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About This Novel
"Dead Souls" is the cornerstone of the development of Russian critical realism literature and the pinnacle of Gogol's creation. The novel tells the story of a profit-seeking sixth-grade civil servant named Chichikov who bought and sold dead serfs. Chichikov came to a remote provincial city and became a guest of the local bureaucracy. He purchased dead serfs from the landlords in an attempt to exploit the loopholes and make huge profits. After the scandal was exposed, he fled. The words "serf" and "soul" in Russian have the same pronunciation, which reflects the dual meaning of the book's title. On the one hand, it refers to the main thread of buying and selling dead serfs that runs through the entire text. On the other hand, it also serves as a metaphor for the protagonist's own soul, revealing "his secret thoughts that are kept secret."
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