Le héros de l'histoire est un aventurier qui parcourt la Russie faisant des achats fictifs "d'âmes mortes", c'est-à-dire de serfs qui sont morts depuis le dernier recensement, avec la vue de promettre sa propriété imaginaire au gouvernement. Mais ses aventures sont simplement une excuse pour peindre une série d'images, de façon défavorable, de la vie de la province russe et introduire sur la scène un certain nombre de types de la société russe.

De la force et de la vérité avec laquelle ces délinéations sont exécutées le consentement universel de critiques russes dans leur faveur peut être pris comme une mesure. Une idée générale de ses mérites peut être formée de la version française de l'histoire, et quelque connaissance de ses points et de ses principaux caractères peut être obtenu de l'adaptation anglaise publiée en 1854, comme un travail original, sous le titre de Vie de Famille en Russie.

Mais personne ne peut apprécier complètement les mérites de Gogol comme humoriste s'il n'est pas aussi intime avec la langue dans laquelle il a écrit qu'avec la société qu'il a représentée.

Of the force and truth with which these delineations are executed the universal consent of Russian critics in their favor may be taken as a measure. From the French version of the story a general idea of its merits may be formed, and some knowledge of its plot and its principal characters may be gathered from the English adaptation published in 1854, as an original work, under the title of Home Life in Russia.

Part One of Dead Souls was completed and published in 1842. This version was titled The Adventures of Chichikov because the religious censorship objected to the phrase "dead souls" as being theologically contradictory. However, in later editions the censors relented, and the work appeared with the original title Gogol had given it, Dead Souls: An Epic. Some critics found the novel to be, in fact, a modern-day epic; others thought it ridiculous at best and offensive at worst to claim such a status for the novel. (You must draw your own conclusions regarding this question, and to do so you will need some idea of the traits associated with traditional epic poetry. You may want to consult a standard reference of literary terms, such as Holman and Harmon's A Handbook to Literature.)

The situation from which the novel develops is based upon a scheme which theoretically was possible in Gogol's day. The government had a policy of loaning money to landowners, feeling that this class was its strongest support. Lands owned, however, were measured not in acres, but by the number of "souls" (that is, serfs) residing on them. Landowners were, then, really serf owners. The government was ready to accept the land (that is, the serfs) of an individual as collateral for a loan. Thus, a method was required by which the holdings of an individual landowner could be established at any given time. This method stated that an individual possessed the number of serfs recorded as belonging to him or her in the most recent census. The census was taken every ten years, which meant that near the end of the ten-year cycle almost every landowner would have some serfs who were not recorded in the preceding census because they had recently been born, and some serfs still recorded even though they had died since the last census. In Dead Souls, the main character, Chichikov, schemes to buy from the serf holders a number of those "souls" who had died but were still counted as living until the next census. Once Chichikov had a number of such souls, he would apply to the government bank for a loan, using the "souls" as his collateral. With this low-interest loan in hand he would then buy and work an actual country estate, eventually paying back the loan and purchasing living souls to work the land.

The story is related by a narrator who seems at times to be omniscient, at other times not. The general tone is humorously ironic. The characters and their actions seem to be an open book to the narrator, and while he overtly shows them great respect, he manages as well to illustrate their folly, coarseness, and often their ugliness. At times the narrator seems to abandon his usual posture of detailed, almost microscopic, scrutiny and to rise above the world he has created and view it in a much broader perspective. At these moments the ironic tone is replaced by a lyricism and enthusiasm which at first seem to contradict or at least to have little justification or basis in the main flow of the narrative. Such, for instance, is the lengthy passage on Russia and her destiny (end of Part One) and the passage on the special greatness of the Russian word (Chapter Six).

Dead Souls is a remarkable work. It has called forth a great variety of critical reactions: it has been praised for its critical boldness in exposing the inequities of an unjust social order and condemned as a vicious slander on the Russian homeland; it has been understood as a satirical account of contemporary reality and as a modern-day national epic; it may be no more or less than an account of the world as seen by one convinced of its absurdity. As you reflect upon Dead Souls, you may want to consult the opinions of others who have studied this complex work. Some suggestions are listed in the supplementary reading list for this lesson.