Riassunto
Riassunto di Le anime morte
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For readers who love satire, sharp character sketches and old Russia, and anyone drawn to eccentric landowners, charming frauds and the uneasy laughter surrounding money, rank and human worth.
Che cos’è questo libro
Dead Souls is a comic novel by Nikolai Gogol, first published in Russia in 1842. Gogol called it a poem, and it was meant to be the first of three volumes. He began it in the 1830s and finished the first part while living abroad, mostly in Italy. It follows one polite, well-dressed stranger across the Russian provinces and shows you a whole country through the people he meets.
The stranger is Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, a middle-ranking official who arrives in a provincial town with a strange plan. He wants to buy serfs who have died but are still counted as alive on the official lists. In Russia at that time, landowners owned serfs, and the state taxed them by head count. The count was updated only every few years, so a dead man could stay on the books and still have a price.
In this summary you will meet the landowners Chichikov visits, each a portrait of a different vice or weakness. You will see how a smooth talker wins over a town, and why his scheme works at all. You will also see how Gogol uses laughter to say something grim about money, rank and human worth. We begin with the stranger's arrival in town.
In questo riassunto
- 1A stranger arrives and charms a townFree
- 2The scheme: buying souls that no longer exist
- 3Manilov offers sweet words and an empty house
- 4Korobochka hoards, haggles and fears being cheated
- 5Nozdryov lies, gambles and nearly ruins everything
- 6Sobakevich drives a bear's bargain
- 7Plyushkin shows what greed does to a man
- 8What the book says about greed, lies and rank
- 9A poem in prose, and a book left unfinished
Punto chiave 1 di 9
A stranger arrives and charms a town
The novel opens with a plain carriage rolling into a provincial town. The vehicle is a britchka, a small spring carriage, and it carries a gentleman who is neither handsome nor ugly, neither fat nor thin, neither young nor old. Gogol takes care to make him as ordinary as possible. His name is Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, and he travels with a coachman named Selifan and a valet named Petrushka.
Chichikov takes a room at the inn and asks the servants many questions. He wants to know who the town officials are, who the wealthy landowners are, and what sort of men they are. Then he sets out to pay calls. He visits the governor, the vice governor, the prosecutor, the chairman of the local chamber, the chief of police and the postmaster.
With each of them, Chichikov behaves perfectly. He says exactly what each man wants to hear, and he never says too much about himself. He praises the governor's wisdom and the police chief's kindness. He remarks that he is a modest man who has suffered for the sake of truth, which means nothing but sounds noble.
The town is delighted. Within days he is invited to dinners, to card tables and to the governor's house. Everyone agrees that he is the most agreeable man in the province, and nobody asks where he comes from or what he wants. Gogol enjoys this, because the town's warmth is built on flattery and on its own wish to be flattered.
This opening sets the method of the whole book. Chichikov is a mirror who shows each person a pleasing picture of himself. The reader waits to learn what he is really after, and the answer, when it comes, is stranger than any rumor in town.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Who’s who
- Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov
- A polished official who courts provincial landowners, hoping to enrich himself by buying deceased serfs still listed as living.
- Manilov
- A dreamy, excessively agreeable landowner who welcomes Chichikov warmly but neglects the practical management of his estate.
- Korobochka
- A cautious widow and landowner who shelters Chichikov and worries about being cheated in business.
- Nozdryov
- A boastful landowner, gambler and liar whose acquaintance with Chichikov makes business negotiations unpredictable.
- Sobakevich
- A powerful, bearlike landowner who treats Chichikov as a bargaining opponent and insists on favorable terms.
- Plyushkin
- A wealthy but miserly landowner whom Chichikov visits amid the decay of his neglected estate.
- Selifan
- Chichikov's coachman drives his carriage through the provinces, talking to his horses and sometimes losing the road.
- Petrushka
- Chichikov's valet accompanies his master on his travels and enjoys reading without much concern for meaning.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 145,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 9 h 40 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 13 other languages
Questions about Le anime morte
What is Dead Souls about?
It tells of Chichikov, a traveler who buys the names of dead serfs still counted on the tax lists, planning to use them for credit and status. Along the way he meets a series of eccentric landowners.
What does the title Dead Souls mean?
In the plot it means serfs who have died but remain on the official lists. The phrase also hints at people whose inner lives have withered, such as the greedy, vain or empty owners who sell them.
Is Dead Souls hard to read?
No. The plan is simple: a polite stranger travels from estate to estate buying dead serfs. Each chapter is a funny visit to one landowner, so you can follow it easily, and a lively narrator keeps the story moving.
Why did Gogol burn the second part of Dead Souls?
Gogol struggled with the sequel for years, unhappy with how it was shaping up, and burned a version shortly before he died in 1852. Scholars still debate his reasons, which likely mixed doubt, illness and religious anxiety.
Is Dead Souls a true story?
No, it is fiction, but it rests on real features of Russian life in the early 1800s, including serfdom and the periodic census. Gogol published the first part in 1842.