Gogol writes with fantastic clarity and energy. His realism is no artificial endeavor. He sees everything exactly as it is. His hero-villain of the novel Pavel-Ivanovich Chichikov is by all means a rogue. But the novelist at no place goes to excesses either to vilify or to redeem his character. He sees him as he himself is, neither a complete villain nor a noble human being. In fact he is dubious, as is everything he trades in; Dead Souls. They are obviously dead. But Chichikov exploits a certain dubiousness, recreating them as creatures alive on scrolls to officials.
The writer surveys the Russian scene. This cross country description of landlords, officials, collectors and clerks sees these people as swinish, monstrous caricatures of human beings who suffer from either misplaced idealism or exacting pragmatism.
It is not wrong to call Chichikov a perfect hypocrite who holds his head ever so lightly to the right as he speaks, embellishing his speech with florid, ornate expression all the time showing a collected feeling of unctuousness and flattery.
In the end when we leave Chichikov, who is let out of prison, and as we come out of the narrative (for we have been truly encircled) we cannot conclude forever what sort of a man Chichikov is going to be. Gogol is the master of the art of realism. Unlike Dostoevsky in Crime and Punishment who speaks of a certain spiritual regeneration in Raskolnikov in the end, Gogol doesn’t see any such feelings in his hero. It is really difficult to move a person like Chichikov who talks a lot to himself.
{He is really incapable of a single unthought-of spontaneous remark}