Help me write an essay about the silent scene in The Inspector General. According to the plan: 1) What place does the episode occupy in the composition of the work. 2) Heroes of the episode. Which

characters are present. 3) How does this episode help to understand the idea of ​​the work.

Subject:Inspector

1) what is called comedy? What type of literary work is comedy?
2) Name what events taking place in the comedy The Inspector General can be correlated with each element of the plot..
Exposition -
Tie -
Development of action -
Climax -
Denouement-

10) why does the play end with a *silent scene*? What do you think its participants are thinking about?

In Gogol's comedy there is no name of the district town in which the events take place. By this the writer wanted to show that such a position of power, officials,

The order in the city was typical for most cities of that time. Describe the city to which the auditor came: its location relative to the capital, the border, how comfortable the city is, what problems the author draws our attention to. (D.1)
Why did the mayor believe that the young man, greedily looking at what the hotel visitors eat and not paying money for housing and food for two weeks, is the auditor? (D.1)
Khlestakov can’t decide with whom to flirt: with the mayor’s wife Anna Andreevna or his daughter Marya Antonovna. But how did the heroines themselves react to the “auditor” Khlestakov? (D.4)
How did each of the officials behave when they visited Khlestakov in the mayor’s house with petitions and gifts of money?
Officials, reflecting on Khlestakov’s rank, assume that “a general will not hold a candle to him! And when he is a general, then perhaps he is a generalissimo himself.” Meanwhile, out of fear of an “important” person, they did not notice that Khlestakov himself let slip about his true rank: “They even wanted to make him a collegiate assessor, but yes, I think why.” That is, the young man’s rank was even lower than that. What was the actual rank of Khlestakov? (D.2)
Once again, carefully re-read the “Silent Scene” at the end of the comedy. What is its significance in your opinion?
This official is a passionate hunter. Even in the institution under his jurisdiction there is “a hunting arapnik right above the cupboard with papers.” Name the hero, what does he manage in the city? (D.1)
It was this hero who began to report to the “auditor” Khlestakov about how things really were in city institutions when he visited him in the mayor’s house along with other officials. Name it. (D.4)
One of the employees of this institution has such a violent temper that he is ready not only to smash furniture, but to lose his life - “for science.” Name the institution and the official who runs it. (D.1)
This hero asked Khlestakov: “When you go to St. Petersburg, tell all the different nobles there: senators and admirals, that your Excellency or Excellency lives in such and such a city:.” Who wanted to inform all the capital's nobles about themselves? (D.4)

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 a real auditor. Moreover, he appeared before them like a terrible ghost, for everyone died when he appeared.

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 us 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 “Decoupling of the Inspector General”, 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—highest—fear, and the “living picture” of general petrification evokes an association with the Last Judgment, “experienced, as S. Schulz noted, in a completely medieval way, in the moment of this, 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” goes 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 the overall 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 head of the city and all senior officials to petrify and turn into idols, is a clear indicator of the author’s good intentions.”

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 of local authorities... he [Gogol] contrasted 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. The “psychological” reason for the stupefaction of the characters at the end of the comedy is understandable: having gone through so much excitement and trouble, we have to start all over again, and yet the 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, wrote 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 ​​the 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. The happy ending resulted from the existence of the “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 scene graphically represents the top of the pyramid of the “prefabricated city.” The blow hit its highest point, and, losing some of 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 on top of 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 those who personally had nothing to fear. But also They froze at the terrible news.

Here we come to the most important “color” of the final scene, to the fact that it expresses petrification, and general petrification. In “Excerpt from a Letter...” Gogol wrote: “... the last scene will not be successful until they understand that it’s just 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 the 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 “The Last Day of 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.

In these remarks, it is true that the result of Gogol’s comedy is not idealization, but the exposure of the foundations of social life and that, therefore, a new revision (like the previous ones) would not change anything. But still, Gogol’s artistic thought 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 a new psychological state. 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.

Municipal budgetary educational institution

"Arlyuk Secondary School"

Prepared by:

teacher and literature

Lesson topic: Final lesson on the comedy “The Inspector General”.

Analysis of the “silent” comedy scene

Lesson objectives:

Help students understand the philosophical significance of not only the ending, but the entire comedy as a whole through a comprehensive consideration of this scene. Development of analytical skills of students. Formation of positive moral orientations.

Equipment: portrait, “Inspector General” poster,

illustration of a “silent” scene,

slides, ICT, screen

Methods and forms of work:

Problem-based learning methods

Teacher-led method of work

Type of lesson: lesson on consolidating knowledge, skills and abilities

Type: eureka lesson

Key words: Bureaucratic system

Providence

Allegory

Lesson progress

Motivational start of the lesson:

So, the work “The Inspector General” has been read, the vital basis of the comedy has been revealed; the circumstances that attracted officials to their fatal mistake have been revealed; an idea of ​​the character of the “imaginary” auditor Khlestakov has been obtained.

This is the final lesson. It includes an analysis of the final scene, the so-called "silent" scene; disclosure of the epigraph of the comedy and a literary game based on the work using ICT.

The purpose of the lesson follows from the topic: to reveal the role of the finale, to help you, students, understand the philosophical significance of the “silent” scene and comedy in general.

At home, preparing for today's lesson, you looked at the playbill for the comedy again, thought about the meaning of the epigraph and read the last scene of Act V. On your desks are sheets of paper with an illustration of a “silent” scene.

Teacher's word:

The idea of ​​completing the play (the “silent” scene) was born to Gogol immediately after he began working on “The Inspector General” and did not change during the process of creating the comedy. Gogol believed that this scene should make a strong impression on the audience, and insisted that the “silent scene” last at least 2-3 minutes. Only at the insistence of the director and actors of the Alexandrinsky Theater, who 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.)

Gogol sought the effect of universal understanding: the reader (viewer) must understand that one of the heroes standing on stage is, to some extent, himself.

“Silent scene” is the mayor’s phrase, as if frozen in the petrified figures of the characters: “Why are you laughing? “You’re laughing at yourself!”

Why does Gogol introduce this scene, since with the arrival of the gendarme the comedy can be considered over and the curtain can be lowered?

But Gogol not only decides to end the comedy this way, but also describes in detail the position of each character on stage and insists on precisely this compositional structure of the finale.

Student: Starting from Act IV, the reader feels how the pathos of the play gradually changes - from comic to tragic; tragedy reaches its apogee precisely in the final “silent scene.”

(Message from a prepared student.)

From the memoirs of contemporaries about the premiere of “The Inspector General” at the Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg: “Laughter from time to time still flew from one end of the hall to the other, but it was some kind of timid laughter, which immediately disappeared, there was almost no applause at all; but intense attention, convulsive, intense, followed all the shades of the play, sometimes dead silence showed that what was happening on stage passionately captured the hearts of the audience.”

The very tension of the finale, caused by the appearance of the gendarme on stage through the static, picturesquely frozen position of the characters, according to Gogol, should evoke in the audience a single, but very strong feeling - fear, horror. “Despite... the comical situation of many people... in the end there remains... something monstrously gloomy, some kind of fear of our unrest. This very appearance of the gendarme, who, like some kind of executioner, appears at the door... all this is somehow inexplicably scary!

What are the characteristic features of the “Inspector General” poster?

Student answers:

The poster represents the entire city, that is, all representatives of the system of any Russian city, and in a broader sense, the whole of Russia.

The conflict of the comedy itself is social; This is indicated by the very name of the comedy - “The Inspector General” - a government official.

In addition, the only person acting in the comedy, but not indicated in the poster, is the gendarme.

Think about why the gendarme is not included in the poster?

Students: A gendarme is a representative of state power that punishes the vices of the bureaucratic system that it itself created.

Teacher: Gogol in “Theater Travel” writes: “It’s not funny that the play cannot end without the government. It will certainly appear, like an inevitable fate in the tragedies of the ancients. “... There is nothing bad here, God grant that the government always and everywhere hears its calling to be the representative of Providence on earth and that we believe in it, as the ancients believed in the fate that overtook the crime.”

A gendarme is a messenger of Providence, a higher power more powerful than the highest ranks of the state system. This is what makes such a strong impression on the heroes of the comedy and gives rise to horror and fear in them (and in the audience). Gogol in “The Denouement” of “The Inspector General” wrote: “Whatever you say, the inspector who is waiting for us at the door of the coffin is terrible.”

In the minds of the author of The Inspector General, the gendarme is a somewhat mystical figure: he appears unexpectedly and out of nowhere, and the words he uttered “strike everyone like thunder; so the whole group, having suddenly changed their position, remains petrified.” And the real auditor, who sent the gendarme with the news of his arrival, becomes a mystical person; This feeling of mysticism is further enhanced by the fact that the auditor does not appear on stage: just one news about him plunges the characters in the comedy into horror, which is transmitted to the auditorium.

Let us turn to the description of the position of the heroes on the stage (the mayor and the postmaster).

The student reads: “The mayor is in the middle in the form of a pillar, with outstretched arms and his head thrown back.”

Student: The mayor occupies a central place.

Teacher: Doesn’t the mayor’s figure resemble a cross, a crucifix?

Student: Yes, the mayor’s pose really does resemble a cross.

Teacher: “The Silent Scene” introduces into the comedy, firstly, motives, and secondly, the motive of death (compare “the auditor who is waiting for us at the door of the coffin”).

This is how the social conflict of comedy receives a philosophical interpretation: the sources of the vices of society are rooted in the spiritual organization of man, and not in the system itself.

Determine the location of the postmaster on the stage.

Student: This character, “turned into a question mark” addressed to the audience, stands behind the mayor.

Try to formulate the question that Gogol addresses to the audience and which receives such embodiment on stage?

Teacher: The heroes on stage are frozen, petrified, but in this fossilization there is movement - not external, internal - of the 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. Purification of the inner world, according to Gogol, is possible only through tragedy: shock forces a person to be spiritually reborn.

(Students offer their own versions of questions.)

Teacher: In our opinion, the most accurately reflecting the meaning of the final scene may be the question: “How will you, the viewer (reader), meet the day of judgment?”

Do you think the real auditor is similar to Khlestakov or is he the complete opposite of this “official from St. Petersburg”?

Students answer.

Teacher: Who is the auditor who sent the gendarme - Khlestakov No. 2 or a higher power, providence?

(Students' answers are heard.)

Teacher: There is no definite answer. Firstly, the auditor himself does not appear on stage. Secondly, the gendarme - the auditor's messenger - is not stated in the poster. Thirdly, the ending of the comedy is open.

I propose to conduct an experiment. Let's say a real auditor appears on stage. An auditor similar to Khlestakov.

Student: After the “silent scene” the action will be repeated from the beginning: again anxiety, fears, the need to again look for ways to establish contacts.

Teacher: What if the auditor is providence itself (as the analysis of the “silent scene” indicates)?

Student: The development of the play after the “silent scene” will then be unpredictable. The finale is a symbol of the day of judgment in the life of the city.

Thus, if we accept the first interpretation of the image of the auditor as correct, then the comedy loses its satirical significance; vices cannot be eradicated, they only change. Then the “silent scene” loses its relevance; it can be neglected without prejudice to the idea of ​​comedy.

What interpretation of the image of an auditor is significant for Gogol? Justify your opinion.

Student: The second interpretation is undoubtedly significant for the playwright. The heroes of the comedy are shocked, they are plunged into a new state of mind. It is clear that in the finale they are completely thrown out of the rut of their usual life, amazed forever. Nothing is reported about what the real auditor will do and what the officials will face. It is quite possible that with the “silent scene” Gogol wanted to lead to the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bretribution, the triumph of state power.

Teacher: Read the epigraph to the comedy and explain its meaning.

Student: The proverb “You can’t blame the mirror if you have a crooked face” appeared before the text of the comedy only in 1842, when Gogol finished his work on the finishing of “The Inspector General.” This epigraph was the playwright’s response to the indignation of the bureaucratic public regarding the staging of his play on the stages of St. Petersburg and Moscow. Gogol was accused of maliciously distorting reality, of wanting to discredit Russian life.

Teacher: Why are those who accused Gogol of slander wrong?

Student: Having read the memoirs of contemporaries, we saw that in the pictures of life in the city where the events of “The Inspector General” took place, the same facts took place, the reality that was observed in different cities of Russia. Therefore, it can be argued that the indignation against Gogol was caused not by “slander,” but by the truth of life that the first viewers of the comedy felt.

Gogol responded with his epigraph to those who reproached him for slandering Russian reality: you cannot be angry with a mirror if you see a true reflection in it; life itself is bad and unfair, not its image.

Summing up the lesson.

Teacher: What discoveries did you make in class today?

Students: “Silent scene” has a broad symbolic meaning.

Comedy has a philosophical interpretation.

An important idea in The Inspector General is the idea of ​​inevitable spiritual retribution.

The “silent scene” has a very important compositional role.

The development of the play after the “silent scene” is unpredictable if

the real auditor is providence, a higher power.

The ending of the comedy becomes a symbol of the last - judgment -

days of the city's life.

Literary quiz

Use these illustrations to identify the characters in the comedy.

Gogol's comedy "The Inspector General" is an innovative work. For the first time in Russian literature, a play was created in which social conflict, rather than love conflict, came first. In The Inspector General, the playwright exposed the vices of Russian society, laughed at all his heroes, but it was a bitter laugh, “laughter through tears.”

The depravity of the officials of the city of N., their fear for their places, made these people blind - they mistook Khlestakov for an auditor. At the end of the play, everything seems to fall into place - Khlestakov is exposed, the officials are punished. But the real finale is yet to come - this is the last act and the famous silent comedy scene.

Excited by the news about the imaginary auditor, the officials are informed that... the real auditor has arrived. In the “heat of events,” everyone had already forgotten that the real one should come, if Khlestakov was just a deceiver. And then, like a bolt from the blue, the news: “The official who arrived by personal order from St. Petersburg demands you to come to him this very hour.”

This message literally paralyzes all the heroes, they petrify: “The mayor is in the middle in the form of a pillar, with outstretched arms and his head thrown back,” “The other guests remain just pillars,” “For almost a minute and a half, the petrified group maintains this position.”

We understand that it is at this moment that all officials experience real horror. The fear that they experienced under Khlestakov increased tenfold also because they need to relive everything again. And if the heroes managed to somehow prepare for the arrival of the imaginary auditor, here complete surprise turned the officials into stone statues.

In the middle, as the head of the city, the main “thief and swindler,” stands the mayor. The author indicates that he spread his arms and threw his head up. It seems as if Anton Antonovich is asking the sky: “For what? Why?" This hero considers himself no more sinful than others - after all, everyone lives the way he does. Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky’s wife and daughter rushed to the mayor, as if seeking his protection as the head of the family.

In a silent scene, in my opinion, Gogol, without the help of the characters’ replicas, was able to express their character, the essence of each character. Thus, the meek and cowardly superintendent of educational institutions, Luka Lukich, “got lost” in the “most innocent way,” and the trustee of charitable institutions, Zemlyanika, bowed his head to the side, listening to something. This cunning man does not lose his head, but “listens” to events, ponders how he can “get out of the water unscathed.” But judge Lyapkin-Tyapkin looks the most comical from the outside. He “with his arms outstretched, crouched almost to the ground and made a movement with his lips, as if he wanted to whistle or say: “Here’s to you, grandma, and St. George’s Day!” We understand that the judge was very frightened, because he knows very well that he has many sins behind him.

The figures of Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky are comical, their eyes bulging, their mouths open and, it seems, they rushed into each other’s arms, and even petrified halfway there. However, like all the remaining guests. Gogol shows us that each of them has an unclean conscience and each of them is afraid of punishment.

It is in the silent scene that the boundaries of comedy are pushed. And it develops from social into moral and philosophical. The author reminds us that sooner or later all people will have to answer for their actions, like officials in a comedy. Gogol appeals to each of us - we need to live according to our conscience, always remember our responsibility to ourselves, God, and people.

Thus, the famous “silent scene” affects the interests of all the characters in the play: in the finale, Gogol brings all the characters onto the stage, forcing them to become “petrified” within a few minutes. This technique allows the playwright to focus the viewer’s attention on the action itself, to more deeply feel the horror that the characters experienced upon learning of the arrival of the real auditor.

In addition, a silent scene allows for a variable interpretation of the comedy's ending. A real auditor has arrived, and will the city receive its well-deserved retribution? Or maybe someone has arrived who the residents associate with heavenly punishment, which everyone fears? Or maybe it was not an auditor who arrived, but an important official traveling accompanied by a gendarme? And even if a real auditor arrived, maybe the audit will go smoothly and everything, as always, will end happily?

The author himself does not give a direct answer, because the ending, in fact, is not that important. The very idea of ​​inevitable punishment, of judgment, which everyone knows about and which everyone is afraid of, is important. Or maybe it’s worth living in such a way as not to be afraid of answering before God?

The silent scene in N. V. Gogol’s comedy “The Inspector General” is preceded by the denouement of the plot, Khlestakov’s letter is read, and the self-deception of the officials becomes clear. At this moment, what connected the heroes throughout the entire stage action - fear - goes away, and the unity of people disintegrates before our eyes. The terrible shock that the news of the arrival of the real auditor produced on everyone again unites people with horror, but this is no longer the unity of living people, but the unity of lifeless fossils. Their muteness and frozen poses show the exhaustion of the heroes in their fruitless pursuit of a mirage. 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.” It is important that the character’s character and behavior during actions were also reflected in his pose, for example, Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky froze with “rushing movements of their hands towards each other, mouths agape and eyes bulging at each other.”

The city of spiritual poverty, baseness, stupidity and human pity froze on the theatrical stage; the picture of squalor, meaninglessness and ugliness generated by the police-bureaucratic regime of the Nicholas era froze.

It is unlikely that by a real auditor Gogol meant some kind of honest and decent official who would restore justice and legality in the city and punish embezzlement and bribery. This scene has a broad symbolic meaning; it reminds all viewers and readers of the work of their personal responsibility for what is happening to them and around them, speaks of the inevitable retribution that sooner or later overtakes everyone who lives at odds with their conscience, who does not value the highest a person's title.

• Name of the official The area of ​​city life that he leads Information about the state of affairs in this area Characteristics of the hero according to the text Anton Antonovich Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky Mayor: general administration, police, ensuring order in the city, improvements Takes bribes, connives in this to other officials, the city is not well-maintained , public money is being stolen “Speaks neither loudly nor quietly; neither more nor less"; facial features are rough and hard; crudely developed inclinations of the soul. “Look, I have an ear […]
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• The comedy in five acts by Russia's greatest satirical author is, of course, iconic for all literature. Nikolai Vasilyevich finished one of his greatest works in 1835. Gogol himself said that this was his first creation written with a specific purpose. What was the main thing the author wanted to convey? Yes, he wanted to show our country without embellishment, all the vices and wormholes of the social system of Russia, which still characterize our Motherland. “The Inspector General” is immortal, of course, [...]
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