Richard Peace, The Enigma of Gogol, An examination of the Writings of N. V. Gogol, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981, p. 231.

Plyushkin himself is like some caddis-larva, cocooning himself against the outside world with every bit of rubbish that comes to hand. He scavenges his estate, and in the process often robs his peasants of useful objects, to add to his pile in the yard which the author compares to the fleamarket in Moscow.

.