One of the characters in the poem "Dead Souls" by Nikolai Gogol is the landowner Manilov, a blond and blue-eyed retired officer. The image of Manilov is very interesting - he leads an idle and comfortable life, indulging in dreams from morning to evening. Manilov's dreams are fruitless and absurd: to dig an underground passage or build such a high superstructure over the house so that you can see Moscow.
Speaking about the characterization of Manilov, it should be noted that with the idle dreams of the landowner, the master's house is blown by all the winds, the pond is covered with greenery, and the serfs become lazy and completely out of hand. But all sorts of domestic problems are of little concern to the landowner Manilov, all management of the economy is entrusted to the clerk.
The clerk also does not particularly bother, as evidenced by his plump face with swollen eyes from satiety. At 9 o'clock in the morning, the clerk, having left his soft feather beds, only begins to drink tea. Life in the estate, numbering 200 peasant huts, flows somehow by itself.
The image of Manilov in the poem "Dead Souls"
Manilov is mostly silent, constantly smoking his pipe and reveling in his fantasies. His young wife, whose feelings have not faded over 8 years of married life, is raising two sons with original names - Themistoclus and Alkid.
At the first meeting, Manilov makes a very favorable impression on everyone, because, thanks to his good-natured disposition, he sees only the good in all people, and closes his eyes to the shortcomings inherent in every person.
What is "manilovism"? The image of Manilov gave birth to this concept, which means a complacent and dreamy attitude to life, but it also combines idleness.
Manilov tends to be so immersed in his dreams that life around him seems to freeze. On his desk for two years lies the same book, laid on the 14th page.
The owner of the estate is characterized by disinterestedness - when Chichikov visited Manilov in order to buy dead souls (who died, but are considered alive according to the revision tales of peasants), Manilov stops the guest's attempts to pay money for them. Although at first he is very surprised at such an offer, his pipe even falls out of his mouth and is temporarily speechless.
Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, in turn, is surprised that Manilov and the clerk cannot immediately answer the question of how many peasants have died since the previous census. There is only one answer: "A lot."
The image of Manilov is notable for the fact that he gave circulation to such a concept as "Manilovism", which means a complacent and dreamy attitude to life, combined with idleness and inactivity.
The landowner Manilov is a bright hero in the gallery of characters in Gogol's poem. A direct characterization of Manilov from "Dead Souls" takes the author only one paragraph, but the house, furnishings and dialogues of the hero with Chichikov draw every trait of the character and nature of the landowner with unsurpassed skill.
Manilov's appearance
When describing Manilov, the author uses a number of proverbs and skillfully veiled irony. Very delicately, he talks about the appearance of the hero, hinting that the character is "nothing" both externally and internally - "neither fish nor meat." Facial features are pleasant, he himself is a “prominent” person: blond, blue-eyed, smiling. Manilov is dressed soundly, gives the impression of a noble person with pleasant features. Hospitality, transient into mania, is another of the qualities that are characteristic of the owner. Gogol honestly says that at the beginning of meeting such a person, one gets the impression that he is “extremely pleasant”, later the sweetness of speeches and overkill in the desire to please takes over, after some time the interlocutor thinks “hell knows what” and tries to escape, not to die of boredom.
The nature of the landowner
About the nature of the character, we learn more from the first lines “God alone could tell what Manilov’s character was”. This man could not find himself in anything (and did not look for it). The author does not give Manilov a name, unlike other characters, making it clear that his image is typical, generalized and completely impersonal. If someone had a penchant for arguing, was carried away by card games, hunting, or something else, then Manilov did not know how to do anything well, and had absolutely no inclination for anything.
The landowner could not formulate a single topic on which he would like to have conversations, only something sublime, abstract, which is impossible to express and designate in words. The author's way of characterizing the character through his speech very harmoniously reveals Manilov's inner world, excessive manners and sweetness of expressions go into the background. Laziness, a monotonous way of life, morbid daydreaming have turned him into an empty, inactive type who can compete in the ability to spend his life with any tavern reveler. The result is the same: chairs will stand for years and wait for new upholstery, the pond will turn into a swamp, and the arbor for reflection will be overgrown with thistles. The inability to create, manage, make decisions led to the fact that Manilov, a kind and enlightened owner, is daily robbed by his employees. The peasants lie to the landowner, get drunk and laugh at him. Household and yard workers steal in broad daylight, sleep until noon, work just as much as their master.
Life position
Like any limited person, Manilov falls into a complete stupor when he meets something new. Interest in "cases" is limited to the fact that he cares about the legality of any operations. This happened when Pavel Ivanovich offered him a deal. How profitable it is, the landowner does not think, this is too low a topic for such an exalted subtle nature as he is. Our character happily gives dead souls to Chichikov, verbally believes the guest about the legality of such an operation, rejoices because he has given pleasure to the interlocutor.
The attitude of the owner of the estate towards others is so monotonous that the ability to understand people is out of the question. The entire elite that governs the city together with relatives, wives and children, in his opinion, are "the most pleasant people." About whom you don’t ask: “the noblest”, “the most worthy”, “the most decent”. Manilov is sincerely happy because he knows such wonderful people, admires their education, intelligence and talents.
In fact, provincial officials are thieves, swindlers, drunkards and revelers, but the illusory world in which our hero exists does not allow such concepts. The landowner does not see beyond his own nose, lives on other people's beliefs and opinions. The main problem of “Manilovism” is that the happiness of such people is unshakable, they are not interested in or upset by anything, they exist in a separate reality and are quite satisfied with such a spiritually impoverished life.
In our article, briefly with quotations, a description and analysis of the image of the landowner Manilov is given. this material will be useful in preparing for the lesson, writing essays, test papers.
Artwork test
Manilov- "sweet" sentimental landowner; the first to whom Chichikov goes in the hope of acquiring dead souls (ch. 2). A character "assembled" from the wreckage of literary clichés; associated with the vaudeville-comedy type of sentimental "karamzinist"; with Moliere's type of "stupid nobleman", etc. Through the numerous literary masks in the image of M., a social mask shines through. In his portrait (blond hair, blue eyes), in the figure of his behavior (sweet daydreaming with complete inactivity), even at the age (about 50 years old), the features of the “sentimental”, soulful and empty sovereign Alexander I of the last years of his reign can be identified, led the country to disaster. In any case, this is the same social type. (The attempt to connect M. with Nicholas I was obviously erroneous.) The name of M.’s wife, a pleasant lady weaving lace purses, Lizanka, coincides both with the name of the sentimental heroine of N. M. Karamzin, and with the name of the wife of Alexander I.
The constructed image of M., its weaving from other people's shreds, the absence of any hint of a biography underline the hero's emptiness, "insignificance", covered with a sugary pleasantness of appearance, "magnificence" of behavior. (According to the narrator's recall, M. is neither one nor the other, neither in the city of Bogdan, nor in the village of Selifan; the devil knows what it is.)
The characters of the landowners depicted in the poem are reflected in the things that surround them. M.'s house stands in the south, open to all winds; the "slope of the mountain" is covered with trimmed turf; thin tops of birches are visible; the pavilion is sublimely named "The Temple of Solitary Reflection"; the pond is completely covered with duckweed; gray huts everywhere, 200 in number; there are no trees in the village; The "color" of the day - either clear, or gloomy, light gray - coincides with the color of M.'s office, covered with blue paint, like gray. All this points to the worthlessness, lifelessness of the hero, from whom you will not expect a single living word. Hidden "deadness" of M. corresponds to inactivity (he does not know how many people have died; the 40-year-old well-fed clerk knows everything), the immobility of his pastime (in a green chalon frock coat or in a dressing gown, with a chibouk in his hand). Hooked on any topic, M.'s thoughts slip away into nowhere, into thoughts about the well-being of a friendly life, about the bridge over the pond, about the belvedere, so high that from it you can watch Moscow over tea, which the wheel of the Chichikovskaya britzka can hardly reach. In the world of M., there is no time either: for two years some book has been laid on the same page (apparently, an issue of the magazine “Son of the Fatherland”); marriage lasts eight years - but M. and his Lizanka still behave like newlyweds. And action, and time, and the meaning of life are replaced by verbal formulas; having heard from Chichikov his strange request (“I wish to have the dead ...”), M. is shocked, remains for several minutes with his mouth open, and suspects the guest of insanity. But as soon as Chichikov chooses an exquisite verbal formulation for his wild request, M. completely calms down. And forever - even after "exposing" Chichikov, he will insist on his "good quality" and the high properties of Chichikov's soul.
M.'s world is a world of false everyday idyll, which is fraught with a false utopia of fantastic improvement (cf. the Greek names of his children - Themistoclus and Alkid, among other things, associated with the Greek origin of the idyll). The “falsity” of Manilov's utopia and Manilov's idyll is predetermined by the fact that M. has neither an idyllic past nor a utopian future, just as there is no present. It is not by chance that Chichikov's path to the lost Manilovka is depicted as a road to nowhere: even getting out of Manilovka without getting lost in the expanses of Russian off-road is difficult. (Intending to get to Sobakevich, Chichikov will first have to spend the night at Korobochka, and then turn to Nozdrev, that is, to those “unplanned” landowners who will eventually ruin his glorious reputation.) In accordance with the plot scheme 1- in the first volume, which "reverses" the scheme of Dante's "Hell", the image of M. in the portrait gallery of perished or perishing souls occupies both the highest and the lowest place; it is equally “registered” both in the upper circle, Limba, and in the last, 9th circle of the Russian “hell”, from where there is no chance to get out into the future Russian “paradise”. There is nothing negative in M.; he did not fall as low as Plyushkin, and still less Chichikov himself; he has done nothing reprehensible in this life, because he has done nothing at all. But there is nothing positive in it either; any inclinations in him have completely died. And therefore, M., unlike the rest of the "semi-negative" characters, cannot count on spiritual transformation and rebirth (the semantic perspective of the 2nd and 3rd volumes) - there is nothing to revive and transform in him.
The landowner Manilov is one of the central characters in the work of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol "Dead Souls". We can say that his last name is speaking - something beckons the hero all the time, he is a dreamer.
For the first time we meet Manilov at the house party of the governor of the city of NN, where he appears before the readers as "a very courteous and courteous landowner." It was Manilov, along with Sobakevich, who first of all attracted the attention of Chichikov.
Manilov is not an elderly man, blond with blue eyes. We can say that he is rather good-looking, pleasant, but at the same time looks too sugary, in his "pleasantness was too sugar transferred."
This landowner does not stand out from the crowd. Gogol says that there are "many of them in the world" and emphasizes that he is "neither this nor that." Perhaps that is why he gives strange names to his children, trying to make them stand out.
Manilov can be considered a wealthy landowner. There are about two hundred houses in his village Manilovka, which means about two hundred or more souls, which is quite a lot. However, the character is not engaged in housekeeping at all, it goes “by itself”. He, unlike Sobakevich, does not exhaust the peasants with work and does not starve them, however, he does not do anything to improve their situation, he treats them indifferently. He does not do housework at all, does not go to the fields, completely entrusting the management to his clerk.
Manilov leads a rather idle life, spends most of his time in Manilovka and smokes a pipe, immersed in reflections and thoughts. This person is dreamy, but lazy. Moreover, his dreams are sometimes absurd, for example, to dig an underground passage, and he does nothing to realize them.
Manilov has been married for more than eight years, but still remains a romantic, making little surprises for his wife. It seems that he is absolutely happy in marriage.
As for his treatment of other characters, it can be said that he seeks to please people, behaves ingratiatingly with them. And although at first he seems to be a rather pleasant person, later his interlocutor begins to be overcome by boredom. Despite this, while serving in the army, he left a good impression of himself.
Manilov can be compared with Oblomov, the hero of Goncharov's novel. But, unlike Oblomov, the character of "Dead Souls" is absolutely satisfied with his life and position. From this character came the concept of "Manilovism", which means inaction and a dreamy attitude to life.
Essay 2
The writer emphasizes the image of the landowners and the nobleman in the work.
Manilov is a noble man. At first, you seem to think that he is a nice and good person, then you already start to think about who is standing in front of you, and by the end of the dialogue, you already want to finish the conversation with him as soon as possible and get away from him, otherwise you can get close, very bored. Manilov dreams too much, and his dreams are most often unrealizable. Dream and reality are completely different things for him. A man wants, for example, to build a stone bridge across the lake, with retail outlets, or build an underground passage, or build an unrealistically high house from which one could see the capital of Russia. Of course, there is nothing real here.
Manilov does nothing. He likes to sit in his pleasant apartment and constantly think about something, or arrange piles of ash from smoked cigars in the right order.
Manilov is very polite and pedantic with people. When talking with Chichikov, he constantly mixes up his dialogue with beautiful words and courtesies, but cannot express a single necessary or useful information.
He treats everyone well and calmly, he sees only the best in people. In a dialogue with Chichikov, he gives a good characterization to each official, they are all the most respected and most amiable of Manilov. Kindness, responsiveness, benevolence towards people - in general, all this is good, but for this character it all looks bad, negative, because this is not a critical manifestation of people.
He is alien to practical affairs and economic production: his mansion is located in the Jura, it is blown by all the winds, and the lake is overgrown with grass, the village is very poor.
Household affairs went without control, he never visited the fields and did not know how many men he had died.
Characteristics of Manilov in the poem "Dead Souls"
The images, written out with the utmost accuracy by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol in his immortal poem "Dead Souls", almost all went to the people, and many of their names became common nouns. When meeting with a greedy person, we will certainly notice in his address: “What a Plushkin!”. Speaking of a person who is pleasant in all respects, but too pleasant, so that his pleasantness makes him sick, we, of course, immediately recall the landowner Manilov, whom the protagonist of the work, Chichikov, met.
So what is he, this same Manilov? Yes, indeed, in the first minute you only think about him, how sweet and pleasant he is, and already in the third minute, as the author of the work himself says, you will feel mortal boredom. Manilov - neither this nor that. He does not show interest either in his estate, which he is building "on the seven winds", or in the economy, or in his poor peasants, whom he does not even know the exact account of. Manilov indulges in illusory dreams that will never come true.
It seems that Manilov loves to read, but his book has been bookmarked on the same page for several years. The landowner speaks of all his acquaintances in superlatives. His governor is "most amiable", the vice-governor is "nice", and the chief of police is "very pleasant". On the one hand, what is wrong with the fact that Manilov speaks exceptionally well of people, does not criticize anyone, but on the other hand, the author makes us understand that his words are not entirely sincere. He is cunning, and, perhaps, subconsciously, with such flattering characteristics, he wants to please people who have considerable weight in the province, which means they can be useful to him in some way.
So he cannot understand Chichikov, who came to him with an offer to buy dead souls. Instead, he continues to dream. For example, about how nice it would be for him and Chichikov to live on the banks of some river. Even the worldly-wise Chichikov, who is not very scrupulous in choosing people, is even disgusted to communicate with such a type, who has only ephemeral illusions and spiritual emptiness inside. And a kind of pleasantness that bothers literally after a few minutes of communication with Manilov.
Accurate, ingenious description by Gogol of the heroes of his poem "Dead Souls" allows us to present each of them in the brightest colors. And to understand who and what is. Different in character, appearance, the landowners whom Chichikov meets are similar in one thing: they are vicious people who think only about their own benefit and self-interest.
Image of Manilov
N. V. Gogol wrote the poem "Dead Souls" in 1842. In this poem, he tried to describe the whole of Rus'. The main character is a swindler Chichikov. He comes to the city of NN and gets acquainted with the nobility in the city in order to redeem the "dead souls" of the peasants from them. The very first of the nobility, N.V. Gogol introduces us to the landowner Manilov. On behalf of Chichikov, the author begins to describe the first hero to us.
The surname Manilov is interestingly played up by Gogol. She portrays laziness and daydreaming. So who is he, Manilov, and how does the author characterize him?
Manilov is a very sentimental, real landowner, the first merchant of dead souls. When Chichikov comes to him, the landowner shows all his character.
Firstly, Manilov's indifference emphasizes the fact that a drunken clerk is constantly involved in his affairs. Secondly, generality of judgments and complete indifference to small details are the main features of Manilov's character.
He constantly dreams, but his dreams mostly do not correspond to reality. For example, he dreamed of building an underground tunnel and a bridge across his pond, but ended up doing nothing.
At first, the landowner seems to us rather pleasant and intelligent, but then the reader realizes how boring it is with this person, since he completely has no opinion and can only speak ordinary and pleasant phrases. Manilov believes that he is well brought up, educated and noble. But the author showed that in his office for two years there was a book with a bookmark in the same place. In a conversation with Chichikov, he shows generosity and courtesy. When Manilov clings to every topic, his thoughts take him to various brilliant plans and dreams.
Manilov has a strange delight; also, according to Manilov, officials are "most respectable people."
This hero cannot think about his life and make his own decisions. Everything in his life is replaced by verbiage. But still, Manilov is a good family man who sincerely loves his family, and joyfully welcomes any guest.
I think that Manilov is a pleasant and intelligent person, but as a person he is very boring. It seems to me that despite the fact that he is inactive, lazy and unkempt, his soul cannot be called dead. He loves his family and is proud of them. This means that a particle of the soul still remains in it, although somewhere very deep. And N.V. Gogol showed us a lazy and empty person, who can still be corrected. The author showed us how sickening it is to be lazy and inactive. A person loses his purpose in life, he simply gives himself up to unnecessary dreams. Therefore, you should never be limited to empty chatter, but try to make your dreams come true.
She - that's what Bunin calls the main character of her story "Clean Monday". More practically no details are given besides indicating the residence earlier in Tver, wealth and beauty.
Plastov is an incredibly talented artist, most of his paintings are masterpieces. One of these is the painting "Summer".
The cynical, satiated Onegin, who in the depths of his soul despises people, and the sublime romantic poet Lensky had so little in common that, it would seem, there could be no question of their friendship. Eugene treats a friend condescendingly
Manilov is the first of the landowners visited by Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, the protagonist of Gogol's novel-poem Dead Souls. The order of visits is not accidental in this work - the descriptions of the landlords are arranged according to the degree of their degradation, from the least to the highest. Therefore, in the image of Manilov, we will see some positive features.
The surname of the landowner is also symbolic. It is formed from the word "beckon". His sweet speech, attractive appearance and manners attract people and create a pleasant environment for communication. It is like a bright candy wrapper, inside of which, however, there is nothing. This is also noted by Gogol himself: "... a person is so-so, neither this nor that, neither in the city of Bogdan, nor in the village of Selifan."
We analyze the image
The owner of Manilovka was distinguished by his pleasant appearance and amazing benevolence towards other people, whether it was a teacher of his children or a serf. For everyone, he found good and pleasant words, he tried to please and please everyone. It was not in his nature to criticize anyone.
Unlike Sobakevich, he did not consider the local governor a robber from the high road, but believed that he was "the most gracious person." The policeman, in Manilov's understanding, is not at all a swindler, but a very pleasant person. He never said a bad word about anyone. As we can see, the superficiality of this character's judgments does not allow him to objectively perceive other people.
Manilov served in the army, where his army comrades described him as the most delicate and educated officer.
After eight years of marriage, he continued to have tender feelings for his wife, affectionately called her Lizanka, and all the time tried to pamper her with something. He had two sons with more than strange names - Themistoclus and Alkid. As if with these pretentious names Manilov wants to stand out, to declare his exclusivity.
Most of the time, the owner of two hundred peasant households was in dreams and daydreams. For this "important" occupation, there was a special gazebo on the estate with the pompous name "Temple of Solitary Reflection." Manilov's rich imagination "boldly" transformed the surrounding reality. A bridge was mentally built across the pond, on which merchants briskly traded in all kinds of goods, or a belvedere was erected over the master's house of such a height that one could see Moscow, or an underground passage was dug (however, our dreamer does not specify the purpose of the underground passage).
Dreams brought Manilov to such a distance that real life turned out to be in the background. The whole household was entrusted to the clerk, but Manilov did not delve into anything, but only indulged in fantasies, smoked his pipe all the time and did nothing. Even the book in his office was bookmarked for two years on the same 14th page. The peasants, to match the master, also became lazy, the pond was overgrown with greenery, the housekeeper was stealing, the clerk grew ill and did not get up before 9 o'clock in the morning. But nothing could disturb the measured flow of the comfortable and idle life of the good-natured landowner.
Manilov turned out to be such an impressionable person that, in response to Chichikov's request to sell dead souls, he dropped his pipe and froze in amazement with his mouth open. But in the end, he came to his senses and demonstrated a friendly disposition and disinterestedness - he gave away dead souls completely free of charge, which completely touched Chichikov. In a conversation with a friend, Manilov demonstrated complete detachment from economic affairs - he could not even name the number of dead peasants, not to mention their names and surnames.
Manilovshchina
The term "Manilovism" arose precisely on the basis of the features of this hero of the novel "Dead Souls". This is a way of life characterized by detachment from reality, idleness, frivolity, "hovering in the clouds", inaction. People like Manilov spend their time in empty dreams, which they are in no hurry to put into practice. They are grotesquely sugary, have no opinion of their own, strive to please everyone, think superficially and unrealistically.
They care more about the impression they make than about the actual development of the soul and character. Such individuals are pleasant in communication and complacent, but otherwise completely useless for society. Many literary critics believe that in the image of Manilov Gogol tried to portray Nicholas I.
Let's generalize the image by grouping the positive and negative features of Manilov
Positive traits
Compassionate and helpful
Hospitable
Polite
Educated
Positive
Selfless
Keeps with everyone on an equal footing, not arrogant
Sincerely loves his family - wife and children
Poetry perceives life
Negative qualities
Tendency to ignore problems
Idleness
Carelessness
Inner emptiness
Mismanagement
Lack of own opinion
Idle talk and ornate syllable
A penchant for empty fantasies
spinelessness
Indifference to other people's problems (the death rate of peasants is high on his estate)
Inaction
Excessive need for approval (desire to please everyone)
toadying
Insincerity
Superficiality of judgments
Excessive cloying, sweetness in communication
Excessive gullibility
Infantilism
Lack of leadership qualities and inner core
Lack of understanding of the purpose and meaning of one's life
