“The Inspector General” is a comedy that shows in a satirical form how inaction and irresponsibility can lead an individual and a city to complete decline. Each character is described in the work in a bright and unusual, exaggerated and funny way. The satirical portrayal of officials in the comedy “The Inspector General” is no coincidence. Each of them is shown very sharply and ironically, and it is due to this that the effect is achieved when the comedy raises very important and global issues.
What is satire
Satire in literature is used to ridicule certain vices. In comedy, satire is intended, with the help of humor, irony, and sarcasm, to expose what is negative and negative in life. With the help of humor, the reader understands how scary the event being described really is. Sharp and vivid images, which are difficult to meet in real life, provide an opportunity to look at the world differently. All the vices that are not always visible at first glance in an ordinary person are obvious here. With the help of satire, the author emphasizes and ridicules phenomena that he considers unacceptable in real life. But, unfortunately, the reality is that it is in reality that satire finds its origins.
Images of officials
In The Inspector General, each image is described very clearly and vividly. All officials represent certain vices, which together add up to a picture of the complete ruin of the city. Any of them combines exaggerated qualities. However, none of them are evil.
All officials in “The Inspector General” are characterized by common features. All of them are exemplary family men. They all take bribes, and accordingly, they are not shy or afraid to give them. Each of them fawns over their superiors. In an attempt to serve, any of the officials forgets and loses himself. In general, each of them is a good-natured person who does not wish harm to anyone. It’s just that none of them bears responsibility for their own position and failure to fulfill their duties. Because each of them allows himself to live and work this way, the city turns into a dump where dirt and devastation reign.
Speaking surnames
It is noteworthy that in Gogol’s comedy each surname clearly describes its character, his attitude to work and to life. For example, Judge Lyapkin-Tyapkin refers to his work as “Tyap-blunder”, Strawberry is as round and sweet as a berry, the surname Shpekin comes from the word “spic”, which translated means “informer”, “secret agent”. It is these names that help create a satirical image of each of the officials.
It would seem that it is almost impossible to meet such people in life, because their images are exaggerated. But in fact, if you look closely, each of them can be seen in real people. Even today, many years after the comedy was written, all these vices exist in real life. People still shirk their responsibilities, shift responsibility onto the shoulders of others, fawn over their superiors, and try to please their superiors during any inspection. It is important to understand that only by working according to honor can you achieve results.
Gogol notes that the system itself made officials like this. But today officials still take bribes, cover up criminals, and avoid responsibility for their decisions and inaction.
This article will help you write an essay “The portrayal of officials in the comedy “The Inspector General,” give a description of the satire and a satirical description of each of the characters in the comedy, draw conclusions and compare the images of officials with the current situation.
Work test
"Inspector"
"Inspector". A little earlier, in a letter to A.S. Pushkin, Gogol asked to suggest some new plot, “a purely Russian joke,” promising that he would make it into a comedy that would be “funnier than the devil.” Pushkin shared one of his stories with Gogol - an anecdote about a passing ordinary official who was mistaken in the province for an important person. In December 1835, the comedy was completed, and the following year it was staged on the stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. She enjoyed extraordinary success; Nicholas I himself watched it with great pleasure and noted that “everyone got it” in the play, and most of all he did.
What made the audience laugh? First of all - the characters of the comedy. Gogol showed incredibly funny and at the same time extremely reliable, recognizable types of people. What appears before us is not just individual officials of a certain provincial town, but entire collective images. Each of them is funny and typical in its own way.
“a man who has already grown old in the service and is very intelligent in his own way,” who has gone up the entire career ladder and knows all the rules, knows how to take bribes and deftly give them. Judge Lyapkin-Tyapkin read “five or six books” and is therefore considered almost a freethinker and Jacobin. The trustee of charitable institutions, Zemlyanika, despite his thickness and external clumsiness, is a great “slicker and rogue”; he is very helpful and fussy, loves to inform on his colleagues. Postmaster Shpekin is a “simple-minded person to the point of naivety,” who loves to read other people’s letters and even keeps the ones he likes as souvenirs and reads them aloud to his friends. The main character of the comedy, Khlestakov, is a young man of about twenty-three, somewhat stupid and “without a king in his head.” As we can see, all the characters in the comedy, without exception, are characterized by the author very sarcastically. Gogol widely uses the technique of “speaking” names. Just look at the names of local police officers: Ukhovertov, Derzhimorda, Svistunov. And Judge Lyapkin-Tyapkin; and Dr. Gibner, clearly his last name is derived from the verb “to perish.”
give him money. And this despite the fact that Khlestakov himself, almost until the end of the action, does not understand why he was given such honors. Neither in his appearance nor in his behavior does he at all resemble a real auditor. Khlestakov, it seems, behaves very stupidly, constantly blurts out his true position: he is on friendly terms with the head of the department “himself”, they even wanted to make him a collegiate assessor; he lives on the fourth floor in an apartment building, where only petty officials lived. After dinner, intoxicated with wine and universal respect, Khlestakov begins to brag without restraint: he is closely acquainted with Pushkin himself; writes himself; famous works belong to his pen; The State Council is afraid of him, he will soon be promoted to field marshal...
"get to the bottom of" Khlestakov; but the officials are so frightened that they take his outright lies at face value and do not suspect anything until the very end - until reading Khlestakov’s letter. Why is this happening? Because each of the officials feels certain “sins” behind him. The characters in the comedy represent “a corporation of various official thieves and robbers,” as V. G. Belinsky wrote in one of his letters to Gogol. The mayor, for example, shamelessly steals government money and robs the population. He imposed a kind of tribute on local merchants; receives offerings from them and only makes sure that everyone receives in accordance with their rank. "Look! You're not taking it according to your rank!" - he scolds the policeman, who, instead of the two arshins of cloth required by rank, took much more from the merchant.
The first thing the “auditor” Khlestakov does is to give him a bribe and is happy when he takes the money. We can say that this has already become the norm in the city. But it is not by chance that Gogol chooses this unremarkable county town for the action of his comedy; Thus, he seemed to emphasize that such morals are widespread throughout the state, and in this city, like a drop of water, all of Russia is reflected. There were such mayors, judges, trustees, and postmasters in every small and great city of the Russian Empire; and therefore Gogol’s laughter is a bitter laughter: he was hurt and ashamed to see all this.
"The Inspector General" Gogol appears as an innovative playwright. He was the first to show Russian reality so authentically on stage. This is a realistic comedy, although it contains elements of a typical “comedy of manners” and “comedy of situations”. But for the writer it was important not to make the viewer laugh, but to ridicule certain vices of society. It is no coincidence that the writer took as the epigraph to the play the proverb “There is no point in blaming the mirror if your face is crooked.” And the dramatic conflict in comedy is not love, as was usual, but social. Gogol breaks the traditions of “classical” comedy and creates a new, realistic Russian comedy, which was developed in the works of Ostrovsky and Chekhov.
A satirical depiction of officials in Gogol's comedy "The Inspector General"
Gogol's comedy "The Inspector General" is one of the most striking dramatic works of Russian literature of the 10th/10th century. The author continued the traditions of Russian satirical drama, the foundations of which were laid in the famous comedies of Fonvizin “The Minor” and Griboyedov “Woe from Wit”. The comedy is a deeply realistic work showing the world of small and medium-sized provincial officials in Russia in the second quarter of the nineteenth century.
When describing this world N.V. Gogol made extensive use of the literary techniques at his disposal, allowing him to most fully characterize his characters, doing it in an entertaining and easily accessible form for the viewer and reader.
Having opened the very first page of the comedy and learned that, for example, the name of the private bailiff is Ukhovertov, and the name of the district doctor is Gibner, we get, in general, a fairly complete idea of these characters and the author’s attitude towards them. In addition, Gogol gave critical characteristics of each of the main characters. These characteristics help to better understand the essence of each character. Mayor: “Although he is a bribe-taker, he behaves very respectably,” Anna Andreevna: “Raised half on novels and albums, half on the chores in her pantry and maid’s room,” Khlestakov: “Without a king in her head. She speaks and acts without any consideration.” , Osip: “A servant, such as servants of several older years usually are,” Lyapkin-Tyapkin: “A man who has read five or six books, and therefore is somewhat freethinking.” Postmaster: “A man who is simple-minded to the point of naivety.”
Speech portraits are also given in Khlestakov’s letters to St. Petersburg to his friend Tryapichkin. For example, Strawberry, as Khlestakov puts it, is “a perfect pig in a yarmulke.”
These portraits are revealed more fully in the speech characteristics of the characters. A respectable mayor and the conversation is respectable and measured: “right”, “so this is the circumstance”, “that’s enough, that’s enough for you!” The provincial coquette Anna Andreevna is fussy and uncontrolled; Her speech is abrupt and expressive: “Who is this? This, however, is annoying! Who could it 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 advise you with me...”; the same panache: “And your eyes are better than important things...”.
The main literary device. which N.V. uses Gogol's comic portrayal of an official is hyperbole. As an example of the use of this technique, the author can name Christian Ivanovich Gibner, who is not even able to communicate with his patients due to complete ignorance of the Russian language, and Ammos Fedorovich and the postmaster, who decided that the arrival of the auditor foreshadows the coming war. At first, the plot of the comedy itself is hyperbolic, but as the plot action develops, starting with the scene of Khlestakov’s story about his life in St. Petersburg, the hyperbole gives way to the grotesque. Blinded by fear for their future, officials clutch at Khlestakov like a straw, the city merchants and ordinary people are unable to appreciate the absurdity of what is happening, and absurdities are piled on top of each other: here is the non-commissioned officer who “flogged herself”, and Bobchinsky , asking that His Imperial Majesty be informed that “Peter Ivanovich Bobchinsky lives in such and such a city,” and much more.
The climax and the denouement that immediately follows it come sharply and cruelly. Khlestakov’s letter gives such a simple and even banal explanation that at this moment it looks for Gorodnichy, for example, much more implausible than all Khlestakov’s fantasies. A few words should be said about the image of the Mayor. Apparently, he will have to pay for the sins of his circle as a whole. Of course, he himself is not an angel, but the blow is so strong that the Governor has something like an epiphany: “I don’t see anything: I see some pig snouts instead of faces, but nothing else...” “Why are you laughing? You’re laughing at yourself! ..” - he throws it in the faces of the officials and into the hall. Endowing the Governor with sarcasm. Gogol makes him more humane and thereby elevates him above the other characters in the comedy.
A silent scene: the inhabitants of a provincial town stand as if struck by thunder, mired in bribes, drunkenness, and gossip. But here comes a cleansing thunderstorm that will wash away the dirt, punish vice and reward virtue. In this scene, Gogol reflected his faith in the justice of the higher authorities, thereby castigating, as Nekrasov put it, “little thieves for the pleasure of big ones.” It must be said that the pathos of the silent scene does not fit with the general spirit of the brilliant comedy.
The comedy "The Inspector General" immediately became one of the most popular dramatic works of that time and was a harbinger of Ostrovsky's dramatic works. Tsar Nicholas 1 said about her this way: “Everyone here got it, and I got it more than anyone else.”
Bibliography
To prepare this work, materials were used from the site http://biographo.narod.ru/
Purpose: to reveal the author's intention; show how circumstances led officials to their fatal mistake, how the dramatic action begins and is expressed; show techniques for satirical depiction of officials; develop an idea of the essence of the comic.
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Intrigue lesson on N.V. Gogol’s comedy “The Inspector General” in 8th grade
“The auditor is coming to see us.”
Topic: Exposing the vices of officialdom in the play. Techniques for satirical depiction of officials.
Purpose: to reveal the author's intention; show how circumstances led officials to their fatal mistake, how the dramatic action begins and is expressed; show techniques for satirical depiction of officials; develop an idea of the essence of the comic.
Equipment: portrait of the writer, computer presentation, epigraph (on the board).
During the classes.
- Teacher's word: message of the type and topic of the lesson. Appeal to the lexical meaning of the word “intrigue” (written on the board),
“intrigue” - 1) machinations, hidden actions
2) the method of constructing the plot of the work
“In The Inspector General, I decided to collect in one pile everything bad in Russia..., all the injustices that are done in those places and in those cases where justice is most required from a person, and at once laugh at everything. But through the laughter the reader heard sadness"
2. Conversation with students (testing knowledge of the text: 1 action)
Who brings the news that the auditor is already in town?
How did Bobchinsky know about the arrival of the auditor, since he was not present when the letter was read?
According to Bobchinsky, Pyotr Ivanovich Dobchinsky learned about this from the housekeeper Avdotya. How did Avdotya know about the arrival of the auditor?
Teacher's word : The news that Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky bring comes to prepared ground.
3. Updating homework. Conversation on questions:
Why did the news of the auditor’s arrival so alarm the officials of the district town?
What is the meaning of the mayor’s advice and the intentions of each official?
What fur coat and shawl belonging to the mayor’s wife does the judge mention? What is their origin?
What kind of sins are city officials guilty of? What is the state of their affairs? (individually about each) (we comment on the “speaking” surnames as a way of satirical depiction)
4. Teacher's summary word(test of knowledge of the text of step 1):
An official is a person in public service. This means that he must serve the state, the people living in this state. The officials depicted by Gogol manage the most important government institutions: hospital, school, court (address to
epigraph).
Are they doing their job? (No)
What are they afraid of? (Revelations)
The feeling of imminent, imminent danger, involuntary fear, spreads to everyone present.
Two weeks as an auditor in the city! Fathers, matchmakers! – the mayor exclaims in horror, clutching his head. - In these two weeks, a non-commissioned officer's wife was flogged! The prisoners were not given provisions! There's a tavern on the streets, it's unclean! A shame! Blame!
From this moment on, events begin to unfold very quickly. Why is the mayor most concerned?
What method of meeting the visiting auditor does he choose and why? (D.1 Yavl.3) (See if those passing by are experiencing any troubles in the hotel. Supposedly showing care and zeal for service)
5. Updating literary concepts:
From the point of view of composition, what is staged 1 event of 1 act? Prove it. (They remember the classical composition. Already in the exposition, the author intrigues the reader, the anxiety of the officials is conveyed to us).
From a compositional point of view, what is a rapid development of events called? (Commencement)
6. Working with text 2 steps.
A) Conversation of an advanced nature:
So, the mayor goes to the hotel to meet with the auditor.
What do we learn about the official Ivan Alexandrovich who arrived from St. Petersburg
Khlestakov from the monologue of his servant Osip? (monologue answer)
From the dialogues between Khlestakov and Osip? Khlestakov and the tavern servant? From Khlestakov's monologue?
B) Teacher's word: That's it, the auditor! At some point, the question arises: what does this Khlestakov have to do with the action that began earlier? (Khlestakov’s remark: “... in the dining room this morning, two short people were eating salmon and a lot of other things” - clarifies the situation, and we understand that the city gossips Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky accepted this careless, stupid, vain, cowardly and empty person for a “statesman”, for an auditor). It turns out that the auditor is imaginary. But the mayor does not know this. Let's see how they meet. When reading a comedy, we pay attention to the author’s remarks; they convey the internal state of the characters.
C) Reading by role of the scene of the meeting between the mayor and Khlestakov (act 8, act 2. (characters: mayor and Khlestakov)
D) Conversation on issues:
What is Khlestakov afraid of?
What is the mayor afraid of?
What is the relationship between them? What do the author’s remarks tell us?
Teacher's word : So this is the meeting! The content of the dialogue and the author's remarks indicate that there is a misunderstanding between them. Humor is built on misunderstanding and inconsistency.
At what point does the mayor begin to calm down internally: “both incognito is preserved and nobility is shown”? (When Khlestakov takes money from him)
Teacher's word : This is a familiar situation for an official: giving and taking bribes.
In modern Russia, such a situation in the conduct of public affairs, alas, has not been eliminated. The comedy, written in the 19th century, remains topical and relevant in the 21st century. The vices of bureaucracy, satirically ridiculed by Gogol, do exist. (address to the epigraph)
9. Homework: “Let’s get to know the St. Petersburg official.”
We read acts 2 and 3.
The story about Khlestakov according to plan (written on the back of the board):
1. What do we know about Khlestakov’s past?
2. What are Khlestakov’s life ideals and how are they determined?
3. What prompts Khlestakov to tell tales about himself?
10. Lesson summary:
A) Reflection
B) Grades for the lesson.
In October 1835, N.V. Gogol began creating his, perhaps, best comedy - the comedy “The Inspector General”. A little earlier, in a letter to A.S. Pushkin, Gogol asked to suggest some new plot, “a purely Russian joke,” promising that he would make it into a comedy that would be “funnier than the devil.” Pushkin shared one of his stories with Gogol - an anecdote about a passing ordinary official who was mistaken in the province for an important person.
In December 1835, the comedy was completed, and the following year it was staged on the stage of the Alexandrinsky
Theater in St. Petersburg. She enjoyed extraordinary success; Nicholas I himself watched it with great pleasure and noticed that “everyone got it” in the play, and most of all he.
What made the audience laugh? First of all, the comedy characters. Gogol showed incredibly funny and at the same time extremely reliable, recognizable types of people. What appears before us is not just individual officials of a certain provincial town, but entire collective images.
Each of them is funny and typical in its own way.
Thus, mayor Anton Antonovich Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky is “already old in the service and a very intelligent man in his own way,” who has gone up the entire career ladder and knows all the rules, knows how to take bribes and deftly give them. Judge Lyapkin-Tyapkin read “five or six books” and is therefore considered almost a freethinker and Jacobin. The trustee of charitable institutions, Zemlyanika, despite his thickness and external clumsiness, is a great “slick and rogue”; he is very helpful and fussy, loves to inform on his colleagues.
Postmaster Shpekin is “a simple-minded person to the point of naivety,” who loves to read other people’s letters and even keeps the ones he likes as souvenirs and reads them aloud to his friends. The main character of the comedy, Khlestakov, is a young man of about twenty-three, somewhat stupid and “without a king in his head.” As we can see, all the characters in the comedy, without exception, are characterized by the author very sarcastically. Gogol widely uses the technique of “speaking” names.
Just look at the names of local police officers: Ukhovertov, Derzhimorda, Svistunov. And Judge Lyapkin-Tyapkin; and Dr. Gibner, clearly his last name is derived from the verb “to perish.”
The plot of the comedy is also extremely funny. Officials, frightened by the news of the arrival of a secret auditor, mistake the petty official Khlestakov for an important shot. They curry favor with him, please him in every possible way, give him money. And this despite the fact that Khlestakov himself, almost until the end of the action, does not understand why he was given such honors.
Neither in his appearance nor in his behavior does he at all resemble a real auditor. Khlestakov, it seems, is behaving very stupidly, constantly blurting things out, betraying his true position: he is on friendly terms with the head of the department “himself”, they even wanted to make him a collegiate assessor; he lives on the fourth floor in an apartment building, where only petty officials lived. After dinner, intoxicated with wine and universal respect, Khlestakov begins to brag without restraint: he is closely acquainted with Pushkin himself; writes himself; famous works belong to his pen; The State Council is afraid of him, he will soon be promoted to field marshal... Any person could immediately “see through” Khlestakov; but the officials are so frightened that they take his outright lies at face value and do not suspect anything until the very end - until reading Khlestakov’s letter.
Why is this happening? Because each of the officials feels certain “sins” behind him. The characters in the comedy represent “a corporation of various official thieves and robbers,” as V. G. Belinsky wrote in one of his letters to Gogol.
The mayor, for example, shamelessly steals government money and robs the population. He imposed a kind of tribute on local merchants; receives offerings from them and only makes sure that everyone receives in accordance with their rank. "Look! You’re not taking it according to rank!” - he scolds the policeman, who, instead of the two arshins of cloth required “according to rank,” took much more from the merchant.
Judge Lyapkin-Tyapkin openly admits that he takes bribes, but with greyhound puppies, and it doesn’t seem to count as bribes. And the Governor himself, when meeting with the “auditor” Khlestakov, first of all strives to give him a bribe and rejoices when he takes the money. We can say that this has already become the norm in the city. But it is not by chance that Gogol chooses this unremarkable county town for the action of his comedy; Thus, he seemed to emphasize that such morals are widespread throughout the state, and in this city, like a drop of water, all of Russia is reflected.
There were such mayors, judges, trustees, and postmasters in every small and great city of the Russian Empire; and therefore Gogol’s laughter is a bitter laughter: he was hurt and ashamed to see all this.
In The Inspector General, Gogol appears as an innovative playwright. He was the first to show Russian reality so authentically on stage. This is a realistic comedy, although it contains elements of a typical “comedy of manners” and “comedy of situations”.
But for the writer it was important not to make the viewer laugh, but to ridicule certain vices of society. It is no coincidence that the writer took as an epigraph to the play the proverb “There is no point in blaming the mirror if your face is crooked.” And the dramatic conflict in comedy is not love, as was usual, but social.
Gogol breaks the traditions of “classical” comedy and creates a new, realistic Russian comedy, which was developed in the works of Ostrovsky and Chekhov.