Grusha is a young gypsy whom Ivan Severyanych Flyagin meets.
Artistry, passion and pride are the main qualities of the Pear. The beauty of the Pear is passionate, alluring. Eyes are accentuated in her portrait. The main plot function of Pear is the "enchantress-sorceress", bewitching, charming Flyagin, for the first time awakening in him love for a woman. Pear - a woman beloved by Flyagin, but not sharing his love - also acts as an unfortunate victim: her lover-prince leaves her. Grusha commits suicide, begging Flyagin to push her into the water.
Flyagin Ivan Severyanych is the main character and main narrator. The plot roles of Flyagin resemble the functions of a fairy-tale hero, a life character, an epic hero and a hero of an adventure novel. Ivan Severyanych, like a fairy-tale character, is distinguished by invulnerability, the successful overcoming of obstacles and obstacles (it is no coincidence that his name is Ivan, referring to Ivan the Fool and Ivan Tsarevich from Russian fairy tales). Flyagin is naive, as if stupid, like a fool-hero of fairy tales: Ivan, as a reward for saving the lives of the owners - Count K., the countess and their daughter - asks for one accordion, refuses the offer of another owner - the prince - to lend him money and write it down in merchant class.
Flyagin is invulnerable to death: when he served as a postilion with Count K., he escaped certain death by stopping the horses on the edge of the abyss. In the Caucasian war, Ivan Severyanych safely swims across the river under the shots of the highlanders, although all attempts by other soldiers ended in death from enemy bullets. The ability to get out unharmed from the most dangerous situations also brings Flyagin closer to the heroes of adventure novels (the subtitle of the story in the first edition - "The Enchanted Wanderer, His Life, Experiences, Opinions and Adventures" - resembles the titles of works of this genre).
Flyagin, like an adventurous hero, is deprived of his home and must wander the world in search of a better life. He changes many social roles and professions, first F. a postilion - a serf of Count K., then a runaway servant in nannies with a master's child, a prisoner with the "Tatars" (Kyrgyz), an assistant to the prince, who selects horses for the purchase, a soldier - a participant in the Caucasian war, an actor in a Petersburg booth, a monk (or novice).
The correlation of Flyagin with the character of his life is most obvious. Ivan is a child born through the prayers of his parents and promised to God, his coming to the monastery and the pilgrimage to Solovki in his youth were predicted in a dream. Flask is tempted by demons, he discovers a prophetic gift in himself. Ivan Severyanych himself feels the presence of providence, divine providence in his life. These plot motifs and episodes are traditional for the biography of the saint, but the "demonic temptations" in the story are presented comically, and Flyagin's gift of prophecy is depicted with irony. Unlike the character in his life, Ivan is not a saint, and the monastery is not the last place in his wanderings.
The plot function of Flyagin the winner at the duel of the "Tatar" (Kyrgyz) Savakirey is similar to the function of an epic hero defeating enemies. The rapprochement of the Lesk hero with the epic heroes is emphasized in the portrait of the elderly Flyagin: "he was in the full sense of the word a hero, and moreover, a typical, simple-hearted, kind Russian hero, reminiscent of grandfather Ilya Muromets in the beautiful painting by Vasnetsov and in the poem of Count L.K. Tolstoy. It seemed that he would not walk in a cassock, but sit on a "chubar" and ride in bast shoes through the forest and lazily sniff how "dark forest smells of tar and strawberries". with Pear correspond to the plot motifs of romantic literature.However, the motivations for his actions are completely different than those of the romantic hero.Flyagip runs to the "Tatar" steppe not because he is sick of his native world: he is threatened with arrest by Russian officials for killing the "Tatar" Savakirei in a duel ( Flyagin and Savakirei are flogged with whips).
Ivan's sudden passion for Grusha is presented at the same time as a mysterious transformation under the influence of the magic of the master-magnetizer, and as a result of the hero's intoxication; the image of the magnetizer is also doubled: he is both the owner of a magical gift, and the fallen drunkard-ball latan. Correlating the events of Flyagin's life with romantic plots, Leskov seeks to show that the fate of an ordinary, simple Russian person can be more unusual, exotic than the story of a romantic hero.
Ivan is distinguished by childish naivete and straightforwardness. He subtly feels the beauty of nature. He is characterized by selflessness and disinterestedness: atoning for the sin - the murder of Pear, he frees the young peasant from the hard soldier's service, under his name going to serve in the army; if a war breaks out, he wants to leave the monastery and leave to fight in order to "die for the people"; he stands up for the offended young actress; serving as a nanny for a master's child, he, despite the threats of the owner, gives the child to his mother, the master's ex-wife. But Flyagin is not a righteous hero. Even his good deeds can be explained by completely unkind desires: perhaps Flyagin gives the child to his mother out of a sense of compassion, but perhaps out of a spirit of contradiction, neglecting the owner’s order. In his youth, Ivan was also characterized by cruel daring: while serving as postilions, he spotted a monk with a whip. The murder of the monk Flyagin would later be considered a sin, but he calmly recalls other cruel, non-Christian deeds. The moral of Ivan Severyanych is limited: he does not see guilt in the murder of Savakirei in a duel, does not remember the abandoned Tatar wives and children, because he was not married to the Tatars, and their children were not baptized. Flyagin's invariable feature throughout his life is self-esteem, loyalty to the words: "I will not give my honor to anyone." Flyagin embodies the main features of the Russian folk character, its light and dark sides.
The life of N. S. Leskov was difficult and painful. Misunderstood and underestimated by his contemporaries, he received blows from right-wing critics as insufficiently loyal and from left-wing ones, the same N. A. Nekrasov, who could not help but see the depth of the writer’s talent, but did not publish it in his Sovremennik. And Leskov, the wizard of the word, weaved patterns of Russian speech and lowered his heroes into those abysses in which Dostoevsky's heroes painfully existed, and then raised them to heaven, where the world of Leo Tolstoy was.
He laid a path in our prose that connected these two geniuses. This is especially noticeable when you plunge into the structure of the story "The Enchanted Wanderer". Ivan Flyagin, whose characteristics will be presented below, then descends into the underworld, then soars up to the heights of the spirit.
Hero's appearance
The enchanted wanderer is presented by Leskov as a typical Russian hero. He is of enormous stature, and the long black cassock and high cap on his head make him even larger.
Ivan has a swarthy face, over 50. His hair is thick, but with gray lead. In size and power, he reminds me of Ilya of Muromets, the good-natured hero from Russian epics. This is how Ivan Flyagin looks like, whose characteristics will reveal the connection between the external and the internal, his wanderings and the dynamics of his development.
Childhood and first murder
He grew up in a stable and knew the temperament of every horse, knew how to cope with the most skittish horse, and this requires not only physical strength, but strength of mind, which the horse will feel and even recognize the owner in the child. And a strong personality grew up, which was morally somewhat undeveloped. The author tells in detail what Ivan Flyagin was at that time. His characterization is given in the episode when he just like that, from the fullness of forces that have nowhere to apply, effortlessly killed an innocent monk. There was only a wave of a whip with which an eleven-year-old boy hit the monk, and the horses carried away, and the monk, having fallen, immediately died without repentance.
But the soul of the murdered man appeared to the boy and promised that he would die many times, but still go to the monks, without perishing on the roads of life.
Rescue of the baron's family
And right next to him, like beads, Leskov tells a tale about the opposite case, when, again without thinking about anything, Ivan Flyagin saves the life of his masters. His characteristic is courage and daring, which the fool does not even think about, but only again simply acts without any thought.
The child was led by God, and he saved him from certain death in a deep abyss. These are the abysses into which Leskov immediately throws his character. But from a young age he is completely disinterested. Ivan Flyagin asked for an accordion for his feat. Characteristics of his subsequent actions, for example, refusing a lot of money for the ransom of a girl with whom he was forced to babysit, will show that he never seeks his own benefits.
Second murder and escape
Quite calmly, in a fair fight, he killed (and the point was a dispute over who would flog whom with a whip), as if it were supposed to be, Tatar Ivan Flyagin. The characteristic of this act shows that 23-year-old young Ivan has not matured to evaluate his own actions, but is ready to accept any, even immoral, rules of the game that are offered to him.
And as a result, he hides from justice from the Tatars. But in the end - he is in captivity, in a Tatar prison. Ivan will spend ten years with his "gentile saviors" and will yearn for his homeland until he runs away. And he will be driven by purposefulness, endurance and willpower.
love test
On the path of life, Ivan will meet a beautiful songstress, a gypsy Grushenka. She is so good outwardly that Ivan is breathtaking from her beauty, but her spiritual world is also rich.
The girl, feeling that Flyagin will understand her, tells her simple eternal girlish grief: her beloved played with her and left her. And she cannot live without him and is afraid that she will either kill him along with his new lover, or lay hands on herself. Both of them frighten her - it's not Christian. And Grush Ivan asks to take a sin on his soul - to kill her. Ivan was embarrassed and did not dare at first, but then pity for the unrequited torment of the girl outweighed all his doubts. The strength of her suffering led to Ivan Flyagin pushing Grusha into the abyss. The characteristic of this act lies in the special side of humanity. Killing is terrible, and Christ's commandment says: "Thou shalt not kill." But Ivan, transgressing through her, reaches the highest level of self-sacrifice - he sacrifices his immortal soul to save the girl's soul. As long as he is alive, he hopes to atone for this sin.
Retirement to the soldiers
And here again, the case confronts Ivan with someone else's grief. Under a false name, Flyagin Ivan Severyanych goes to the soldiers, to the war, to certain death. The characteristic of this episode in his life is a continuation of the previous one: compassion and sacrifice lead him to this act. What is above everything? To die for the fatherland, for the people. But fate keeps him - Ivan has not yet passed all the tests that she is going to send him.
What is the sense of life?
A wanderer, a wanderer, a passerby Kalika, Ivan is a seeker of truth. For him, the main thing is to find the meaning of life, coupled with poetry. The image and characterization of Ivan Flyagin in the story "The Enchanted Wanderer" enable the author to embody the dreaminess inherent in the people themselves. Ivan conveys the spirit of seeking the truth. Ivan Flyagin is a miserable person who has experienced so much in his lifetime that would be enough for several people. He takes on his soul untold suffering, which takes him to a new, higher spiritual orbit, where life and poetry are combined.
Characterization of Ivan Flyagin as a narrator
Flyagin-Leskov's tale is deliberately slowed down, as in an epic thoughtful song. But when the forces of events and characters gradually accumulate, then it becomes dynamic, impetuous. In the episode of harnessing the horse, which even the Englishman Rarey cannot handle, the way of narration is dynamic and sharp. The descriptions of the horses are given in such a way that folk songs and epics are recalled. The horse in the 6th chapter is compared to a bird that rushes not by its own strength.
The image is extremely poetic and merges with Gogol's bird-troika. This prose should be read declamatory, slowed down, like a poem in prose. And there are many such poems. What is the episode at the end of the 7th chapter, when the suffering wanderer prays so that the snow melts under his knees, and where the tears dripped, grass appears in the morning. This is the lyrical poet - the passion-bearer. This and other miniatures have the right to a separate existence. But inserted by Leskov into a great narrative, they give it the necessary coloring, enriching reflection.
Plan-characteristics of Ivan Flyagin
When writing an essay, you can be guided by the following brief plan:
- Introduction - the enchanted wanderer.
- The character's appearance.
- Wandering.
- Guardian for life.
- "Sinfulness" of Ivan.
- Unmeasurable heroic forces.
- Hero traits.
In conclusion, it should be said that N. S. Leskov himself walked the earth as an enchanted traveler, although he saw life in all its multilayeredness. The poetry of life was revealed to N. S. Leskov in contemplation and reflection, in the word. Perhaps the key to "The Enchanted Wanderer" is F. Tyutchev's poem "God send your joy ...". Reread and ponder the way of the wanderer.
The epithet "enchanted" increases the sense of poeticity of the figure of the traveler. Enchanted, captivating, bewitched, driven mad, subjugated - the range of this spiritual quality is great. For the writer, the enchanted wanderer was a characteristic figure of a person who could be entrusted with part of his dreams, made him the spokesman for the reserved thoughts and aspirations of the people.
Ivan Flyagin - the main character of the story "The Enchanted Wanderer", is a man who, on his life path, met many people, good and bad. Someone gave him joy, someone hurt him, but Grusha brought incredible joy to our hero with her existence and immense pain with her dislike.
Pear is a young gypsy whose beauty will captivate any man. Her mysteriousness, the shine of her hair, the subtleties of her habits are her undoubted trump cards. One of the main advantages of Pear is also her black eyes. Ivan appreciates Grusha for all her qualities, he equates her to the ideal. Her artistry will captivate him again and again, her voice sounds to him not just like honey in his ears, but as the first and most beloved voice in his life. Pear is the first true love of our hero.
Pear herself serves from the prince, who once bought her out, because, just like Ivan, he was in love with an incredibly charming and seductive gypsy. True, his love for Grusha subsided over time, and he even intended to drive her out of the house. Grusha, in turn, loved the prince sincerely, to the depths of her soul and forever. The prince plans to marry her to Ivan, who does not have a soul in her, but it kills her both literally and figuratively. She says that she will cease to consider herself a worthy woman if she is given in marriage to an unloved one, if the prince is not around. She was very jealous of the prince for other girls, which expresses her immense affection and love for a single man.
The girl's life ends with the fact that she asks Ivan, if he really loves her, to take her life. She says that if he does not kill her now with a knife in the heart, then she will become the most shameful woman, which testifies to her honor. For Ivan, this is not just painful, it is a trauma and a wound for the rest of his life. He does not pierce her heart, but throws her down a steep slope into the river, and the girl's life ends.
A pear is a real treasure for a man, the features of her face and character not only enchant young people, they attract, beckon and lure. Only Grusha herself is devoted to one man, without whom she cannot imagine her life. She causes great pain to Ivan, whom she considers a good guy, but does not like him. Ivan fulfilled her request, and after her death he gave all the money to the monastery, atoning for his sin and the sinful soul of Pear.
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Pear - a young gypsy from the story "The Enchanted Wanderer". The protagonist Ivan Flyagin met her when he served with a noble prince. He was immediately captivated by her, especially by her voice. In the eyes of Ivan Severyanych, she is an ideal. Everything is fine in it, and appearance, and passion, and artistry. She, like a charmer, fascinates him from the first meeting. Grushenka was ransomed by the prince, who had also once been in love with her. Now he had cooled down to her and wanted to kick her out of his house. She still loved him and was jealous of other women.
From the conversation overheard by Ivan, it became clear that the prince was going to marry, and Grusha to marry Ivan. Pear, having learned about this, no longer wanted to live. She did not like Ivan, but she treated him well. It was him she asked to stick a knife in her heart, so as not to lay hands on herself. She said that if she did not die, she would become "the most shameful woman." He could not stab her, but ordered her to pray and pushed her off a steep cliff into the river. After that, he gave all his money to the monastery, as a contribution for Grushin's soul.
