Lecture No. 9

Theme: Literary character in the artistic image

Plan:

The figurative system of the work

Types of images by content

Types of images by type of literature

Techniques for creating character images

Classification of character images according to statics - dynamics

Techniques for creating a character portrait

Character system

Features of the character system in various creative methods

Various sources when creating character images:

Typical forms. Typical character.

literary character

Conflict and literary character

The development of the concept of literary character in different artistic eras

An approximate plan for characterizing an artistic image-character.

The figurative system of a literary work

Reading works of art, we first of all pay attention to its main characters - to the images of people.

The word "image" in literary criticism has several meanings and several classifications.

NB: Recall the various classifications of images in the literature and name them according to the principle of grouping different types of images (see Lecture No. 3-4)

Another classification is according to the “layers” of the figurative system of a literary work:

1) the first layer - all art is figurative - reality is recreated by the artist with the help of images. In the image, the general, generic is revealed through the individual and is transformed. In this sense, we can say: the image of the Motherland, the image of nature, the image of man, i.e. the image in the art form of the Motherland, nature, man, and any phenomenon of the external or internal world.

2) the second layer - artistic speech works - at the linguistic level of the work, the image is identical to the concepts of "figurative word", "tropes", "figure" or "image-sound" - they represent four layers of artistic language

3) the third layer - images of characters and circumstances , heroes who find themselves in conflicts.

From the images of all these three layers of the layer, a holistic image of fate and the world is formed, i.e.concept of being in a literary work.

Types of images by content

These are only images of people, and they are arranged in ascending order of generalization of images, while each of them retains concreteness and singularity, individuality:

The image is a character actor- these images are neutral, equal, they are like everyone else, like any of us

Image - Literary character- a set of mental, emotional, effective-practical and physical qualities of a person

Image - Type = typical character is an image in individual form which reveals the essence or essential features of any phenomenon, time, social group, people, etc.

Image - Hero- positive typical character (although there are other concepts that accept the concept villain-cm. below in the text of the lecture)

In the following sections of the lecture, up to the section “literary character”, we will use the term “images of characters” in the broad sense of the word, as in general the images of people in literary works

Types of images - characters by type of literature

Here various literary images are classified according to the place of their application in different kinds of literature. Although in a broader sense, both lyrical, and dramatic, and epic images can be found in any kind and genre of literature.

Lyrical images of characters - are most often found in poetry, the author depicts only the thoughts and feelings of the hero, without external events of his life. Lyrical hero - the image of a hero in a lyrical work, experiences, feelings, whose thoughts reflect the author's worldview. This is an artistic "double" of the author-poet, which has its own inner world, your destiny. The lyrical hero embodies the spiritual world of both the author and his contemporaries. The lyrical hero of A. S. Pushkin is a harmonious, spiritually rich personality who believes in love, friendship, and is optimistic in his outlook on life. The lyrical hero of Lermontov is the "son of suffering", disappointed in reality, lonely, romantically striving for freedom and freedom and tragically not finding them.

Dramatic images of characters - are most often found in drama, the author uses self-disclosure techniques to depict the image - character, self-characteristics

Epic images of characters are most often found in epic genres, the author-narrator consistently describes the characters, their thoughts and feelings, actions, environment, events in their life, their relationship with other characters, etc.

Techniques for creating images - characters:

Character portrait - facial features, figures, clothes, etc.

Character portrait - internal, psychological

Character character - a description of character traits, personality traits, affections, likes and dislikes, beliefs, ideals of the character

In the plot system - through the actions of the character

Depiction of nature in a character's life

Image of the social environment, society, era in which the character lives

Description of the close environment of the character, the conditions of his life, his room, house, street, etc.

Psychological analysis of the character's life, his thoughts, feelings, experiences and actions

The language characteristic of the character is his own artistic speech

Characterization of a character by other characters

Artistic detail as a symbolic characteristic of the essence of the character, his internal state at the moment or constantly

NB: For example: describe the image of Natasha Rostova, when creating which the author used all these techniques

Classification of character images in terms of their development or static character

1) static image - character devoid of development

2) a dynamic image - the character is presented in change, in development, evolution, in the development of character, a regularity is always manifested. The logic of character development sometimes comes into conflict with the author's intention (even A. S. Pushkin complained to Pushchin that Tatyana got married without his "knowledge").

The development of characters is one of the main features of epic genres: the novel, short story, some stories and poems.

In plays, character development is less common. An interesting example: in N. V. Gogol's comedy "The Government Inspector" the finale is a "silent scene": the "petrification" of the heroes is the result of a moral upheaval caused by the new message of the gendarme, and it was this STATICITY that the author showed as the beginning of insight and spiritual renewal of people.

The development of character is not at all an indispensable condition for the depiction of a person in literature. No less interesting can be characters that are static, not changing. As a rule, such characters appear in cases where the writer is interested in a certain type of personality that is of public interest or remarkable for the completeness of the manifestation of any striking universal human qualities. The image of such characters is often full of details, details.

In Russian classical literature, the developed characters were portrayed when realist writers sought to represent some historical era, social, domestic or professional environment. Static characters were often, as it were, signs of an era or environment, life, customs, and had no independent meaning.

There are many such characters in L. N. Tolstoy's historical novel "War and Peace": these are the characters of historical figures (Alexander I, Napoleon, Kutuzov) and fictional characters (Anna Pavlovna Sherer, old Bolkonsky, older generation the Rostov families, Vera and Berg, the Kuragin family).

The characters of Gogol's characters hardly change. In "Inspector" and " Dead souls» officials and landowners represent the Russian nobility with its social and moral vices. The writer carefully individualizes his characters, but at the same time they remain fully formed people, as if “grown” into the world of familiar relationships, into the world of things around them.

Even in romanticism there can be static characters: M.Yu. Lermontov created in the poem "Mtsyri" vivid image a rebellious hero incapable of compromise. This character is exceptional in depth, thoroughness of psychological study, the personality is amazingly whole, complete. This is a hero-symbol in which the author expressed his ideas about a certain type of personality. This is the personality of a prisoner, striving for absolute freedom, ready to enter into an argument with fate even for the sake of a sip of freedom.

In Pechorin, Lermontov wanted to present the "hero" of his time. The character of Pechorin, of course, reflects the era and the spiritual image of the noble elite. The spiritual world of Pechorin, however, does not develop, contradictions and internal conflicts do not lead to changes in character. Pechorin is shown in "eternal" discord with himself and the people around him. Lermontov strove for the completeness of the image of an already established personality.

Techniques for creating a character portrait:

Portrait - description (external features) (Lensky in "Eugene Onegin")

Portrait - comparison (comparison with other characters or with literary stereotypes) (Tatyana and Olga in "Eugene Onegin")

The portrait is concise, brief (Phoebus in Notre Dame Cathedral)

Portrait detailed and detailed (Don Quixote and Sancho Panza)

Psychological portrait (Pechorin in "A Hero of Our Time")

Static portrait - without development and changes, with constant static details (porters of landowners in "Dead Souls")

A dynamic portrait - an image of a character in development, in all its changes over time (the image of Natasha Rostova)

Literary portrait - this is a recreation of the appearance of characters in epic and dramatic works, the appearance of people in lyrical poems (face, figure, clothing, gait, gestures, demeanor). This is one of the main methods of depicting a person in a literary work. A portrait, emphasizing individual, unique features in a person, is an important means of creating his image.

The portrait description is one of the most ancient methods of verbal art.

In folklore, the image of the appearance of people was used not only to represent them.

The portrait was means of author's evaluation hero (uplifting, idealizing or negative, derogatory). In literature, the usual, "passport" portrait, representing a person, is used quite widely. However, in the works of Russian writers of the XIX-XX centuries. portrait descriptions often carry a more significant semantic load. The portrait gives the writer ample opportunity to characterize not only the appearance, but also the inner world of a person, since in the appearance of a person his views on life, character, and psychological characteristics are always manifested to a greater or lesser extent.

Psychological picture - one of the options for depicting the appearance of people in literature. Unlike the usual portrait, the main objective which - to represent a person, the psychological portrait connects the appearance of the hero with the peculiarities of his inner world. The portrait description indicates the state of the hero's soul, focuses the reader's attention on those details of the person's appearance that carry information about thoughts, feelings, experiences and moods.

There are two types of psychological portrait:

1) in portrait description the correspondence of the hero's appearance to his inner world can be emphasized;

2) the appearance of the hero and his inner world are correlated according to the principle of contrast.

First variety psychological portrait is widely used by all writers. Its basis is the conviction that a person's appearance is a mirror of his soul, especially if he is an open, sincere person who does not know how or does not want to pretend. Even in a closed, secretive person, an attentive observer can discern the secret, behind the “mask” appearance, consider the true “face”. A classic example of such a portrait is the psychological portrait of Pechorin in the story "Maxim Maksimych" ("A Hero of Our Time").

Second variety: the portrait allows the writer to detect the discrepancy between the appearance of the hero and his true spiritual qualities. Most often, under the pretense of indifference and calmness of a person, strong passions and unrest are hidden. The apparent poverty of emotions masks the inner energy, the ability for deep feelings. Sometimes this contradiction is not immediately revealed to the reader.

For example: portraits-sketches of Tatyana, a secular lady in the eighth chapter of the novel "Eugene Onegin" resemble statues placed in the sculptor's workshop. A thick veil of etiquette-friendly secular communication hides her true experiences. But this is revealed only in the last scene, when Onegin finds Tatyana crying over his letter. For a moment it seemed to him that the ice had melted. In this homely dressed woman, he suddenly recognized "the former Tatyana, touching and beautiful in sincere expression of feelings:" The princess in front of him, alone, / Sitting, not cleaned, pale, / Reading a letter / And quietly pouring tears like a river, / Leaning on your hand with your cheek” (Chapter Eight, XL).

For example: another version of the contrasting portrait allows writers to immediately detect the hero's ability to "mimicry" - this is how Andrei Bolkonsky is portrayed in Leo Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace" (volume one, part 1, ch. XXV). Alone with himself, the prince, going to war, does not hide his feelings: “The face of Prince Andrei was very thoughtful and gentle. With his hands clasped back, he quickly paced the room from corner to corner, looking ahead of himself, and shook his head thoughtfully. But the appearance of Bolkonsky instantly changes as soon as he realizes that his privacy will be violated. This is a contrasting portrait, emphasizing the hero’s usual need to carefully hide his state of mind: “Was it scary to go to war, was it sad to leave your wife - maybe both, only, apparently, not wanting to be seen in such a position Hearing footsteps in the passage, he hurriedly freed his hands, stopped at the table, as if he were tying the cover of a box, and took on his usual calm expression.

Character system

This is one of the ways to express the ideological and artistic intent of the author. A character in a work of art does not exist by itself, but in a system of relationships with other characters. All literary heroes at the same time interact, are compared, compared, contrasted. The more interconnections a character has, the brighter his versatility is illuminated, his individuality is revealed. Depth and complexity, the ambiguity of the character's character.

Character system artwork make up all types of images in content - these are only images of people, they are arranged in ascending order of generalization of these images, while each of them retains specificity and singularity, has its own individuality: Character or character; literary character; Type, or typical character; Hero.

Features of the character system in different creative methods:

Classicism - distributed the hero into positive and negative, almost schematic and unambiguous (Molière, "Tartuffe")

Romanticism - reflected deeply and fully only the main, extraordinary characters in extraordinary circumstances, and all other characters were secondary, they served to reveal the main characters (Byron, "Childe Harold's Journey")

Realism - created a complex system of relationships between different equivalent images of characters, the intersection of destinies, their opposition, antagonism, parallelism, the presence of characters - doubles, etc. (Stendhal, "Red and Black", the image of Julien Sorel)

Various sources when creating character images:

Historical prototype (Gorky's essay "Lenin")

Synthesis real prototypes when one trait is taken from many people of the same type (“Marriage” by Gogol)

- “first comer” as a prototype (Turgenev saw his images of people, but without faces, until he “met a face”)

Forms typical:

Singular - that which is born and dies in one person, situation, social and individual position

Mass - something that expresses the essence of some mass of people (for example, Chapaev is a type that expresses the essence of the unorganized peasant masses, everything positive and negative that they have)

The universal is a concrete historical, and at the same time “eternal” typical image, the main features of which are manifested in the features of other peoples, times, cultures, individuals

Typical, general - appears in the literature only in the individual and single

The interpenetration of the individual and the general determines both the integrity of the artistic image and the disclosure by the writer of the truth of life.

Classification of typical content:

Typification of traits of people of a certain historical time and social class (Skotinin, Ranevskaya, Korchagin)

Typification of national character traits (Kalashnikov)

Typification of epochal characters (The Miserly Knight)

Typification of the outgoing (Rudin, heroes of the "noble nests")

Typification of the new (Chatsky, Bazarov, Rakhmetov)

Typification of a certain ideology, philosophy of life (Aduev in I. Goncharov's novel "Ordinary History", Young Guards from A. Fadeev's novel "Young Guard")

Often different types typifications are intertwined in one image.

typical character

Typical in the depiction of people: it can only be known through the unique human characters created by the writer.

A character becomes typical if it correlates with the laws of social life that determined its formation, if its general significance is manifested for a certain group of people or certain living conditions.

A typical character - or a literary type - manifests itself when the most characteristic features of a given time and environment are embodied in the creative process of creating images of heroes.

The literary type is a generalized image of human individuality, the most possible, characteristic of a particular social environment in certain time.

Every type is a character, but not every character is a type.

The type doesn't have to be seen frequently on the streets.

It could be exceptional person, but the content of this exclusivity is the highest human traits that have been developed in the depths of life itself. They are a manifestation of all the best that has been developed by mankind in its history.

The literary type reflects the laws of social development.

It combines two sides: individual (single) and general.

Typical does not mean average ; type always concentrates in itself all the most striking, characteristic of a whole group of people - social, national, age, etc.

In the literature, types of goodies (Tatyana Larina, Chatsky), "superfluous people", Turgenev's girls have been created.

Korolenko – article “Positive types: they reflect

All the positive possibilities of life

They reveal gifted human nature in the most difficult living conditions.

The exclusivity of a person is manifested in real life conditions

The very possibility of such a person is proved artistically, when everything in him, if not real, then everything is a POSSIBLE reality, that is, an IDEAL.

Here we are talking only about the positive typical hero. However, typical heroes can also be negative: the images of landowners in Gogol, the images of officials in Gogol, Dostoevsky and Chekhov, the images of some noblemen from higher secular society Tolstoy, etc.

Literary character

This is a certain human individuality in all its living diversity

This human individuality , consisting of certain mental and moral, mental traits. This is unity emotional reaction, temperament, will and the type of behavior determined by the socio-historical situation and time (epoch). Character consists of diverse traits and qualities, but this is not an accidental combination of them. In each character there is a main, dominant feature, which gives a living unity to the whole variety of qualities and properties.

- This set of traits literary hero, in which individual characteristics serve as a reflection of the typical, conditioned both by the phenomenon that makes up the content of the work, and by the ideological and aesthetic intention of the author who created this hero.

- In psychology, character - these are recurring, stable internal properties of a person: worldview, moral principles, life values, habits - everything that allows you to characterize him as a person. About character literary hero one can speak in the same way as about the character of a real person: whether he is smart or stupid; generous and generous or, on the contrary, stingy and greedy; he is an altruist, sacrificing himself for the sake of others, or, perhaps, an egoist, contemptuous of people; honest, noble or scoundrel, liar, adventurer. All the variety of good and bad properties real people can be embodied in the characters of literary heroes.

This "Isolation" of character in literature : the writer often emphasizes, as it were, “enlarges” in his characters those traits of their characters that seem to him the most important. Other features may be said in less detail, and some aspects of the personality of the characters may remain completely hidden from the reader for the simple reason that nothing is said about them. Characters central characters are portrayed in more detail than the characters of minor ones, and the characters of episodic characters can be barely outlined.

This manifold: the character of a literary hero is never limited to one property, it is always collection of different and interrelated properties . For example, in the works of N.V. Gogol, the characters are almost always static, devoid of development. The writer emphasizes in the objects around them, in the situations in which these people appear, recurring features that reflect the personality of the hero. One gets the impression that the author of "Dead Souls" wants to show the identity of the characters' personalities and their everyday environment. Most of the details (portrait, landscape, object) are characterological details: they point to the same sides of the personality. However, Gogol's characters are not limited to only one, albeit important, conspicuous property.

This complexity: the more complex the character of a person depicted in a literary work, the more diverse, sometimes contradictory, properties it has. All of them form a complex unity that makes the characters inimitable, unique, even if some of the human qualities of different characters are close or the same.

This artistic generalization human properties, character traits in the individual appearance of the hero. A hero as a person can cause admiration or repulsion, perform actions, act, but the image of a character is artistic category, and it is evaluated in terms of the artistic skill of the writer. For example: you can’t say “I despise the image of Molchalin”, although you can despise the silent type.

Characters, like heroes, can be major and minor , but when applied to episodic actors, only the term "character" is used. Often, a character is understood as a minor person who does not influence events, and a literary hero is a multifaceted character, important for expressing the idea of ​​a work.

- Another concept of a hero: a hero is not only a character who carries positive principles and is an expression of the author's ideal. The statement that negative satirical characters (Plyushkin, Iudushka Golovlev, Kabanikha) are not heroes is incorrect, since two concepts are mixed here - a hero as a character and heroic as a way of human behavior. satirical hero works are a character, a character against whom the point of satire is directed. Naturally, such a hero is hardly capable of heroic deeds, i.e. is not a hero in the behavioral sense of the word.

- This is the image of a person, outlined with a certain completeness and individual certainty, through which both the type of behavior (actions, thoughts, experiences, speech activity) conditioned by a given socio-historical situation and the type inherent in the author are revealed. moral and aesthetic concept human existence.

– Thisorganic unity general, repetitive and individual, unique;

This unity of the objective (the socio-psychological reality of human life, which served as a prototype for the literary character)and subjective (understanding and evaluation of the prototype by the author).

As a result, literary x character appears in art "new reality" artistically "created" personality, which, reflecting the real human type, ideologically clarifies it and all human existence in all its diversity.

Conflict and literary character

Very often, the character of the character is determined by internal conflict.

Internal conflict - these are the contradictions of the inner world of a person, the struggle in his worldview of various, sometimes mutually exclusive tendencies, the opposition in him of good and evil principles, altruism and selfishness, pity, compassion and indifference to people, reason and feelings, desire and duty.

Character

A character is a kind of artistic image, the subject of an action. This term in a certain context can be replaced by the concepts of "actor" or "literary hero", but in a strict theoretical sense, these are different terms. This interchangeability is explained by the fact that, translated from Latin (persona- mask) the word "character" means an actor playing a role in a mask expressing a certain type of character, therefore, literally a character. Therefore, the term "character" should be attributed to the formal components of the text. It is permissible to use this term in the analysis of the system of images-characters, the features of the composition. A literary character is a carrier of a constructive role in a work, autonomous and personified in the representation of the imagination (it can be a person, but also an animal, plant, landscape, utensils, fantasy creature, concept), involved in the action (hero) or only sporadically indicated (for example, a person important for characterizing the environment). Taking into account the role of literary characters in the integrity of the work, they can be divided into main (first plan), secondary (second plan) and episodic, and in terms of their participation in the development of events - into incoming (active) and passive.

The concept of "character" is applicable to epic and dramatic works, to a lesser extent to lyrical ones, although lyric theorists as a kind of literature allow the use of this term. For example, G. Pospelov calls one of the types of lyrics character: "Characters ... are personalities depicted in epic and dramatic works. They always embody certain characteristics of social life and therefore have certain personality traits, receive proper names and create, by their actions, taking place in some conditions of place and time, the plots of such works. "In lyrical works, the hero does not form a plot, unlike epic and dramatic ones, the personality does not act directly in the work, but it is presented as an artistic image.

L. Ya. Ginzburg noted that the concepts of "lyrical subject" and " lyrical hero" How special forms embodiment of the poet's personality.

Hero

The term "literary hero" refers to a holistic image of a person - in the aggregate of his appearance, way of thinking, behavior and spiritual world; the term “character”, which is close in meaning, if taken in a narrow, and not in a broad sense, denotes the internal psychological section of the personality, its natural properties, nature.

The heroes of works can be not only people, but also animals, fantastic images and even objects. All of them are anyway artistic images reflecting reality in the refracted consciousness of the author.

The hero is one of the central characters in a literary work, active in incidents, the main ones for the development of the action, focusing the reader's attention on himself.

The protagonist is a literary character who is most involved in the action, his fate is in the center of attention of the author and the reader.

A literary hero is an image of a person in literature. Definitely, with a literary hero, the concepts of "actor" and "character" are often used. Sometimes they are distinguished: literary heroes are called actors (characters) drawn in a more multifaceted way and more weighty for the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe work. Sometimes the concept of "literary hero" refers only to actors close to the author's ideal of a person (the so-called positive hero) or embodying the heroic principle (for example, the heroes of epics, epics, tragedies). It should be noted, however, that in literary criticism these concepts, along with the concepts of "character", "type" and "image", are interchangeable.

From the point of view of the figurative structure, the literary hero combines the character as the inner content of the character, and his behavior, actions as something external. The character allows us to consider the actions of the depicted person as natural, ascending to some vital reason; it is the content and law (motivation) of behavior.

Character in the usual sense is the same as a literary hero. In literary criticism, the term "character" is used in a narrower, but not always the same sense. Most often, a character is understood as a protagonist. But here, too, two interpretations differ: a person represented and characterized in action, and not in descriptions: then the concept of "character" most of all corresponds to the heroes of dramaturgy, images-roles. Any actor, subject of action in general. In such an interpretation, the protagonist is opposed only to the “pure” subject of experience, acting in the lyrics, which is why the term “character” is inapplicable to the so-called lyrical hero: one cannot say “lyrical character”.

The character is sometimes understood only as a secondary person. In this understanding, the term "character" corresponds to the narrowed meaning of the term "hero" - the central person or one of the main persons of the work. On this basis, the expression " episodic character" (and not "episodic hero").

In the process of reading epic or dramatic works, whether it be a story, a short story, a novel, an essay, a comedy, a drama, we get to know the characters, or characters. There may be only two of them, as in Chekhov's story "The Death of an Official", or there may be many, as in Gogol's "Dead Souls". In addition, one must keep in mind those characters who are mentioned or spoken of by someone. For example, in "Eugene Onegin" they recall Tatyana's father Dmitry Larin, in the first chapter Kaverin is mentioned as Onegin's friend, and in the comedy "Woe from Wit" in the characters' remarks, the names of many people who are not present on the stage come up. Already at the first reading, the actors, or characters, are very often associated in the mind of the reader with certain characters, or types. These concepts have long been known to historians and literary theorists. They met in the works of researchers different eras- Aristotle, Diderot, Lessing, Hegel, Taine, Belinsky, Pereverzev, Pospelov, Bocharov and other authors, but their interpretation and use is not always unambiguous, therefore it deserves a special explanation.

Starting to talk about character And characteristic, We remind you that each person is unique and individual. But in his appearance, manner of speaking, walking, sitting, looking, gesticulating, as a rule, something general, constant, inherent in him and found in different situations. It can be said about some people: he does not walk, but walks, does not speak, but broadcasts, does not sit, but sits. Actions of this kind, gestures, postures, facial expressions are characteristic, that is, they reveal in the concrete, unique - the general and the repetitive. Even Hegel said that artistic law characteristic” demands that “everything private and special in the way of expression serves a certain identification of its content and constitutes a necessary link in the expression of this content ... According to the requirement of specificity, a work of art should include only that which relates to the manifestation and expression of this particular, specific content, for nothing should be superfluous” (Hegel, T. 1, 24).

These qualities may be due to age characteristics (an old man walks differently than a young man), natural data (there are people from birth temperamental, active, and there are phlegmatic), and most importantly - the action of circumstances, a certain position of a person in the structure of the social organism and a special way of thinking. The last two points are especially important. For several decades, Soviet science was dominated by the belief that man is a social being (“the product of certain public relations"), A biological factors practically do not participate in the formation of personality, character of a person. This position was shared not only by sociologists, but also by psychologists, including geneticists, among whom was a well-known scientist who said that judgments “about the alleged genetic conditioning of spiritual and social traits human personality” are an ideological danger (Dubinin, 1989, 419).

The phenomenon of personality gained the opportunity for a more objective study after analytical psychology became involved in this area, which drew attention to the problems of the psyche, including its unconscious aspects. In the bosom of this psychology, primarily in the works of the Swiss scientist K.G. Jung, the concept of an archetype was born, denoting different facets and forms of the unconscious, that is, instinctive forms that are a priori at the basis of the individual psyche, which are found when they enter consciousness and appear in it as images, pictures, fantasies, as signals of various kinds - dreams, erroneous actions, unnecessary movements, reservations, slips of the tongue, witticisms, conjectures, insights, and, of course, all kinds of anxious states. According to one of modern psychologists, "anxiety is largely associated with unconscious needs and elements of the situation" (Berezin, 1994, 195). Among them are the archetypes identified and described by Jung: anima, animus, shadow, self, wise old man, a wise old woman, mother, child, to which others were added, identified by modern scientists (see: Esalnek, 1999, 2006).

Well-known Russian psychologists who addressed this problem in recent decades, argue that the unconscious is not isolated from the social: “Supraconscious phenomena are patterns of behavior and cognition typical of a given community, assimilated by the subject, the influence of which is not recognized by the subject and is not controlled by him. These samples (for example, ethnic stereotypes) determine the behavior of the subject as a representative of a given social community» (Asmolov, 1994, 52). According to the reasoning of another scientist, “unconscious phenomena have a motivational effect, are associated with the need to develop internal values-orientations in a certain social space» (Faivishevsky, 1994, 131). These judgments indicate that various factors are involved in the formation of a person's character, and the character itself, as a manifestation and indicator of the inner essence, becomes the subject of attention and research by psychologists, artists and art historians.

Concepts type And typicality, apparently very close in meaning to the concepts of "character" and "characteristic", but they emphasize a greater degree of generalization, concentration of one or another quality in a person or character. For example, there are plenty of phlegmatic, passive, non-initiative people around us, but in the behavior of people like Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, these qualities appear with such nakedness that the author of the novel “Oblomov” I.A. Goncharov speaks of Oblomovism, giving this word and the corresponding phenomenon a generalizing meaning. In the same spirit, one can talk about Chichikov and Chichikovism, Khlestakov and Khlestakovism.

From the word "type" the concept is formed typing, which means the process of creating individual hero or the whole picture, which, being unique, are at the same time generalized. Recognizing typification as an internal need and the law of art, both writers and scientists argue that the typical in itself is rarely present in life in the form in which art needs it. “In life, you rarely meet pure, unalloyed types,” I.S. Turgenev. "Writers for the most part they try to take the types of society and represent them figuratively and artistically - types that are extremely rare in reality as a whole ... in reality, the typicality of faces is, as it were, diluted with water, ”F.M. Dostoevsky. Therefore, writers are very observant people and capable of analyzing the surrounding faces and generalizing what they saw in different individuals. But more importantly, they are creative people, i.e., able to create new world, to recreate situations in which fictional characters act, created by the artist's imagination, demonstrating by their behavior and way of thinking general and significant trends in the life of a particular environment or individual subjects. They include the concept image.

This concept also has its own history, though not as long as the type and character. The concept of character is already present and substantiated in Aristotle's Poetics, where the word "image" is repeatedly used, but there is still no substantiation of the concept of image. serious scientific explanation Hegel gets the concept of the image in connection with the question of the essence of art and its difference from nature and from scientific activity. Noting that “the general need for art stems from a reasonable desire to spiritually comprehend the inner and outer world, presenting it as an object in which he recognizes his own “I” and trying to show the difference between scientific and artistic knowledge life, Hegel writes: “The intellect is aimed at finding the universal, the law, the thought and the concept of the object. Leaving the object in its immediate individuality, the intellect transforms, turns it from a sensually concrete object into something essentially different, abstract, conceivable. Art does not do this, and in this it differs from science. A work of art remains an external object, directly determined and sensually single in terms of its color, form, sound... In contrast to the immediate existence of natural objects, the sensuous in a work of art is elevated by contemplation into pure visibility... This visibility of sensibility appears as an image... Sensual images and sounds appear in art not only for the sake of its direct manifestation, but in order to satisfy the highest spiritual interests in this form. Thus, the sensuous in art is spiritualized, since the spiritual receives in it a sensuous form” (Hegel, vol. 1, 38, 44-45). In this judgment, for the first time, the idea was expressed that science deals with laws and concepts, and art deals with sensually perceived phenomena, i.e., images. This idea will be expressed by the majority of subsequent researchers (G.D. Gachev, N.K. Gay).

In this context, the concept of image arises in connection with reflections on the structure of the epic and dramatic work and is associated primarily with the character, and as images-characters act as if real faces, albeit fictional by the artist. If animals, birds, plants appear in the role of characters, then they personify people or their individual properties. Therefore, in fables and fairy tales, when depicting the habits of animals (the cunning of foxes, the curiosity and stupidity of monkeys, the greed of wolves, the cowardice of hares, etc.), the habits and behaviors characteristic of the world of human relations are transmitted, and thus a figurative and allegorical picture of human weaknesses is created. , causing an ironic attitude.

When talking about collective images: the image of Russia, the image of the people, the image of the city, the image of the war, then it must be borne in mind that the idea of ​​\u200b\u200ba city or country (in "War and Peace", "Inspector", "Thunderstorm") is made up of impressions that are born during the perception of individual characters that make up the population of a city or country, as well as the atmosphere that is created by the same characters, and then these impressions are summarized and generalized by readers. At the same time, the image is often identified with the character and replaces it, for example, in those cases when they say: the image of Bazarov, meaning the character of Bazarov, or the image of Bezukhov, implying his character. Such a replacement is possible and permissible, because speaking of the images of Bazarov or Bezukhov, they mean the specificity of the depicted hero and at the same time the generalization inherent in the behavior and appearance of both heroes. However, such a replacement of concepts in the course of literary analysis is not always justified, since in addition to the generalization inherent in any hero of a true work of art, the image is the creation of the artist, depicted by him with the help of artistic means. For a painter, such means are a pencil, watercolor, gouache, oil, canvas, paper, cardboard; for a sculptor - plaster, stone, marble, wood; for a writer - word, with the help of which the actions of the heroes are recreated, their appearance, environment and the statements themselves. This will be discussed in the following paragraphs.

The concept of an image is sometimes used to denote a separate detail present in the text - portrait, landscape, verbal. Such details ("upper sponge" of Princess Bolkonskaya; pictures of nature in different times years by Pushkin or the Caucasian landscape by Lermontov) deserve the name figurative, because they are an integral component in the structure of the work and, therefore, “work” to create figurative system in general, while being unusually expressive in themselves. The concept of figurativeness is also used to refer to verbal features such as trope, epithet, metaphor, etc.

Briefly summarizing reflections on the relationship of concepts character, character, image, we can say that they designate three sides of the same phenomenon and therefore constitute a certain integrity. Wherein character with all its features is directly perceived when reading the work and, as a rule, appears in the imagination with a certain degree of concreteness. Character-image develops in the minds of readers as a result of their understanding of the behavior, appearance of the character, as well as the environment that surrounds him or that he himself creates. Speaking of characters-characters, we are, as it were, in the sphere of the content plan, which, however, requires further clarification and clarification.

At first glance, both the image, and the character, and the literary type, and the lyrical hero are the same concepts, or at least very similar. Let's try to understand the vicissitudes of the meanings of the concepts under study.

Image- this is an artistic generalization of human properties, character traits in the individual appearance of the hero. The image is an artistic category that we can evaluate from the point of view of the author's skill: one cannot despise the image of Plyushkin, since it causes admiration for Gogol's skill, one can not love the type of Plyushkin.

concept "character" wider concept of "image". A character is any protagonist of a work, therefore it is wrong to replace the concepts of “image” or “lyrical hero” with this concept. But we note that in relation to the secondary persons of the work, we can only use this concept. Sometimes you can come across the following definition: a character is a person who does not influence the event, is not important in revealing the main problems and ideological conflicts.

Lyrical hero- image of a hero lyrical work, experiences, thoughts, the feelings of which reflect the author's worldview; it is the artistic "double" of the author, which has its own inner world, its own destiny. This is not an autobiographical image, although it embodies spiritual world author. For example, the lyrical hero M.Yu. Lermontov is the "son of suffering", disappointed in reality, romantic, lonely, constantly looking for freedom.

literary type- this is a generalized image of human individuality, the most possible, characteristic, for a certain public environment at the certain time. The literary type is the unity of the individual and the typical, and the “typical” is not a synonym for the “average”: the type always incorporates all the brightest features characteristic of particular group of people. The apogee of the author's skill in developing the type is the transition of the type to the category of common nouns (Manilov is a common noun for an idle dreamer, Nozdrev is a liar and a braggart, etc.).

Often we come across another concept - character. Character is a human individuality, consisting of certain mental, moral, mental traits; it is the unity of emotional reaction, temperament, will, and the type of behavior determined by the socio-historical situation and time. In each character there is a dominant feature that gives a living unity to the whole variety of qualities and properties.

Thus, when characterizing a hero, it is very important not to forget the differences discussed above.

Good luck in characterizing your favorite literary characters!

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The generalization that a character contains is called character (from the Greek character - a sign, distinguishing feature) or type (from the Greek typos - imprint, imprint). Character refers to socially significant features that are manifested with sufficient clarity in the behavior and mentality of people; highest degree characteristics - type.

Creating a literary hero, the writer usually endows him with one or another character: one-sided or many-sided, integral or contradictory, static or developing, commanding respect or contempt, etc.

In the stories of A.P. Chekhov's "Death of an official" and "Thick and thin" Chervyakov and "thin" as images are unique; we meet the first in the theater, "at the top of bliss", the second - at the station, "laden" with his luggage; the first is endowed with a surname and position, the second - name and rank; the plots of the works, their denouement are different. But the stories are interchangeable when discussing the topic of veneration in Chekhov, the characters of the characters are so similar: both act stereotypically, not noticing the comic of their voluntary servility, which only harms them. The characters are reduced to a comic discrepancy between behavior characters and ethical standard, unknown to them; as a result, Chervyakov's death causes laughter: it is "the death of an official", a comic hero.

Concepts character And type closely related and are often used interchangeably. However, there is still a difference: the significance of artistic generalization is associated with the type, a high measure of universal in character. Characters, especially in the work of one writer, are often variations, developments of one type. Writers return to the type they have discovered, finding new facets in it, achieving aesthetic impeccability of the image.

The type, first of all, expresses the generic mass principle. In character, the emphasis is on individuality. The type expresses one quality or property; it is psychologically one-sided. The character is dialectical, contradictory, psychologically complex, multifaceted. The type is always static, devoid of mobility, does not change. The character is dynamic, capable of self-development. For example, Tatyana Larina and Anna Karenina, who behave not at all according to the author's idea. The type exists outside of time. The character is seen against the background historical era, interacts with it.

Character

The literary character is considered to be the image of a person, which is outlined with completeness and individual certainty. It is through character that a certain type of behavior is revealed, often the one that is inherent in a certain historical time and public consciousness.

Also, through character, the author reveals his moral and aesthetic concept of human existence. Character is spoken of as organic unity general and individual, that is, both individual traits and those that are inherent in the public are expressed in character. In a broader sense, a character is an artistically created personality, but one that reflects the actual human type.

To create a certain character in a literary work, there is a whole system of elements. These are external gestures and internal: speech and thoughts. The appearance, place and role of the hero in the development of the plot also forms a certain type of character. There may also be contradictions in the character, which are already embodied in artistic conflicts. The contradictions may be part of a certain character.

Speech and action as ways to create character

One of the main ways to create character in literary works are speech And deed. The linguistic form of expression of the character of the hero is inherent in almost all literary work, it is thanks to this method that readers can fully understand the subtleties of the character of a literary hero and his inner world.

Without speech, it is quite difficult to create a certain character. For a genre like drama, speech characters performs one of the most important characterological functions.

deed is one of the brightest forms of expression literary character. The actions of the hero, his decisions and choices tell us about his nature and the character that the author wanted to express in him. Actions sometimes have great importance than speech for a final understanding of the character of a literary hero.