What role does the “silent scene” play in comedy?
Gogol himself gave the “silent scene” great importance. The actors in the first productions of The Inspector General rarely fulfilled the stage directions for the last scene; the curtain almost always fell immediately, and the audience could not see the petrified characters. Therefore, Gogol wrote and spoke about the last scene more than once. Here are a few of his comments, in addition to the large remark in the text of the play itself.
“The last scene of The Government Inspector should be especially cleverly played. The situation of many people is almost tragic.” And further about the mayor: “It is so rude for someone who knew how to deceive smart people and even skilled rogues to be deceived! The announcement of the arrival at last of a real auditor is a thunderclap for him. He was petrified. His outstretched arms and thrown back head remained motionless, around him the entire active group formed in an instant a petrified group in different positions. The picture should be set almost like this: in the middle is the mayor, completely numb and dumbfounded... The curtain should not fall for two or three minutes...
The last scene will not succeed until it is understood that this is just a silent picture representing a petrified group... The fright of each hero is not similar to the fright of the other, just as the degree of fear and fear of each is dissimilar.”
Explain why Gogol wrote so many additional materials that accompany this play. This includes “Theatrical travel after the presentation of a new comedy,” and a number of other materials: “An excerpt from a letter written by the author shortly after the presentation of “The Inspector General” to a writer,” “A warning for those who would like to play “The Inspector General” properly.”
The first performance of the comedy "The Inspector General" in Alexandrinsky Theater April 16, 1836 did not please Gogol, but caused resentment at the lack of understanding of his play and the deafness of the audience and actors. The comedy was perceived as a funny adventure of an imaginary auditor, the characters were funny, funny, pleasant, and no one comprehended the horror of the “silent stage”. Khlestakov, in the grip of the actor Duras, appeared before the audience as a funny liar. “The Inspector General” has been played, - wrote Gogol, - but my soul is so vague, so strange... the main role disappeared... Dur didn’t understand by a hair’s breadth what Khlestakov was... He became just an ordinary liar...”
And Gogol felt the need to reveal to the actors and those who would stage the play his understanding of the roles he created. Hence a lot of materials dedicated to “The Inspector General”.
Gogol wrote that actors must first of all “try to understand the universal expression of the role, they must consider why this role is called upon.” And he reveals in detail in his articles what Khlestakov is, points out his typicality (it is no coincidence that the hero’s phrase is given: “I am everywhere, everywhere”). Gogol notes in “Excerpt from a Letter...”: “Everyone, at least for a minute, if not for a few minutes, was or is becoming Khlestakov... And a clever guards officer will sometimes turn out to be Khlestakov, and a statesman will sometimes turn out to be Khlestakov, and our brother, the sinful writer, will sometimes turn out to be Khlestakov. In short, it’s rare that someone won’t be one at least once in their life...”
Gogol was not particularly bothered by the role of the mayor: the actors Sosnovsky (Alexandrinsky Theater) and Shchepkin (Maly Theater) completely satisfied him, the comments concerned only the transition of the mayor’s feelings in the last act. Gogol paid attention to how Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky should be played. But his main concern is Khlestakov and the “silent stage”. He saw that the “Notes for Gentlemen Actors” and the lengthy stage directions for the “silent scene” were not enough.
In “Theater Road Trip...” Gogol addresses positive hero comedy - laughter.
As you can see, Gogol was very concerned about the performance of roles in his comedy - he wanted the actors to “grab the soul of the role, not the dress,” so that the directors would understand ideological plan comedy and the author's position.
In “The Inspector General,” Gogol later recalled, I decided to collect in one pile everything bad in Russia that I knew then, all the injustices that are done in those places and in those cases where justice is most required from a person, and behind one ...
They stood in the same poses, In silent strange silence. Their feelings cannot be described in lines, Their thoughts are somewhere in the depths. Everyone has their own thoughts. But everyone is afraid of one thing - That their insidious deeds can no longer be hidden for anything. Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky laments: “A fraudster...
The mayor is depicted by the author in the comedy as a serious person, smart in his own way, cunning, and experienced in life’s circumstances. True, his idea of smart person very peculiar, it is connected with the justification of bribery (from Chmykhov’s letter: “you ...
In 1839, in an article about “Woe from Wit,” having condemned Griboedov’s comedy “from an artistic point of view” (which, as he wrote in a letter to V.P. Botkin dated December 11, 1840, was the hardest thing for him to remember), Belinsky enthusiastically greeted the "Inspector". His...
characters are present. 3) How does this episode help to understand the idea of the work.
Subject:Inspector1) what is called comedy? to what type literary works does it refer to comedy?
2) Name what events taking place in the comedy The Inspector General can be correlated with each element of the plot..
Exposition -
Tie -
Development of action -
Climax -
Denouement-
10) why does the play end with a *silent scene*? What do you think its participants are thinking about?
In Gogol's comedy there is no name of the district town in which the events take place. By this the writer wanted to show that such a position of power, officials,The order in the city was typical for most cities of that time. Describe the city to which the auditor came: its location relative to the capital, the border, how comfortable the city is, what problems the author draws our attention to. (D.1)
Why did the mayor believe that the young man, greedily looking at what the hotel visitors eat and not paying money for housing and food for two weeks, is the auditor? (D.1)
Khlestakov just can’t decide who to flirt with: the mayor’s wife Anna Andreevna or his daughter Marya Antonovna. But how did the heroines themselves react to the “auditor” Khlestakov? (D.4)
How did each of the officials behave when they visited Khlestakov in the mayor’s house with petitions and gifts of money?
Officials, reflecting on Khlestakov’s rank, assume that “a general will not hold a candle to him! And when he is a general, then perhaps he is a generalissimo himself.” Meanwhile, out of fear of an “important” person, they did not notice that Khlestakov himself let slip about his true rank: “They even wanted to make him a collegiate assessor, but I think why.” That is, the rank young man was even lower than that. What was the actual rank of Khlestakov? (D 2)
Once again, carefully re-read the “Silent Scene” at the end of the comedy. What is its significance in your opinion?
This official is a passionate hunter. Even in the institution under his jurisdiction there is “a hunting arapnik right above the cupboard with papers.” Name the hero, what does he manage in the city? (D.1)
It was this hero who began to report to the “auditor” Khlestakov about how things really were in city institutions when he visited him in the mayor’s house along with other officials. Name it. (D.4)
One of the employees of this institution has such a violent temper that he is ready not only to smash furniture, but to lose his life - “for science.” Name the institution and the official who runs it. (D.1)
This hero asked Khlestakov: “When you go to St. Petersburg, tell all the different nobles there: senators and admirals, that your Excellency or Excellency lives in such and such a city:.” Who wanted to inform all the capital's nobles about themselves? (D.4)
Municipal budgetary educational institution
"Arlyuk Secondary School"
Prepared by:
teacher and literature
Lesson topic: Final lesson on the comedy “The Inspector General”.
Analysis of the “silent” comedy scene
Lesson objectives:
Help students understand the philosophical significance of not only the ending, but the entire comedy as a whole through a comprehensive consideration of this scene. Development of analytical skills of students. Formation of positive moral orientations.
Equipment: portrait, “Inspector General” poster,
illustration of a “silent” scene,
slides, ICT, screen
Methods and forms of work:
Problem-based learning methods
Teacher-guided method
Type of lesson: lesson on consolidating knowledge, skills and abilities
Type: eureka lesson
Key words: Bureaucratic system
Providence
Allegory
During the classes
Motivational start of the lesson:
So, the work “The Inspector General” has been read, the vital basis of the comedy has been revealed; the circumstances that attracted officials to their fatal mistake have been revealed; an idea of the character of the “imaginary” auditor Khlestakov has been obtained.
This is the final lesson. It includes analysis final scene, the so-called “silent” stage; revelation of the epigraph of the comedy and literary game on a work using ICT.
The purpose of the lesson follows from the topic: to reveal the role of the finale, to help you, students, understand the philosophical significance of the “silent” scene and comedy in general.
At home, preparing for today's lesson, you looked at the playbill for the comedy again, thought about the meaning of the epigraph and read the last scene of Act V. On your desks are sheets of paper with an illustration of a “silent” scene.
Teacher's word:
The idea of completing the play (the “silent” scene) was born to Gogol immediately after he began working on “The Inspector General” and did not change during the process of creating the comedy. Gogol believed that this scene should make a strong impression on the audience, and insisted that the “silent scene” last at least 2-3 minutes. Only at the insistence of the director and actors of the Alexandrinsky Theater, who at the rehearsals of “The Inspector General” by the end of the play were so exhausted and exhausted that they could not withstand the tension last scene and fainted, its duration was reduced to one and a half minutes.
Conclusion: Thus, we see that for Gogol the final scene was no less important than all the previous actions of the comedy.
Why did Gogol insist that this scene be so long?
(Students make different assumptions.)
Gogol sought the effect of universal understanding: the reader (viewer) must understand that one of the heroes standing on stage is, to some extent, himself.
“Silent scene” is the mayor’s phrase, as if frozen in the petrified figures of the characters: “Why are you laughing? “You’re laughing at yourself!”
Why does Gogol introduce this scene, since with the arrival of the gendarme the comedy can be considered over and the curtain can be lowered?
But Gogol not only decides to end the comedy this way, but also describes in detail the position of each character on stage and insists on precisely this compositional structure of the finale.
Student: Starting from Act IV, the reader feels how the pathos of the play gradually changes - from comic to tragic; tragedy reaches its apogee precisely in the final “silent scene.”
(Message from a prepared student.)
From the memoirs of contemporaries about the premiere of “The Inspector General” at the Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg: “Laughter from time to time still flew from one end of the hall to the other, but it was some kind of timid laughter, which immediately disappeared, there was almost no applause at all; but intense attention, convulsive, intense, followed all the shades of the play, sometimes dead silence showed that what was happening on stage passionately captured the hearts of the audience.”
The very tension of the finale, caused by the appearance of the gendarme on stage through the static, picturesquely frozen position of the characters, according to Gogol, should evoke in the audience a single, but very strong feeling - fear, horror. “Despite... the comical situation of many people... in the end there remains... something monstrously gloomy, some kind of fear of our unrest. This very appearance of the gendarme, who, like some kind of executioner, appears at the door... all this is somehow inexplicably scary!
Name characteristics"The Inspector General" posters
Student answers:
The poster represents the entire city, that is, all representatives of the system of any Russian city, and in a broader sense, the whole of Russia.
The conflict of the comedy itself is social; This is indicated by the very name of the comedy - “The Inspector General” - a government official.
In addition, the only person acting in the comedy, but not indicated in the poster, is the gendarme.
Think about why the gendarme is not included in the poster?
Students: A gendarme is a representative state power, which punishes the vices of the bureaucratic system that it itself created.
Teacher: Gogol in “Theater Travel” writes: “It’s not funny that the play cannot end without the government. It will certainly appear, like an inevitable fate in the tragedies of the ancients. “... There is nothing bad here, God grant that the government always and everywhere hears its calling to be the representative of Providence on earth and that we believe in it, as the ancients believed in the fate that overtook the crime.”
Gendarme is a messenger of Providence, a higher power more powerful than the highest ranks state system. This is what makes such a strong impression on the heroes of the comedy and gives rise to horror and fear in them (and in the audience). Gogol in “The Denouement” of “The Inspector General” wrote: “Whatever you say, the inspector who is waiting for us at the door of the coffin is terrible.”
In the minds of the author of The Inspector General, the gendarme is a somewhat mystical figure: he appears unexpectedly and out of nowhere, and the words he uttered “strike everyone like thunder; so the whole group, having suddenly changed their position, remains petrified.” And the real auditor, who sent the gendarme with the news of his arrival, becomes a mystical person; This feeling of mysticism is further enhanced by the fact that the auditor does not appear on stage: just one news about him plunges the characters in the comedy into horror, which is transmitted to the auditorium.
Let us turn to the description of the position of the heroes on the stage (the mayor and the postmaster).
The student reads: “The mayor is in the middle in the form of a pillar, with outstretched arms and his head thrown back.”
Student: The mayor occupies a central place.
Teacher: Doesn’t the mayor’s figure resemble a cross, a crucifix?
Student: Yes, the mayor’s pose really does resemble a cross.
Teacher: “The Silent Scene” introduces into the comedy, firstly, motives, and secondly, the motive of death (compare “the auditor who is waiting for us at the door of the coffin”).
So social conflict comedy receives a philosophical interpretation: the sources of the vices of society are rooted in the spiritual organization of man, and not in the system itself.
Determine the location of the postmaster on the stage.
Student: This character, “turned into question mark", addressed to the audience, stands behind the mayor.
Try to formulate the question that Gogol addresses to the audience and which receives such embodiment on stage?
Teacher: The heroes on stage are frozen, petrified, but in this fossil there is movement - not external, internal - spiritual world of people. Gogol believes that social vices are a kind of projection of the shortcomings of a person’s spiritual world. Therefore, man must first change. Cleansing inner world, according to Gogol, is possible only through tragedy: shock forces a person to be spiritually reborn.
(Students offer their own versions of questions.)
Teacher: In our opinion, the most accurately reflecting the meaning of the final scene may be the question: “How will you, the viewer (reader), meet the day of judgment?”
Do you think the real auditor is similar to Khlestakov or is he the complete opposite of this “official from St. Petersburg”?
Students answer.
Teacher: Who is the auditor who sent the gendarme - Khlestakov No. 2 or high power, providence?
(Students' answers are heard.)
Teacher: There is no definite answer. Firstly, the auditor himself does not appear on stage. Secondly, the gendarme - the auditor's messenger - is not stated in the poster. Thirdly, the ending of the comedy is open.
I propose to conduct an experiment. Let's say a real auditor appears on stage. An auditor similar to Khlestakov.
Student: After the “silent scene” the action will be repeated from the beginning: again anxiety, fears, the need to again look for ways to establish contacts.
Teacher: What if the auditor is providence itself (as the analysis of the “silent scene” indicates)?
Student: The development of the play after the “silent scene” will then be unpredictable. The finale is a symbol of the day of judgment in the life of the city.
Thus, if we accept the first interpretation of the image of the auditor as correct, then the comedy loses its satirical significance; vices cannot be eradicated, they only change. Then the “silent scene” loses its relevance; it can be neglected without prejudice to the idea of comedy.
What interpretation of the image of an auditor is significant for Gogol? Justify your opinion.
Student: The second interpretation is undoubtedly significant for the playwright. The heroes of the comedy are shocked, they are plunged into something new state of mind. It is clear that in the finale they are completely thrown out of the rut of their usual life, amazed forever. Nothing is reported about what the real auditor will do and what the officials will face. It is quite possible that with the “silent scene” Gogol wanted to lead to the idea of \u200b\u200bretribution, the triumph of state power.
Teacher: Read the epigraph to the comedy and explain its meaning.
Student: The proverb “You can’t blame the mirror if you have a crooked face” appeared before the text of the comedy only in 1842, when Gogol finished his work on the finishing of “The Inspector General.” This epigraph was the playwright’s response to the indignation of the bureaucratic public regarding the staging of his play on the stages of St. Petersburg and Moscow. Gogol was accused of maliciously distorting reality, of wanting to discredit Russian life.
Teacher: Why are those who accused Gogol of slander wrong?
Student: Having read the memoirs of contemporaries, we saw that in the pictures of the life of the city where the events of “The Inspector General” took place, the same facts took place, the reality that was observed in different cities of Russia. Therefore, it can be argued that the indignation against Gogol was caused not by “slander,” but by the truth of life that the first viewers of the comedy felt.
Gogol answered with his epigraph to those who reproached him for slandering Russian reality: you cannot be angry with a mirror if you see a true reflection in it; life itself is bad and unfair, not its image.
Summing up the lesson.
Teacher: What discoveries did you make in class today?
Students: “Silent scene” has a broad symbolic meaning.
Comedy has a philosophical interpretation.
An important idea in The Inspector General is the idea of inevitable spiritual retribution.
The “silent scene” has a very important compositional role.
The development of the play after the “silent scene” is unpredictable if
the real auditor is providence, a higher power.
The ending of the comedy becomes a symbol of the last - judgment -
days of the city's life.
Literary quiz
Use these illustrations to identify the characters in the comedy.
N. V. Gogol's comedy “The Inspector General” at one time became one of the most innovative works of dramatic art. Many of the techniques used by the author have never been used by playwrights before and have not been embodied in theater stage. Such innovative techniques include the aforementioned “silent scene”, which ends the final part of the comedy “The Inspector General”. What did the author want to achieve by concluding the work with a silent scene? What effect did you expect? It is believed that the silent scene that ends the comedy “The Inspector General” was introduced into the work by the writer under the impression of famous painting Russian artist Karl Bryullov “The Last Day of Pompeii”. It is this picture that strikes the person looking at it with the strength and expressiveness of frozen emotion. The image is motionless, static, but at the same time, the faces of the people depicted in the picture, their figures, the poses they take, testify to their inner state better than any words. The eloquence of static scenes, their expressiveness - it was these properties that were subtly noticed by N.V. Gogol and later successfully used by the writer. After all, “The Inspector General” is far from the only work of the writer in which there is a “silent scene” (in another extremely popular work- the story “Viy” - the author also uses this technique). If we consider artistic techniques, used by N.V. Gogol, in more detail, one can notice a certain pattern: the technique of “death”, a kind of “petrification” is the basis for the depiction of many characteristic Gogol characters (for example, the same landowners in “ Dead souls""). In The Inspector General, the silent scene is climax, and he should be the most eloquent. Freezing in an expressive pose (in this case, the poses of all characters are different, which emphasizes their individual personal qualities) is a real pantomime. The mayor, members of his family, the postmaster, Strawberry, Luka Lukich - all of them become mimes for some time, actors in the “theater of facial expressions and gestures”. And words are not needed here, maybe even unnecessary. Posture and facial expression can express an incomparably greater surge of emotions than words. Moreover, the silent scene in “The Inspector General” is also a massive one - everyone stands as if struck by thunder, and this circumstance once again emphasizes how shocking and stunning the news was for all the characters that “... an official who arrived by personal order from St. Petersburg demands you to come to him this very hour.” Gogol was the first Russian playwright to use the pause technique, which was successfully used by many directors, screenwriters and writers after him. Today, the pause technique is one of the most commonly used dramatic techniques.
Gogol's comedy "The Inspector General" is an innovative work. For the first time in Russian literature, a play was created in which social conflict, rather than love conflict, came first. In The Inspector General, the playwright exposed the vices Russian society, laughed at all his heroes, but it was a bitter laugh, “laughter through tears.”
The depravity of the officials of the city of N., their fear for their places, made these people blind - they mistook Khlestakov for an auditor. At the end of the play, everything seems to fall into place - Khlestakov is exposed, the officials are punished. But the real finale is yet to come - this is the last act and the famous silent comedy scene.
Excited by the news about the imaginary auditor, the officials are informed that... the real auditor has arrived. In the “heat of events,” everyone had already forgotten that the real one should come, if Khlestakov was just a deceiver. And then, like a bolt from the blue, the news: “The official who arrived by personal order from St. Petersburg demands you to come to him this very hour.”
This message literally paralyzes all the heroes, they petrify: “The mayor is in the middle in the form of a pillar, with outstretched arms and his head thrown back,” “The other guests remain just pillars,” “For almost a minute and a half, the petrified group maintains this position.”
We understand that it is at this moment that all officials experience real horror. The fear that they experienced under Khlestakov increased tenfold also because they need to relive everything again. And if the heroes managed to somehow prepare for the arrival of the imaginary auditor, then here complete surprise turned officials into stone statues.
In the middle, as the head of the city, the main “thief and swindler,” stands the mayor. The author indicates that he spread his arms and threw his head up. It seems as if Anton Antonovich is asking the sky: “For what? Why?" This hero considers himself no more sinful than others - after all, everyone lives the way he does. Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky’s wife and daughter rushed to the mayor, as if seeking protection from him as the head of the family.
In a silent scene, in my opinion, Gogol, without the help of the characters’ replicas, was able to express their character, the essence of each character. So, meek and cowardly caretaker educational institutions Luka Lukich was “lost” “in the most innocent way,” and the trustee of charitable institutions, Strawberry, tilted his head to the side, listening to something. This cunning man does not lose his head, but “listens” to events, ponders how he can “get out of the water unscathed.” But Judge Lyapkin-Tyapkin looks the most comical from the outside. He “with his arms outstretched, crouched almost to the ground and made a movement with his lips, as if he wanted to whistle or say: “Here’s to you, grandma, and St. George’s Day!” We understand that the judge was very frightened, because he knows very well that he has many sins behind him.
The figures of Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky are comical, their eyes bulging, their mouths open and, it seems, they rushed into each other’s arms, and even petrified halfway there. However, like all the remaining guests. Gogol shows us that each of them has an unclean conscience and each of them is afraid of punishment.
It is in the silent scene that the boundaries of comedy are pushed. And it develops from social into moral and philosophical. The author reminds us that sooner or later all people will have to answer for their actions, like officials in a comedy. Gogol appeals to each of us - we need to live according to our conscience, always remember our responsibility to ourselves, God, and people.
Thus, the famous “silent scene” affects the interests of all the characters in the play: in the finale, Gogol brings all the characters onto the stage, forcing them to become “petrified” within a few minutes. This technique allows the playwright to focus the viewer’s attention on the action itself, to more deeply feel the horror that the characters experienced upon learning of the arrival of the real auditor.
In addition, a silent scene allows for a variable interpretation of the comedy's ending. A real auditor has arrived, and will the city receive its well-deserved retribution? Or maybe someone has arrived who the residents associate with heavenly punishment, which everyone fears? Or maybe it was not an auditor who arrived, but an important official traveling accompanied by a gendarme? And even if a real auditor arrived, maybe the audit will go smoothly and everything, as always, will end happily?
The author himself does not give a direct answer, because the ending, in fact, is not that important. The very idea of inevitable punishment, of judgment, which everyone knows about and which everyone is afraid of, is important. Or maybe it’s worth living in such a way as not to be afraid of answering before God?