inside with a viscous whip for the mistakes made.

Low self-esteem is often present in the lives of people who do things they don't like, live with people they don't like. Inwardly, they understand this very well, but they cannot do anything, quietly hating themselves for their impotence, which gives rise to anger towards everyone around them. As a result of this, an irresistible craving for money appears, as an indicator of dignity, nobility and significance.

People by all means try to prove to themselves, and first of all to those around them, that they are above the rest, despite the minor shortcomings of their personal lives. This is probably the scariest. A person who exalts public opinion over his own loses his self-esteem, that is, loses himself in the modern world.

Conclusion.

More than a century and a half has passed since the comedy was published, and its heroes, no, no, and we will meet here and there. This means that these are not just characters in the play, but human types that still exist. The work of N.V. Gogol, in my opinion, is not so much comical as full of tragedy, because, reading it, you begin to understand: a society in which there are so many leaders who have fallen, corrupted by idleness and impunity, has no future. The relief image of the image of the city officials and, above all, the mayor, complement the satirical meaning of the comedy. The tradition of bribing and deceiving an official is completely natural and inevitable. Both the lower classes and the top officials of the city do not think of any other outcome than how to bribe the auditor with a bribe. The district nameless town becomes a generalization of the whole of Russia, which, under the threat of revision, reveals the true side of the character of the main characters, which is typical for any time.

The influence of the comedy "The Inspector General" on Russian society was enormous. The surname Khlestakov began to be used as a common noun. And Khlestakovism began to be called any unbridled phrase-mongering, lies, shameless boasting, combined with extreme frivolity. Gogol managed to penetrate into the very depths of the Russian national character, extracting from there the image of a false auditor - Khlestakov. According to the author of the immortal comedy, every Russian person at least for a moment becomes Khlestakov, regardless of their social status, age, education, and so on. In my opinion, overcoming Khlestakovism in oneself can be considered one of the main ways of self-improvement of each of us. All modern productions of the comedy "The Inspector General" emphasize its relevance to the new time. A lot of time has passed since the play was written, but everything suggests that this Gogol work about an ordinary incident that happened in a Russian provincial town will not leave the stage of Russian theaters for a long time to come. We still have everything that Gogol noticed: embezzlement, bribery, servility, indifference, ruthlessness, dirt, provincial boredom and increasing centralization - a pyramid of power, a vertical - when any metropolitan rogue passing by is perceived by an omnipotent big boss. And the very image of Khlestakov always corresponds to the spirit of the times.

And yet, more often we meet kind and sympathetic people who, by their actions, strive to change the world for the better. They do not look like either Khlestakov or the mayor: they have other ideals. Thanks to such strong and selfless personalities, our country was able to withstand difficult times and maintain its dignity to this day.

Reading The Inspector General, we are convinced every time that the great work has not lost its accusatory power even today, that absolutely each of us has something to learn from Gogol.

Bibliography.

Fiction

N.V. Gogol. Auditor. - M .: State Publishing House of Children's Literature Ministry of Education of the RSFSR, 1952.

Yu.V. Mann. N.V. Gogol. Life and art. - M .: Children's literature, 1985.

Yu. V. Mann. Gogol's comedy "The Government Inspector". - M.: Fiction, 1976.

Popular science literature

N.A. Berdyaev. Philosophy of inequality. – M.: AST, 2006.

N.A. Berdyaev. Self-knowledge. – M.: Vagrius, 2004.

Periodicals

V.R. Spiridonov. The mythology of a bribe.//Psychological newspaper: We and the World, No. 3, 2000.

N.Ya.Chuksin. On corruption//Samizdat, 2009, No. 7.

Vasily Buslaev. Nuclear submarine "Nerpa" // Rossiyskaya Gazeta, 11/13/2008, No. 234

Reference publications

Ushakov Dmitry Nikolaevich. Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language Ushakov. - M.: State. foreign publishing house and national words, 2007.

Gogol's play "The Inspector General" made a kind of revolution in Russian drama: in terms of composition and content. Its successful study in literature lessons in grade 8 will be helped by a detailed analysis of the work according to the plan that you will find in the article. The history of the comedy, its first production, the problems and artistic features of the play are discussed below. In The Inspector General, analysis involves knowledge of the historical and social conditions of the era being described. Gogol always believed in the future of Russia, so he tried to “heal” society with the help of art.

Brief analysis

Year of writing- 1835, the last edits to the play were made by N.V. Gogol in 1842 - this is the final version.

History of creation- the idea for a satirical play was presented to Gogol by A.S. Pushkin, who told the story of P.P.

Subject- the vices of society, bureaucracy and its lawlessness, hypocrisy, spiritual poverty, universal stupidity.

Composition- Ring structure, lack of exposition, "psychological" author's remarks.

Genre- a comedy of a socio-satirical orientation.

Direction- realism (typical, characteristic of the 19th century).

History of creation

In 1835, interrupting work on "Dead Souls", Nikolai Vasilyevich asked Pushkin for ideas for writing a satirical play that would ridicule social shortcomings, the life of higher ranks. Pushkin shares with Gogol the story of P. P. Svinin, which happened in Bessarabia. He also reports that once he himself found himself in a similar situation in Nizhny Novgorod, when he came to collect material about Pugachev. The situation is indeed comical: Gogol liked it, and during October-November 1835 he wrote a play.

During this period, similar themes appear in several writers of Gogol's contemporaries, it upsets him, he loses interest in the idea. In his letters to Pushkin, he talks about his desire to quit work, but Alexander Sergeevich convinces him not to stop, to finish his work. Finally, the comedy was read out by the author on a visit to V. Zhukovsky, where famous writers and writers gathered. Those present perceived it with enthusiasm, but the essence of the comedy eluded the audience, which upset the author.

The Inspector General was considered an ordinary classic play with typical characters and that stands out from its own kind only thanks to the author's sense of humor. The stage acquired the play far from immediately (the first production was in 1836 at the Alexandrinsky Theater), Zhukovsky himself persuaded the emperor to allow the production of the work, assuring him of the reliability of the plot and idea. The dramatic action itself made a double impression on the ruler, but he liked the play.

Subject

Gogol's realism placed a typical person in typical circumstances, but the result that the playwright wanted to achieve was to convey to the viewer something more than a play about vices. The author made several attempts in the hope of conveying the main idea of the play to the actors and directors, wrote accompanying comments and recommendations for the production. Gogol wanted to reveal the conflict as fully as possible: to emphasize the comic, the absurdity of the situation.

The main theme of the play- the problems and vices of society, the stupidity and hypocrisy of bureaucracy, showing the moral and spiritual side of the life of this class. The language of comedy is sharp, satirical, caustic. Each character has his own unique speech style that characterizes and denounces him.

There are no positive characters among the heroes of the play, which is quite new for the genre and direction in which the author worked. plot engine is a banal fear - high-ranking checkers could decide the fate of anyone in such a way that he could lose his position in society and suffer serious punishment. Gogol wanted to reveal a huge layer of the vices of society, thereby curing him of them. The author planned to raise all the meanest, unfair and immoral things that are happening in modern society.

Idea, which is implemented by the author in the play - to show the lack of spirituality, vulgarity and baseness of the way of life of the Russian bureaucracy. What the work teaches is on the surface: you can stop the situation if everyone starts with themselves. It is strange that the author wanted an adequate perception of the play from the audience, who were in fact the prototypes of his characters.

Composition

A feature of the composition is that the play does not have an exposition, but begins with a plot. There is a ring structure in the work: it begins and ends with the message that “the auditor has arrived”. Khlestakov finds himself in the center of events quite by accident, for some time not understanding why he is received so well in the city. After that, he accepts the terms of the game, maintaining the role that has been imposed on him. For the first time in literature, the protagonist is a deceitful, unprincipled, low and disgustingly quirky character. The work is well perceived in the form of a play when reading thanks to the author's remarks and remarks that reveal the psychology of the characters, their inner world. Gogol created an amazing collection of images in one short play, many of which have become household names in literature.

Main characters

Genre

Gogol can be called the founder of the satirical dramatic genre in Russian literature. It was he who brought out the main patterns of comedy, which became classic. He introduced the “silent scene” technique into dramaturgy, when the characters are silent. It was Nikolai Vasilyevich who introduced the satirical technique of the grotesque into the comedy. The bureaucracy is depicted not just stupid, but monstrously limited. There is not a single neutral or positive character in the comedy; decisively all the characters are mired in vices and their own stupidity. The genre of the work - social satirical comedy in the spirit of realism.

Artwork test

Analysis Rating

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Gogol is a writer of wide versatility: the author of the captivating "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka", these poetic stories about the life of the Ukrainian people, the caustic satirist of the wretched bureaucratic world in St. Petersburg stories, the majestic, epic poet in the patriotic epic "Taras Bulba", the formidable, poem "Dead Souls"

And among this diverse creative activity, an honorable and great place belongs to Gogol the playwright. The author of The Government Inspector paved new paths for Russian theatrical art. He created the theater of life's truth, the theater of deep social realism, which adequately continued the best traditions of Russian drama.

Comedy was of particular interest to Gogol. He spoke of the fact that the theater is in the grip of vulgar laughter, which moves a rude crowd, chasing cheap effects, while the stage needs "electric, life-giving laughter."

The idea of such a comedy inspires Gogol. In February 1833, he wrote to Pogodin: “... I was obsessed with comedy ... She, when I was in Moscow, on the road, and when I arrived here, did not get out of my head, but so far I have not written anything ... "The dramatic excerpts "Morning of a Businessman", "Tyazhba", "Lakeyskaya", "Vladimir of the 3rd degree", written during this period, apparently, were preparatory sketches for a large work. Following these experiments, Gogol worked on the play "Grooms", which was later revised and called "Marriage" (1833-1842). The Inspector General and The Marriage expressed with particular fullness the features of the national identity of Russian literature, developed the line of social comedy already outlined by Fonvizin's Undergrowth and Griboyedov's Woe from Wit.

Gogol's comedies, in terms of the depth of realistic skill, the breadth of social coverage and the accusatory power of their satire, far outstripped the Western European theater and marked a new stage in the development of world drama.

Fonvizin and Griboyedov can be called the predecessors of Gogol in Russian dramaturgy. Griboedov acted as an innovator, moving away from the basic principles of comedy construction in his work (he pushed out a love affair, introducing a social conflict developing in conjunction with it; he filled the comedy with negative characters and depicted only one positive face, etc.).

The Inspector General (first staged on April 19, 1836 at the Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg; simultaneously released as a separate edition) absorbed much of what was recorded in previous Gogol plays. All or almost all the motives that the writer considered modern and capable of starting a comedy were reflected in The Inspector General: the interest in a profitable marriage, and the harassment of a rank or award, and envy, and rivalry, and the desire to avenge neglect.

Innovation: 1) simplicity and generality of the plot (the arrival of the auditor affects the interests of all the characters, reveals all the secret thoughts, spiritual aspirations of the characters, all the driving springs of the life of the "prefabricated city."); 2) the type of Khlestakov as the main character (instead of a swindler leading a well-thought-out intrigue, in the center was a “stupid”, “without a king in his head” young man who did not set himself the conscious goal of deceiving officials, but who, by a combination of circumstances, was brought into the position of “ winner"); 3) “mirage intrigue”, in which the confrontation and efforts of the characters not only did not lead to a real result, but also obviously could not lead to it (since Khlestakov is not a real auditor); 4) silent scene.

The role of the silent scene in the play is great. She is the last, final chord of the work. The shocked officials froze with horror in anticipation of the inevitable reprisal.

The skill of Gogol as a playwright is new and original, and it is no coincidence that The Inspector General is one of the treasures of the Russian theater.

Gogol's idea was designed to involve the viewer in the play, to make them feel that the city depicted in the comedy does not exist somewhere, but to some extent anywhere in Russia, and the passions and vices of officials are in the soul of each of us. . Gogol addresses everyone and everyone. This is the meaning of Gorodnichiy’s famous remark: “What are you laughing at? You are laughing at yourself! * The epigraph also indicates this;

"Theatrical tour * and" Examiner's Denouement *, where the audience and actors discuss

comedy, Gogol, as it were, seeks to destroy the wall separating the stage and the visual

Gogol wrote the play The Inspector General in ____. The idea was given to him by A. S. Pushkin, who was mistaken for an auditor in Nizhny Novgorod, and Gogol himself sometimes pretended to be important people in order to immediately demand the best horses. An important role was played by K. Bryullov's painting "The Last Day of Pompeii", from which the writer drew inspiration in many respects. The first production of the play was not successful. It was attended by the Russian tsar, and he did not like the audacity of Gogol, who depicted Russia from its dark sides. However, the second show ended in success, because it was attended by the common people, for whom the paintings depicted were recognizable, everyday. Gogol showed the dark sides of his time, the play looks unrealistic, but this is not required: the general negativity destroys any hope that the situation is better somewhere than in the city of N. If there is a positive character in comedy, then this is Gogol's Laughter. Gogol ruthlessly ridicules the whole of Nikolaev Rus, and especially officials. On this occasion, the mayor speaks in the play: “... there is a clicker, a paper maraca, he will insert you into a comedy. That's what "it's a shame! Chin, the title will not spare, and they will all bare their teeth and clap their hands. What are you laughing at? - You are laughing at yourself! .."

An important role is played by the image of the city of N. Many “sketches from nature” make it recognizable, and for good reason - after all, this city is a collective image of all Russian cities, as evidenced by the absence of a name, and the words that “yes, from here, at least three years jump, you won’t reach any state.” This image is well conveyed through the inhabitants of the city, and primarily through its officials. They are all mired in bribery, abuse of office, but they have such a typical feature as servility. However, this is not terrible, but the fact that they take it for granted, according to the mayor, “there is no person who does not have some sins behind him. It is already so arranged by God himself, and the Voltaireians speak against it in vain.

Judge Lyapkin-Tyapkin does not consider a bribe by greyhound puppies to be such. In court, he has a mess and devastation: in the waiting room, the watchman breeds geese, a hunting rapnik hangs on the wall, and from the assessor “there is such a smell, as if he had just left the distillery.” As a judge, Lyapkin-Tyapkin clearly illustrates the saying that "the law is that the drawbar: where you turn, it went there." He has read five or six books and is therefore considered a freethinker.

Another representative of the bureaucracy of the city of N is A.F. Zemlyanika, the trustee of charitable institutions, "a very fat, clumsy and clumsy man, but for all that a sly and a rogue." In institutions subordinate to him, patients look like blacksmiths, smoke strong tobacco, the doctor does not know a word of Russian, and he himself adheres to the principle that “a simple man: if he dies, then he will die; if he recovers, he will recover anyway” and his patients are dying like flies.

Yes, and in educational institutions, not everything is in order: teachers make grimaces in the classroom, thereby instilling “free-thinking thoughts in youth”, break state-owned furniture, which the mayor really does not like, and Luka Lukich Khlopov, the superintendent of schools, cannot do anything about it.

But the vicious pyramid is headed by A. A. Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky, the mayor. Abuse of official position is elevated to the absolute: he flogs an innocent person (non-commissioned officer's wife) and also makes her pay a fine; sends a married man to the army instead of another applicant who gave him a bribe; takes goods from merchants; celebrates name days twice a year, etc. He also dreams of a high rank of general. After watching this play, V. G. Belinsky said that the Russian bureaucracy is "a corporation of various official thieves and robbers."

Complements the image of the false auditor Khlestakov. He is no better than the inhabitants of the city, which inspires confidence that in other cities everything is exactly the same. However, Khlestakov is much worse: he lives only in the present, not thinking about the past or the future, he is not even a person in the usual sense of the word, he is a phantom, an empty character. Why was he mistaken for an auditor? Firstly, officials, living in constant fear, are ready to believe anyone who can somehow pass for an auditor. And secondly, Khlestakov begins to lie, and he does it with such pleasure that he himself believes in what he says.

As already mentioned, Gogol wrote The Government Inspector partly under the impression of the painting The Last Day of Pompeii by the painter Karl Bryullov. It shows the separation of people even at the time of the disaster, everyone does what he sees fit and only cares about himself. A similar thing happens in the play, but it is strange and sad that the visit of the auditor acts as a catastrophe. Perhaps Gogol hinted at the arrival of the True Inspector, before the Last Judgment, from which nothing can be hidden, who cannot be deceived or bribed, and who will judge everyone impartially, regardless of the amount of money and official position. The problem of the city H from Gogol's play is very relevant even now, although it has slightly changed over time, the essence has remained the same.

The comedy was written in 1835, published and staged in 1836. By that time, the Russian theater already had a long history and an established dramatic tradition - thus, the play appears in line with an already existing literary tradition. In addition, there were comedies similar to The Inspector General in terms of the plot: the comedy by G.F. how the latter, deftly taking advantage of the confusion, circled everyone around his finger. Despite this obvious similarity, The Inspector General is fundamentally different from them and is fundamentally new type of drama according to its theme, and consequently, to the problems, which determines its specific compositional and plot construction.

The theme of the play. The comedy The Inspector General covers the life of the Russian province: the county town and its inhabitants - the subject of the image becomes the world of a small county town N. In addition, the most important theme of comedy is Petersburg (as a model of the city N). The county town in the "Inspector" appears to the reader as mini-model of the state (state within a state)- we see rigidly hierarchically organized social ladder(mayor - the supreme power, then officials, then landowners, merchants, petty bourgeois). Within the framework of this social hierarchy of society (= structure of society), Gogol covers the activities of various state and social institutions (= institutions) that form it (= depicts separate tiers of society): court, police, education, post office, charitable institutions. Also, within the framework of the “tiers”-institutions of society, the playwright depicts different classes and social groups (members of the tiers-institutions): the nobility (officials, city landowners), merchants, bourgeoisie (“citizenship”, in the words of Gorodnichiy). It turns out that Gogol gives us in his comedy the most complete a picture of contemporary social reality and its characteristic features, in the image of the city N, the image of Russian social life, the entire bureaucratic system of the Nikolaev empire is generalized. City N is Petersburg in miniature, Petersburg is a model of the state structure of the whole of Russia (a symbol of state power that administers justice).

It is important to consider that the ideological orientation of comedy is satirical, accusatory pathos- gives the disclosure of this topic several another aspect. The image of this subject (social life contemporary to Gogol) from the position of comic satirical ridicule makes the writer combine social themes with moral themes: in it the attention of the writer is interested in the image of human passions and vices.

If we compare the theme of The Inspector General with the theme of the aforementioned comedy by Kvitka, we will find that the subject of the image in The Inspector General is not cheating, but life itself contemporary to Gogol in its comically ugly manifestations. The Inspector General is a "purely public comedy", where the topicality of a comedy and the moral force of a tragedy are combined.

Issues. The range of issues raised in the play is determined by the theme of the play. The problematic finds its solution in the development of a dramatic conflict, which, by its denouement, determines the originality of the ideological and artistic sound of the work (the theme is the subject of the image, problems are questions to the subject that arise in a certain situation, answers are developed in the course of resolving the conflict situation, ready-made answers are idea of the work). In order to correctly characterize the problematics, we should refer both to the theme itself and to its development within the framework of the dramatic conflict.

We see that in this play social issues are intertwined with moral issues (as well as themes). Questions of interest to Gogol: how does the social existence of a person correlate with his spiritual existence, whether the accepted social "norms of behavior" and moral norms coincide, whether the concept of "life in society" is equivalent to the concept of "life in conscience". In many ways, the relevance of this issue is due to the historical context: the work was created in Nicholas Russia, during the operation of the “bureaucratic machine”, when the gap between the “rank” and the person, part of the soulless state machine and the living human soul, became especially clear.

Duality of problems determines duality of dramatic conflict(conflict - resolution of problems): it has an external (social) and internal (moral) side. The peculiarity of the conflict, in turn, affects the compositional and plot structure of the work.

The external side of the conflict lies in the confrontation between Khlestakov and city officials - it is often called an "imaginary" conflict. The clash of characters is built here on a misunderstanding - city officials mistook Khlestakov for an auditor. Here the mainspring of the action is the situation of the inspector: the message of Bobchinsky and D Obchinsky about the "inspector" who has arrived is the beginning of the external part of the conflict. The external stage action of a comedy is built precisely on the external conflict - it organizes the dramatic intrigue, its development and resolution, and so on. plays an important compositional role in the work. It is noteworthy that the external action is organized not by a love affair, but by the interests of people connected with their social position.

The “mirage center” of the “imaginary conflict” is Khlestakov: it seems that he controls the action. This character appears in the play only in the second act and in the fourth he is already leaving (and the external conflict around him all this time). To be completely precise, here the main person is not Khlestakov himself, but public perception of him as an auditor: it controls the minds of the townspeople - makes them please him in every possible way, follow his desires. However, we, the audience, know that this performance is imaginary: the very situation in which the characters act is also imaginary. This is a situation of purely social interaction: the inspector came to the city, the inspector quarreled with the owner of the hotel, the conflict was settled by the mayor, the mayor invited the inspector to the house to make amends, the inspector accepts petitions, complaints and bribes, follows the wife and daughter of the mayor, receives a daughter , gives consent to marriage with the daughter of the mayor - the mayor is happy: the situation with the auditor was resolved in his favor. The culmination of the mirage intrigue is the scene of Khlestakov's lies, the denouement of this side of the conflict is the triumph of the mayor.

This is how the characters of the play see the situation, but we, the audience, see its illusory nature. The present situation is part of the inner side of the conflict.

The internal side of the conflict is not related to the behavior of individual characters (=their social interaction): the main collision in the play has a moral significance. The spring of internal action is a situation of fear of revision. The plot of this side of the conflict is the reading by the mayor of Chmykhov's letter about the arrival of the auditor. Here the motive of waiting for the auditor arises - the ghost of the capital appears (= the ghost of the state apparatus): the auditor arrives incognito, with a secret order. Officials are overcome by fear of the unknown. Fear causes self-disclosure among officials: officials begin to confess their own “sins” and talk about the “sins” of others. The mayor covers in detail all the abuses and lawlessness in addressing them - here is a picture of county life. In subsequent scenes, watching from the sidelines how frightened officials react to the possible appearance of a stranger in the city, we see their abuses and "sins" with our own eyes. The mayor's monologue addressed to a private bailiff (end of Day 1) reinforces the impression of the hero's fear of the auditor and at the same time opens up to the viewer a picture of the outrages happening in the city with the connivance or explicit participation of the mayor. The motive of fear is emphasized by the author's remarks "in fear", "in fright", "trembling all over". In the scene of the meeting between the Governor and Khlestakov (the beginning of the external conflict), the situation of fear is most clearly outlined: the Governor is afraid of Khlestakov, Khlestakov is afraid of the Governor. Fear prevents the Governor from reasoning sensibly, and he, who is well versed in people, takes Khlestakov for an important bird and involuntarily confesses his iniquities. Due to the fact that the characters are afraid of each other, they do not understand each other. So, the Governor offers Khlestakov to move to another apartment - to his home, and Khlestakov thinks that he will be taken to prison. The motive of fear continues to develop further. “The State Council itself is afraid of me,” Khlestakov declares in the scene of lies (3rd d), saying what they want to hear from him, and officials, accordingly, see what they want to see. In the fourth act, the officials who come to pay their respects to him die of fear. The external action further occupies the stage space until Khlestakov's departure and the denouement of the internal conflict - the reading of Tryapichkin's letter (which creates a mirror image of the composition of the internal conflict: it develops between two letters, in the absence of Khlestakov). The denouement is reinforced by the Gorodnichiy's monologue: there is indignation, irritation, disappointment, shame. Actually, the denouement of this part of the action is a silent scene: a scene in which everyone appears before a real auditor. Fear makes everyone turn to their conscience: the awareness of a real auditor is the awareness of one's own conscience: here we see how previously socially bonded people suddenly disintegrated into a group of personalities, each with his own guilt. Here Gogol introduces the motive of retribution - the motive of the inevitability of punishment not only in earthly but also in the afterlife.

It turns out that the stage external action revolves around a mirage intrigue: it is not the hero who controls the action, but the very clash of circumstances - the hero. Khlestakov did nothing of his own free will: he was involved in a game where, according to the accepted rules, he behaves importantly and relaxedly, he says what they want to hear from him, responds to the courtship of ladies who need his attention (again, this attention is socially significant for them), takes money because he cannot but take it - this is also an integral rule of the game. In fact, in the play there is a situation of self-deception: officials impose a social role on Khlestakov, and he fulfills it, they act out social interaction and think that everything worked out. However, their moral feelings are turned off, they try to drown out the voice of conscience with social self-deception. However, when the essence of the deception comes to the surface, when it turns out that they deceived themselves by believing in a “dummy” (see Gorodnichiy’s monologue), it turns out that the arrival of the auditor is not delayed, that the auditor is inside a person, in his awareness of his own sinfulness, and not outside, in the social hierarchy. “The Inspector General is terrible that awaits us at the door of the coffin,” Gogol wrote in “The denouement of the Inspector General.” The obvious parallels with the Last Judgment in the silent scene are not accidental. The contradiction between the life that the inhabitants of the city lead and the author's Christian ideas about the proper existence of a person becomes clear.