As Chichikov travels from estate to estate, Gogol introduces us to a hilarious and terrifying lineup of Russian landowners. They are not flat stereotypes, but neurotically individual caricatures:
The premise of the novel hinges on a loophole in the Imperial Russian tax and legal system:
: A hoarder so consumed by miserliness that his estate is crumbling and his own family is starving. 🔥 Why You Should Read It Today Dead Souls - ...on the B.L. Dead Souls
: Enter our protagonist, Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov . He travels the countryside offering to "buy" these dead souls on paper.
: The landowners get a tax break, and Chichikov plans to take his massive list of paper serfs to a bank, mortgage them as if they are living property, and buy himself a real estate empire. 🎭 A Gallery of Grotesques As Chichikov travels from estate to estate, Gogol
: Because censuses were conducted years apart, landowners kept paying taxes on serfs who had died in the interim.
: Landowners had to pay taxes on their male serfs (referred to officially as "souls") based on the latest census. : Enter our protagonist, Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov
: A paranoid, superstitious widow who is terrified of being cheated on the price of her dead serfs.