Gogol's comedy "The Inspector General" ends very unexpectedly and unusually. The author used the so-called “silent scene” as the finale. But what is its significance for understanding what is happening?
The fact is that during these few days the officials experienced so many unexpected and terrible events that the last disaster - the arrival of a real auditor - turned out to be so stunning for them that it plunged them into shock.
After all, at first they were afraid of the imaginary “auditor”, they tried to appease him with monetary bribes, they contrived in every possible way to serve him, they even almost managed to marry the mayor’s daughter to him. Then the postmaster announced that the auditor was not real. Even this news was enough to cause bewilderment among the heroes. But another one is added to this - about the arrival of a real auditor, which became the last straw. So many feelings and emotions were seething in the heads of the poor people that they simply became petrified and could not budge.
The whole group looks very comical and ridiculous. The participants froze in a variety of positions: some sat down, some stood with outstretched arms, some were simply lost in thought. Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky are depicted very funny: “with rushing movements of their hands towards each other, gaping mouths and bulging eyes at each other.” The hour of reckoning for all wrongdoings has come. And everyone understands this. After all, each of the officials had sins, such as: bribery, lack of control over the city, unrest in institutions. But the culprits are always punished. And officials could not avoid this fate.
"Silent Stage" is original, interesting ending. It shows all the hopelessness and comicality of the resulting situation.
Effective preparation for the Unified State Exam (all subjects) - start preparing
Updated: 2017-03-05
Attention!
Thank you for your attention.
If you notice an error or typo, highlight the text and click Ctrl+Enter.
By doing so, you will provide invaluable benefit to the project and other readers.
The idea of completing the play (the “silent” scene) was born to Gogol immediately after he began working on “The Inspector General” and was never changed again in the process of creating the comedy. Gogol believed that this scene should make a strong impression on the audience.
Download:
Preview:
Lesson topic: Final lesson on the comedy of N. V. Gogol
"Inspector". Analysis of the “silent” comedy scene.
MKOU "Rodnikovskaya Secondary School"
Chelyabinsk region, Troitsky district
Teacher of Russian language and literature
Beznosova Nadezhda Aleksandrovna.
Lesson objectives:
1. Educational: to help students understand the philosophical significance of not only the ending, but also the entire comedy as a whole through a comprehensive consideration of this scene.
2. Developmental: development of analytical skills of students.
3. Educational: the formation of positive moral orientations.
Type: lesson on consolidating knowledge, skills and abilities.
Technologies: problem-based learning methods, teacher-led work method, reproductive.
Preparing students for the lesson:
1. Must know the content of N. V. Gogol’s work “The Inspector General”.
Equipment: computer, projection device, reproduction of K. P. Bryullov’s painting “The Last Day of Pompeii”, poster for “The Inspector General”, reproductions of paintings for the comedy “The Inspector General”.
During the classes:
I. Organizational moment. Start of the lesson.
II. Updating the lesson topic.
Slide 1 (portrait of N.V. Gogol).
- Teacher's word: The idea of completing the play (“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 during the rehearsals of “The Inspector General” by the end of the play were so exhausted and exhausted that they could not withstand the tension of the 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.)
They come to the conclusion:
The writer sought the effect of universal understanding: the viewer (reader) must understand that one of the heroes standing on stage is, to some extent, himself.
The “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!...”
The main question of text analysis is the question of the compositional and semantic feasibility of the “silent scene”.
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 (the last phenomenon is the “silent scene”).
When reading (watching in the theater) “The Inspector General”, students feel how, starting from Act IV, the pathos of the play gradually changes - from comic to tragic; tragedy reaches its apogee precisely in the final “silent scene.”
(The message is made by a prepared student.)
Memories of contemporaries about the premiere of “The Inspector General” in Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg:
1. “Laughter from time to time still flew from one end of the hall to the other, but it was some kind of timid laughter that 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.”
2. The very tension of the finale, caused by the appearance of the gendarme on stage and conveyed through the static, picture-like but 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!
- The role of the poster( poster projection).
Slide 2.
Name characteristics“Revizor” posters (time was spent analyzing the poster in the first lesson). /
Student answers:Firstly, the entire city is represented in the playbill (the comedy depicts representatives of the bureaucratic system of any Russian city), and in a broader sense, the whole of Russia (it is no coincidence that after the premiere of The Inspector General, Nicholas I said: “What a play! Everyone got it, and I more than anyone!” Moreover, the conflict of the comedy itself is not only a social one; social status heroes, but also the very name of the comedy - “The Inspector General” - a government official); secondly, the only person acting in the comedy, but not indicated in the poster, is the gendarme.
Doesn't this circumstance make the character significant and doesn't it distinguish him in the system of comedy images?
Think about why the gendarme is not included in the poster.
Student messages:
- Gendarme - representative state power, which seeks to punish the vices of the social bureau of the cratic structure that it itself created (this is indicated by both the main conflict and the intrigue of the comedy).
“It’s not funny that the play can’t end without the government. It will certainly appear, like an inevitable fate in the tragedies of the ancients. - ... Well? 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” (N.V. Gogol “Theatrical Travel”) .
- 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 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.”
Teacher :
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 that 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 inspector does not appear on stage: just one news about him plunges the characters in the comedy into horror, which is transmitted to the auditorium
Slide 3 (projecting a photograph of a “silent” scene):
Pay attention to the location of the heroes on the stage: the mayor and the postmaster, since the other characters represent “a detail in the picture, which is outlined with one stroke of the brush and covered with one color” (Gogol): they are just a background, they are one way or another again and again concentrate the viewer's attention on the figures (mayor and postmaster).
Students note the unusual positions in which they are frozen.
Let us turn to the description of the position of the heroes. “The city is in the middle in the form of a pillar, with outstretched arms and head thrown back.”
Students note that the mayor occupies a central place.
Doesn't the figure of the mayor resemble a cross, five crosses?
Conclusion: the “silent scene” introduces into the comedy, firstly, biblical motifs, and secondly, the motif 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 origins of the vices of society are rooted in the spiritual organization of man, and not in the system itself.
Let's determine the location of the postmaster on the stage.
This character, "turned into question mark", addressed to the audience, stands behind the mayor.
Formulate the question that Gogol addresses to the audience and which receives such an allegorical embodiment on stage. ("Why are you laughing?”)
An appeal to Gogol’s thoughts about K. P. Bryullov’s painting “The Last Day of Pompeii.”
Slide 4 (projection of reproduction).
Student message:The painting was painted by Bryullov in 1833 in Italy, then in 1834 it was brought to St. Petersburg and put on display in the Hermitage from August 12 to 17. She made such a strong impression on Gogol that, under her influence, he wrote the article “The Last Day of Pompeii (painting by Bryullov).”
Pay attention to the landscape, which serves as the background, and to the location of the human figures.
Name the features of the artist’s pictorial style (the sky and earth, between which there are no boundaries, are designed in brown and red tones; the artist skillfully conveys the horror and fear of people before the chaos of the last day). The idea of the corruption of earthly beauty and the coming “end of the world” discerned in this “terrible phenomenon” generally determined Gogol’s assessment of K. P. Bryullov’s painting. The writer was delighted with the genius of the artist, who was able to convey the horror of the “end of the world” through the image of petrified figures: “We feel,” writes Gogol, “only the terrible situation of the entire crowd, “but we do not see a person in whose face there would be all the horror of the destruction visible to them” (N.V. Gogol “The Last Day of Pompeii (painting by Bryullov).”
Conclusion: The principle of depicting people gripped by the horror of doomsday is transferred by the writer to the last page of “The Inspector General”; the heroes are frozen, petrified, but in this fossil there is movement - not external, but 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. In Gogol’s “silent scene,” as well as in Bryullov’s painting, heaven and the sinful earthly world suddenly, in one minute, merge and mix. The displacement of the space of “top” and “bottom” is embodied in the image of a gendarme.
Slide 5 (reproduction of a painting).
Once again, I ask you to formulate the question that Gogol addresses to the viewer in an “encrypted” form - in the allegorical images of the mayor and the postmaster.
“Why are you laughing? “You’re laughing at yourself!...”
(Students offer their own versions of questions.)
We choose one that most accurately, in our opinion, reflects the meaning final scene: “How will you, the viewer (reader), meet the day of judgment?”
Does the real auditor look like Khlestakov or is he the complete opposite of this “official from St. Petersburg”?
Who is the inspector who sent the gendarme - Khlestakov No. 2 or high power, providence?
III. Summing up the lesson.
Teacher's word:
There is no clear answer. This ambiguity is due, firstly, to the fact that the inspector himself does not appear on stage, secondly, to the fact that the gendarme - the inspector's messenger - is not stated in the poster, and thirdly, to the fact that the ending to the media is open. I suggest doing an experiment:
Let's try to bring a real auditor onto the stage and imagine how the action of the play will develop after the “silent scene”, if the auditor is a copy of Khlestakov and if he is his complete opposite.
Let us assume that the real auditor is similar to Khlestakov. Then after the “silent scene” the action of the comedy will be repeated from the beginning, with the only difference that instead of Khlestakov the real auditor will act.
If the inspector is providence itself (as indicated by the analysis of the “silent scene”), then the development of the play after the “silent scene” is unpredictable, and the ending, thus, becomes a symbol of the last - doomsday - day of the life of the city.
If the first interpretation of the image of the auditor is accepted as correct, the comedy loses its satirical significance; vices cannot be eradicated, they only change in appearance. The “silent scene” loses its relevance; it can be neglected without harming the overall structure and idea of “The Inspector General”.
IV. Homework: written assignment, answer: “What interpretation of the image of an auditor is significant for Gogol?” Justify your opinion.
R.8. (necessary notes for the lesson)
The main didactic goal of the lesson is the formation of certain skills. Most general structure The lesson to consolidate what has been learned is as follows:
Examination homework, clarification of directions for updating the studied material;
Reporting the topic, purpose and objectives of the lesson, motivation for learning;
Reproduction of what has been learned and its application under standard conditions;
Transfer of acquired knowledge and its initial application in new or changed conditions in order to develop skills;
Summing up the lesson;
Setting homework.
The comedy “The Inspector General” by N.V. Gogol 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 - these are precisely the 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 the artistic techniques used by N.V. Gogol in more detail, we can notice a certain pattern: the technique of “death,” a kind of “petrification,” forms the basis for the depiction of many characteristic Gogol characters (for example, the same landowners in “ Dead souls ah"). 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 massive - 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.
The essence of the “silent stage”
The dreams of St. Petersburg that washed over the officials and the general fascination with the “eminent guest” instantly dissipated after the news that shocked everyone and especially the mayor, who already saw himself as a St. Petersburg nobleman, about the mistake that had occurred. The words of the postmaster sounded like thunder: “An amazing thing, gentlemen! The official whom we mistook for an auditor was not an auditor.” However, real thunder fell on the heads of those present in the mayor’s house at the moment the gendarme appeared, announcing the arrival of the real auditor. Moreover, he appeared before them as if scary ghost, for everyone dies when he appears.
The very figure of the gendarme in the finale of the play is far from accidental. According to Gogol (this was discussed in the draft edition of “Theatrical Travel”), the silent scene expresses the idea of the law, upon the advent of which “everything turned pale and shook.” And in the final text of “Theatrical Travel,” the “second lover of the arts,” who is closest to the author in his views, says that the denouement should remind one of the law, of the government’s protection of justice. Here Gogol was quite sincere. However, notes I. Vinnitsky, “the idea of the triumph of legality in “The Inspector General” was given as a hint, as an idea of what was due and desired, but not real and realized.”
In the silent scene, the characters are struck by a single feeling of fear that befalls them with the news of the arrival of the real auditor. But, based on “The Inspector General’s Denouement,” Gogol ultimately acts not as the embodiment of state legality, but as a kind of supra-mundane force, the greatness of which makes all living things petrify. Therefore, the physiognomies and poses of each character bear the stamp of a special—higher—fear, and the “living picture” of general petrification evokes an association with Last Judgment, “experienced, according to the remark of S. Schultz, in a completely medieval way - in the moment of here, earthly life - in absentia, but in sacred horror from the sudden conjugation of times, the conjugation of one’s “here” and one’s “there.” Stepanov N.L. N.V. Gogol. Creative path. - M., 1983. - P.13
At the same time, with the appearance of a real auditor, each of the characters finds himself face to face with his own conscience, which reveals to them their true appearance. Thus, according to the author, personal conscience becomes an auditor of a person’s life. From all of the above, it is clearly clear that the comedy “The Inspector General” is moving V the plane of moral and religious reflections of its creator, which will begin to occupy an increasing place in Gogol’s consciousness over time.
The silent scene gave rise to a wide variety of opinions in the literature about Gogol. Belinsky, without going into a detailed analysis of the scene, emphasized its organic nature for general plan: it “excellently closes the whole of the play.”
In academic literary criticism, the emphasis has been on the political subtext of the silent scene. For N. Kotlyarevsky, for example, this is “an apology for government vigilant power.” “The non-commissioned officer who forces the chief of the city and everyone senior officials to petrify and turn into idols is a clear indicator of the author’s good thoughts.”
According to V. Gippius, the silent scene also expresses the idea of power and law, but interpreted in a unique way: “To realistically typified images local authorities... he [Gogol] opposed the bare abstract idea of power, which involuntarily led to even greater generalization, to the idea of retribution."
A. Voroneni, relying on the conclusions of Andrei Bely (in the book “Gogol’s Mastery”) about the gradual “killing of gesture” of Gogol’s heroes, considers the silent scene a symbolic expression of this killing: “All this happened because the living people of “Evenings”, cheerful boys, girls... gave way to mannequins and puppets, “living corpses.”
According to M. Khrapchenko, the appearance of the gendarme and the silent scene represent an “external denouement.” “The true denouement of the comedy is contained in the mayor’s monologue, in his angry statements addressed to himself, to the clickers, paper scribblers, in his sarcastic words: “Why are you laughing? Are you laughing at yourself!..”
B. Ermilov, on the contrary, is convinced of the organic ending of the comedy. “Psychological” reason for stupefaction characters in the finale the comedy is clear: having survived so much excitement and trouble, we have to start all over again, but new auditor may just turn out to be a specially authorized person; and he will probably become aware of the scandalous story with the false auditor. But this, of course, is not the meaning of the amazing finale. Before us is a parade of carved meanness and vulgarity, frozen in amazement at the abyss of its own stupidity that has shocked it.”
It would be possible to enlarge the summary of various statements about the silent stage. But basically they all come down to the points of view mentioned above.
How did Gogol himself interpret the silent scene? We do not know what he said about this before the presentation of The Inspector General. After the performance, the writer emphasized many times that the silent scene expresses the idea of the “law,” upon the advent of which everything “turned pale and shook.” In “Theatrical Travel,” the “second lover of the arts,” who is closest to Gogol in his views (he, for example, made statements about Aristophanes, about “social comedy”), says that the denouement of the play should remind of justice, of the duty of the government: “Give God, so that the government always and everywhere hears its calling - to be the representative of providence on earth...”
We have no reason to doubt Gogol's sincerity, that is, that the idea of law, of the government protecting justice, was actually associated by him with the ending of the comedy. G. A. Gukovsky is inaccurate, believing that the author's commentary on the silent scene arose in the 40s, when the writer “slipped... into reaction.” The sketch of “Theatrical Travel” was made in the spring of 1836, shortly after the premiere of the comedy, and meanwhile Gogol’s interpretation of the ending is mainly expressed here. Shklovsky V.B. Notes on the prose of Russian classics. - M.: Sov. writer, 1965. - P. 83
But the whole point is that this is nothing more than a conceptual formulation of one idea. This is the so-called “key”, which is usually used to replace a complete reading of an artistic work. But Gogol, in the second edition of The Inspector General’s Denouement, puts the following remark into the mouth of the first comedian: “The author didn't give me the key... The comedy would then have strayed into allegory” (134). The silent scene is not an allegory. This is an element of the figurative thought of “The Inspector General,” and as such it gives an outlet to the writer’s complex and holistic artistic perception of the world. In short, the task is to read the ending of The Inspector General aesthetically.
Some hints of such a reading are outlined in the above explanations of the silent scene. Gippius’s remark is fair that the “idea of power” is expressed in the finale abstractly, as opposed to the full-blooded concreteness - everyday, psychological, social - of the entire play. More precisely, Gogol outlines some specificity, but brings it to a certain point. The writer’s work on the gendarme’s final remark is subordinated to the task of clarification. In the first draft: “The arriving official demands the mayor and all the officials to come to him.” In the final version: “Arrived on personal command from St. Petersburg the official demands you this very hour to to yourself." The features of some mystery in the new auditor are removed, the authorities that sent him are clearly defined: Petersburg and the Tsar. A hint is given of the urgency of the matter and, perhaps, the anger of the arriving auditor. But Gogol does not go further. There is no information about what the auditor will do and what the officials will face. Stepanov N.L. N.V. Gogol. Creative path. - M., 1983. - P. 23
This kind of reticence is a characteristic feature of Gogol’s artistic thought. “Depict for us our honest, straightforward man,” Gogol urged in “The Petersburg Stage” and he himself attempted this task more than once. But until the second volume of Dead Souls, he portrayed “our honest, straightforward man” (in modern times) only on the threshold - whether on the threshold of an honest deed, like a certain “very modestly dressed man” in “Theater Road”, or even on the threshold conscious life: “She’s like a child now,” Chichikov thinks about the governor’s daughter...-- From her everything can be done she may be a miracle, or she may turn out to be rubbish and it will be rubbish!” Gogol also interrupted mid-sentence the idea of the triumph of legality in The Inspector General. It is given as a hint, as an idea of what is due and desired, but not real and realized.
But this is not the main thing. I have already said that Russian comedy before Gogol was distinguished not so much by the triumph of justice in the finale as by the heterogeneity of two worlds: the one exposed and the one that was implied behind the stage. A happy ending flowed from the existence of " big world" It might not have happened within the scope of the stage action (for example, in “Yabed” the punishment of vice is incomplete: Pravolov was captured and imprisoned; the officials have not yet been convicted), but the viewer was still instilled with the belief that it would come.
Gogol does not have an ideally implied world. The intervention of a higher, just, punitive force does not follow from the heterogeneity of the worlds. It comes from outside, suddenly and at once overtakes all the characters.
Let's take a closer look at the main details of the silent scene.
In “Notes...” Gogol draws attention to the integrity and instantaneity of the characters’ actions in a silent scene. "The last word spoken should produce an electric shock at everyone at once, suddenly. All the group must change position to one moment. A sound of amazement must escape everyone women at once as if from one breast. If these notes are not observed, the entire effect may disappear” (10).
Let us further note that the circle of characters expands to the limit at the end of the play. A lot of people gathered at the Mayor’s house - the extraordinary events that culminated in Khlestakov’s “matchmaking” probably aroused from their places those who, to use an expression from “Dead Souls,” had long been “impossible to lure out of the house...”. And then they were all struck by the terrible news about the arrival of a real auditor.
However, no matter how large the group of characters in the final scenes is, there is no “merchant” and “citizenship” here. The real motivation for this is simple: they are no match for the Governor. Only the highest circles of the city gathered. In the graphic outline of the silent scene (which was thought out to detail by Gogol) there is also a “hierarchical shade”: in the middle is the Mayor, next to him, on the right, his family; then on both sides - officials and honorable persons in the city; “other guests” - at the very edge of the stage and in the background.
In short, the silent stage graphically represents the top of the pyramid " prefabricated city" The blow hit her highest point, and, losing somewhat in its strength, spread to the lower “layers of the pyramid.” The pose of each character in the silent scene plastically conveys the degree of shock and the force of the blow received. There are many shades here - from the mayor frozen “in the form of a pillar with outstretched arms and his head thrown back” to the other guests who “remain just pillars.” (The character’s character and behavior during the action were also reflected in his pose; it is natural, for example, that Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky froze “with rushing hand movements to each other, with gaping mouths and bulging Each other eyes.")
But on the faces of the three ladies, the hosts, only “the most satirical facial expression” was reflected at the address of the “mayor’s family.” Somehow to you will it happen now, my dears? - their pose seems to speak. In general, among the guests trying (in a silent scene) to “look into the mayor’s face,” there were probably also those who personally had nothing to fear. But also They froze at the terrible news.
Here we come to the most important “paint” final scene, to the fact that it expresses petrification, and general petrification. In “Excerpt from a Letter...” Gogol wrote: “... last scene will not succeed until they understand that it is simple silent picture, that all this should represent one petrified group that here the drama ends and replaces it numb facial expressions... that all this must take place under the same conditions as required by the so-called living pictures." Petrification had a long-standing, more or less stable meaning in Gogol’s poetics. In the “Sorochinskaya Fair”, when a “terrible pig’s face” appears in the window, “horror shackled everyone in the house. The godfather with his mouth open turned into stone; his eyes bulged as if they wanted to shoot...” - that is, what follows is the earliest sketch of a silent scene. In “The Night Before Christmas,” when in the bag, instead of the expected palyanitsa, sausage, etc., a clerk was found, “the godfather’s wife, dumbfounded, she let go of her leg, by which she began to pull the clerk out of the bag.” In both cases, petrification expresses a special, higher form of fear caused by some strange, incomprehensible event.
In “Portrait” (edition of “Arabesques”) Gogol defined this feeling as follows: “Some kind of wild feeling, not fear, but that inexplicable sensation that we feel when oddities, representing disorder of nature, or better yet, some the madness of nature...". Along with the main meaning of “petrification,” there are also additional ones (for example, a “silent scene” during a quarrel between two Ivans), but with a clear, sometimes parodic dependence on the first.
So, petrification and fear (in its special, highest form) are connected in Gogol's artistic thinking. This sheds light on the genesis of the silent scene of The Inspector General.
It is quite possible that with a silent scene the playwright wanted to lead to the idea of \u200b\u200bretribution, the triumph of state justice. This is evidenced not only by the author’s commentary on the ending, but also by the well-known concretization of the very image of a real auditor. But he expressed this idea, so to speak, through the means of fear and petrification.
No, the silent scene is not an additional denouement, not an addition to the comedy. This is the last chord of the work, completing the development of its theme.
In a silent scene, the universality of the characters' experiences receives plastic expression. The degree of shock varies - it increases along with the “guilt” of the characters, that is, their position on the hierarchical ladder. Their poses are varied - they convey all sorts of shades of character and personal properties. But a single feeling shackled everyone. This feeling is fear. Just as during the action of the play fear colored the most varied experiences of the characters, so now the stamp of a new, higher fear fell on the physiognomy and posture of each character, regardless of whether he was burdened with personal “guilt” or had the opportunity to look “satirically” "on the Governor, that is, on the deeds and misdeeds of another. Gus M.S. Gogol and Nikolaev Russia. - M.: Goslitizdat, 1987. - P. 76
Because, despite all the fragmentation and separation of people, humanity, Gogol believes, is united by a single destiny, a single “face of time.”
And here I must again draw attention to those lines with which we began our analysis of “The Inspector General” - to Gogol’s review of “ Last day Pompeii". Saying that Bryullov’s painting “selects strong crises felt by the whole mass,” the writer explains: “This the whole group stopped at the moment of impact and expressed thousands of different feelings...“He has all this so powerfully, so boldly, so harmoniously combined into one thing, as only it could have arisen in the head of a universal genius.” But isn’t it also true that the silent scene of “The Inspector General” captured “the entire group” of its heroes, “stopped at the moment of impact”? Isn’t this petrification (as, according to Gogol, the petrification of Bryullov’s heroes - a kind of silent scene) a plastic expression of the “strong crisis” felt by modern humanity?
Gogol was sensitive to the tremors that shook the nineteenth century. He felt the illogicality, illusoryness, “miracle” of contemporary life, which made the existence of mankind unstable, subject to sudden crises and catastrophes. And the silent stage formalized and condensed these sensations.
What terrible irony is hidden in the silent scene! Gogol gave it at a moment when even the community of people that the “auditor’s situation” caused was threatening to disintegrate. With her last effort she had to hold on to this community - and she did, but instead of people, she had lifeless corpses in her power.
Gogol gave a silent scene as a hint of the triumph of justice and the establishment of harmony. And as a result, the feeling of disharmony, anxiety, and fear from this scene increased many times over. In “The Inspector General’s Denouement,” Gogol states: “The very appearance of the gendarme, who, like some kind of executioner, appears at the door, is petrification, which his words suggest to everyone, announcing the arrival of a real inspector who must exterminate them all, wipe them off the face of the earth, completely destroy them - All of this is somehow inexplicably scary!”.
Could it be expected that a play that began with comic details like the Gorodnichy’s story about two rats of “unnatural size” would end with general stupor?.. The silent scene broke with the long-standing traditions of constructing comedy, consecrated by the authority of Aristotle: it ended the comedic action with a tragic chord.
In the literature about the “Inspector General,” the question is often raised: what will the Governor and others do with the advent of a new auditor? It is said that with the arrival of the gendarme everything fell into place and returned to its original position, that the Governor will conduct the arriving inspector, as he conducted them before, and that everything will remain unchanged.
It is true in these remarks that the result of Gogol’s comedy is not idealization, but the exposure of the foundations public life and that, therefore, the new revision (like the previous ones) would not change anything. But still artistic thought Gogol is deeper. There is no doubt that the Mayor would have deceived if he had retained the ability to deceive. But the ending does not throw the heroes back to their original positions, but - having carried them through a chain of shocks - plunges them into something new. psychological condition. It is too obvious that in the finale they are completely thrown out of the rut of their usual life, amazed forever, and the duration of the silent scene: “almost a minute and a half”, which Gogol insists on (in “Excerpt from a Letter” even “two or three minutes”) - symbolically expresses this finality. There is nothing more to say about the characters in the comedy; they have exhausted themselves in the “mirage life”, and at the moment when this becomes extremely clear, the curtain falls over the entire frozen, lifeless group.
The comedy "The Inspector General" is one of the most famous works Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol. The author managed to show true face 19th century Russia in this play. Gogol through various means artistic expression, the speeches of the heroes, "speaking" names, ridiculed human vices, namely greed, hypocrisy, deceit, irresponsibility, stupidity. An important role in the above-mentioned exposure was played by such a device as the “silent” scene at the end of the play. What is her ideological meaning? Let's try to figure this out.
Before answering the question posed, it is worth mentioning a little about the plot of the comedy. In the city of N, where there is unrest, where everyone is chasing profit and not fulfilling their duties, an auditor must come. Mistaking him for another person, the cunning Khlestakov, officials look after him as best they can, “loan” him money, just to leave a good impression of themselves.
At the end of the play, the heroes learn that it was not the inspector and that the real one will come soon. It was this news that caused the “Silent” scene. The most unpleasant news literally “paralyzed” the heroes. They realized that Khlestakov was still a “little flower,” and they would soon have to relive everything again, only for real. The mayor spread his arms and threw his head up, as if asking the sky: “for what?!” His wife and daughter rushed to him, seeking protection. Strawberry tilted his head to the side, listening to something. This cunning man, as it turns out, never succumbs to crazy panic. On the contrary, he is thinking about how he can get away with it in this moment. Lyapkin-Tyapkin made a movement with his lips, as if he wanted to say: “here’s Yuriev’s day for you, grandma.” He was very scared. Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky rushed to each other, counting on support.
The ideological meaning of the “silent” scene is to show without replicas the whole essence of the characters, their vices, fears, character. After all, it is in an extreme situation that a person takes off his mask and reveals his true face. Gogol succeeded in this. Moreover, he managed to expand the boundaries of comedy, turning it from social to moral and philosophical. So, with the help of a small element, Gogol reminded everyone that sooner or later they would still have to answer for their actions.
Effective preparation for the Unified State Exam (all subjects) - start preparing
Updated: 2017-10-16
Attention!
Thank you for your attention.
If you notice an error or typo, highlight the text and click Ctrl+Enter.
By doing so, you will provide invaluable benefit to the project and other readers.