It belongs to the type of small person. Who is the "little man" (Gogol N

The image of the "little man" in Russian literature

The very concept of "little man" appears in literature before the very type of hero is formed. Initially, this is the designation of people of the third estate, which became of interest to writers due to the democratization of literature.

In the 19th century, the image of the "little man" becomes one of the cross-cutting themes of literature. The concept of "little man" was introduced by V.G. Belinsky in his 1840 article "Woe from Wit". Initially, it meant a "simple" person. With the development of psychologism in Russian literature, this image acquires a more complex psychological portrait and becomes the most popular character in the democratic works of the second half. XIX century.

Literary Encyclopedia:

"Little Man" is a number of diverse characters in Russian literature of the 19th century, united by common features: a low position in the social hierarchy, poverty, insecurity, which determines the peculiarities of their psychology and plot role - victims of social injustice and a soulless state mechanism, often personified in the image "significant person". They are characterized by fear of life, humiliation, meekness, which, however, can be combined with a sense of the injustice of the existing order of things, with wounded pride and even a short-term rebellious impulse, which, as a rule, does not lead to a change in the current situation. The type of "little man", discovered by A. S. Pushkin ("The Bronze Horseman", "The Stationmaster") and N. V. Gogol ("The Overcoat", "Notes of a Madman"), creatively, and sometimes polemically in relation to tradition , rethought by F. M. Dostoevsky (Makar Devushkin, Golyadkin, Marmeladov), A. N. Ostrovsky (Balzaminov, Kuligin), A. P. Chekhov (Chervyakov from "The Death of an Official", the hero of "Tolstoy and Thin"), M. A. Bulgakov (Korotkov from the Diaboliad), M. M. Zoshchenko and other Russian writers of the 19th-20th centuries.

“Little man” is a type of hero in literature, most often it is a poor, inconspicuous official who occupies a small position, his fate is tragic.

The theme of the "little man" is a "cross-cutting theme" of Russian literature. The appearance of this image is due to the Russian career ladder of fourteen steps, on the lower of which small officials worked and suffered from poverty, lack of rights and insults, poorly educated, often lonely or burdened with families, worthy of human understanding, each with his own misfortune.

Little people are not rich, invisible, their fate is tragic, they are defenseless.

Pushkin "The Stationmaster" Samson Vyrin.

Hard worker. Weak person. He loses his daughter - she is taken away by the rich hussar Minsky. social conflict. Humiliated. Can't take care of himself. Got drunk. Samson is lost in life.

Pushkin was one of the first to put forward the democratic theme of the “little man” in literature. In Belkin's Tales, completed in 1830, the writer not only draws pictures of the life of the nobility and county ("The Young Lady-Peasant Woman"), but also draws the attention of readers to the fate of the "little man".

The fate of the "little man" is shown here realistically for the first time, without sentimental tearfulness, without romantic exaggeration, as a result of certain historical conditions, the injustice of social relations.

In the very plot of The Stationmaster, a typical social conflict is conveyed, a broad generalization of reality is expressed, revealed in the individual case of the tragic fate of an ordinary man Samson Vyrin.

There is a small postal station somewhere at the crossroads of carriageways. The 14th grade official Samson Vyrin and his daughter Dunya live here - the only joy that brightens up the hard life of the caretaker, full of shouting and cursing passing people. But the hero of the story - Samson Vyrin - is quite happy and calm, he has long adapted to the conditions of service, the beautiful daughter Dunya helps him run a simple household. He dreams of simple human happiness, hoping to babysit his grandchildren, spend his old age with his family. But fate prepares a difficult test for him. The passing hussar Minsky takes away Dunya, not thinking about the consequences of his act.

The worst thing is that Dunya left with the hussar of her own free will. Having crossed the threshold of a new, rich life, she abandoned her father. Samson Vyrin goes to St. Petersburg to "return the lost lamb", but he is kicked out of Dunya's house. The hussar "with a strong hand, grabbing the old man by the collar, pushed him onto the stairs." Unhappy father! Where can he compete with a rich hussar! In the end, for his daughter, he receives several banknotes. “Tears again welled up in his eyes, tears of indignation! He squeezed the papers into a ball, threw them on the ground, stamped them with his heel and went ... "

Vyrin was no longer able to fight. He "thought, waved his hand and decided to retreat." Samson, after the loss of his beloved daughter, got lost in life, drank himself and died in longing for his daughter, grieving about her possible deplorable fate.

About people like him, Pushkin writes at the beginning of the story: “Let us, however, be fair, we will try to enter into their position and, perhaps, we will judge them much more condescendingly.”

Life truth, sympathy for the "little man", insulted at every step by the bosses, standing higher in rank and position - that's what we feel when reading the story. Pushkin cherishes this "little man" who lives in grief and need. The story is imbued with democracy and humanity, so realistically depicting the “little man”.

Pushkin "The Bronze Horseman". Eugene

Eugene is a "little man". The city played a fatal role in fate. During the flood, he loses his bride. All his dreams and hopes for happiness perished. Lost my mind. In sick madness, he challenges the "idol on a bronze horse" Nightmare: the threat of death under bronze hooves.

The image of Eugene embodies the idea of ​​confrontation between the common man and the state.

"The poor man was not afraid for himself." "The blood boiled." “A flame ran through the heart”, “Already for you!”. Yevgeny's protest is an instant impulse, but stronger than that of Samson Vyrin.

The image of a shining, lively, magnificent city is replaced in the first part of the poem by a picture of a terrible, destructive flood, expressive images of a raging element over which a person has no power. Among those whose lives were destroyed by the flood is Eugene, whose peaceful cares the author speaks at the beginning of the first part of the poem. Eugene is an “ordinary man” (“small” man): he has neither money nor ranks, he “serves somewhere” and dreams of making himself a “humble and simple shelter” in order to marry his beloved girl and go through life with her.

…Our hero

Lives in Kolomna, serves somewhere,

The nobles shy away…

He does not make great plans for the future, he is satisfied with a quiet, inconspicuous life.

What was he thinking about? About,

That he was poor, that he labored

He had to deliver

And independence, and honor;

What could God add to him

Mind and money.

The poem does not indicate either the hero's surname or his age, nothing is said about Yevgeny's past, his appearance, character traits. By depriving Yevgeny of individual features, the author turns him into an ordinary, typical person from the crowd. However, in an extreme, critical situation, Eugene seems to wake up from a dream, and throws off the guise of "insignificance" and opposes the "copper idol". In a state of madness, he threatens the Bronze Horseman, considering the man who built the city on this dead place to be the culprit of his misfortune.

Pushkin looks at his heroes from the side. They do not stand out either in intelligence or in their position in society, but they are kind and decent people, and therefore worthy of respect and sympathy.

Conflict

Pushkin for the first time in Russian literature showed all the tragedy and insolubility of the conflict between the state and state interests and the interests of the private individual.

The plot of the poem is completed, the hero died, but the central conflict remained and was transferred to the readers, not resolved and in reality itself, the antagonism of the “tops” and “bottoms”, the autocratic power and the destitute people remained. The symbolic victory of the Bronze Horseman over Eugene is a victory of strength, but not of justice.

Gogol "Overcoat" Akaki Akikievich Bashmachkin

"Eternal titular adviser". Resignedly takes down the ridicule of colleagues, timid and lonely. poor spiritual life. Irony and compassion of the author. The image of the city, which is terrible for the hero. Social conflict: "little man" and soulless representative of the authorities "significant person". The element of fantasy (casting) is the motive of rebellion and retribution.

Gogol opens the reader to the world of "little people", officials in his "Petersburg Tales". The story "The Overcoat" is especially significant for the disclosure of this topic, Gogol had a great influence on the further movement of Russian literature, "responding" in the work of its most diverse figures from Dostoevsky and Shchedrin to Bulgakov and Sholokhov. “We all came out of Gogol's overcoat,” wrote Dostoevsky.

Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin - "eternal titular adviser." He resignedly endures the ridicule of his colleagues, he is timid and lonely. The senseless clerical service killed every living thought in him. His spiritual life is poor. The only pleasure he finds in the correspondence of papers. He lovingly drew the letters in a clean, even handwriting and completely immersed himself in work, forgetting the insults caused to him by his colleagues, and the need, and worries about food and comfort. Even at home, he only thought that "God will send something to rewrite tomorrow."

But even in this downtrodden official, a man woke up when the goal of life appeared - a new overcoat. In the story, the development of the image is observed. “He became somehow more alive, even firmer in character. Doubt, indecision disappeared by itself from his face and from his actions ... ”Bashmachkin does not part with his dream for a single day. He thinks about it, as another person thinks about love, about family. Here he orders a new overcoat for himself, “... his existence has become somehow fuller ...” The description of Akaky Akakievich’s life is permeated with irony, but there is both pity and sadness in it. Introducing us into the spiritual world of the hero, describing his feelings, thoughts, dreams, joys and sorrows, the author makes it clear what happiness it was for Bashmachkin to acquire an overcoat and what a disaster its loss turns into.

There was no happier person than Akaky Akakievich when the tailor brought him an overcoat. But his joy was short-lived. When he returned home at night, he was robbed. And none of those around him takes part in his fate. In vain Bashmachkin sought help from a "significant person." He was even accused of rebellion against superiors and "higher". Frustrated Akaki Akakievich catches a cold and dies.

In the finale, a small, timid man, driven to despair by the world of the strong, protests against this world. Dying, he "badly blasphemes", utters the most terrible words that followed the words "your excellency." It was a riot, albeit in a deathbed delirium.

It is not because of the overcoat that the “little man” dies. He becomes a victim of bureaucratic "inhumanity" and "ferocious rudeness", which, according to Gogol, lurks under the guise of "refined, educated secularism." This is the deepest meaning of the story.

The theme of rebellion finds expression in the fantastic image of a ghost that appears on the streets of St. Petersburg after the death of Akaky Akakievich and takes off his overcoats from offenders.

N.V. Gogol, who in his story "The Overcoat" for the first time shows the spiritual stinginess, squalor of poor people, but also draws attention to the ability of the "little man" to rebel and for this he introduces elements of fantasy into his work.

N. V. Gogol deepens the social conflict: the writer showed not only the life of the “little man”, but also his protest against injustice. Let this "rebellion" be timid, almost fantastic, but the hero stands up for his rights, against the foundations of the existing order.

Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment" Marmeladov

The writer himself remarked: "We all came out of Gogol's Overcoat."

Dostoevsky's novel is imbued with the spirit of Gogol's "Overcoat" "Poor people and". This is a story about the fate of the same "little man", crushed by grief, despair and social lawlessness. The correspondence of the poor official Makar Devushkin with Varenka, who lost her parents and is persecuted by a procuress, reveals the deep drama of the life of these people. Makar and Varenka are ready for each other for any hardships. Makar, living in extreme need, helps Varya. And Varya, having learned about the situation of Makar, comes to his aid. But the heroes of the novel are defenseless. Their rebellion is "rebellion on their knees." Nobody can help them. Varya is taken away to certain death, and Makar is left alone with his grief. Broken, crippled life of two wonderful people, broken by cruel reality.

Dostoevsky reveals the deep and strong experiences of "little people".

It is curious to note that Makar Devushkin reads Pushkin's The Stationmaster and Gogol's The Overcoat. He is sympathetic to Samson Vyrin and hostile to Bashmachkin. Probably because he sees his future in him.

F.M. told about the fate of the “little man” Semyon Semyonovich Marmeladov. Dostoevsky on the pages of the novel "Crime and Punishment". One by one, the writer reveals before us pictures of hopeless poverty. Dostoevsky chose the dirtiest part of strictly St. Petersburg as the scene of action. Against the background of this landscape, the life of the Marmeladov family unfolds before us.

If Chekhov's characters are humiliated, do not realize their insignificance, then Dostoevsky's drunken retired official fully understands his uselessness, uselessness. He is a drunkard, insignificant, from his point of view, a person who wants to improve, but cannot. He understands that he has condemned his family, and especially his daughter, to suffering, worries about this, despises himself, but cannot help himself. “Pity! Why pity me!” Marmeladov suddenly yelled, standing up with his hand outstretched… “Yes! There’s nothing to pity me for! Crucify me on the cross, and don’t pity me!

Dostoevsky creates the image of a real fallen person: Marmelad's importunate sweetness, clumsy ornate speech - the property of a beer tribune and a jester at the same time. Awareness of his baseness (“I am a born cattle”) only strengthens his bravado. He is disgusting and pitiful at the same time, this drunkard Marmeladov with his ornate speech and important bureaucratic posture.

The state of mind of this petty official is much more complex and subtle than that of his literary predecessors - Pushkin's Samson Vyrin and Gogol's Bashmachkin. They do not have the power of introspection, which the hero of Dostoevsky achieved. Marmeladov not only suffers, but also analyzes his state of mind, he, as a doctor, makes a merciless diagnosis of the disease - the degradation of his own personality. Here is how he confesses in his first meeting with Raskolnikov: “Dear Sir, poverty is not a vice, it is the truth. But ... poverty is a vice - p. In poverty, you still retain all the nobility of innate feelings, but in poverty, never anyone ... for in poverty I myself am the first ready to offend myself.

A person not only perishes from poverty, but understands how he is spiritually devastated: he begins to despise himself, but does not see anything around him to cling to, which would keep him from the decay of his personality. The finale of Marmeladov's life fate is tragic: on the street he was crushed by a dandy gentleman's carriage drawn by a pair of horses. Throwing himself under their feet, this man himself found the outcome of his life.

Under the pen of the writer Marmeladov becomes a tragic way. Marmelad's cry - "after all, it is necessary that every person could at least go somewhere" - expresses the last degree of despair of a dehumanized person and reflects the essence of his life drama: there is nowhere to go and no one to go to.

In the novel, Raskolnikov sympathizes with Marmeladov. Meeting with Marmeladov in a tavern, his feverish, as if delirious, confession gave the protagonist of the novel Raskolnikov one of the last proofs of the correctness of the “Napoleonic idea”. But not only Raskolnikov sympathizes with Marmeladov. “More than once they have already pitied me,” says Marmeladov to Raskolnikov. The good general Ivan Afanasyevich also took pity on him, and again accepted him into the service. But Marmeladov could not stand the test, he took to drink again, drank all his salary, drank everything, and in return received a tattered tailcoat with a single button. Marmeladov in his behavior reached the point of losing the last human qualities. He is already so humiliated that he does not feel like a man, but only dreams of being a man among people. Sonya Marmeladova understands and forgives her father, who is able to help her neighbor, to sympathize with those who so need compassion

Dostoevsky makes us feel sorry for the unworthy of pity, to feel compassion for the unworthy of compassion. "Compassion is the most important and, perhaps, the only law of human existence," said Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky.

Chekhov "Death of an official", "Thick and thin"

Later, Chekhov would sum up a peculiar result in the development of the theme, he doubted the virtues traditionally sung by Russian literature - the high moral merits of the "little man" - a petty official. Chekhov. If Chekhov “exposed” something in people, then, first of all, it was their ability and readiness to be “small”. A person should not, does not dare to make himself "small" - this is Chekhov's main idea in his interpretation of the "little man" theme. Summing up all that has been said, we can conclude that the theme of the "little man" reveals the most important qualities of Russian literature. XIX century - democracy and humanism.

Over time, the "little man", deprived of his own dignity, "humiliated and insulted", causes not only compassion, but also condemnation among progressive writers. “Your life is boring, gentlemen,” Chekhov said with his work to the “little man”, resigned to his position. With subtle humor, the writer ridicules the death of Ivan Chervyakov, from whose lips the lackey “Yourself” has not left his lips all his life.

In the same year as "The Death of an Official", the story "Thick and Thin" appears. Chekhov again opposes philistinism, servility. The collegiate servant Porfiry giggles, "like a Chinese", bowing in an obsequious bow, having met his former friend, who has a high rank. The feeling of friendship that connected these two people is forgotten.

Kuprin "Garnet bracelet".Zheltkov

In AI Kuprin's "Garnet Bracelet" Zheltkov is a "little man". Once again, the hero belongs to the lower class. But he loves, and he loves in a way that many of the highest society are not capable of. Zheltkov fell in love with a girl and for the rest of his life he loved only her alone. He understood that love is a sublime feeling, it is a chance given to him by fate, and it should not be missed. His love is his life, his hope. Zheltkov commits suicide. But after the death of the hero, the woman realizes that no one loved her as much as he did. The hero of Kuprin is a man of an extraordinary soul, capable of self-sacrifice, able to truly love, and such a gift is a rarity. Therefore, the "little man" Zheltkov appears as a figure towering above those around him.

Thus, the theme of the "little man" underwent significant changes in the work of writers. Drawing images of "little people", writers usually emphasized their weak protest, downtroddenness, which subsequently leads the "little man" to degradation. But each of these heroes has something in life that helps him endure existence: Samson Vyrin has a daughter, the joy of life, Akaky Akakievich has an overcoat, Makar Devushkin and Varenka have their love and care for each other. Having lost this goal, they die, unable to survive the loss.

In conclusion, I would like to say that a person should not be small. In one of his letters to his sister, Chekhov exclaimed: “My God, how rich Russia is in good people!”

In XX century, the theme was developed in the images of the heroes of I. Bunin, A. Kuprin, M. Gorky, and even at the end XX century, you can find its reflection in the work of V. Shukshin, V. Rasputin and other writers.

In this chapter, various definitions of the concept of "little man" will be considered, the evolution of the image in Russian and American literature, and the features characteristic of this type will be identified. The chapter devoted to the works of John Updike will present a brief biography of the writer, consider the author's stylistic features and present the views of foreign and Russian critics on his work.

The term "little man". History and nature of the concept

The concept of "little man" is by no means new. The "Literary Encyclopedia of Terms and Concepts" speaks of the international spread of the theme of the "little man", it was first discovered in neo-Attic comedy. Until recently, the concept of "little man" was not defined terminologically. Obviously, this explains the assignment to the category of "little people" of some literary characters who do not belong to it at all. The designation "little man" should be understood as a group of "rather heterogeneous heroes", united by the fact that they "occupy one of the lowest places in the social hierarchy and that this circumstance determines their psychology and social behavior."

Other definitions of the term "little man" belong mainly to Russian scientists. V.M. Markovich in his study "Gogol's St. Petersburg Tales" said that "little people" are typical representatives of the general mass, people "who can be considered average in any respect,<.>heroic officials, mired in routine, but worthy of a better fate” [Markovich 1989: 10].

As the researcher A.A. Anikin in his work “The Theme of the Little Man in Russian Classics”, the definition of “little man” is a true long-liver of the Russian literary tradition. It is not surprising that a certain semantic and emotional stereotype has developed that accompanies this term. Even the literary heroes themselves frankly recommend themselves this way: “I, sir, am a little man” (Kuligin from A.N. Ostrovsky’s play “Thunderstorm”). However, if you look at it with an open mind, the picture may appear in a different light. The same Kuligin is filled with such pretentious pathos that the definition of "little man" is more like a mask than authenticity. Robert Rozhdestvensky already in the 20th century plays with this concept: “On the Earth there lived a mercilessly small man, there was a small man ...”, but he ends up much more sublimely: “... there was not enough marble on the whole Earth to knock out a guy in full growth!” [Rozhdestvensky 2004: 72].

According to A.G. Zeitlin, by the 20-30s of the 19th century, there was a whole tradition of choosing poor officials as heroes of their works, drawing their life and psychology. So, the researcher believes, many writers of the "natural school" "pick up" and develop the image of the poor secretary Molchalin from the comedy A.S. Griboyedov "Woe from Wit". A prominent place in the life stories dedicated to poor officials is occupied by F.V. Bulgarin. From the humorous genre of his narrations, Zeitlin notes, Gogol's "Overcoat" will later appear [Tseitlin 1968: 104].

Not a single study by Soviet literary critics dedicated to The Stationmaster and The Bronze Horseman A.S. Pushkin, "Petersburg stories" N.V. Gogol, early works of F.M. Dostoevsky and the work of the writers of the "natural school" of the 40s of the XIX century, could not do without mentioning the "poor official", suffering from the injustice of the reality surrounding him.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, V.V. Vinogradov.

In the following decades, the image of the “little man” in the work of A.C. Pushkin, N.V. Gogol, writers of the "natural school" was studied by a number of major literary critics: Sahakyan P.T., Zeitlin A.G., Rudenko V.F.

The point of view of A.A. Anikin, who proposes to consider the Bible, especially the Gospel, as the primary source for the theme of the "little man" in Russian literature. He notes that the person depicted in the Gospel is precisely “small”, less before God, and not before earthly power, or strength, or wealth. Moreover, the earthly meaning of a person and his appearance before God do not coincide. Christ is first of all addressed to the "lowly and offended": "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11:28). Let's give a few more capacious gospel verses that define the semantic core of our topic: "What you did to one of my younger brothers, you did to me" (Matt., 25, 40 - 45); “He who is least among you will be great” (Luke 9:48); “Whoever wants to be great among you, let him be your servant; whoever wants to be first, let him be your slave” (Matt. 20:26); “Be careful not to despise any of these little ones” (Matthew 18:10). So, the evangelical person is small in his spirit, humiliated, vicious and weak, but aspiring to God, waiting for the highest judgment, being transformed, despite earthly humiliation (“the last will be the first”) [Anikin: Electronic resource].

A.A. Anikin in his work “The Theme of the Little Man in Russian Classics” notes: “In the 18th century, literature in the tradition of Radishchev seemed to have exhausted faith in the earthly well-being of the “little man”, returning to the tragic pathos of the Gospel with a sense of earthly suffering that will never be overcome, which gave impetus to comparatively the rapid development of the theme from Samson Vyrin to Platon Karataev, and the tragic pathos also determines the philosophical deepening of the hero. The insufficiency and even inappropriateness of sympathy for earthly suffering, the understanding of the impossibility of fully establishing the Kingdom of God on Earth (and the impossibility for a “little man” to fully understand the Word of God) only increased the artistic appeal of the theme. On the contrary, the revolutionary pathos of saving the “little man”, bright and attractive in itself, turned out to be unproductive for the depth of the artistic depiction of the personality” [Anikin: Electronic resource].

This image, as already noted, has become very characteristic of Russian classics. One can recall the textbook, “school” works: “The Stationmaster” by A.S. Pushkin, "Overcoat" N.V. Gogol, "A Hero of Our Time" by M.Yu. Lermontov, "Crime and Punishment" by F.M. Dostoevsky, "War and Peace" by L.N. Tolstoy (the image of Platon Karataev). In addition, there are a number of “borderline” images that allow one to appreciate the nuances of the theme, contrasting deviations from it, already transferring the characters to a different category (for example, Evgeny from The Bronze Horseman, Chichikov, Karandyshev, the heroes of A.N. Ostrovsky’s Thunderstorm, finally - a number of Chekhov's characters, on which the actual theme of the little man is interrupted: Chekhov "destroys" the little man, striving not so much for approval as for the rebirth of such a hero). In general, the theme of the “little man” in its pure form, without developing into a completely different topic (for example, the participation of a small man in a great cause, as in the article by M. Gorky “On small people and their great work”, or an overestimation of the spirituality of a small person: small in society, but great in soul, etc.), will turn out to be one of the specific themes of precisely the classics of the 19th century, where, despite the presence of common thematic features, the philosophy of the “little man” will nevertheless conceptually develop, but precisely around the gospel parable.

The little man was and remains a literary hero. L.N. Dmitrievskaya notes: “When we say “little man”, we somehow remove him from ourselves, we pity him condescendingly, condescendingly. But if we have a MAN in front of us, then the approach to him is already different. And in this case, the image of the hero makes us no longer think about whether it is worth pitying him or not - he demands that we think about ourselves, about our human essence" [Dmitrievskaya 2009: 3].

The study of the problem of the “little man” in the light of the Christian tradition led to the fact that the concept under study, previously defined as a “petty official”, “poor man”, suffering from his own ambition, constant humiliation and insults due to his low origin or social status, changes its usual meaning when faced with the author's view of the hero's poverty problem.

Moreover, this literary image is sometimes called the most important and fundamental in Russian literature. Mikhail Epshtein, in his work “The Little Man in a Case: The Bashmachkin-Belikov Syndrome,” argues: “It is widely believed that all Russian literature came out of Gogol’s “Overcoat”. There is reason to say that many characters in Russian literature came out of Gogol's Bashmachkin. Usually a small person is treated as a separate type - humiliated, humble, resigned, and Bashmachkin is put on a par with Pushkin's Semyon Vyrin and Makar Devushkin of F. Dostoevsky. But Akaki Bashmachkin can also be placed in a completely different, widely divergent series of his unrecognized descendants and heirs in Russian literature” [Epshtein 2005: 18]. Such a noticeable literary trend could not but affect foreign literature. Correctly identified P.L. Weil in his work "Map of the Motherland": "The little man from the great Russian literature is so small that it cannot be further reduced. Changes could only go in the direction of increase. This is what the Western followers of our classical tradition have done. Out of our Little Man came the heroes of Kafka, Beckett, Camus, who have grown to global proportions […]. Soviet culture threw off the Bashmachkin overcoat - on the shoulders of the living Little Man, who, of course, did not go anywhere, simply got off the ideological surface, died in literature" [Vail 2007: 32].

The concept of "little man" as such is inextricably linked with the concepts of humanism and morality. It is love for a person as a thinking and free being that allows the reader not only to sympathize, but also to understand and sympathize with the “little people”. From the Christian-based ideas of Erasmus of Rotterdam, the Renaissance philosopher, to the atheistic humanists of the twentieth century, the value of the individual human person has been cultivated. Erasmus proceeded from the humanistic idea of ​​man as a noble living being, for the sake of which alone this delightful mechanism of the world was built by God. He, recognizing, in accordance with Christian teaching, that the source and outcome of eternal salvation depend on God, he believed, however, that the course of affairs in earthly human existence depends on a person and on his free choice under given conditions, which is a prerequisite for moral responsibility. The “little man”, driven into the harsh framework of poverty, social class, or even his own weak character, deserves to be called a person, based on the values ​​of humanism.

The twentieth century brings new ideas, a new look at man. However, the ideas of humanism and the value of the individual are just as relevant. Atheist Jean-Paul Sartre presents his work "Existentialism is a Humanism".

Sartre proceeds from the fact that "existence precedes essence." From his point of view, it is difficult to immediately define a person, because at first he does not represent anything. A man becomes a man only later, when he makes himself. In this, Sartre sees the most important, even the first principle of existentialism, which he associates with subjectivity. It is obvious that these ideas of Sartre have something in common with humanism. For him, “a person is, first of all, a project that is experienced subjectively. Nothing exists prior to this project, there is nothing in the intelligible sky, and man will become what his project of being is. Not the way he wants” [Sartre 2010: 284].

Such a responsibility of a person for himself is determined, from the point of view of Sartre, by the fact that “man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, and yet free, because, once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything that he does ... ”[Sartre 2010: 288]. According to Sartre, a person is responsible not only for his rational actions, but also for his passions. Man exists only insofar as he realizes himself. He is, therefore, nothing but the totality of his actions, nothing but his own life.

In this regard, he considers two different meanings of the word "humanism".

In the first of the meanings he singled out, a person is understood as a goal and as the highest value. With this approach, according to Sartre, a cult of humanity is formed, which "can be worshiped in the manner of Auguste Comte." From Sartre's point of view, such humanism is absurd, so it must be abandoned.

Sartre proposes to understand humanism in a different sense. His project of humanism includes the concept of the active character of man, for whom "there is no other legislator but himself." According to Sartre, a person "in a situation of abandonment" decides his own fate, turning to the search for goals that are outside of him. According to Sartre's existentialism, the liberation of a person occurs through his concrete self-realization, focused on activity and freedom, on responsibility for himself in an organization with others.

Obviously, despite Sartre's expansion of the meaning of Humanism, the idea of ​​the value of man remains immutable. However, freedom becomes the main idea of ​​humanism in the period of existentialism. The internal rebellion described by Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus determines the value of a reasonable person. However, this is not yet the formation of personality. The idea of ​​a small person, overwhelmed by internal contradictions, was created and developed by existentialists as the idea of ​​freedom in general. Another characteristic feature of humanism in existentialism is the absence of God. Thus, the essential difference between the ideas of Camus and Sartre from the ideas of the Renaissance was what determines the value of a single person - moral responsibility or freedom of consciousness.

American literature has not left this image without attention. In the eternal search for the American Dream, there are inevitably winners and losers. Mark Twain in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn explored the problem not only of slavery, in the book the author analyzes many topics that remain relevant to this day. Ernest Hemingway noted that "All American literature came out of one book by Mark Twain, from his Huckleberry Finn ... We don't have a better book." Huck - this poor, homeless boy, fleeing from his always drunk father, from the insipid charity that disgusted him - does not sail through the Mississippi alone. He is the very "scoundrel and scoundrel" who, despite the danger, dares to "shelter" a runaway slave on a raft. And not only to shelter, but also to share with him your meager supplies of food, to help him hide. He pities and loves old Jim, considers him his friend. Jim for Huck is better, more honest, more caring than his own father, who did not hesitate to rob his son clean, kept him starving, and even “thrashed him with anything” every day.

Mark Twain does not think that his hero is such a brave fighter against injustice, he does not touch Huck, but simply says that the friendship of these two good, courageous people is as common as the friendship of Huck with Tom Sawyer or Tom with his girlfriend Becky Thatcher. Jim for the writer and for his little hero is not "also a man", but a real man, like any other. It was Mark Twain who laid down in American literature a humanistic approach to man, to the individual, regardless of his position in society.

Another American writer, Theodore Dreiser, did not bypass this image. In his work Tragic America, he argues: “Let the speed of cars, the power of cars, the height of skyscrapers built in record time be as high as possible, the run of trains through the tunnels of the subway as dizzying as possible! More cities, more business, more business and worries - as if it were we, of all peoples, who were called upon not only to mechanize, but also to populate the whole world! But why is all this being done? For some specific purpose? For the sake of creating some higher spiritual values? It seems to me that, on the contrary, in such an environment a person inevitably fizzles out both physically and morally; and with millions of people it has either already happened or is about to happen in the near future. They live and die without having experienced anything worth living for. The life of the average person has turned into continuous torment: it is so insignificant and meaningless, to such an extent he himself is confused and doomed to defeat in advance! [Dreiser 1952: 10]. The crisis of lack of spirituality in a purely commercial environment overtakes both Clyde Griffith in An American Tragedy and Sister Kerry. Like Updike, in all his novels, Dreiser gives a broad picture of the customs and life of the environment he depicts. Dreiser is a moralist, in his novels the desire for enrichment at the expense of spirituality is punished, but this does not mean that the author does not sympathize with his heroes. Like Jack London, who is filled with sympathy for his Martin Eden just when his hero is a poor uneducated sailor, a small man. But Martin himself is aware of what he has lost: “He was striving for the stars, but fell into a fetid quagmire” [London 2009: 552].

Herman Melville dedicates a short philosophical story to the image - Scribe Bartleby. Bartleby is a typical little person, very similar to similar types of Russian literature. The hero of the story is a petty clerk, a copyist of court papers in a private law office in New York, an American colleague of Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin. For reasons that remain unclear ("an irreparable loss to literature," Melville states, either mockingly or puzzled), the scribe Bartleby, a sullen, homeless young man, announces something like a boycott of the society in which he lives. He refuses to work, refuses to leave the premises of the office where he works, refuses to be fired for dereliction of duty, and refuses to give an explanation for his actions. However, at the end of the story, the narrator, Bartleby's former boss, comes up with a truly humanistic thought: “For the first time in my life, I was seized by a feeling of painful, aching sadness ... Brother's sadness! After all, Bartleby and I were both sons of Adam” [Melville 1988: 110].

Another typical small person in the United States is introduced in 1949 by Arthur Miller. The play "Death of a Salesman" again raises the problem of loneliness and lack of spirituality in the world of commerce. The central problem in the play is the problem of the "American dream", that is, the problem of a small person dreaming of becoming a big person. Willy Loman, an aging salesman, never goes beyond his type. He often thinks about his dream, but he cannot be called ambitious: “All I need is some boards and peace of mind” [Miller 2011: 298].

The second half of the 20th century brings many technological discoveries, but it also raises no fewer questions. As E.A. Stetsenko: “Man has fallen into a twilight, crisis era, in which he is forced to wait for a new light, a new day and a new self-consciousness.” But the personality and its value in society still has a literary value. E.A. Stetsenko refers to K. Popper: “The concrete history of mankind, if there was such, should be the history of all people. It should be the story of all human hopes, efforts and sufferings. Because there is not a single person who would be more important than another person” [Stetsenko 2009: 150].

Later literary currents were also interested in the role of man in the big world. K. Kesey in the novel "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" represents a whole series of types who prefer seclusion in a mental hospital to the real world. For the rebel McMurphy, it becomes a shock that people have abandoned society and self-realization of their own free will. In addition to patients with clearly expressed deviations, there are real little people in the clinic, frightened by reality. However, as the protagonist notes: “Loneliness only increases the feeling of uselessness” [Kesi 2009: 237].

John Updike continues the traditions of American literature and makes it possible to trace the evolution of the image at the end of the 20th century. In the wake of an increased interest in postmodernism, avant-garde and experimental literature, Updike remains true to the quest of the middle class, the values ​​​​of ordinary people who can easily be imagined living in the neighborhood. In his work, the humanistic principle is akin to Dreiser's, his heroes rush about in their little worlds, but do not stop thinking about the eternal questions of being. Updike's little man is a product of the environment, and although Updike can hardly be called a moralist, he nevertheless shows the results of a crisis of lack of spirituality.

GBOU LYCEUM "INTERNATIONAL SPACE SCHOOL N.A. V.N. CHELOMEY"

"Little People" in the works

Russian writers

Teacher of Russian language and literature

Plyga Elena Ivanovna

Baikonur 2014

The theme of the "little man" in Russian literature.

N.M. Karamzin "Poor Lisa"

A.S. Pushkin "The Stationmaster"

N.V. Gogol "Overcoat".

F.M. Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment" and "Poor People"

A.P. Chekhov "Death of an Official"

"Little Man" and Time.

"Small man"- a type of literary hero that arose in Russian literature with the advent of realism, that is, in the 20-30s of the XIX century. A small person is a person of low social status and origin, not gifted with outstanding abilities, not distinguished by strength of character, but at the same time kind, not doing harm to anyone, harmless

Forgotten, humiliated people, their life, small joys and big troubles for a long time seemed insignificant, unworthy of attention. Such people and such an attitude towards them gave rise to the era. Cruel times and tsarist injustice forced the "little people" to withdraw into themselves. Suffering, they lived an imperceptible life and also imperceptibly died. But just such people sometimes, by the will of circumstances, obeying the cry of the soul, began to grumble against the powerful of this world, to appeal for justice. Petty officials, stationmasters, "little people" who had gone mad, came out of the shadows against their will.

The theme of the little man is one of the traditional themes in Russian literature of the last two centuries. For the first time, this topic appeared in Russian literature precisely in the 19th century (in Karamzin's "Poor Lisa"). As reasons for this, one can probably name the fact that the image of a small person is characteristic, first of all, for realism, and this artistic method finally took shape only in the 19th century. However, this topic, in my opinion, could be relevant in any historical period, since, among other things, it involves a description of the relationship between man and power, and these relationships have existed since ancient times.

The theme of the little man in the work of N.M. Karamzin "Poor Lisa"

“Karamzin began a new era of Russian literature,” Belinsky argued. This era was primarily characterized by the fact that literature gained influence on society, it became for readers a “textbook of life”, that is, that on which the glory of Russian literature of the 19th century is based. The significance of Karamzin's activity for Russian literature is great. Karamzin's word echoes Pushkin and Lermontov.
“Poor Liza” (1729) is the most popular and best story of this writer. Its plot, presented to the reader as a “sad story”, is extremely simple, but full of dramatic tension.

This is the love story of a poor peasant girl Liza and a rich young nobleman Erast. Public life and secular pleasures bored him. He was constantly bored and "complained about his fate." Erast “read idyllic novels” and dreamed of that happy time when people, not burdened by the conventions and rules of civilization, lived carelessly in the bosom of nature. Thinking only of his own pleasure, he "looked for it in amusements." With the advent of love in his life, everything changes. Erast falls in love with the pure "daughter of nature" - the peasant woman Lisa. Chaste, naive, joyfully trusting people, Lisa appears as a wonderful shepherdess. Having read novels in which “all people carelessly walked along the rays, bathed in clean springs, kissed like turtledoves, rested under roses and myrtle”, he decided that he “found in Liza what his heart had been looking for for a long time.” Liza, although "the daughter of a rich peasant", is just a peasant woman who is forced to earn her own living. Sensuality - the highest value of sentimentalism -: pushes the characters into each other's arms, gives them a moment of happiness. The picture of pure first love is drawn very touchingly in the story. “Now I think,” Liza says to Erast, “that without you life is not life, but sadness and boredom. Without your dark eyes, a bright month; the singing nightingale is boring without your voice...” Erast also admires his “shepherdess”. “All the brilliant amusements of the great world seemed to him insignificant in comparison with the pleasures with which the passionate friendship of an innocent soul fed his heart.” But when Lisa gives herself to him, the satiated young man begins to grow cold in his feelings for her. In vain Lisa hopes to regain her lost happiness. Erast goes on a military campaign, loses all his fortune in cards and, in the end, marries a rich widow. And deceived in her best hopes and feelings, Liza throws herself into a pond near the Simonov Monastery.

Karamzin laid the foundation for a huge cycle of literature about "little people", took the first step into this hitherto unknown topic. It was he who opened the way for such classics of the future as Gogol, Dostoevsky and others.

The theme of the little man in the work of A.S. Pushkin "The Stationmaster"

The next (after “Poor Lisa”) significant work on this topic can be considered “The Stationmaster” by A.S. Pushkin.

The disclosure of the social and artistic significance of The Stationmaster was initiated by F.M. Dostoevsky, he expressed judgments about the realism of Pushkin's story, about its cognitive significance, pointed out the typical image of the poor official Vyrin, the simplicity and clarity of the language of the story, noted the depth of the image of the human hero in it. The tragic fate of the "martyr of the fourteenth grade" after F.M. Dostoevsky attracted the attention of critics more than once, who noted the humanism and democracy of Pushkin and evaluated The Stationmaster as one of the first, since the 18th century, realistic stories about a poor official.

Pushkin's choice of the hero, the stationmaster, was not accidental. In the 20s of the 19th century, as is known, many moralistic essays and stories appear in Russian literature, the heroes of which are people of the “lower class”. In addition, the genre of travel is being revived. In the mid-1920s, poems, poems, essays began to appear in magazines more and more often, in which attention was paid not only to descriptions of the region, but also to meetings and conversations with the stationmaster.

Pushkin makes the first attempt to objectively, truthfully portray the "little man". The hero of the story "The Stationmaster" is alien to sentimental suffering, he has his own sorrows associated with the disorder of life.

In the story, three arrivals of the narrator, separated from one another by several years, organize the course of the narration, and in all three parts, as in the introduction, the narration is conducted by the narrator. But in the second, central part of the story, we hear Vyrin himself. In the words of the narrator: “Let us delve into all this carefully, and instead of indignation our heart will be filled with sincere sympathy,” a generalization is given, it is said about hard labor and the position of the stationmaster not of any one tract, but of all, at any time of the year, day and night. Excited lines with rhetorical questions ("who did not curse ...", "who in a moment of anger?", Etc.), interrupted by the demand to be fair, to enter the position of a "real martyr of the fourteenth grade" let us understand what Pushkin says sympathetically about the hard work of these people.

The first meeting in 1816 is described by the narrator with obvious sympathy for his father, for his daughter, the beautiful Duna, and for their well-established life. Vyrin is the image of “a fresh, kind man of about fifty, in a long green frock coat with three medals on faded ribbons”, an old soldier who, probably, walked during military campaigns for about 30 years, he buried his wife in 1812, and only a few years he had to live with his beloved daughter, and a new misfortune fell upon him. The stationmaster Samson Vyrin lived in poverty, his desires were elementary - with work full of insults and humiliation, he earns a living, does not complain about anything and is pleased with fate. Trouble that breaks into this private world, then - a young hussar who secretly takes away his daughter Dunya to Petersburg. Grief has shaken him, but has not yet broken him. The story of Vyrin's fruitless attempts to fight Minsky, after he begged for leave and went to St. Petersburg on foot, is given just as sparingly as the story about Vyrin's hero, but by other means. Four small, but full of vital truth pictures of Vyrin's arrival draw a typical situation in the conditions of social and class inequality - the position of the powerless, weak and the "right" of the strong, the one in power.

The first picture: An old soldier in the role of a petitioner before an indifferent, important official.

Second scene: Father in the role of a petitioner in front of Minsky.

It seemed that a decisive moment had come in a person's life, when all the accumulated past grievances would raise him to rebellion in the name of holy justice. But “... tears welled up in his eyes, and he only said in a trembling voice: Your honor! ...Make such a divine favor!” Instead of protest, there was a plea, a pitiful request.

Third painting: (two days later). Again in front of an important lackey, who pushed him out of the hall with his chest and slammed the door under his nose.

Fourth scene: Again in front of Minsky: "Get out!" - and, with a strong hand, seizing the old man by the collar, pushed him onto the stairs.

And, finally, two days later, the return from St. Petersburg to his station, obviously also on foot. And Samson Vyrin resigned himself.

The second visit of the narrator - he sees that "grief has turned a kind peasant into a frail old man." And the view of the room that did not escape the narrator’s attention (dilapidation, negligence), and the changed appearance of Vyrin (gray hair, deep wrinkles of a long unshaven face, hunched back), and the surprised exclamation: “It was exactly Samson Vyrin, but how old he is!” - all this indicates that the narrator sympathizes with the old caretaker. In the narration of the narrator himself, we hear echoes of the feelings and thoughts of Vyrin, the praying father (“He shook Dunyushkin’s hand; “I saw my poor Dunya”) and Vyrin, a trusting, helpful and disenfranchised person (“It was a pity for him to part with his kind guest”, “not understood how blindness had come upon him", "decided to come to him", "reported to his high nobility" that "an old soldier"; "thought ... he returned, but he was no longer there", , waved his hand and decided to retreat.") 1

The role of Vyrin himself expresses his grief and sheds light on the role of Dunya in his father’s house (“His house held on; what to clean up, what to cook, “It happened that the master, no matter how angry he was, calms down with her and talks mercifully to me”).

The fate of the "little man" in the center of the author's attention and compassion for him is not only the initial, but also the final element of the author's attitude towards his heroes. It is expressed both in the introduction and in each of the three episodes, of which the last two are opposed to the first, while each of the three parts of this lyrical-epic story is painted in different emotional tones. The third part is clearly painted in a tone of lyrical sadness - Samson Vyrin finally resigned himself, took to drink and died of grief and longing.

Life truth, sympathy for the "little man", insulted at every step by the bosses, standing higher in rank and position - that's what we feel when reading the story. Pushkin cherishes this "little man" who lives in grief and need. The story is imbued with democracy and humanity, so realistically depicting the “little man”.

The theme of the little man in the work of N.V. Gogol's "Overcoat"

One of the maximum manifestations of the theme of the little man was found in the work of N.V. Gogol. In the story "The Overcoat", Gogol addresses the hated world of officials, and his satire becomes harsh and merciless: "... he has the gift of sarcasm, which sometimes makes you laugh to the point of convulsions, and sometimes awakens contempt bordering on hatred." Gogol, following other writers, came to the defense of the "little man" - an intimidated, powerless, miserable official. He expressed the most sincere, warmest and most sincere sympathy for the destitute person in the beautiful lines of the final argument about the fate and death of one of the many victims of heartlessness and arbitrariness.

Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin (the main character of the story) is one of the most typical little people. This is an official, "not that very remarkable." He, a titular adviser, is extremely poor, even for a decent overcoat he has to save up for a long time, denying himself everything. The overcoat obtained after such labors and torments is soon taken away from him on the street. It would seem that there is a law that will protect him. But it turns out that no one can and does not want to help the robbed official, even those who would simply have to do it. Akaky Akakievich is absolutely defenseless, he has no prospects in life - due to his low rank, he is completely dependent on his superiors, he will not be promoted (he is, after all, "an eternal titular adviser").

Bashmachkin Gogol calls "one official", and Bashmachkin serves in "one department", and he is the most ordinary person. All this allows us to say that Akaky Akakievich is an ordinary little person, hundreds of other officials are in his position. This position of a servant of power characterizes the power itself in a corresponding way. The government is heartless and ruthless. The famous episode in the play “The Overcoat” is the choice of a name, here it’s not just bad luck with the names in the calendar, but precisely a picture of nonsense (since the name is a person): he could be Mokkiy (translation: “mockery”) and Khozdazat, and Trifiliy, and Varakhasiy, and repeated the name of his father: “the father was Akaki, so let the son be Akaki (“doing no evil”), this phrase can be read as a sentence of fate: the father was a “little man”, let the son be also a “little man” ". Actually, life, devoid of meaning and joy, is only dying for the “little man”, and out of modesty he is ready to complete his career immediately, as soon as he is born.

Bashmachkin died: “A creature disappeared and disappeared, protected by no one, dear to no one, not interesting to anyone ...”

But the story of the poor official does not end there. We learn that Akaky Akakievich, who was dying in a fever, in his delirium scolded “His Excellency” so much that the old housewife, who was sitting at the bedside of the patient, became frightened. Thus, just before his death, anger woke up in the soul of the downtrodden Bashmachkin against the people who killed him.

Gogol tells us at the end of his story that in the world in which Akaky Akakievich lived, the hero as a person, as a person challenging the whole society, can only live after death. The Overcoat tells about the most ordinary and insignificant person, about the most ordinary events in his life. The story had a great influence on the direction of Russian literature, the theme of the "little man" became one of the most important for many years.

Gogol's "Overcoat" is a grotesque and a gloomy nightmare that breaks through black holes in a vague picture of life1... (V.V. Nabokov).

The theme of the little man in the work of F.M. Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment"

F. M. Dostoevsky shows the same defenseless little man in his novel Crime and Punishment.

Here, as in Gogol, an official, Marmeladov, is represented as a small man. This man is at the bottom. For drunkenness he was expelled from the service, and after that nothing could stop him. He drank everything he could drink, although he perfectly understood what he was bringing the family to. He says about himself: "I have an animal image."

Of course, he is most to blame for his situation, but it is also noteworthy that no one wants to help him, everyone laughs at him, only a few are ready to help him (for example, Raskolnikov, who gives the last money to the Marmeladov family). The small man is surrounded by a soulless crowd. “For this I drink, that in this drink I seek compassion and feelings ...”, says Marmeladov. “Sorry! why pity me!" - he exclaims and immediately admits: “There is nothing to feel sorry for me!”

But after all, his children are not to blame for the fact that they are beggars. And the society, which does not care, is probably also to blame. The chief is also to blame, to whom Katerina Ivanovna's appeals were addressed: “Your Excellency! Protect the orphans! The entire ruling class is also to blame, because the carriage that crushed Marmeladov was "waited by some significant person," and therefore this carriage was not detained. Exhausted by poverty, Marmeladov's wife, Katerina Ivanovna, dies of consumption. Sonya goes outside to sell her body in order to save her family from starvation.

The fate of the Raskolnikov family is also difficult. His sister Dunya, wanting to help her brother, is ready to sacrifice herself and marry the rich man Luzhin, for whom she feels disgust.

Sonya, the daughter of Marmeladov, and the former student Raskolnikov also belong to the small people. Raskolnikov understands that the cruel force that creates dead ends for the poor and a bottomless sea of ​​​​suffering in life is money. And in order to get them, he commits a crime under the influence of a far-fetched idea of ​​"extraordinary personalities." But what is important here is that these people retained human qualities in themselves - compassion, mercy, self-esteem (despite the downtroddenness of Sonya, the poverty of Raskolnikov). They are not yet broken, they are still able to fight for life. Dostoevsky and Gogol depict the social position of little people in approximately the same way, but Dostoevsky, unlike Gogol, also shows the inner world of these people.

Not even poverty, but poverty, in which a person not only literally dies of hunger, but also loses his human appearance and self-esteem - this is the state in which the unfortunate Marmeladov family is immersed. Material suffering entails a world of moral torment that disfigures the human psyche. Dobrolyubov wrote: “In the works of Dostoevsky we find one common feature, more or less noticeable in everything that he wrote: it is the pain of a person who recognizes himself as unable or, finally, not even entitled to be a person by himself.”

To understand the extent of a person's humiliation, one needs to delve into the inner world of the titular adviser Marmeladov. The state of mind of this petty official is much more complex and subtle than that of his literary predecessors - Pushkin's Samson Vyrin and Gogol's Bashmachkin. They do not have the power of introspection, which the hero of Dostoevsky achieved. Marmeladov not only suffers, but also analyzes his state of mind, he, as a doctor, makes a merciless diagnosis of the disease - the degradation of his own personality. Here is how he confesses in his first meeting with Raskolnikov: “Dear Sir, poverty is not a vice, it is the truth. But… poverty is a vice – p. In poverty, you still retain all the nobility of innate feelings, but in poverty, never anyone ... for in poverty I myself am the first ready to offend myself. A person not only perishes from poverty, but understands how he is spiritually devastated: he begins to despise himself, but does not see anything around him to cling to, which would keep him from the decay of his personality. Marmeladov despises himself. We sympathize with him, we are tormented by his torments and we sharply hate the social circumstances that gave rise to human tragedy.

The most important and new, in comparison with other writers who dealt with this topic, is Dostoevsky's downtrodden man's ability to look into himself, the ability of introspection and appropriate actions. The writer subjects to a detailed self-analysis, no other writer in essays, stories, sympathetically depicting the life and customs of the urban poor, had such a leisurely and concentrated psychological penetration and depth of depiction of the character of the characters.

The spirit of Gogol's "Overcoat" is imbued with Dostoevsky's novel "Poor People". Dostoevsky continued study of the soul of the "little man", delved into his inner world. The writer believed that the "little man" did not deserve such treatment as shown in many works, "Poor people" - this was the first novel in Russian literature where the "little man" spoke himself.
The world around Varenka Dobroselova, a young woman who has experienced many sorrows in her life (the death of her father, mother, beloved, the persecution of low people), and Makar Devushkin, a poor elderly official, is terrible. Dostoevsky wrote the novel in letters, otherwise the characters would hardly have been able to open their hearts, they were very timid. This form of narration gave soulfulness to the whole novel and showed one of the main positions of Dostoevsky: the main thing in the “little man” is his nature.
For a poor person, the basis of life is honor and respect, but the heroes of the novel “Poor People” know that it is almost impossible for a “small” person to achieve this socially: “And everyone knows, Varenka, that a poor person is worse than a rag and no one from anyone can’t get respect, don’t write there. ” His protest against injustice is hopeless. Makar Alekseevich is very ambitious, and much of what he does, he does not for himself, but for others to see (he drinks good tea). He tries to hide his shame for himself. Unfortunately, the opinion from the outside is more valuable to him than his own.
Makar Devushkin and Varenka Dobroselova are people of great spiritual purity and kindness. Each of them is ready to give the last for the sake of the other. Makar is a person who knows how to feel, empathize, think and reason, and these are the best qualities of a “little man” according to Dostoevsky.
Makar Alekseevich reads Pushkin's The Stationmaster and Gogol's The Overcoat. They shake him, and he sees himself there: “... after all, I’ll tell you, mother, it will happen that you live, and you don’t know that you have a book at your side, where your whole life is laid out on your fingers” . Random meetings and conversations with people (organ grinder, little beggar boy, usurer, watchman) prompt him to think about social life, constant injustice, human relations, which are based on social inequality and money. The "little man" in Dostoevsky's works has both a heart and a mind. The end of the novel is tragic: Varenka is taken away to certain death by the cruel landowner Bykov, and Makar Devushkin is left alone with his grief.

Dostoevsky shows the "little man" as a personality deeper than Samson Vyrin and Evgeny in Pushkin. The depth of the image is achieved, firstly, by other artistic means. "Poor people" is a novel in letters, unlike Gogol's and Chekhov's stories. Dostoevsky did not choose this genre by chance, because the main goal of the writer is to convey and show all the internal movements, experiences of his hero. The author invites us to feel everything together with the hero, to experience everything together with him, and leads us to the idea that “little people” are individuals in the full sense of the word, and their personal feeling, their ambition is much greater than that of people with a position in society. The “little man” is more vulnerable, it is scary for him that others may not see him as a spiritually rich person. Their own self-consciousness also plays a huge role. The way they treat themselves, whether they feel like individuals, makes them constantly assert themselves even in their own eyes.
Of particular interest is the theme of self-affirmation, which Dostoevsky raises in Poor Folk and continues in The Humiliated and Insulted.
Makar Devushkin considered his help to Varenka a kind of charity, thus showing that he was not a limited poor man, thinking only about how to find money for food. Of course, he does not suspect that he is driven not by the desire to stand out, but by love. But this once again proves to us the main idea of ​​​​Dostoevsky - the "little man" is capable of high feelings.
So, if in Dostoevsky the “little man” lives on the idea of ​​realizing and asserting his own personality, then in Gogol, Dostoevsky's predecessor, everything is different. Having realized the concept of Dostoevsky, we can reveal the essence of his dispute with Gogol. According to Dostoevsky, Gogol's merit is that Gogol purposefully defended the right to portray the "little man" as an object of literary research. Gogol portrays the "little man" in the same circle of social problems as Dostoevsky, but Gogol's stories were written earlier, naturally, the conclusions were different, which prompted Dostoevsky to argue with him. Akaky Akakievich gives the impression of a downtrodden, miserable, narrow-minded person. Dostoevsky's personality is in the "little man", his ambitions are much greater than his outwardly limiting social and financial position. Dostoevsky emphasizes that the self-esteem of his hero is much greater than that of people with a position.

What is new in Poor Folk emerges already at the level of material that is traditional only at first glance. Abundantly drawing from his predecessors - the essayists of the "natural school" - where it was about the external surroundings of events and the living conditions of his heroes, Dostoevsky, however, introduces significantly new accents into these realities. For example, in this description of the next dwelling of Makar Alekseevich Devushkin: “Well, what a slum I ended up in, Varvara Alekseevna. Well, it's an apartment! ...Imagine, roughly, a long corridor, completely dark and unclean. On his right hand there will be a blank wall, and on his left door and doors, like numbers, all stretch out like that. Well, they hire these rooms, and they have one room in each: they live in one and two, and three. Do not ask in order - Noah's Ark "
The Petersburg slum is transformed by Dostoevsky into a miniature and a symbol of the all-Petersburg and, more broadly, universal human community. Indeed, in the slum-ark, almost all and all sorts of “ranks”, nationalities and specialties of the capital's population are represented - windows to Europe: “There is only one official (he is somewhere in the literary part), a well-read man: both about Homer and Brambeus , and he talks about different compositions they have there, he talks about everything - a smart person! Two officers live and everyone plays cards. Midshipman lives; English teacher lives. ... Our hostess is a very small and unclean old woman - all day in shoes and in a dressing gown and all day she screams at Teresa.
The hopeless titular adviser and poor man Makar Devushkin connects his human well-being by no means with a new overcoat, uniform and similar things. He also puts up with his social and service-hierarchical smallness, sincerely believing that “every state is determined by the Almighty for the human lot. That is determined to be in the general's epaulettes, this is to serve as a titular adviser; to command such and such, and to obey such and such meekly and in fear. Makar Alekseevich composes his autocharacteristic in strict accordance not only with the official norms of a well-intentioned official and citizen, but also with official style: “I have been in the service for about thirty years; I serve impeccably, sober behavior, I have never been seen in riots. Of all the blessings and temptations of the world, what Devushkin calls his "ambition" is more important and "most precious" to Devushkin. And that in fact there is a developed sense of one's personality, only painfully exacerbated not by poverty in itself, but "to the point of humiliation" by the poverty that brings a person and the suspiciousness generated by this humiliation. Consciousness of one's right to a person and to recognition in him as such by all those around him (as Devushkin says, that “that I am no worse than others ... that in my heart and thoughts I am a man”) - this is the pathos and essence of the little man in the understanding and depiction of this type by Dostoevsky.
The loss of personal self-respect is tantamount to Devushkin's transformation from a unique individuality into a "rag", i.e. some faceless stereotype of the poor and titular advisers. This is death in his eyes - not physical, like the hero of The Overcoat, but spiritual and moral. And only with the return of the feeling of his personality Makar Alekseevich is resurrected from the dead.

Dostoevsky himself introduces a fundamentally new meaning into the concept of "poor people", emphasizing not the word "poor", but the word "people". The reader of the novel should not only be imbued with compassion for the characters, he should see them as equals. Being human "no worse than others"- both in their own eyes and in the eyes of those around them - this is what Devushkin himself, Varenka Dobroselova and other characters of the novel close to them desire most of all.
What does it mean for Devushkin to be equal to other people? What, in other words, is dearest of all to the little man of Dostoevsky, what does he vigilantly and painfully worry about, what is he most afraid of losing?
The loss of personal feelings and self-respect is literally death for the hero of Dostoevsky. Their rebirth is the resurrection from the dead. This metamorphosis ascending to the Gospel is experienced by Makar Devushkin in a scene that is terrible for him with “His Excellency”, about the culmination of which he tells Varenka in this way: “Here I feel that the last strength leaves me, that everything, everything is lost! The whole reputation is lost, the whole person is gone.”

So, what, according to Dostoevsky, is the equality of his "little man" to all and every representatives of society and mankind? He is equal to them not by his poverty, which he shares with thousands of petty officials like him, and not because his nature, as adherents of the anthropological principle believed, is homogeneous with the nature of other people, but because he, like millions of people, is God's creation. , therefore, the phenomenon is inherently valuable and unique. And in this sense, Personality. This pathos of the individual, overlooked by the moralists of the natural school, - the author of "Poor People" examined and convincingly showed in the environment and everyday life, the beggarly and monotonous nature of which, it seemed, should have completely leveled the person who was in them. This merit of the young writer cannot be explained only by his artistic insight. The creative discovery of the little man, accomplished in Poor Folk, could have taken place because Dostoevsky the artist was inseparable from Dostoevsky the Christian.

So, Dostoevsky, the most complex and controversial realist artist, on the one hand, shows a “humiliated and insulted” person, and the writer’s heart overflows with love, compassion and pity for this person and hatred for the well-fed, vulgar and depraved, and on the other hand, speaks out for humility, humility, calling: "Humble yourself, proud man!"

“Little people” are people of the lower classes, and their language is folk, it contains vernacular (“clean up, old fool”), clerical words (“compass”), the expression “I have something to say”. To enhance the emotional sound of the image, writers use indirect speech (for example, the story of the grief of the old caretaker is told in the third person, although he himself tells about what happened).

The theme of the little man in the works of A.P. Chekhov

Chekhov, a great artist of the word, like many other writers, also could not bypass the theme of the “little man” in his work.

His heroes are "little people", but many of them became so by their own will. In Chekhov's stories, we will see oppressors of bosses, like Gogol's, there is no acute financial situation in them, humiliating social relations like Dostoevsky's, there is only a person who decides his own destiny. With his visual images of "little people" with impoverished souls, Chekhov calls on readers to fulfill one of his commandments, "Squeeze a slave out of yourself drop by drop." Each of the heroes of his "little trilogy" personifies one of the aspects of life: Belikov ("The Man in the Case") - the personification of power, bureaucracy and censorship, the story ("Gooseberry") - the personification of relations with the land, a perverted image of the landowner of that time, the story of love appears before us as a reflection of the spiritual life of people.

All the stories together make up an ideological whole, create a generalized idea of ​​modern life, where the significant side by side with the insignificant, the tragic with the funny.

In his story “Thick and Thin”, a seemingly firmly established couple in Russian literature, defined by Gogol in Dead Souls, acts. These are two types of official: “big” or “fat”, who is assessed purely negatively by his moral and psychological qualities, and “small”, or “thin”, causing sympathy and respect, since he contains the best features of human nature. But with Chekhov, in the course of the development of the plot, everything turns out to be exactly the opposite.

At first, the situation seems quite familiar. At the station, two old school friends meet who have not seen each other for many years. Tolstoy is sincerely glad to meet his school friend, a childhood friend. They recall childhood pranks from their past and both seem moved to tears. They begin to tell each other about their lives, or rather, mostly the “thin” complains about his hard life as a small employee; His story, it seems, should evoke sympathy for the hero in the reader, but this does not happen. The reason for this is a completely unexpected change of tone and all the behavior of the "thin" when he finds out that his school friend, "fat", has now become a "significant person". “He shrank, hunched, narrowed, and with him his suitcase, bundles and cartons shrank, grimaced.”

The “thin” begins to fawn, to please, to kowtow to the “fat”, trying to extract some benefit from this unexpected meeting for himself. At the same time, he just looks disgusting. "Fat", on the contrary, does not show in his behavior that he is now a "boss", who has the right to order and command. On the contrary, he tries to keep in conversation a confidential tone of conversation with an old friend with whom his childhood memories are connected, always a little sentimental and kind. And, accordingly, the reader as a result treats him with much more sympathy than the "thin". Tolstoy tried to stop this flow of pathetic flattery, but quickly understood everything and accepted the role offered to him, since on the face of Thin "so much reverence, sweetness and respectful acidity were written that the Privy Councilor vomited." He turned away from Thin and gave him his hand in parting. In one minute, the joy of meeting and the sincerity of communication disappeared. Yes, and Thin Tolstoy does not shake hands with Tolstoy, but three fingers, thereby expressing his "assurance of the most perfect respect." Chekhov ridicules voluntary servility.

So, while maintaining complete authorial neutrality in his assessments, Chekhov leads readers to the idea that it is not the rank that determines the face of a person, but personal qualities that allow one to preserve dignity and self-respect, regardless of the rank. At the same time, already in this story, a new trend in the disclosure of the theme of the “little man” is determined, which, perhaps, is most clearly expressed in another story, also related to Chekhov’s early humor with the expressive title “The Death of an Official”.

It is not difficult to despise people's court, it is impossible to despise one's own court ... ”- Pushkin said this not by chance. This expression can be equally applied to a highly moral person who is an ardent champion of morality (and automatically analyzes his own actions and misdeeds in the most severe way), and to a petty person, not very principled and consistent.

A vivid illustration of such a statement is the situation depicted by the writer A.P. Chekhov in the story “The Death of an Official”.

“Little man ” Ivan Dmitrievich Chervyakov, being in the theater, accidentally sneezed and splashed the bald head of General Brizzhalov, who was sitting in front. The hero experiences this event hard: he “encroached” on the “shrine” of the bureaucratic hierarchy. The story is built on the early Chekhov's favorite principle of sharp exaggeration. Chekhov masterfully combines the style of "strict realism" with heightened conventionality. The general throughout the story behaves in the highest degree "normal", realistic in the narrow sense of the word. He behaves exactly as a real person of his warehouse would behave in a similar episode. At first he is annoyed: he wipes his bald head with a handkerchief. Then he calms down, satisfied, since the inconvenience has passed and they apologized to him. He is even more satisfied, but already somehow wary: they apologize to him intensely, too intensely. And the general’s answer is natural: “Ah, completeness ... I already forgot, but you are all about the same!” Then, as it should, he begins to get into a rage because of the stupidity, excessive cowardice and, finally, the importunity of the official.
Against this background, the conventionality and exaggeration of the character, the behavior of the sneezing one, are seen especially sharply. The further the official behaves, the more idiotically he behaves; he also “dies” from all this. This is how Chervyakov's death is described: “Arriving mechanically home, without taking off his uniform, he lay down on the sofa, and ... died.” Already in the entire second half of the story, his behavior goes beyond the limits of everyday plausibility: he is too cowardly, too importunate, this does not happen in life. In the end, Chekhov is quite sharp, open. With this “died”, he takes the story (short story) beyond the framework of everyday realism, between “... sneezed ...” and “... died” the internal distance is too great. Here - a direct convention, a mockery, an incident. Therefore, this story is felt as quite humorous: death is perceived as frivolity, conventionality, exposure of a technique, a move. The writer laughs, plays, the very word "death" does not take seriously. In the clash of laughter and death, laughter triumphs. It defines the overall tone of the piece.
So the funny in Chekhov turns into accusatory. The idea of ​​absolute power over people of ordinary trifles is alien and even hostile to the writer. The heightened, painful attention of a person to the little things of everyday life is a consequence of the incompleteness of his spiritual life.
Chekhov wanted every person to have high moral ideals, so that everyone would educate himself: get rid of shortcomings, improve culture. “Everything should be beautiful in a person: face, clothes, soul, and thoughts,” he said. The protagonist of this work, small and completely unremarkable from the general mass of employees, the official Chervyakov finds himself in a situation that gives him moral discomfort. Deepening into the abyss of emotions, inner turmoil and confusion, Chervyakov thereby slowly kills himself with his own hands. At the same time, no external factors seem to have an effect on him: even a person in front of whom Chervyakov feels guilty - a respectable general, has long forgotten about the situation in which Chervyakov participated, and in general about his existence. Nobody condemns or stigmatizes Chervyakov, nobody makes him an outcast. But he already for himself long ago determined the degree of his guilt, exaggerating it considerably, and arranges for himself a daily execution. From the condemnation of the crowd, you can hide, run away, abstract. It is impossible to hide from yourself; it will not work and not pay attention to their own mental anguish. At the same time, as we see, in order to strictly judge yourself and mentally recognize yourself as a failed, worthless, guilty person, it is absolutely not necessary to adhere to any out of the ordinary moral principles. Even an ordinary layman, an official, a person who has almost never thought about global issues of morality and morality, can inflate his own guilt complex to colossal proportions. Even he is able to bring the situation to the point of absurdity and consistently, systematically engage in self-destruction, literally corroding himself from the inside. The ending of such situations, as a rule, is tragic and instructive. No one can justify a person in his own eyes, except himself. No one can help a person who is not initially a helper to himself. He will not hear words of approval if he does not want to hear them, and he will not be able to withstand even the most insignificant external shocks if he is internally ready only to humbly accept the blows of fate, considering them punishment for his own oversight.

In the story "The Death of an Official" Chekhov's innovation was manifested. The writer turns everything around. It is not the social system that is to blame, but the person himself. There are many details in the story about this. Firstly, this story is comic in its situation, and the “little man” himself is ridiculed in it. But he is ridiculed not because he is poor, invisible, cowardly. Chekhov shows that the true pleasure of Chervyakov (here is the speaking surname) is in humiliation, in groveling. At the end of the story, the general himself is offended, and the dying Chervyakov is not at all sorry. Exploring the psychology of his hero, Chekhov discovers a new psychological type - a serf by nature, a reptile creature. According to Chekhov, this is the real evil.

Secondly, Chervyakov's death is not given as a tragedy. This is not the death of a person, but downright some kind of worm. Chervyakov dies not from fear and not because he could be suspected of lack of self-esteem, but because he was deprived of the opportunity to crawl, his spiritual need, the meaning of life.

The "little man" of our city of the 60s - 70s is not able to get to the surface of life and loudly declare his existence. But after all, he is also a man, not a louse, as Raskolnikov wanted to prove to himself, and he deserves not only attention, but also a better share. The way to achieve this was opened to him by those who in our time sought to "straighten their backs with humpbacks." New writers come to the defense of truth and conscience, they formed a new man. Therefore, you can not close the last page in a huge book dedicated to him - "the little man!"

Further in the development of the image of the "little man" there is a tendency of "bifurcation". On the one hand, raznochintsy-democrats appear from among the "little people", and their children become revolutionaries. On the other hand, the "little man" descends, turning into a limited tradesman. We see this process most clearly in the stories of A.P. Chekhov "Ionych", "Gooseberry", "The Man in the Case".

Teacher Belikov is not an evil person, but timid and withdrawn. In conditions when the formula “Life, not circularly prohibited, but not completely resolved,” was in effect, he becomes a terrible figure in the city.

Everything living, progressive scarecrow Belikov, in everything he saw "an element of doubt." Belikov could not arrange his personal life either. When he saw his fiancee riding a bicycle one day, he was very surprised. Belikov went to explain to his brother Varenka, believing that a woman could not afford such liberty. But the result of the conversation was very sad - the Greek teacher died. The townspeople of Belikov gladly buried, but even after his death, the stamp of "Belikovism" remained on the inhabitants of the city. Belikov continued to live in their minds, he saturated their souls with fear.

Over time, the "little man", deprived of his own dignity, "humiliated and insulted", causes writers not only compassion, but also condemnation. “You live boringly, gentlemen,” said A.P. Chekhov, with his work, to the “little man”, resigned to his position. With subtle humor, the writer ridicules the death of Ivan Chervyakov, from whose lips the lackey “Yourself” has not left his lips all his life. In the same year as "The Death of an Official", the story "Thick and Thin" appears. Chekhov again opposes philistinism, servility. The collegiate servant Porfiry giggles, "like a Chinese", bowing in an obsequious bow, having met his former friend, who has a high rank. The feeling of friendship that connected these two people is forgotten.

Chekhov made his debut with stories and sketches in small humorous magazines and did not immediately stand out against the general background. His early works are far from homogeneous in artistic merit, in their structure they are close to the anecdote genre. After all, humorous magazines of the 80s were mainly entertaining, purely commercial in nature, and therefore it is impossible to connect the birth of Chekhov's great talent with humorous fiction of a low flight. The cradle of this talent was classical literature, the traditions of which the young Chekhov successfully mastered.

The theme of the “little man” is characteristic of early Chekhov; one can name such stories as “The Death of an Official”, “The Man in a Case”, “Gooseberry”, etc.

In a number of Chekhov's early works, Shchedrin's images of the "triumphant pig", "hedgehogs", and "pompadours" glimpse. Chekhov also uses Shchedrin's artistic methods of zoological assimilation, the grotesque. In the story "Unter Prishibaev" hyperbolism is replaced by laconicism, drawing out capacious artistic details that give the character of the hero an almost symbolic meaning. Without violating the everyday authenticity of the type, Chekhov selects the most essential features, carefully eliminating everything that can obscure or obscure these features.

Chekhov's early stories are entirely humorous, and the humor in them is very original and sharply different from the classical literary tradition.

Findings:

Considering that all the considered works were written in different years of the 19th century, we can say that a small person still changes in time. Thus, in the Russian literature of the 19th century, the theme of the little man is revealed by depicting the relationship of little people both with the authorities and with other people. At the same time, through the description of the situation of small people, the power standing over them can also be characterized. A small person can belong to different categories of the population. Not only the social status of little people can be shown, but also their inner world. Little people are often to blame for their misfortunes, because they do not try to fight. Drawing images of "little people", writers usually emphasized their weak protest, downtroddenness, which subsequently leads the "little man" to degradation. But each of these heroes has something in life that helps him endure existence: Samson Vyrin has a daughter, the joy of life, Akaky Akakievich has an overcoat, Makar Devushkin and Varenka have their love and care for each other. Having lost this goal, they die, unable to survive the loss.

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………...3

Chapter 2

2.1. "Little Man" in the works of A.S. Griboedova…………………9

2.2. The development of the image of the “little man” by N.V. Gogol………………..10

2.3. The theme of the "little man" in the work of M.Yu. Lermontov…………..10

2.4. F.M. Dostoevsky, as a successor to the theme of the "little man" ....11

2.5. Vision of the image of the "little man" L.N. Tolstoy…………………..13

2.6. The theme of the "little man" in the works of N.S. Leskova……………16

2.7. A.P. Chekhov and the "little man" in his stories………………………17

2.8. Creation of the image of the “little man” by Maxim Gorky…………..20

2.9. "Little Man" in "Garnet Bracelet" by A.I. Kuprin…………21

2.10. The theme of "Little Man" by A.N. Ostrovsky……………………...21

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………….23

List of literature sources………………………………………………...25

Definition "small man" applied to the category of literary heroes of the era realism, usually occupying a rather low place in the social hierarchy: a petty official, a tradesman, or even a poor nobleman. The image of the "little man" turned out to be all the more relevant, the more democratic literature became. The very concept of "little man" is most likely in use introduced Belinsky(Article 1840 "Woe from Wit"). The theme of the "little man" is raised by many writers. It has always been relevant, because its task is reflect the life of a simple person with all its experiences, problems, troubles and small joys. The writer takes on the hard work of showing and explaining the lives of ordinary people. "The little man is the representative of the whole people. And each writer represents him in his own way.

In world literature, one can single out a novel-parable Franz Kafka“A castle that reveals the tragic impotence of a little man and his unwillingness to reconcile with fate.

In German literature, the image of the "little man" gravitated Gerhart Hauptmann in his dramas Before Sunrise and The Lonely. The wealth of images of the "little man" in the works of Hauptmann gives rise to many different options (from a poorly educated carter to a subtle intellectual). Continued the tradition of Hauptmann Hans Fallada .

In Russian literature of the 19th century, the image of the image of a small man became especially popular. Worked on it Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Gribodoev, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Leo Tolstoy and many other writers.

The idea of ​​a "little man" changed throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. Each writer also had his own personal views on this hero. But since the second third of the 20th century, this image has disappeared from the pages of literary works, since the method of socialist realism does not imply such a hero.

Chapter 1. The image of the "little man" in the works of A.S.

Pushkin

The greatest poet of the 19th century, A.S. Pushkin, also did not leave unnoticed the theme of the “little man”, only he turned his gaze not to the image of a kneeling man, but to the fate of an unfortunate person, showing us his pure soul, unspoiled by wealth and prosperity, who knows how to rejoice, love , suffer. This is a story "Station Master" included in the cycle Belkin's Tale. Pushkin sympathizes with his hero.

Initially, his life is not easy.

"Who did not curse the stationmasters, who did not scold them? Who, in a moment of anger, did not demand from them a fatal book in order to write in it their useless complaint of oppression, rudeness and malfunction? Who does not consider them monsters of the human race, equal to the deceased let's be fair, let's try to understand their position, and maybe we'll judge them much more leniently. not always ... Peace, day or night. All the annoyance accumulated during a boring ride, the traveler vents on the caretaker. The weather is unbearable, the road is bad, the coachman is stubborn, the horses are not driven - and the caretaker is to blame. Entering his poor dwelling, the traveler looks at him as an enemy; well, if he soon manages to get rid of the uninvited guest; but if there are no horses? God! what curses, what threats will fall on his catch! In rain and sleet he is forced to run around the yards; in the storm, in the Epiphany frost, he goes into the canopy, so that only for a moment can he rest from the screams and pushes of the irritated guest ... Let us delve into all this carefully, and instead of indignation, our heart will be filled with sincere compassion.

But the hero of the story Samson Vyrin, remains a happy and calm person. He is accustomed to his service and has a good assistant daughter.

He dreams of simple happiness, grandchildren, a large family, but fate disposes differently. Hussar Minsky, while passing by, takes his daughter Dunya with him. After an unsuccessful attempt to return his daughter, when the hussar "with a strong hand, grabbing the old man by the collar, pushed him onto the stairs," Vyrin was no longer able to fight. And the unfortunate old man dies of longing, grieving about her possible deplorable fate.

Eugene, the hero of The Bronze Horseman, looks like Samson Vyrin.
Our hero lives in Kolomna, serves somewhere, shy of nobles. He does not make great plans for the future, he is satisfied with a quiet, inconspicuous life.

He also hopes for his personal, albeit small, but family happiness that he needs so much.

But all his dreams are in vain, because evil fate breaks into his life: the element destroys his beloved. Eugene cannot resist fate, he quietly worries about his loss. And only in a state of madness does he threaten the Bronze Horseman, considering the man who built the city on this dead place to be the culprit of his misfortune. Pushkin looks at his heroes from the side. They do not stand out either in intelligence or in their position in society, but they are kind and decent people, and therefore worthy of respect and sympathy. In the novel "Captain's daughter" the category of "little people" includes Petr Andreevich Grinev and captain Mironov. They are distinguished by the same qualities: kindness, justice, decency, the ability to love and respect people. But they have another very good quality - to remain faithful to the given word. Pushkin took out the saying in the epigraph: "Take care of honor from a young age." They saved their honor. And just as dear to A.S. Pushkin, as are the heroes of his previously named works.

Pushkin puts forward a democratic theme in them
little man (the story "The Stationmaster"), anticipating Gogol's "Overcoat".

Here is what he writes in his critical article "Pushkin's Artistic Prose" literary critic S.M. Petrov:

"Tales of Belkin" appeared in print first realistic work Russian prose. Along with the traditional themes from the life of the nobility ("The Young Lady-Peasant Woman"), Pushkin puts forward in them democratic theme of the little man(the story "The Stationmaster"), anticipating Gogol's "Overcoat".

Belkin's Tales was Pushkin's polemical response to the main currents of contemporary Russian prose. the truthfulness of the image, deep insight into human nature, the absence of any didacticism "Station master" Pushkin put an end to influence
sentimental and didactic story about a little man like "Poor Liza" Karamzin. Idealized images, plot situations of a sentimental story deliberately created for didactic purposes are replaced by real types and everyday pictures, depicting the true joys and sorrows of life.

deep humanism Pushkin's story is opposed to the abstract sensitivity of the sentimental story. The mannered language of the sentimental story, falling into moralistic rhetoric, gives way to a simple and unsophisticated narrative, like the story of the old caretaker about his Dun. Realism replaces sentimentalism in Russian prose.

D. Blagoy considers the image of the “little man”, the unpretentious “college registrar”, to be the crown of Pushkin’s realism, its consistent completion, even going so far as to directly identify the life ideals of Eugene (“The Bronze Horseman”), the most typical of a series of such heroes, with the aspirations of the poet himself.

“In reality, Pushkin of the 1930s, who more than once sympathetically depicted the life and life of “little people”, endowed the latter with warm human feelings, at the same time could not help but see the limitations, the paucity of the spiritual needs of a petty official, tradesman, impoverished nobleman. Pitying the "little man", Pushkin at the same time shows the petty-bourgeois narrowness of his requests.

How typical is the type of French teacher in Dubrovsky:

“I have an old mother, I will send half of my salary to her for food, from the rest of the money in five years I can save up a small capital - sufficient for my future independence, and then bonsoir, I’m going to Paris and embarking on a commercial turn.” - Emphasizes A. Grushkin in article "The Image of a Folk Hero in the Works of Pushkin in the 1930s".

Sometimes little man image at Alexander Sergeevich go into the description of the folk hero. Let us turn to a fragment of the same article by Grushkin:

“In the Songs of the Western Slavs, he found this hero. The latter, it would seem, is endowed with all the features of a “little man”. At first glance, we have before us an undemanding, simple person, whose way of life is primitive to the extreme. What, for example, would you like to tell the old father, who is already “beyond the grave”, the hero of the “Funeral Song?”

The work of many Russian writers is imbued with love for an ordinary person, pain for him.

Pushkin was one of the first to put forward the democratic theme of the “little man” in literature. In Belkin's Tales, completed in 1830, the writer not only draws pictures of the life of the nobility and county ("The Young Lady-Peasant Woman"), but also draws the attention of readers to the fate of the "little man".

Already in the stories of sentimentalists, especially in Karamzin (the story "Poor Liza"), the "little man" was shown. It was an idealized image, not very realistic.

Pushkin makes the first attempt to objectively, truthfully portray the "little man". The hero of the story "The Stationmaster" is alien to sentimental suffering, he has his own sorrows associated with the disorder of life.

There is a small postal station somewhere at the crossroads of carriageways. The 14th grade official Samson Vyrin and his daughter Dunya live here - the only joy that brightens up the hard life of the caretaker, full of shouting and cursing passing people. And suddenly she is taken to Petersburg, taken away secretly from her father. The worst thing is that Dunya left with the hussar of her own free will. Having crossed the threshold of a new, rich life, she abandoned her father. Samson Vyrin goes to St. Petersburg to "return the lost lamb", but he is kicked out of Dunya's house, and in the end he receives several banknotes for his daughter. “Tears again welled up in his eyes, tears of indignation! He squeezed the pieces of paper into a ball, threw them to the ground, stamped them with his heel and went ... "Vyrin dies alone, and no one notices his death. About people like him, Pushkin writes at the beginning of the story: “Let us, however, be fair, we will try to enter into their position and, perhaps, we will judge them much more condescendingly.”

Life truth, sympathy for the "little man", insulted at every step by the bosses, standing higher in rank and position - that's what we feel when reading the story. Pushkin cherishes this "little man" who lives in grief and need. The story is imbued with democracy and humanity, so realistically depicting the “little man”.

In 1833, Pushkin's "The Bronze Horseman" appears, in which the "little man" with a tragic fate expresses a timid protest against the inhuman autocracy. “Good, miraculous builder! -// He whispered, trembling angrily, -// You already! .. "

The traditions of Pushkin were continued and developed by Gogol, Dostoevsky, Chekhov.

In the story "The Overcoat", the idea of ​​a humane attitude towards the "little man", which is hidden in all Gogol's works, is expressed directly and decisively.

Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin - "eternal titular adviser." The senseless clerical service killed every living thought in him. The only pleasure he finds in the correspondence of papers. He lovingly drew the letters in a clean, even handwriting and completely immersed himself in work, forgetting the insults caused to him by his colleagues, and the need, and worries about food and comfort. Even at home, he only thought that "God will send something to rewrite tomorrow."

But even in this downtrodden official, a man woke up when the goal of life appeared - a new overcoat. “He became somehow more alive, even firmer in character. Doubt, indecision disappeared by itself from his face and from his actions ... ”Bashmachkin does not part with his dream for a single day. He thinks about it, as another person thinks about love, about family. Here he orders a new overcoat for himself, "... his existence has become somehow fuller ..." The description of Akaky Akakievich's life is permeated with irony, but there is both pity and sadness in it. Introducing us into the spiritual world of the hero, describing his feelings, thoughts, dreams, joys and sorrows, the author makes it clear what happiness it was for Bashmachkin to acquire an overcoat and what a disaster its loss turns into.

There was no happier person than Akaky Akakievich when the tailor brought him an overcoat. But his joy was short-lived. When he returned home at night, he was robbed. And none of the people around takes part in the unfortunate official. In vain Bashmachkin sought help from a "significant person." He was even accused of rebellion against superiors and "higher". Frustrated Akaki Akakievich catches a cold and dies. In the finale, a small, timid man, driven to despair by the world of the strong, protests against this world. Dying, he "badly blasphemes", utters the most terrible words that followed the words "your excellency." It was a riot, albeit in a deathbed delirium.

It is not because of the overcoat that the “little man” dies. He becomes a victim of bureaucratic "inhumanity" and "ferocious rudeness", which, according to Gogol, lurks under the guise of "refined, educated secularism." This is the deepest meaning of the story.

High Petersburg society shows criminal indifference to Captain Kopeikin (in Gogol's poem "Dead Souls"). It turned out to be callous, soulless not just to a small person, but to the defender of the Motherland, the hero of the war of 1812, the disabled person, who lost all means of subsistence ... No wonder the fate of Captain Kopeikin is associated with a riot: a warning that the patience of those Someday it will end, that there is a limit to everything. And if the broad Russian soul rebelled, then woe to those who oppressed and offended the poor man.

The spirit of Gogol's "Overcoat" is imbued with Dostoevsky's novel "Poor People". This is a story about the fate of the same "little man", crushed by grief, despair and social lawlessness. The correspondence of the poor official Makar Devushkin with Varenka, who lost her parents and is persecuted by a procuress, reveals the deep drama of the life of these people. Makar and Varenka are ready for each other for any hardships. Makar, living in extreme need, helps Varya. And Varya, having learned about the situation of Makar, comes to his aid. But the heroes of the novel are defenseless. Their rebellion is "rebellion on their knees". Nobody can help them. Varya is taken away to certain death, and Makar is left alone with his grief. Broken, crippled life of two wonderful people, broken by cruel reality.

Dostoevsky reveals the deep and strong experiences of "little people".

It is curious to note that Makar Devushkin reads Pushkin's The Stationmaster and Gogol's The Overcoat. He is sympathetic to Samson Vyrin and hostile to Bashmachkin. Probably because he sees his future in him. So, Dostoevsky, the most complex and controversial realist artist, on the one hand, shows a “humiliated and insulted” person, and the writer’s heart overflows with love, compassion and pity for this person and hatred for the well-fed, vulgar and depraved, and on the other hand, speaks out for humility, humility, calling: "Humble yourself, proud man!"

Marmeladov from Dostoevsky's novel "Crime and Punishment" turns out to be a victim in a society of arbitrariness and lawlessness. This drunken retired official says to Raskolnikov: "In poverty you still retain your nobility of innate feelings, but in poverty, never anyone." Marmeladov explains his idea: “Poverty is not a vice, poverty is a vice,” for in poverty the feeling of human dignity is not yet perverted in the poor man himself; the beggar ceases to be a man, ceases to respect himself, humiliates himself, reaching the last degree of moral degradation.

Further in the development of the image of the "little man" there is a tendency of "bifurcation". On the one hand, raznochintsy-democrats appear from among the "little people", and their children become revolutionaries. Nekrasov will say about Dobrolyubov: “What a lamp of reason has gone out!” On the other hand, the "little man" descends, turning into a limited tradesman. We most clearly observe this process in Chekhov's stories "Ionych", "Gooseberry", "The Man in the Case".

Teacher Belikov is not an evil person, but timid and withdrawn. In conditions when the formula was in effect: “If the circular does not allow, then it is impossible,” he becomes a terrible figure in the city.

Everything living, moving forward, frightened Belikov, in everything he saw an "element of doubt." Belikov could not arrange his personal life either. Seeing his bride on a bicycle one day, he was very surprised and went to explain to her brother, believing that it was not appropriate for a woman to ride a bicycle. The result of the conversation was a quarrel between Belikov and Kovalenko, after which the teacher died. The townspeople of Belikov gladly buried, but even after his death, the stamp of "Belikovism" remained on the inhabitants of the city. Belikov continued to live in their minds, he soaked through their souls

Fear.

Over time, the "little man", deprived of his own dignity, "humiliated and insulted", causes not only compassion, but also condemnation among progressive writers. “You live boringly, gentlemen,” Chekhov said with his work to the “little man”, resigned to his position. With subtle humor, the writer ridicules the death of Ivan Chervyakov, from whose lips the lackey “Yourself” has not left his lips all his life. In the same year as "The Death of an Official", the story "Thick and Thin" appears. Chekhov again opposes philistinism, servility. The collegiate servant Porfiry giggles, "like a Chinese", bowing in an obsequious bow, having met his former friend, who has a high rank. The feeling of friendship that connected these two people is forgotten.

Drawing images of "little people", writers usually emphasized their weak protest, downtroddenness, which subsequently leads the "little man" to degradation. But each of these heroes has something in life that helps him endure existence: Samson Vyrin has a daughter, the joy of life, Akaky Akakievich has an overcoat, Makar Devushkin and Varenka have their love and care for each other. Having lost this goal, they die, unable to survive the loss.

“Little people” are people of the lower classes, and their language is folk, it contains vernacular (“clean up, old fool”), clerical words (“compass”), the expression “I have something to say”. To enhance the emotional sound of the image, writers use indirect speech (for example, the story of the grief of the old caretaker is told in the third person, although he himself tells about what happened).

Chekhov, for a more complete description of the hero, uses the technique of a story within a story. Another person speaks about the hero, who knows him and evaluates his actions (teacher Burkin in the story "The Man in the Case", veterinarian Ivan Ivanovich in the story "Gooseberry"). All methods of depicting the characters are aimed at a deeper disclosure of the images of "little people".

In conclusion, I would like to say that a person should not be small. In one of his letters to his sister, Chekhov exclaimed: “My God, how rich Russia is in good people!” The keen eye of the artist, noticing vulgarity, hypocrisy, stupidity, saw something else - the beauty of a good person. Such, for example, is Dr. Dymov, the hero of the story "The Jumper", a man who lives for the happiness of others, a modest doctor, with a kind heart, a beautiful soul. Dymov dies saving a child from an illness.

So it turns out that this “little man” is not so small.